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State Terror, American Style

paulkrugman.substack.com

71–80 of 125 posts

Re: State Terror, American Style

#71
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two parties are not the same, but the privately funded electoral system of the US applies to all parties. Democrats cannot escape the corrupting influence of money. Consider, as a revealing example, the Patriot Act of 2001. There was more resisitance to it from Democrats than from Republicans, yet there was still not nearly enough resistance. In the Senate, the vote was 98-1, with only Democrat Russ Feingold agai…

What do you want people to do about the current crisis? What action could be taken to resolve the situation today?

we didn't get here in a day, or even a decade. So it won't be solved overnight.

But sure, in the ideal world:

1. Call every bluff Trump makes. Do not capitulate to anything. Drown him in lawsuits. He's lost at least a 3rd of the DOJ so they cannot handle suing every company, college, and state at once.

2. Anyone in a red and especially purple states, make it a habit to call your represenatives every day. emails can (and probably will be) ignored. Don't let their lines be anything but people telling these congressmen to knock it off and actually do their jobs. Collorary: anyone in a blue state calls in and makes sure their congressmen know they need to also resist, fight back, and not capitulate.

3. If you can, townhalls are even better than calling. If you see the local townhalls you know this scares the GOP congressmen stiff.

4. if you see federal agents in the wild, always be recording. The truth is the beth antidote to corruption. Make sure you livestream as well so they can't just seize your phone. The more live feed out there the harder it is to spin.

5. heck, if we're really dreaming big we plan some general strike. Shut down the country for a day and you'll have everyone reeling to try and backpedal.

Varying levels of realism there, but the theme is clear: resist and make sure others resist. They can't ignore us all if we work together. But that "working together" in such a hyper-individualistic society is the hard part. It may just be more realistic to wait until someone dies or midterms happen.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#72
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two parties are not the same, but the privately funded electoral system of the US applies to all parties. Democrats cannot escape the corrupting influence of money. Consider, as a revealing example, the Patriot Act of 2001. There was more resisitance to it from Democrats than from Republicans, yet there was still not nearly enough resistance. In the Senate, the vote was 98-1, with only Democrat Russ Feingold agai…

>Democrats cannot escape the corrupting influence of money. They could. These are not people struggling to pay rent, they do not live paycheck to paycheck. Heck, the median age of congress is 58 so a good portion of them are free to retire and never work another day in their lives. But they in general choose not to escape it. The money, the networks, the power. I guess the sad thing is that the populace aren't aware…

By "Democrats" I meant the Democratic Party.

Democratic politicans are not a fixed group of people: anyone can run for office. The issue is not so much that money is corrupting otherwise good people. Rather, the issue is that political campaigns are self-financed, and wealthy donors put their money behind candidates who they know to be friendly to their interests. The wealthy do not fund candidates who are unfriendly to their interests and indeed may throw their money behind an opponent, or just directly fund "interest groups" that malign candidates whom the wealthy dislike.

> I guess the sad thing is that the populace aren't aware enough to properly primary anyone who does turn their backs on them.

The fundamental problem is that primary campaigns require money, just like general election campaigns. The situation may be even worse for primary campaigns, because the news media provides much less free coverage for primary campaigns than for general elections campaigns. And the news media tends to distribute coverage based on "electability," which is invariably a euphemism for the ability to raise campaign funds.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear that, yes, Trump is on a path to do something drastic to prevent the midterms. It will either be 1) war, 2) martial law, or 3) declaring an insurrection. 1 is dicey. It will require, first, a declared war, not just Trump saying so, and second, the courts agreeing (against all precedent) that we can't hold elections in wartime. This isn't Ukraine; our constitution doesn't have a provision for elections not happ…

Kinda thankful that you didn't continue the if-then after the military. Many possible outcomes after that are really depressing. Almost all options involve China laughing all the way to hegemony.

>Kinda thankful that you didn't continue the if-then after the military.

There's so many possibilities of what happens if elections are halted that you no one can truly predict anything. It never happened for nationals and it very very rarely happens in state elections. Having a hostile takeover of the ballot box will truly throw things into chaos. In what way and against who, it's hard to tell.

And yes. Of all things I think having a civil war as Russia is teetering on attacking Europe and China is at the peak of its power is a great way to reverse 80 years of progress. Or of course, erase eons of civilization all at once.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#74
My impression of Trump is that he's a showman with crazy ideas, but ultimately not organised or determined enough to see them through. On his own, he might flail about and go round in circles a bit like his first term. Undeniably, he is good with the public.

The thing that really terrifies me is the people who attach themselves to him, thinking they can use his mandate to push their agendas through. Because there seems to be plenty of skill and determination, paired with objectives I find repulsive. I suspect it is those people who really push, or at least permit this process.

Why aren't senators stopping this? Why aren't judges? I suspect they all think they can use Trump to achieve their own means.

I suspect that in the end Trump will destroy anyone he thinks is getting in his way or using his name to get ahead, but the whole process will cause tons of chaos and pain the US and beyond.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#75

Are they limiting their raids to be within 'blue' states / districts to minimise the collateral damage their reputation may receive from those sympathetic to this cause? Chicago was 77% Democrat in the last election. These behaviours won't stop if there's no blowback from the MAGA base.

> Are they limiting their raids to be within 'blue' states / districts to minimise the collateral damage their reputation may receive from those sympathetic to this cause?

As of right now, it's pure agitation. They're pointing the guns into protest zones (not "blue states" really, though that's obviously where they concentrate) hoping things get out of control. At that stage, it becomes easier to paint political enemies as military ones. And you'll start seeing the use of state power against sitting legislators and judges, etc...

You can't dismantle democracy all at once. The military[1] won't follow those orders[2]. But if you create a culture where "antifa" or whoever is actually shooting stuff and blowing things up, the moral calculus becomes an easier sell. They aren't "doing a coup" by ejecting the governor of Washington State (or whatever), they're just defending America.

[1] At the end of the day, remember that authoritarianism is always executed by the military. The figurehead may come from somewhere else originally (like New York real estate development in this case), but when the regime is based on the use of force it is always run, ultimately, by the users of force.

[2] Because the military aren't MAGA, not yet. They're career officers who built careers in an existing bureaucracy and, all other things being equal, see value in that bureaucracy and don't want to tear it down.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#76
post #2

It certainly doesn’t feel good to have turned out being correct after warning that this is where we were headed way back in the dubyah years. This has always been the plan, it hasn’t been hidden, corporate media has just succeeded in sanewashing it for decades. Abdication of journalistic responsibility in the name of profits has allowed construction of alternate realities for so many people that these atrocities are…

The only part I would disagree with here is that there was a plan dating back to the George W. Bush Admin. I think "the plan" in earnest came into being between 2020 and 2024, and I don't think anyone from the Bush years would find a home in the party let alone the current administration. It's not that they had no plans necessarily, they just weren't the ones in charge anymore. I do think the Bush years were the firs…

I don't like putting the blame on a "plan". Democracy is about a kind of equality among people, and the US has had a strong anti-democratic strain since slavery. Probably even feudalism before that. Once you see it, you see it everywhere and can't unsee it. There's a reason Trump's best polling issue is immigration

https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...

Re: State Terror, American Style

#77
post #9

[flagged]

>and if local or state police weren't effective enough, they would welcome federal police.

I don't think anyone wants a timeline where tanks are patrolling the roads. There's a reason our military outside the national guard doesn't focus on domestic action unless there's a dire emergency.

>They see some dude with a criminal record and face tattoos and think "this person probably shouldn't be in our country". You could disagree but this is the normie take.

The US doesn't exile people. Pretty sure that's illegal and it makes no sense anyway. Who's going to take in a legal US Citizen who does not want to leave the country? People's feelings do not supercede the law of the land.

>A lot of people in a big city just see filth and people sleeping on the street and are annoyed that things have gotten like this.

clearly not annoyed enough to figure out why things got like this as they keep pushing for zoning laws and defunding shelters.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I've never talked to a person in a rich neighborhood that would turn down more police Rich people in safe neighborhoods very commonly turn down police because they don't want their local taxes to go up. It's as simple as that. You can also add to the fact that they don't want their children slammed into the pavement for minor infractions such as having an open container beverage or doing 35 in a 25 mph zone. It…

My friend lives in a rich neighborhood in inner Chicago and they all chip in to pay extra for private security patrols through the neighborhood because they don't have enough cops. On top of one of the highest property tax in the country (2.1%) and sales tax (10.75%), etc etc.

Yes, but they pay for it and know exactly where it's going. Not so much for raising local taxes. We've seen how common it is for rich people to spend more on private matters, even though paying via a tax would be cheaper for them.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#79

I visited Portland a month ago. There are security guards at each pharmacy and supermarket. I got screamed at by a violent/homeless person because I walked on her block. Some streets - and we are talking downtown/center - I was just afraid or disgusted to walk on. So, yes, Portland is a dump that needs to get cleaned up.

Let's seriously ask ourselves here: even if we sit down and let ICE detain, say, 10k people (mind you, that's about 1.5% the population of Oregon, or 1 in 60 people): do you really think they are going to bother with the violent homeless person you complain about?

They aren't hitting gangs or any actually dangerous people, they are looking for weak targets. They aren't trying to clean up the streets, they are geting their rocks off playing GTA IRL.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#80
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might take a couple more generations, a lot more misery, and maybe even a complete breakdown of democracy in the USA, for its population to finally learn that Democrats or Republicans are bound to the same higher power in the USA: money. Money is what decides everything, the speeding up of its accumulation brought by neoliberal economic policies under Reagan and onwards just made it abundantly clear that either pa…

How convenient that you have an argument for lumping together both a party that wants to continue the liberal democracy and a party that wants to cling to power at the expense of creating an actual authoritarian state complete with a secret police.

We are a frog in a pot of water placed upon a stove.

Every time the Republican party gains power, they turn up the burner.

When the Democratic party gains power, they don't turn the burner up any further, but the most we can give them credit for is they may occasionally toss an ice cube in the water.

They do not turn the burner down.

They do not remove the pot from the stove.

They do not take the frog out of the water.

The Democratic party isn't as bad as the Republican party, but they're still ultimately boiling the frog.

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For all their crowing about how bad Republican policy is, how often do you really see them repealing bad laws passed by Republicans - especially the disastrous tax cuts and sabotage of government agencies? Biden couldn't even be bothered to replace all of Trump's appointees.

The last few decades have demonstrated that at the very least, we need a number of constitutional amendments to fix the cracks and gaping holes in our current governmental structure that allowed us to get here, and it'll probably take burning down both major political parties and starting with new ones to make that happen.

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