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what left and the right both understand is that we are approaching a moment of constitutional rupture. what the right understands and the left does not is that extraconstitutional violence is not some magic "i win" button. rather the rupture will proceed through the forms and orders of american law.
Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...
Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org
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this is why the republicans are not *right now* out there committing purges and murders and deportations. they can't, not until *donald trump wins the election.*
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there is a reason they have spent so much time *articulating a vision* of why their extra-constitutional measures are nevertheless "within the spirit" of the idea that is america. there is a reason their judges and lawyers have written so much bullshit about why their rupture will actually be legal!
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contrast this with the insipid plans of the left for a constitutional rupture: "go to therapy" "found a community garden" "build a guillotine" "throw a protest and let the riot sort it out" e.g.: ijeomaoluo.substack.com/p/how-we-get...
How We Get Through Thisijeomaoluo.substack.com Beyond the Book: Buckle up y'all. Shit's about to get really rough.
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these are not serious plans for dealing with a reactionary autogolpe.
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as liberals it's time we woke the fuck up. it is not certain but it is certainly possible that we are approaching a moment of constitutional rupture. it's time we began to articulate our plans for resisting that rupture and restoring America to what it was meant to be
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the same question before us as was before the generation of '76 and every generation hence: whether we are fit to govern ourselves--or not.
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in brief, this. bsky.app/profile/thew...
I would very much like to see Dems start putting forward a specific reform agenda for constitutional democracy, mixing laws, norms, and Constitutional change, but all to the specific end of restoring majority rule. Even if they can't win it all.
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I think a lot of the pieces are pretty easy, too! Constitutional amendments: * Right to vote * Non-immunity of POTUS * Congress can limit political spending * Congress can regulate access to weapons * Anti-gerrymandering * SCOTUS reform (non-life tenure, at least)
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Rules would be mainly ending blue slips and ending the filibuster. Laws: Admit PR and DC as states, double the size of the House, expand the Court, lobbying/corruption reform
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Real question here: the radical right population of the USA is large enough to make these changes functionally impossible. How do we accomplish them with a right wing population that absolutely will not let them through?
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Demographically, they will lose their numbers. They already are, really. Project 2025 is an attempt to prevent the loss of power that is coming for them under a democracy.
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Understandable, and I hope the demographic shift holds. It's cold comfort, though, for folks in places like Utah, Wyoming, or the South. What's the recourse of folks like that, who live in places where the demographic shift will not overcome authoritarianism in their lifetimes?
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The South, for one, isn't so much demographically conservative as it is gerrymandered and voter suppressed all to hell. Federal laws re:gerrymandering would probably help there. Wyoming isn't having demographic shifts that other places have because young people are just leaving, and Utah is weird. 🤷‍♀️
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I hope us and people like us can survive waiting for these demographic shifts to happen. This feels like trying to wait out a prison sentence where at any moment the warden may just decide to randomly execute people. Not everyone is able to leave when the violence comes looking for them.
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I'm uncertain whether this is our best hope, but regardless, maintaining democracy in even one state is better than in no states, especially since there is a relatively higher amount of freedom of movement between states than between nations.