Alec Crisman

It doesn't make any sense to conceive of due process as a right that individual people can have or not have at all tbh. Bad framing from the start. Due process is a restriction on the government's actions, and by definition it applies to either everyone or no one.

Authoritarianism Here? - American Affairs Journal The question of authoritarianism in America has become a hot-button issue in our era of political discontent. A great deal of ink has been spilled by Left and Right on the rise of authoritarian threat...

Anyway, I’m a broken record on this, but if you want the definitive take on the likely relationship between Trump and creeping authoritarianism, this piece by Julian Waller is it.

TL;dr: Trump might lead to authoritarianism, but it won’t be Trump giving the orders.

(or maybe: plebiscitarian superpresidentialism is where his heard is, but limited political democracy is his most plausible institutional instantiation)

(for my money, he bounces back and forth between these two depending on his mood)

A whole ton of analysis and predictions lies on whether you think Trump is a representation of totalitarianism or democradura

I understand why progressives might be reluctant to make some of those comparisons, but you’ll learn a lot more about the current moment from reading this than reading Kershaw or Snyder.

Analogies are fantastic, but always going to “1930s fascism” is really limiting.

I studied Latin America in grad school; way more comparison points to be found looking south than looking back.

Mike chastises Walt on Breaking Bad

We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had NIH. We had indirects. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork. You could've shut your mouth, churned out regressions and made low six figures. It was perfect. But, no, you just had to say "Latinx."

I love my fellow liberaltarians, but Jared Polis is so not gonna happen

A few hundred officers and some videographers can't come close to controlling a city. But they can produce content. Which seems to be the primary goal (along with violating rights and hurting people for the sake of violating rights and hurting people).

That's why it's such an online argument black hole.

The problem with mansplaining is that everyone is right about it.

Men very often do this to/with other men, and often there’s no implied status hierarchy to it, but men do it more to lower status people, some men think women are intrinsically lower status, and every woman has met a man like that.

It is possible for a very bad thing to be the only appropriate response to another, worse thing. Refusing an order from Trump could save millions of lives; it could also expose civilian control of the military as a sham.

That's the opposite of abstract; that's just politics without romance.

I think the word "illegal" is hiding a lot of assumptions. There are many orders President Trump could give that would be legal (the president really does have wide latitude in commanding the military - both the Constitution and Congress have ensured that), but which would be disastrous to follow.

Collapse of civilian control of the military leads us to managed democracy/Kemalism.

Which are better than outright fascism, but they still really, really suck.

I've been saying for years; we're gonna be forced into a crisis either by the military listening to Donald Trump or *not* listening to Donald Trump (both are really bad).

Thinking of cataloguing a series of 'polarization statements' that are basically meaningless at these levels of political/affective polarization.

"They always fight; we just roll over."

"They're so organized; we're so divided and prone to infighting."

I mean, this is how it looks from within the group, sure

Not always, I don't think. Depends on what the person needs to hear.

Also, this is a video game review for a niche Greek-inspired action RPG.

'mental health awareness' pap so sweet it'll rot your teeth

Maybe my least favorite thing about millennials

You WANT me on that wall, you NEED me on that wall...

...wait a minute, I don't wanna be on the actual wall...

Saw Spider-Man "2.1" in theaters:

1: The extra scenes were cringe; you can't add to perfection

2: Rosemary Harris gets better each time (I also miss my Amuma)

3: Ock really is smarter and stronger than Pete; Pete *has* to win through moral suasion

4: Relatedly, No Way Home is a moral monstrosity

Sandford is the town where there’s no cops but they drown you

Just learned that you can't go private on here, so uh, I deleted a few posts, and I just wanna say that Matt Yglesias is dumb, Portland is a utopia on earth, and there's nothing wrong with academia that deepening tenure protections for existing professors won't fix.

It's gonna be pretty gnarly under that bridge

Don't turn the camera 90 degrees to the right

There's one Lebanese joint there that's pretty good, but that's... it.

No, you beating Elden Ring with me is why we're getting married