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I Want You to Understand Chicago

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Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#311

Post by UncleMeat »

ryandrake wrote: post #4
don_neufeld wrote: post #2

I’m so glad that Kyle wrote this. I’m so sad that he had to. Pay attention to what’s going on and vote.

The problem is how many people enthusiastically voted for this madness, lawlessness and cruelty, and are still cheering it on. You can say "vote, vote, vote," and maybe it will work in 2026 or 2028, or 2030 or whenever, but the root problem is not going away: you are still surrounded by people all over the country who want this.

Right.

The plan to defeat fascism can't be "never lose a single election ever for the rest of time." Political leaders did absolutely fuck all to consign Trump to the garbage bin of history in 2021 and now we've got a fascist president motivated entirely by two things: hurting as many people he hates as possible and putting up tacky gold shit in the white house.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#312

Post by keeda »

tptacek wrote: post #216
ryandrake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is how many people enthusiastically voted for this madness, lawlessness and cruelty, and are still cheering it on. You can say "vote, vote, vote," and maybe it will work in 2026 or 2028, or 2030 or whenever, but the root problem is not going away: you are still surrounded by people all over the country who want this.

I don't think this framing is very helpful. Whatever you believe about the people who pulled the lever for Trump, which included an unprecedented number of Latino and Black voters, they exist, and they're not persuaded by your disapproval. I think a really big problem we have on my side of the aisle is the belief that there's a celestial referee who will call offsides on the Republicans if we can just find the right…

> The election was fully determined by inflation. Biden made a reasonable (though incorrect) bet that full employment was more important than price stability.

There is credible theory (shared by a very balanced labor economist I follow) that the immigration crisis helped tame the inflation crisis, besides boosting the economy enough for a soft landing:

https://fortune.com/2024/04/12/immigration-inflation-economy...

Also some studies for and against this theory:

- https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2025/01/10/Imm... (Finds inflation lowered.)

- https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2025/0708 (No effect on inflation, but yes on GPD growth.)

Now, I'm not saying this was always Biden's plan, but the economics are not as straightforward as "employments vs inflation."

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#313

Post by lurk2 »

daseiner1 wrote: post #295
lurk2 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When? Where? The instances listed in the article are not compelling. Here’s an excerpt from the second article: > According to Homeland Security deputy secretary Tricia McLaughlin, officers were trying to conduct a “targeted traffic stop” of a car registered to a “female illegal alien,” but the male driver “refused to pull the vehicle over.” > “Law enforcement pursued the vehicle before the assailant sped into a shop…

ok great, you made it all the way to the second article before you found something you thought you could pull a misleading quote from. Said quote is, appropriately enough, from a woman in the administration whose job is to provide "cover" for her own agency. and you not-so-gracefully just elide key facts in the same article like: "the agents were not invited inside the building, did not have a warrant, and were armed…

> before you found something you thought you could pull a misleading quote from

Do you have any information not presented in the article that suggests that this woman had legal status to reside in the country, and / or that she was not apprehended during a pursuit?

I’m not putting it past an official to lie about these kinds of things, but if this woman had the facts on her side you would usually have heard about it faster.

> the building, did not have a warrant,

Law enforcement officials do not need a warrant to enter private property while they are engaged in the active pursuit of someone suspected of having committed a crime.

> and were armed with guns while walking into the school with children and teachers present"

Per my last comment:

> The agents, who were armed but did not draw their weapons, pushed other people who were looking to intervene, he said.

You’re trying to give a very particular account of these events that the facts are not supporting.

> even if you think this is someone who ought to be deported, there are many less violent, less traumatic, and far more dignified ways to go about it.

I agree, a school isn’t the place for it. So I ask again: Do you have information that would suggest this woman was not being actively pursued by law enforcement officials prior to entering the daycare?

> Or would you like to endorse masked men with military-grade equipment storming into daycares to arrest women who work with children there?

I could (accurately) refer to this woman as an undocumented criminal who barricaded herself in a daycare after being pursued by law enforcement agents, but it’s completely hyperbolic versus just saying “a woman ran into a daycare and was arrested.” There’s nothing to suggest that these officers “stormed” the building like marines kicking the doors in at Fallujah. As was explicitly mentioned in the article (and my previous comment), their guns were never drawn. None of the three articles related to this incident suggest that the officers were masked.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#314

Post by UncleMeat »

turnsout wrote: post #9
ryandrake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is how many people enthusiastically voted for this madness, lawlessness and cruelty, and are still cheering it on. You can say "vote, vote, vote," and maybe it will work in 2026 or 2028, or 2030 or whenever, but the root problem is not going away: you are still surrounded by people all over the country who want this.

I don't know, man. That is definitely true, but they didn't win by a landslide. And a lot of their edge came from the MAGA Latinx vote. This ICE/CPB action is a total self-own. That Latinx vote is going to disappear, and we've already seen the results in the 2025 elections. I think the right will turn on itself in 2026. We could even end up with three parties, only one of them able to obtain a majority (Democrats). T…

There is no way that the republicans split. They are 100% captured by MAGA. The only possible splitting point is with the Fuentes wing, who'd just like to murder all the jews in the country in addition to all of the latinos.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#315

Post by tptacek »

keeda wrote: post #312
tptacek wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this framing is very helpful. Whatever you believe about the people who pulled the lever for Trump, which included an unprecedented number of Latino and Black voters, they exist, and they're not persuaded by your disapproval. I think a really big problem we have on my side of the aisle is the belief that there's a celestial referee who will call offsides on the Republicans if we can just find the right…

> The election was fully determined by inflation. Biden made a reasonable (though incorrect) bet that full employment was more important than price stability. There is credible theory (shared by a very balanced labor economist I follow) that the immigration crisis helped tame the inflation crisis, besides boosting the economy enough for a soft landing: https://fortune.com/2024/04/12/immigration-inflation-economy... A…

Right, so, I'm not making a normative claim about the right about of immigration. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call myself an "open borders" person, but I'm very pro-immigration. Pro-immigration in the sense of believing we benefit from the mix of new Americans we get over our southern border, not in the weird doublespeak sense of appreciating skilled immigration from Europe.

But from 2021-2023, we experienced a destabilizing sudden amount of immigration. We'd had immigrant-friendly policy during Obama, but I don't recall many dozens of Venezuelan refugees on the doorstep of our Village Hall. Obviously, that happened in large part because southern governors bussed people (often without their informed consent) to northern states. But so what? All that says is that we were experiencing something the southern states had been experiencing all along.

My big point here is just: it's not enough to say how strongly you feel about immigration in 2021-2024. Enough people hated it that it motivated a materially important bloc of voters. I disagree with those voters. But I also disagree with people upset about inflation, and I feel like we generally understand that those of us on my side of the employment/inflation question were just, you know, wrong. In an electoral sense.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#316

Post by UncleMeat »

turnsout wrote: post #25
ryandrake wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the right will turn on itself in 2026. If they turn on themselves it will not be over immigration. This is the one issue where they are almost all in wild agreement. A massive, overwhelming majority of Republicans agree with these cruel treatment of immigrants[1]. They might disagree on the economy or tariffs or jobs or whatever, but there's no infighting here. They fully back this cruelty. 1: https://www.p…

No, you're right—I don't think it will be over immigration. I think they'll lose in 2026 and tear themselves apart infighting about who's to blame.

Losing in 2026 barely matters. Existing dem leadership has no desire to end the filibuster, which means we get one bill a year that is full of technocratic approaches. The Trump administration, backed by the supreme court, is accruing more and more power to simply ignore the will of Congress. Even if the dems get some guts and defund ICE, the Trump administration has already demonstrated that it is happy to just illegally distribute or withhold funds wherever it likes.

The only way out of this is replacing dem leadership in congress with people who give a shit, winning the presidency in 2028, killing the filibuster, and then going on a serious denazification effort to restructure our institutions so that this sort of shit can't happen. Court packing. Total dismantling and rebuilding of federal law enforcement. Recreating a functional congress.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#317

Post by lurk2 »

tky wrote: post #307

Accurate, if even a bit softer than how it really is. I never felt unsafe in my west side Chicago community until the Black Hawks started doing daily intimidation runs. Until they abducted community members who were out working one day, gone the next. I used to push a wagon with side pockets full of bubbles, snacks, and toys. Now there’s fewer toys to make room for gas masks for kids and adults. Chicago is a tough to…

> have to explain to kids why their friends aren’t around anymore.

How does that conversation go?

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#319

Post by UncleMeat »

nemo44x wrote: post #235
ryandrake wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue for or against mass-deportation as a policy. Fine. But the tactics are a choice, and at every turn, the current administration is deliberately choosing cruelty, fear, intimidation, violence, opaqueness, and grief. In an alternate world, they could have still chosen to do mass-deportation, but also: 1. sent uniformed officers with arrest warrants, 2. who identify themselves clearly as officers, 3. who sh…

So the aesthetics are bad. The execution is sloppy and it’s likely the people tasked with it are under trained and under supervised. But the outcome is the same otherwise. I don’t know if they’re trying to be mean or if they’re just trying to effectively hit their goals. It’s ruthless execution but that’s what’s taught in business school today. The citizens that are being wrongly violated will have their day and be c…

> The citizens that are being wrongly violated will have their day and be compensated.

I'm curious if you have done even cursory reading on all of the reasons why people whose rights are violated by federal and state officials are unable to sue for damages. The idea that people who get abused get a day in court and get justly compromised is an absolute fantasy.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#320

Post by mindslight »

andix wrote: post #86
amouat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all the same people. If you really don't know, a few of the incidents are here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c6299nrj76yo

I suspected that it's about immigration agents. But it's just really funny how the article claims to explain the issues, without actually explaining it. Why do they use weapons extensively? Are they chasing violent people who shot at them earlier, or just for fun? It just raises more questions, and doesn't help understanding the situation at all.

You can read any mainstream source to find out the general contours of the situation. The "want you to understand" is in the context of there being too many people in outright denial about the naked autocratic fascism that has descended upon our country - eg see all the comments in this very thread trying to justify any of this as being about "the law" or "illegal immigration".
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