Jesse I

Increased police militarization happens everywhere there are police forces used to violently suppress populations, as a response to the inevitable pushback (violent and nonviolent) they receive. You're inverting the actual dynamic at play

Peaceful protests were understood as violent and lawless and used to justify the same! That isn't a serious analysis of the evidence presented in your own books.

lareviewofbooks.org/article/poli...

It's a great platform if you're a conservative. For the rest of us, "make sure things stay exactly the same" is less compelling

The question of whether Trump is primarily symptom or cause is settled by the fact that Trump’s most uncritical lickspittles on the Court are the two he didn’t appoint

This is why the party that sticks with reasonable, moderate slogans like, "lock her up" and "mass deportations now" wins elections

sure does feel like the "opposition party" would be in a better position to contest the unrestrained and unconstitutional violence of the american security apparatus if they hadn't spent decades lavishing it with money, tools, and deference. or if they weren't so scared of it themselves

there really is no alternative to tearing up CBP and ICE root and branch

A whole lot of comments here show off what seems like a new and disturbingly common brand of "politically savvy" Democrats who have convinced themselves that elections are bad, actually

Undocumented immigrants often use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which is for people who are not eligible for SSNs, or a fake SSN.

I am skeptical of primary votes/voting in our system generally as being meaningfully tied to any but the broadest of preferences, but I'll use this as motivation to finally write a piece on that and spare you whatever inanity I could come up with rn in the character limit. Appreciate the response!

This feels odd when "set their careers on fire" and "doomed-to-be-losing" have embedded in them a whole lot of aspects about the party that you have eloquently critiqued many times. Hostility to inter-party challenges and ossification of leadership is a core problem for Democrats, big + little 'd'!

What Does Peace Mean in the Heart of Empire? The ruling class is supposed to be exempt from the daily churn of violence that is completely normalized in our society.

Some thoughts on "political violence."

The End of Liberal Institutionalism Excessive belief in institutions is a proven failure.

yep www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-end-of...

Very hard not to think of this Arendt line every day right now: "those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil." Even more disconcerting are these people who insist that there's no evil to be grappled with at all.

day 2 of candy crush regionals is heating up

You just said it was legal. What other basis could you have for that other than Korematsu - the case about its legality under the constitution? If you think Korematsu was incorrect, then you think it was illegal and FDR violated the constitutional rights of thousands. What other position is there?

So, your stance is that Korematsu was correct and should not have been overturned? Because that's what it means to say it was legal. Even most right-wing lawyers and justices would (at least publicly) state that the order was unconstitutional.

Executive order 9066 seems like kind of a biggie. It's been awhile since I read The Path to Power, but my memory is that he had a number of people in his inner circle who were engaged in lots of illegal dealings on his behalf, like Tommy Corcoran. Discard that if you like; interment is sufficient

I would have thought this was obvious, but this is referring to the portion where he says, "because almost none of them committed crimes."

W. Bush, JFK, LBJ, and FDR too! And that's just ones where I can think of specific crimes off the top of my head. And while I know this isn't what he means, there's something telling in that that statement also requires ignoring international law

Below average *hitter*. B-ref has him at +14 fielding runs when he was 39 years old, which is incredible