The Fig Economy

This is like when I read Ringworld. Wanted to know all about the Ringworld itself, wanted to know less than nothing about the characters Larry Niven created to go to the Ringworld.

(oh god I thought I was the only one)

This is not 100-level OJ studies.

We build to that.

Yeah, videos of suburban boomers running down ICE in the streets would back this up.

Oh I agree! I saw somebody saying that they’d have ICE “monitors” intimidating people at every polling place and brother, they’re having trouble staffing regular levels, let alone the beefed up staffing they want, let alone the omnipresent doom scenario.

I’m being a bit loose, by “formal” logic I mean the conclusion that states are not allowed to use their own adjudication to police their own ballots.

Token-matching finds “shit where you eat” pretty common, forgets to look one word back.

I’ve been slowly watching A Gentleman in Moscow and it’s good (my wife adored the book), but it made me wonder if there was any tankie pushback given its background depiction of the Stalin regime.

I can understand how that would be frustrating, though with proper context (namely the normalization of GOP acceptance of this kind of shit) that could be valuable. This one is pretty detailed and all about executive actions Trump has taken and details pushback.

Yeah, like we are abdicating a role in the world that we are not gonna get back once we want it.

Man I live outside of Baltimore which is experiencing its lowest number of murders of any year on record. Shut the fuck up with this.

Now see, this is where the rest of the stuff in the Brennan Center article comes into play. It’s not a foregone conclusion and it’s not easy but they’re trying and they’ll have help.

Yeah, I don’t think there’s much question here. He’s said it as a joke and then he’s said it more seriously and the logic* of Trump v Anderson basically compels allowing him.

*both its formal logic (garbage) and its deep logic (Trump gets to do whatever the fuck he wants)

Oh I didn’t mean to attribute anything to you specifically, just that your discussion kind of clicked something for me.

Yeah, it’s a masterpiece. Just an incredible amount of context for everything.

This isn’t nihilistic despair. Finding the best way through relies on knowing what challenges we’re facing and being honest about them.

The verdict came down at 1:00 ET so I set my watch for 12:55 to remind my Spanish teacher to turn on the TV (she did), and for the next year my watch alarm went off at 12:55 and I’d say “it’s OJ time!”

Oh for sure, like he was a well known guy. It was just kind of a mode of fame they’re not really grasping.

I was fourteen years old and when I got home from school I’d turn on Court TV.

My mom got remarried on the night of the slow speed chase, low key at home affair, and we all crowded around in the living room that evening to watch.

Like one of the weird things, I think, is how OJ was famous, but like not an A list guy or anything. But it felt like for a solid year and a half it was the only story in the whole country.

Trying to convey to my kids the absolute immensity and ubiquity of the OJ Simpson trial in the 90s and despite all of the details lodged in my brain, no amount of repeating “Kato Kaelin” and “white Ford Bronco” makes them understand.

I mean, it is basically black letter unconstitutional for him to run but that was true of 14AS3 and it’s true of birthright citizenship and and and. I don’t know that he’ll win a third term but if he decides to run I don’t have any confidence the court would stop the attempt.

It’s not what SCOTUS said, but it’s what they meant. And if Trump wants to run for a third term, whatever technical language they’d use to compel states to put him on the ballot, the fundamental reasoning would be that only The Volk can decide if he is not to be president.

Seeing a conversation between @andycraig.bsky.social and @hurricanexyz.bsky.social kind of crystallized for me that the theory is that a decision of The People (more properly The Volk) is supreme over anything else, so whether Trump was DQed by 14AS3, his election means no he wasn’t.

Definitely, and I don’t expect them to capitulate, but I also wonder about what happens when rubber hits road if SCOTUS refuses to stop this stuff.

“He doesn’t have the power to do this, states run elections” is both true and closer to beside the point than anyone should be comfortable with. This is *all* lawless, and it’s still happening.

Like at this point the modal SCOTUS move would be for them to refuse to rule on any of this stuff before November 2026 but eliminate any lower court stays on any of it. That’s not speculative, it’s just what they’ve done again and again already.

I know states aren’t universities or law firms, there’s differences, but there are costs to weathering the attacks, including chilling effects of individuals not wanting to put themselves in the crosshairs.