For your convenience, Be sure to carry your papers with you at all times, “citizen”.

I laugh every time I see some very very brave internet poster urging you to “shoot them”.

Yes yes we get it. You are very badass. Uh huh.

It’s not a zero sum game. It’s not like you “win” the election across the board and get everything you could possibly want. And even if you did get a blue wave you STILL don’t get everything you want. Incredibly, it’s a big country with lots of different people with different ideas of how it should run. It’s a simple fact that among Dems most are not that progressive. Our political system is really a bunch of compromises where nobody gets everything they want but, ideally we all get something. What I’ve observed among many folks such as yourself is that you think you should get everything instantly. My speculation is that people who think like this are dealing with a shorter time scale because they are younger. That’s in no way a bad thing but it does mean you haven’t seen the tremendous change that’s happened or 4 or 5 decades. To me, things have improved dramatically and of the many things that stand out is the fact that I don’t have to worry about being beaten, raped, or murdered for being queer. I can be openly trans. I can even marry my lover.

I’m not saying I don’t want to see a viable third party or more truly progressive candidates. But this is a long game where slow incremental progress is assured even if on a much shorter time scale it seems nothing has happened. From my perspective while we still have a long way to go, we’ve made a lot of progress.

Why are we accepting reporting on tweets as a journalism?

Are we? It’s on huffpost.com. Since when is that journalism?

You know what amazes me? That any vaguely brown person who voted for Trump didn’t seem to think that even if they are literally carrying their papers at all times and easily able to prove their citizenship, they are gonna be harassed constantly for the next four years. With hopeful some state exceptions, they are going to have to be very careful to speak only 'Murican in public and suppress public display of non-American cultures. They are literally going to be having to watch their backs every day.

WTF.

So what are you saying? That objectivity doesn’t exist?

I think the fact that this is so unclear to you is both disappointing and disturbing. And you are going so so so far afield in an apparent effort to hear yourself talk more that I’m just not that keen on engaging.

Have a nice day.

After this bill, Trump will declare antifa, BLM, and pro-palestine movements as terrorist organizations

Possibly. But per the bill they have to at least make a show of “proving” that the organizations aided designated foreign or domestic terrorist organizations, which is defined by the Secretary of State. Yes, of course they can just define an organization as such but it’s not completely evidence-free. I’m a little unclear on the process of domestic vs foreign designations - Executive Order 13224 signed by bush gives both to the Secretary of State. Still that way?

“Then all leftist legal support is dead”

Because people can’t get a tax deduction? I’d hope we’re slightly better than that.

“public officials who engage in treason”

Did Trump engage in treason? Article III of our constitution says:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

Trump, sadly, was never on trial for treason much less convicted of it. So like it or not (very much not!) Trump was never tried for crimes that would disqualify him from being elected president. Biden upheld the rule of law and adhered to our constitution.

I don’t like it but that’s the way it is.

Jerk off MORE you mean.

Oh very true. But there is still congressional oversight and that means that some Dems will be privy to what [redacted] actually means.

Hey, just try find a few scraps of optimism…

To be clear I think this bill is horrendous, but…

The non-profit will have 90 days to “appeal.” Without having any idea what they’re being accused of.

This is not quite true. In Section 4 C (ii) it states that the secretary must provide “the name of the organization or organizations with respect to which the Secretary has determined such organization provided material support” and in Section 4 C (iii) it states that the secretary must provide “a description of such material support or resources to the extent consistent with national security and law enforcement interests.”

That doesn’t lessen the chilling effect this bill will have nor will it lessen the damage caused. But I feel accuracy in discussing this is important.

Full text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/9495/text

“TRUMP SHOULD NOT BE ELIGIBLE TO SERVE AS PRESIDENT”

I agree. But in fact “should not” is a question of law and despite your assertion that somehow removing him is not sacrificing the rule of law, there is no law that says Trump is ineligible to serve as president. I’d like there to be some rules disqualifying him and a bunch of other people, but alas there isn’t.

Go ahead, find the law that says Trump is ineligible and describe how you might defend that in court.

This game recommendation thingy might be helpful: https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/surveys/start/gamerprofile/

In the profile you choose what you are looking for in a gaming experience - it doesn’t matter if you don’t know yet or need to make up some answers. There are questions like “How important is working towards a common goal with other players?”

It’s a place to start anyway.

You are missing out on some greeeaat discount opportunities.

The constant talk of Musk’s power in the new administration must irritate the fuck out of Trump. How terrible.

Meanwhile, in America…

Not arresting this man the second the Supreme Court gave Joe the opportunity will end with millions dead, we both know that.

I think millions is an exaggeration but it’s also pretty irrelevant whether it’s a 1000 or 1 million, it’s gonna be very very bad. I’m very sympathetic to this argument and in a whishy hopey kinda way would have loved to see it happen…

But: the SC ruling doesn’t allow a president to act with impunity. It’s way more complicated than that.

It states that a president has “absolute immunity” for actions “within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “presumptive immunity” for all official acts. The complete shitstorm that would follow an arrest of Trump “for reasons” would include significant debate about which one of these it was. I have to think that “because he will do bad things and for reasons” is going to push this to the second classification at best. And at that point a whole lot of lawyers are going to be working overtime to show that "applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”

(Opinion here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf)

It would end up in the Supreme Court. What do you think would happen then? The SC would rule that Biden did not act appropriately and Trump would be released. I don’t have a lot of faith in running out the clock on him running or any other “good” outcome.

“Well for Hitler and White Supremacists they clearly weren’t making “society better for basically everyone” and all it takes to understand this is basic logic that they support one superior race and commit genocides against other races.”

You missed my point. THEY thought they were making society better. That “everyone” meant exclusively aryans to them I thought was obvious and fundamental to the point I’m try to make - that from their perspective their actions were perfectly reasonable and justified. There’s uncomfortably little daylight between that and MAGA beliefs.

“…if they want to make a convincing argument that Christian Nationalism is a good thing”

I’m disappointed that you missed this too and launched into a segue that has little to do with the topic I brought up. I don’t think you really read my comment.

" If you want to convince me that genocides are good for humanity, you’re going to need to be a lot more convincing than that."

Ok now we’re getting ridiculous. I’m now convinced that you either didn’t read what I wrote or just didn’t understand it.

“Trump is an actually interesting candidate promising to make radical changes, aligning with the interests and identities of many Americans, and building a shared vision and hope for the future”

Untruthfully. You are missing that very important qualificaiion.

“While meanwhile the Democrats fuck around doing basically nothing, they flip-flop on their stances whenever its convenient for them”

A common error. “I didn’t personally notice any change so therefore they did nothing.” It’s demonstrably NOT true.

“Approaching capitalists in an open-minded way rarely works.”

That doesn’t even make sense. Who said anything about “approaching capitalists in an open-minded way”? WTF are you talking about?

Dude, I started out reading your lengthy comment excited to have a substantive debate. I thought you might have some interesting points. But you are so all over the place and use a very large volume of words to say very little. I’m disappointed.

“The end justifies the means” is the standard excuse of dictators everywhere. And once you go down that road you don’t really come back.

There is an excellent interview on this topic with Laurence Tribe that is really worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z06TJAMY-bo

I fully acknowledge just how much this sucks and how dangerous the situation is. I’m trans and live in a MAGA-infested area. That’s only one dimension of the danger but it definitely opens one’s eyes.

But throwing up our hands and grasping at bad options that make things worse is not the answer. We have far far more power than people realize. I don’t entirely share Tribe’s faith in our constitution and laws but to just say “oh it didn’t work lets throw it away” is not going to make things better. It would literally be throwing away what power and ability to effect change we still have. It would destroy our country and you can bet it won’t be remade as some progressive paradise.

It’s not about Biden it’s about setting a precedent that it’s ok for any party to break the rules because they believe themselves to be “good” and “right” and “just”.