Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li: the fascists believe that they can tear up american democracy at the roots and after we'll all have to fall in line "because it's the law." but the power of the law is a function of the legitimacy of the law. the state's monopoly on force is posterior to the people's adherence to the state!

the fascists believe that they can tear up american democracy at the roots and after we'll all have to fall in line "because it's the law." but the power of the law is a function of the legitimacy of the law. the state's monopoly on force is posterior to the people's adherence to the state!

their act of constitutional arson is our opportunity for American Reconstruction

the power of the state is not in the gun. it's in the finger on the trigger--and it's not in the finger either, it's in the heart and mind of the person behind it. that is the battle we must be prepared to fight and win.

Revolutions win when the guy in an apc refuses to unload on protesters

i recently rewatched V FOR VENDETTA and beneath the superhero theatrics it's remarkable how clear V (and the movie) are about this the truly decisive moment is when the men with guns can't bear to commit a massacre the battle for britain won in the soul of britain

"The thing is, Tank Commander is far more dangerous than Tank Man. Tank Man can simply be shot... The regime survives if Tank Man dies, even if the death of Tank Man isn’t the optimal outcome. The regime dies, however, if Tank Commander refuses to run over Tank Man."

Tank Man and Tank Commander - Lawyers, Guns & Moneywww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com What follows is a long, largely unoriginal rumination on the state, coercion, the Odessa Steps, and Tank Man. Skip to the end for trivial observations about the current situation in Iran. Or just skip...

Loved lgm that and crookedtimbers were the main political sites I frequented during Obama's first term

The Soviet Union fell, in a very real sense, when the GKChP ordered Soviet troops to fire on protestors and they... didn't. A lot of shouting followed, but that's when it was all over.

As a non turkey understander, this was why I thought Erdogan was cooked in 2016, there were those soldiers on the bridge getting out of their vehicles and then reports iirc the airforce was joining the coup shortly after

The Portuguese Carnation Revolution ultimately came down to the soldiers refusing to open fire on protestors, and it was the end of the fascist Salazar regime.

Well, and soldiers in fact facing down their peers

Yeah, I’m simplifying a bit, but I imagine that’s what happens once a few soldiers break

This is the reason they're spending so much time making drones that can kill abstractly from afar, and gun dogs that will carry out instructions autonomously

PREACH!

Yeah. A lot of people both favorable to and extremely frightened of the current far right just sort of fail to grasp all of this. "It will be the law and thus it will be so." Everybody needs a remedial political theory refresher.

to be clear this is not something they usually cover well in political theory imo

there are questions about "how government work" that are easy to answer when times are normal and government is working good, and these questions suddenly get much harder as we approach times of constitutional rupture

"Constitutional rupture" is a good expression although unfamiliar to me. Also horrifyingly scary, of course.

Yeah it's an image that kind of explains itself, and maybe is a useful one for Americans to consider.

Americans writ large are accustomed to the idea of "THE CONSTITUTION," something singular and inviolable. But "constitutions" are a fairly new invention overall; they've mostly only been around as long as America has.

I don't think of "how government work" as a question of political theory, while legitimacy certainly is. Though I think of political theory as Locke, Mill, those types (I was in school in the 90s). Perhaps you define the field differently?

speaking for myself I didn't mean ANY particular intellectual tradition. Just vaguely "the way power functions".

a lot of people who post lots of extremely exciting slogans that i do agree with in fact ( random example, “no person is illegal”) do seem to very literally believe that if Republicans in government try to harm marginalized people we will just curl up and die

like people who think america is going to have death camps on January 21, 2025 if Trump is reelected so they have to preemptively flee are putting a lot of faith in the idea of… well a lot of things

People who think the Supreme Court granted the president the power to kill random citizens with impunity. It's an incredibly bad ruling that's wrong on the merits! But "the threat of criminal prosecution" is NOT what keeps your typical president from drone-striking his personal enemies.

If you elect someone lawless, the fact that the LAW is bad is the least of your worries, is I guess what I'm saying.

To illustrate even more bluntly, I saw MULTIPLE posts over on my Normie Lib Facebook Feed deploying Holocaust imagery and saying "this was an official act" or whatever. Which...come on, man. Leaving aside the absolutely abysmal-to-offensive taste of such a post, that's...that's not how it went down.

Right-wing cranks and treating the law like a magic spell, name a more iconic combination.

What's especially odd is how much of the Right's success comes from iffy legal quirks (EC wins, Senate favoring rural states), even as they constantly undermine that very legal apparatus. Like, if the system well and truly breaks, it does not end well for them.

This is similar to southern politics prior to the Civil War. They navigate coalitions, expand their power, but ultimately can't ever really wield that power because the nature of those politics drives them to only further undermine the system.

The time draws near for the 4th American Republic

Post