If the people of the Washington DC metro area were to suddenly surround the White House and not let anyone in or out until Donald Trump agreed to resign, that would create a big crisis. The DC police, the Secret Service, the National Guard, and perhaps even the military would have to decide how far they were willing to go to preserve the constitutional order of the country. How much violence would they be prepared to use, and how much time would they let elapse before they used it?
That’s the kind of thing that might happen if Congress won’t fulfill their role in the constitutional order and lets an outlaw administration stay in power after receiving a criminal referral from the Office of the Special Counsel recommending impeachment. But we’re not at that kind of crisis point yet.
Nonetheless, a growing number of people feel that the Trump administration has crossed an invisible line, especially with their child separation policy at the border. They no longer see opposition as a political dispute. It has become a moral battle. And anyone who is still working to promulgate, rationalize, or promote Trump’s policies has therefore been deemed outside of the traditional political realm.
This is what happens when our system of checks and balances breaks down. The less faith people have in the courts and in Congress to sustain bare minimum standards of human decency, the more they’re willing to take matters into their own hands. Chasing administration officials and their close allies out of restaurants and movie theaters is still a fairly mild version of what may come. For now, a lot of hope and energy is still being placed in the political process, and much of the left is working to solve our problems in a traditional and constitutional way, by winning elections in November.
If those elections do not translate into actual political power for the left, and particularly if people feel that widespread shenanigans are to blame, that’s when we should anticipate a breakdown in law and order. That’s when you might see the White House surrounded.
I don’t make these observations as some kind of threat. I’m simply issuing a warning based on observing human nature. If people believe they have a fair shot to throw an immoral government out of power by constitutional means, then they will pursue those means. If they are stymied in that effort, they will not simply give up. They will explore the avenues that are still left to them, and those will not be traditional political tactics. They will not all be legal tactics. The participants will not recognize the legitimacy of the arms of law enforcement responsible for suppressing their dissent.
People who are lamenting the breakdown in civility and the fact that Trump officials can’t eat in peace should be mindful of how fragile our system becomes when it begins to transgress with impunity. Uneventful lunches and dinners are the least of what they stand to lose, and soon.
You mean people like this?
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/06/irony-dies-foxs-flame-throwing-judge
Don’t even need to look to human nature. We can see it being played out all over the world with different contexts over the past few years. Nicaragua and Venezuela right now or the Arab Spring in the beginning before spiraling out into Total War. Nicaragua still has ability to dissent, even if being cracked down by police. Venezuela is essentially dictatorship and people are fleeing in hundreds of thousands. Syrian regime and Russia in process of “liberating” Daraa — thing to watch there I feel is what happens when all spaces are “liberated” and Russia has less of a footprint since Assad the mayor of Damascus can’t hold territory without Russian Air Force.
Anyway, let’s try to avoid any and all of those scenarios.
Nicaragua still has ability to dissent, even if being cracked down by police.
Ortega hasn’t been a left-winger for ages. He sold out and yet people still hate his guts. Any lefty who still supports Ortega & Co. hasn’t been paying attention to Nicaragua in years.
Venezuela is essentially dictatorship and people are fleeing in hundreds of thousands.
Proof?
Yeah I never said Ortega was a left winger or cited him to hippie punch, although there are tons of people on left twitter who are defending or denying his crackdowns. Or they’re certainly applying a hell of a lot more nuance than they’d give if this was, say, the US.
Proof of what? Of the largest refugee crisis on this side of the globe? Of Maduro being a dictator? The proof of people fleeing is readily observable from any country that shares a border with Venezuela. This many people do not leave this quickly because things are going just peachy, and leaders who change constitutions and cancel elections under old systems because they will lose are normally called dictators.
Let’s put it this way: if you are asking me to defend the present state of Venezuela because “ideology” or some nonsense about viable alternatives, I’m not going to join you in making that sales pitch, and I don’t want it associated with any socialism that I believe in.
. . . have earned this an uprate from me (mainly because it would have provided a means to assess the credibility of the info in the graph — or at least a start in that direction).
“Consider the source” being a bedrock critical thinking/reading skill ‘n all.
Those numbers come from the International Organization on Migration. Some universities and research groups believe the number is too low:
Almost 1 million people moved from Venezuela to Colombia in just two years, study shows
Even aside from the human costs, this saddens me because it drives home what I already believe: dictators usually win. Venezuela really is a shit hole right now, and Maduro dug that hole and shit in it himself. But there is 0 prospect of him losing power.
The crisis there has definitely made me more of a democrat. While I didn’t agree with all that Chávez did, I certainly did my share of apologetics for some of it, particularly with respect to the media, because he did generally have support of “The People”, won free and fair elections, and spent money on the poor. Now if I was his economic advisor I’d have said “we need a different course” in the very beginning, but I looked the other way because “the right is worse, just as corrupt, and will spend the money on their rich friends.” Well now there’s no more oil money, and what’s left Maduro needs to keep the military and the other “institutions” happy with bribery/corruption.
Dictators do usually win, and that’s always been the case. The real question of whether they stay or go is if during revolt they answer “do I have the balls to kill tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of my own people just to maintain legitimacy?” in the affirmative. Mubarak did not. Assad did. But they also sometimes lose, as Tunisia is showing us.
. . . ya mean?
The pushback on that tweet is forceful and cutting.
People aren’t having it.
. . . a very real and significant problem: the entrenched mindset and attitudes of the Beltway media Villagers.
See also NYT Cletus-Safari Bungalow Bill JW Peters blocking people like Brian Beutler (relatively prominent, “credentialed” fellow “journalist”) over their relatively mild, civil, valid, and accurate criticism of his non-disclosure of his profiled “educated”, still-Trump-supporter woman (who is actually a long-term, far-right, neo-Conferate party activist).
Such cases illustrate how immune they are to profiting from valid criticism to change how they operate in order to do actual, valid journalism.
MattY absolutely curbstomped him in that same thread.
I mean, you’re right that the NYTimes especially seems like a completely lost cause at this point but it’s not like their crap goes unanswered.
. . . pushback needed and welcome.
Will it ever lead an Ignatius or Peters to recognize the problem with what they’re doing and change their ways? Evidence to date suggests no, but, yeah, holding them accountable is still the right thing to do.
(These examples keep calling to mind, unbidden, the thought that they’re like ag if he had an NYT gig [shudders, recoils in horror]. Who you know would block many of us here if he could.)
My feeling is no, they’ll never recognize the problem with what they are doing and change their ways? Why do I say this? I know an actual card-carrying member of the Village. She was a WH Press Corpse reporter for a print media outlet back in the Bush years but has moved onto other media. But she’s still a member.
I’ve had long email discussions with her for a dozen years now. She’s not stupid, it’s just the Villager’s world view and what they think they should be doing is grossly out-of-touch with damn near all of America, red and blue.
Moreover, they are incredibly un-self aware and not at all prone to introspection.
Yes, we need to continue pushing back on them because one reason they got to this point was 30+ years of wingnut pushing back on them. Two generations of Villagers have been raised in that environment. They are gun-shy to the point of phobia.
Another response to the civility trolling of the DC press corps:
David Ignatius tweeted this 17 hours ago.
A few hours ago, President Donald Trump claimed the right to completely ignore due process for all immigrants seeking hearings.
David has sent no tweets since he chastised the restaurant owner and all others who seek to prevent the President from doing even more irreversible damage to our Nation.
Priorities!
David Ignatius is a card-carrying member of the Centrist establishment, i.e. the Village. He supposes that we must not confront the people who are working night and day to destroy the very democratic and Constitutional norms he imagines he is defending. Pathetic.
Great post, Booman.
David Ignatius is a card-carrying member of the Centrist establishment, i.e. the Village.
He’s probably on the CIA’s payroll. He’s their go-to guy in the media. Has been for a long time.
What about the voters in MI, WI, PA that switched to vote for Trump? Because it activates them the same. Any time Trumps makes it “Us v. Them” he activates white people, even left leaning white people.
I don’t say what the owners did was bad, hell the homophobic baker won so it’s okay, but there are real consequences that should be dealt with as a result.
I’d say at least a third of the MI, WI, and PA Twice-Obama-Then-Trump vote bought the Orange Shit Gibbon’s media-unchallenged High School Class President Free Ice Cream and No Homework campaign AND had such a deep personal loathing of Hillary Clinton after 20+ years of anti-Clinton constant propaganda.
President Stupid has betrayed, at worst, completely ignored, at best, this very demographic and left them with very little reason to become twice-Trump-voters. Trump loses that third, he loses at least two of the three states.
BooMan did a post recently about “throw the bums out” voters, voters who usually vote against incumbents.
In 2016 the President was a Democrat, in 2018 and 2020 the GOP won’t have these fools to exploit.
Where were such “Village” dwellers when suspiciously well funded and organized twice-Bush-voting Republicans put on funny hats, strapped on guns, waved confederate and Gadsden flags, and held misspelled, racist, signs while threating secession, assassination, and outright violence against the Federal government while elected Republicans egged them on?
Oh yeah, tone policing liberals for being “uncivil” toward these Apolitical Humble Americans Concerned About Deficits….fuck all of them.
Republicans have been proving for 38 years the gender of civilization over their natural state of racist fascism is very thin indeed.
Reagan’s visit to Philadelphia,MS wasn’t a dog whistle at all. It was a high decibel klaxon kall koncerning the need for white racist fascists to take back control of `white spaces’ by any means necessary. Including murder.
Trump is not doing anything these people haven’t wanted to do since the day Truman started integrating the military, intensified when the Supreme Court ruled on Brown aiming to end school segregation, the Freedom Riders sought to register black voters, and the general population sought to treat non-whites, non-males, non-hetero people as equals.
Eff spell check – ,gender’ should be veneer.
Now what?
Donald J. Trump
Verified account @realDonaldTrump
We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents…
8:02 AM – 24 Jun 2018
. . .Order”.
Duh!
File under clue for the clueless authoritarian wannabe dictator.
Please note the use of the word invade. The Constitution says Habeas Corpus can be suspended in cases of rebellion or invasion (2nd Clause of Article I, Section 9). This should not be assumed to be a coincidence.
Well, you can count me among this “growing number of people”. And most everyone I know who leans left, and is politically active, feels exactly the same way. Much of my, and my lefty friend’s, social media interaction is changing as a result of this situation. It is no longer about political/policy differences that we might have with the Trumpers, this is definitely now a moral issue, and an issue about people’s humanity, and lack of it.
I had some pretty serious blowback on Facebook from my conservative family when I switched gears and started questioning the moral stance that they were taking. And when they tried to use the same old tactics in response, the immediate piling on by my lefty friends took them aback, and off guard. They were not used to such a wave of very direct and emotionally charged pushback. One relative was so upset she commented, “Why did you even post this? It does nothing but spread hate and discontent”! I composed a lengthy and very detailed explanation of the morality of the issue in a private message to her. And her response, while largely defensive, also included a very honest, “You know, I guess I have never really thought about it very much, or in the way that you explained it”.
I’m done with doing this fucking silly dance with these people. They are supporting an immoral and inhumane administration and policies. They need to be made to own this shit.
“You know, I guess I have never really thought about it very much, or in the way that you explained it”.
Wow! That’s impressive – well done Mike. I tip my hat to you sir.
Thank you for this. I ain’t gonna be a ‘good German’. We can all take a long hard look at how Act Up changed things by acting up.
Booman is this what you think DC will look like?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8552881/Protest-camp-in-Syntagma-Square-
in-front-of-the-Greek-parliament-building-in-Athens.html
Personally I’m surprised there hasn’t been any civil disobediance ala the Weathermen or similar ‘White Rose’ type of ‘resistance’. What happened to those ’60’s radicals? Didn’t they have any kids?
correction:’disobedience’…sorry.
It continued longer in Europe and yet it’s not happening there either.
This is a “problem” I have been thinking about for some time.
We are and have been for some time, a minority ruled country. The Senate is a prime example of this (Delaware or Idaho equal in power to Texas or California). DC and it’s population are without any representation (Federally).There are plenty of other examples.
How should the majority react when their their lawful attempts to set society’s agenda are undermined thru breaking of norms and stolen elections ?
Interesting to me that the minority doesn’t take the end of their time in power to reinforce and build protections for those out of power. Maybe short sighted as well.
“If the people of the Washington DC metro area were to suddenly surround the White House and not let anyone in or out until Donald Trump”
You mean like the Women’s March on Versailles?
Looks like Sanders was refused service too, and now she’s whining too.
This restaurant owner refusing to serve that shameless liar and supporter of this hateful administration is an indicator and symptomatic of how more people are really feeling. And the breadth of widespread disgust and revulsion may not be apparent to the casual observer, since reporters like Ignatius spend their time fawning over Trump supporters and reach for the smelling salts whenever someone stands up and pushes back against them.
For this reason Trump may truly still believe immigration is a “winning issue” for them in November and beyond, and because he “won” in 2016 calling Mexicans murderers and rapists. While images of children being taken from their parents at the border might motivate their hateful base, it has woken people who otherwise might be inclined to brush this off as just another Trump idiocy or political issue, to the immorality of this administration.
Hopefully more people will wake up and realize the Trump/GOP is not just about politics as usual. They are a threat to democracy and working to undermine the constitution and rule of law. People who serve this administration have forfeited any right to public courtesy.
Unfortunately the trumpists and alt-right have an effective outreach operation that are reeling in the suburban kids both make and female, or so it seems. No shortage of nasty white women falling for the hate as well. A real shame. So many of these people will look back in shame at their younger selves once they’ve gained some wisdom.
Family is a strong pull. I’ve known one who was pulled in by her parents. Not a teenager, either.
Great post – and your last sentence is the best! These people – all of them, from policy makers to foot-soldiers on the border — have forfeited any right to public courtesy.
Actually, I think a little courtesy can help make the point.
The owner of the restaurant did not yell at Sarah Huckabee Sanders, nor did she spit in her food.
Instead, the owner very politely asked to speak with Sanders privately, and informed her of the reasons that she could not serve her party. She didn’t even charge the Sanders party for the food they already consumed.
That’s pretty classy. I’m not sure I could have contained myself if I met Huckabee Sanders, the Joseph Goebbels of this corrupt and criminal regime. Nevertheless, it goes to show that one can take the high road in personal interactions, while still standing on principle.
29 posts and counting, all agreeing that the owners of establishments that refuse to serve people that they find morally abhorrent have the right to do so.
Make that 30. I agree. If I owned a jazz club and found that these people were attending it I would also throw them out/refuse to serve them.
But…where does one draw the line? Apparently the line is drawn at the point where you agree with the moral stance of the owners/disagree with the moral stance of the patrons who are refused service. So what happens if someone who has a different moral line than do you refuses to serve people on “moral” grounds?
Like the bakers and the recent gay wedding cake foofaraw. I do not discriminate against gays and I find it disgusting. But did the baker not have a right to express his own views in that way? Is a puzzlement. A puzzlement for which I have no answer. Enlighten me, please.
And while we’re at it…many of the posts above are clouting the New York Times as a useless piece of yellow journalism shit. I also agree, and have said so on this blog and others hundreds of times for going on 20 years. My usual line is something like “It’s good only for the recipe columns, and you have to watch your step even with those.” My own final awakening to the sins of the Times came when it took part in the anti-Howard Dean/pro-John Kerry plot that foreshadowed the way HRC got rid of Bernie Sanders in 2016…followed by Kerry’s cowardly retreat in the face of Republican vote fraud. “FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY!!!” trumpeted the neocentrist media…including the NY Times. Even earlier, when the Times supported an obvious CIA asset…Judith Miler…in the whole Iraq “YELLOWCAKE!!!” fiasco that led directly to Bush II’s Blood For Oil War. But where were y’all when it was supporting Obama, HRC and the other neocentrist Dems for the past however many years? Oh yes…it agreed with you then and it apparently does not agree with you now.
You simply cannot have it both ways.
Unless of course…it’s all political posing.
Smoke and mirrors.
On all sides.
Then?
Feel free.
Just as I will feel free to continue to call you out.
Sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander as well.
Unless it’s all bullshit.
Carry on…
AG
. . . AND fulla shit, but here’s a start
I asked for enlightenment regarding how people could simultaneously hold two totally opposite views….such as okaying the actions of the Red Hen owners in denying people service on moral grounds while simultaneously condemning the bakers who did the same thing.
And you “answer” by dismissing me.
Thank you.
I always enjoy our little colloquies.
I will take this a little further.
This country is at war with itself.
Two major parts of the this country’s population dismiss the “moralities” of the other, and take action …mostly political and media, so far, but organized violence comes closer every day…to bolster their side while dismissing the other side. It’s not working. Not for either side. Instead, the country is grinding to a standstill. You cannot legislate morality, only the actions that stem from that morality. The “moralities”…such as they are…remain.
So why not…short of actions that cause bodily harm or involve theft…leave people to act upon their own moralities and let the best, most effective ones win while the others disappear into the shades of history?
I have been asking this question here for quite a while.
So far?
No good answers.
Only “Because they’re wrong and we’re right!!!”
Not good enough.
War threatens.
It is said that the proof is in the pudding.
As things are going now, the pudding has already gone bad.
AG
. . . continuously.
How big a fool would anyone familiar with your record here have to be to, at this late date:
However big a fool that would have to be, it appears there are no fools that foolish around here currently.
Arthur,
Years ago, I stated that there were two ways to deal with the modern GOP. You asked me what they were. I didn’t respond. I will now as I think you now see where I was going…
You can either vote them out or you can snuff them out. “Snuff” can take on a variety of forms.
Digsby posted an excellent excerpt from Philosopher Karl Popper from 1945 in The Open Society and Its Enemies:
“Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. – In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”
For the most part the people we are dealing with do not respond to rational argument and have not done so for years. In which case, I agree with Popper: “we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force.”
It would be great if public shaming was sufficient, I fear, as I have feared for years, that it will not be enough.
Now a standalone:
Sauce For the Red Hen But Not For Others With Whom You Do Not Agree?
Comment there, please.
Thank you…
AG
Your post points to what keeps me up at night, Martin.
I’m trying to envision the endgame when institutions fail. Every populist authoritarian has secured power by destroying institutions, and then presenting himself as the only alternative to chaos.
I think Trump is really too stupid and too incompetent to establish himself as a strongman, but that is a distinction without a difference if he succeeds in destroying our institutions. Of course, those institutions have been growing weak and corrupted for a long time.
If Trump had lost in ’16, I expected violence from his hardcore, gun-toting supporters. Most would be cowards, but enough might have taken up arms to cause some difficult weeks.
If he’s removed from power, or even if he’s threatened with removal, I expect him to actively stoke the flames.
Moreover, Trump has written the playbook, and trained most of the Republican Party (my old ideological home) to follow in lockstep. A smarter, more able authoritarian will be able to leverage all of that structure to his/her advantage.
I am not buying guns or building a bunker. Instead, we’ve decided to move out of the DC area to a smaller city, where we can drop roots and have more time with family and neighbors. We’re thinking local and sustainable, which is my survival strategy for the really hard decades I think the US will have to endure. If I’m wrong, and things go swimmingly for the US, I’ll still have made a move that provides a better quality-of-life for my family.
I hope I’m wrong! I want a future for my kids that is more Star Trek and less Blade Runner. But that’s not what I see coming.
Ironically, we will soon be living in a “purple” urban oasis surrounded by “red” states. My presidential vote will be wasted, thanks to the Electoral College. However, we hope to make a greater impact at the local and state level.
I respect the desire to save our constitutional system, and I plan to do all I can to help save it. However, it’s no longer tin-hat, black-helicopter crazy to say “perhaps it can’t be saved.” And plan accordingly!
That’s what I’m wondering. Is it really safer? Yes, the rurals could strangle DC by denying it food, but wouldn’t there be that many more in a smaller city enough to stomp on any who disagree?
Well, one truck caught fire on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge the other day, and traffic in Northern VA became impossible. Imagine protests, counter-protests, National Guard moving about, and then a few wackos who decide to have target practice.
I’m not worried about Armageddon. I’m more worried about continuing disruption that slowly degrades our quality of life.
Moreover, the Red States are not a monochrome of red. There’s a real mixture of libertarians, younger evangelicals, and country-club moderates. It’s not just Trumpista zombie hordes. Some of these more free-thinking folks will be lined up next to me at the food cooperative, or at my kid’s soccer game. I’ve met them – they’re real!
” I’ve met them – they’re real!”
Yes they are.
Thank you AngryTeacher, and good luck with your move.
AG
Oh I don’t doubt they exist. But 80-20 is badly outnumbered.
Nobody ever succeeded in pushing back on tyranny by being polite. The restaurant owner was more than civil and look what is happening to her. They’re pushing back hard against us to try to keep us from doing it again.
The GOP has lost all claim to the moral high ground. It is well and truly time to begin to make these reprehensible people suffer some consequences. They have crossed the line. Enough.
With the (5-4) reversal of the Texas redistricting case today, the plaintiffs have lost in every voting rights case before Roberts’ Repubs this year. Lower court judges who attempted to counter Repub election ratfucking will now see that their efforts are in vain and will necessarily allow the Repub election rigging to continue. Indeed, it will now accelerate.
So Booman’s warning that the frustration of the majority may boil over has another data point in its favor.
It is becoming very clear that Repubs have killed what was left of the democracy and that some sort of revolutionary action will be the only viable means forward. It will be that or authoritarian rule by the reactionary white minority that installed Der Trumper.
It’s not “just” the child separation policy, as horrify as that is.
NOW this Dictatorial asshole has tweeted that the country NOT follow the Rule of Law (Yeah, I know, for the rich, the Rule of Law is not followed, but…) and refuse to provide Due Process at the Border.
THIS is a GIANT SERIOUS THREAT to our so-called “Democracy,” our Nation, and frankly to YOU and ME PERSONALLY as citizens.
I don’t give a flying Fuck that conservatives are willing to frickin give up EVERYTHING in order to Piss Off Liberals. Fuck Them.
This simply cannot stand.
The ONLY thing that matters to these shits is the so-called SACRED Second Amendment, which apparently was the Eleventh and by far MOST important Commandmant that Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai.
Something’s gotta give.
“How much violence would they be prepared to use, and how much time would they let elapse before they used it?”
My take on this question is A) whatever it takes, up to and including deadly force (and the protesters would be blamed for it) and B) about two seconds. If it comes to that, I hope I’m wrong.