ArbitraryValue @ ArbitraryValue @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

Even the Trump appointees seem like the sort of people who would want to defend the rule of law at least to preserve their own (and therefore the court's) power, so I wonder how each of the six "conservative" judges was convinced to rule the way that he or she did. I don't imagine all of them doing it for the same reason. Maybe some were rewarded for their votes and others wanted to see Trump wreck things (Alito and his flag come to mind) but did some actually think that it was a good idea or the correct legal decision?

since 2015-2016

Hah, I would be ecstatic if we had a Romney now instead of what we do have. Or even a McCain. Or hell, even a GWB as long as he wasn't allowed to invade anywhere.

Convicted?

My apologies. Here's CNN's exit poll. The results are substantially similar. I added a note to my original post.

Note that CNN also has a chart of this data with the "less than $30k" and "$30k to $50k" categories merged, which conceals this phenomenon. I think that can give people the wrong idea.

Not only do I agree with you (the headlines are click-bait telling the audience what they want to hear) but I also love you for using the word "construed".

I'm not at all convinced, because the poor aren't the ones who elected Trump. Both the rich and the poor voted for Harris. Here's the data:

Edit: This is not the most up-to date poll, although it is substantially correct. See my post below.

Ordinary people don't keep track of billionaires. Almost no one even knows how many billionaires there are, or how many billions they have. I don't know and I bet that even most people who blame billionaires for everything don't know. If there are twice as many now as there were before and each one has twice as much money, the public won't even notice.

IMO Trump support is due to envy and resentment, but it's not the resentment of the rich by the poor. It's the resentment of the middle class by the working class. Look at the results by college education:

(Note that while income and education are correlated, my first plot shows that the people without a college education who are voting for Trump aren't voting for him simply because they're poor.)

It used to be the case that mass media was controlled largely by people with middle class values. The people who opposed vaccination and supported renaming the Gulf of Mexico were called crackpots and they wouldn't appear in most mainstream newspapers or TV news. Neither the Democrat nor the Republican candidate for President would agree with them.

Now, thanks to the internet, these people have been able to organize into a mass movement and they want to smash the institutions built by the middle class that looks down on them. They voted for Trump because he's culturally one of them, despite the fact that he's a college-educated billionaire.

Do experts say Trump is a fascist? Do experts say vaccination is essential for public health? Do experts say tariffs will wreck the economy? Now Trump will make those experts cry delicious liberal tears...

I don't think that what K-to-12 schools are capable of teaching even in the best-case scenario can be sufficient to equip the average person with the knowledge and critical thinking skills necessary to, for example, evaluate complex economic policy on its merits. I have a STEM PhD but it isn't in economics and I don't think I can evaluate economic policy well - I go with the consensus of economists, but that's easy for me because I think their best interests and mine are aligned. (I want to see the stock market go up.) I'm not sure what a person whose interests are not aligned with the economists' is supposed to do... Listen to ignorant demagogues who promise everything, apparently.

Before the election, I saw a house flying a big flag with the words "Elect Trump King of the United States". So, uh, maybe monarchy would turn out to be even worse...

With that said, I understand how you feel. I don't know how democracy can work in a post-truth era.

I was also a very active user of traditional forums but, in my experience, small niche subreddits (when I was on Reddit) were a decent substitute in terms of content, since posts could stay on their front page for several days. Lemmy isn't big enough to have those yet but I hope it will be. The thing I miss most about forums isn't the format but rather the community. The forum I posted on the most had only a few dozen regulars and I knew them.

There was the guy with a kind, insightful take on controversial issues and a fetish for women with more than two arms. The active duty marine who reliably posted harsh truths. The feminist I didn't get along with at all despite agreeing with her about most things. The dedicated father who bought real razor wire for his daughter when she wanted a UN-peacekeeper-base themed birthday party. The very determined conservative who defended his position no matter how outnumbered he was and once bragged that he had given his wife several dozen orgasms in a row...

I suppose I was the young man with strange views about what was or wasn't fair and a great deal of anger over any perceived unfairness. (I don't think I was particularly well-liked.) The internet is so much less personal now.

If improving leads to winning more...
and losing ELO leads to winning more...

Losing ELO is a sign of improvement!

In my dream world, the courts respond to Trump's claim that he cannot retrieve anyone from El Salvador by putting a stay on all deportations until the Trump administration demonstrates that it will not deport people to any place from which it cannot quickly retrieve them if they were deported in error.

(I don't expect this to happen.)

My hope is that if they wait two years then it'll be to minimize the damage until the midterm elections, at which point Democrats will win both the house and the senate. I think that's the best-case scenario.

There isn't much the court can do if Trump refuses to comply and Republicans in Congress continue to support him. I hate to say it, but avoiding a confrontation may be better than getting into that situation, both for the court and for the country.

In practice, no one will be hurt by this change, except for the pain caused by a defeat in the culture war. If I were you, I would consider risking my career over real harm done to individuals, but not over abstract harm done to an idea, even an idea I supported.

I think that would be beyond the authority of the court, although exactly where the court's authority ends is unclear. It doesn't get to dictate foreign policy, so I expect that it can order the executive branch to do things consistent with the current foreign policy towards El Salvador (like asking for him back) but it cannot order the executive branch to dramatically change that foreign policy (by imposing tariffs).

The problem I foresee is that Trump can make an official request but also say that he would be happier if the request was not granted. (Something along the lines of "Please return this horrible criminal, who I never want to have in America again, because the court is ordering me to ask you against my will, and keep in mind that if you say no then I won't force you to do anything and in fact I'll like you better," which I don't think is much of an exaggeration given Trump's lack of subtlety.) If El Salvador then does not grant the request, I'm not sure what the court could do.

I'd care. As H. L. Mencken said:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

What exactly it means to facilitate is part of what the court is considering. From the Vox article:

The Supreme Court concludes that the lower court’s order “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador...

But it adds that the “intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’ in the District Court’s order” — to “facilitate and effectuate his return — “is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority.” The word “facilitate” suggests that the government must take what steps it can to make something happen, while the word “effectuate” suggests that it needs to actually make it happen.

So, do I sell because he'll keep wrecking the economy, or do I hold because he'll keep backing down? What do the licensed financial advisors here, acting in their professional capacity and accepting full legal responsibility for the consequences, think?