Next stop: Mars
From the Department of Random Sadism:
Lawyers representing a number of immigrants asked a federal judge on Wednesday to “urgently” block the Trump administration from deporting a group of people to Libya, Saudi Arabia or any other country where they are not citizens until the U.S. government gives them a chance to contest the removals.
The lawyers asked Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston to rule quickly after reports that federal immigration officers were preparing to expel people from Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines to Libya, a troubled North African nation “notorious for its human rights violations, especially with respect to migrant residents,” their emergency motions says.
Libya??? Why Libya? Why not Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines? Just what it says on the tin, apparently: random sadism.
In their filing, the lawyers said they feared the removals were “imminent” and argued that such a move would violate the judge’s prior orders barring the Trump administration from sending anyone with a final deportation order to a country where they are not a citizen without first giving them a “meaningful opportunity” to seek protection in the United States.
Ok but judges and orders and barring and meaningful opportunity are all tedious and boring, while sending them to one of the shittiest places on the planet is almost as entertaining as The Apprentice.
Asked Wednesday about the reports of a deportation flight to Libya, President Donald Trump said he did not know about it and referred the reporter who asked the question to the Department of Homeland Security.
He says that a lot. He does horrifying things and then says he doesn’t know about it.
Here again, Trump being completely ignorant of Constitutional protections and due process. But hey, lets “make America great again” without knowing what actually makes America great, and disregarding same.
Random and performative sadism. The effect is to terrify anyone trying to seek asylum. It’s obvious to all of us, and to those on the right who voted for Trump. This is what a lot of his voters wanted, and he is giving it to them. You cannot shame them by pointing out the sadism – they embrace it whole-heartedly.
So much of the political culture of the US depended on people being shamed into following political norms. But when shame no longer works, and when the electorate decides that cruelty is desirable, what then?
Now, that is not to say the situation is hopeless. US (and, indeed, human societies in general since antiquity) are capable of cruelty and are capable of overcoming that cruelty with social change. The current despair that many on the Left feel is caused by the fact that many thought progress to be some sort of unchangeable, foregone fact – that there was an “arc of the moral universe” and that it inevitably bent towards justice. Well, unfortunately, there is no arc at all. Human nature doesn’t change – cultures change, institutions change, and there are no battles that are won permanently.
Western societies can overcome this resurgence in right-wing populism, but it requires another decades-long culture war. Which is exhausting, I know.
This. Yes. It’s getting more than a little frustrating and annoying at the letters to the editor in the local newspaper saying ‘this isn’t what we voted for’. If you voted for Trump, it is exactly what you voted for. If you didn’t vote for Trump, then of course it isn’t what you voted for. So shut up and go do something productive.
Yeah, not so much an arc as a random walk, with no anchor or ratchet to prevent backwards movement, and the loss of current positions won through hard work. Staying still is hard work. Progress is relative and provisional, not permanent. Hell, we can’t even agree on a definition of “progress,” let alone hang onto it. Slippage is always possible.
Exactly. As I keep saying, there has been a tendency among liberals and lefties to talk and act as if Trump’s followers were supporting him by mistake – because they just didn’t know how awful he truly was – and would start abandoning him in droves as soon as they realized their mistake. As you say, they knew exactly what they were voting for. And they got what they wanted, as evidenced by the fact that all of the supposedly career-ending scandals of Trump’s first presidency didn’t prevent him from gaining votes between 2016 and 2020. Once again, Trump is many things, but subtle is not on the list. One of the very few things the guy can not be accused of is having a hidden agenda. Fucking Dr. Evil wasn’t a more obvious villain. Deniability doesn’t get less plausible than this.
*…all of the supposedly career-ending scandals of Trump’s first presidency didn’t prevent him from gaining votes between 2016 and 2020.
lol I think I was correcting it as you typed this.
Speaking of which, I would like to recommend this interview that David Frum recently did of Anne Applebaum (the specific part I’m talking about begins at about 49:07, but do watch the whole thing!). Although I disagree with Applebaum that those who voted for Trump in 2016 had any excuse (see my last comment), I think she admirably sums up why we should not expect those who voted for him in 2024, despite his attempted coup d’état, to start turning against him for any reason at this point. The thing about cognitive dissonance is that your “line in the sand” keeps moving with you as you go. And it never stops. As they say, how do normal people end up sending others to the gas-chamber? One concession at a time.
Ophelia # 7
Covfefe strikes again!
Reminds me of Alice and the Red Queen running madly and staying in the same place. Alice remarks that, despite hard running, they didn’t get anywhere. Red Queen responds, “Oh,to do that, you’d have to run at least twice as fast!”
Applebaum is wrong… Now the people who’ve said they would die for him or showed up at every rally, sure they’re not gonna waver. The people that were dumb enough (particularly blacks and Latinos) thinking they could go back to 2019? Others will turn on them once it becomes clear that his “plan” will not replace their farm or businesses.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these people are still evil monsters, but stagflation (or worse) is something that only the diehards can possibly ignore, especially because of how obvious it is that he is causing it. Not saying that drop in support will save us, but we’ll likely be finding out what his true floor looks sometime this year or early next.
Pushing someone else into a gas chamber is one thing; getting pushed yourself is something else. Maybe once more and more people realize that the faces the leopards are going to be eating includes their own, they might start to have doubts.
Gutting huge swathes of the federal government is going to mean lots of bad things for many Trump voters in ways that are more personal and direct than the attempted coup. The question is whether they’re going to be able to make the connection. Will they be able to put the blame where it belongs? Will they be willing to do anything about it, assuming there’s anything they can do?
In Nebraska, the farmers are outraged at things he is doing. They are outraged at the tariffs, at the firings, but ONLY THE ONES THAT AFFECT THEM. They are still fine with all the rest…and they are still flying Trump flags. They argue that the other side will bring socialism, and that’s worse, so stick with Trump.
I don’t know how many of those who voted for him simply to continue the Republican rule, but don’t seem to like him, will abandon him. I thought they would after 2020; some of them probably voted for Biden in 2020. But in the end, they have been working toward Republican rule for so long, they may very well continue speaking against him, writing against him, and voting for him. Who knows? I sent my crystal ball to be cleaned; they cracked it, and it doesn’t work anymore.
Well unless he really drives a tank through the Constitution they won’t have the opportunity to vote for him.
I wish I could put my money on the Constitution….