https://twitter.com/CharESilver/status/826447357105491968I've tried to mostly avoid posting in here for several reasons, mostly not wanting to be seen as a crazy doomsayer, or spout now-pointless I-told-you-sos. I guess I should at least once, though. So here we go.
Trump's (and when I say Trump, I mean that as a shorthand for his entire regime, including Bannon etc) behavior has never been mysterious. It has been and remains crystal clear. His quote about doing whatever he wants and grabbing people by the pussy is neither a joke nor an exaggeration. This is hard conservative abusive power play 101. He is not going to stop. He is going to go all the way. Deadly serious. While I hoped to escape that world and not have to talk about it very much here, it's depressing and baffling to see people still - STILL! NOW! - not taking him seriously and saying things like "there's no way this will hold up in court!" and "keep it up, our congressmen say they're swamped with complaints!"
None of that is going to do anything, because enforcement has sided with Trump. The rule of law is already dead and gone.
Not to say that calling your congresscritters is a bad idea or you shouldn't do it; I did, and you probably should. It can't hurt... much. Probably. But we are far past the point where that could effect any meaningful change.
It no longer matters what the courts say. It no longer matters what Congress says. The power of enforcement is gone; people at the airports have no choice but to do what the men with guns tell them to do, and that's all there is to it. Very simple.
Impeaching Trump is also useless, this late in the game. You want to know what happens if Congress votes to impeach him tomorrow? Everyone voting in favor is arrested and replaced. The impeachment is declared null, invoking some procedural loophole, or making one up if necessary. Or the vote fails in the first place, because too many congressmen are afraid for their lives, bribed, or make a decision to stay in office where they can try to accomplish some small things instead of throwing their career away in opposition. Trump supporters throw a victory parade about removing "the threat to America." Non-Trump supporters maybe finally get up and riot, and are duly shot.
The only remaining realistic hope of stopping Trump is a military coup, and even that is looking less realistic by the hour. These court orders, these congressional acts - someone's going to have to stand up and enforce them, with emphasis on the "force" part. The Marshals are, apparently, already declining to do so, despite that being their job. So the prospects for people who even *can* do this are getting mighty slim, and many of them seem more inclined to side with Trump than against him.
That's really all there is to it, in the present. People do what the men with the guns tell them to do.
If you want to look into the past, sure, blame everywhere, lots of warning signs. Warning for extreme personal take here forward. The Patriot Act and establishment of the DHS laid the groundwork of a takeover, and the failure to repeal or meaningfully challenge them cemented its inevitability.
The last remaining olive branch of popular accountability in the system, the one thing people could point to and go "you need this or it won't fly" was the presidential election. Not just now, but 17 years ago, after Congress' first attempt to impeach a modern-era president failed. That affirmed to the public that 'President > Congress' in terms of authority. Regardless of what the law actually says the President's powers are, what people believe is that an Executive Order from the President is the highest level of authority in the United States, and it's belief that matters here. Particularly, the belief of a majority of law enforcement and armed forces. The Democratic Party to date has completely and utterly failed to understand this, or, more charitably, refused to believe it, placing their faith instead in the rule of law. But that, unfortunately, is not what the electorate at large actually wanted or expected.
Obama ran on a platform of Change and grand campaign promises, won resoundingly, and then failed to make good on his promises. Didn't close Guantanamo. Didn't make a grandstanding pullout in Iraq. Didn't establish universal healthcare. Lost against Congressional terrorist tactics and budget shutdowns. Failed to even quell the most ridiculous rumors about him being a secret Muslim Kenyan. Sure, he did a lot of other great things, but
nobody cares. To the fickle and unengaged general public, he was a weak failure of a president who promised change and action and failed to deliver it, instead wasting his entire stock of eight years of political capital on a half finished, less than half funded healthcare system that took the next president just a couple of days to completely dismantle.
Then the Democrats come and run Hillary, on the same platform or lack thereof that lost to Obama eight years prior, except there isn't even a Dubya and an unpopular war providing easy targets anymore. Despite enthusiasm and momentum on the side of Bernie Sanders (another candidate promising to enact radical change, even compared to Obama), Hillary gets the nom, and faces yet another candidate promising radical change.
And now here we are, with Trump having passed the last test he needed to pass. He gets to do what he wants now. There's no one left to tell him no, and he has no qualms about using his power to gain more power.
Anyway, county sheriff Sally Hernandez is making something of a stand here in Austin, and it even looks like the police departments might be with her. Abbott will probably try and have her removed within a month; if that goes down and I stop showing up here, you can assume that's where I'll be.
