To the people who read this newsletter and write for it, I applaud the earnestness with which you approach the legalistic issues surrounding these executive orders. I am equally appalled by the lack of context in which you frame this debate. The arguments cited assume that there is some rule of law still intact, that history-altering consolidation of power is not taking place at the very same moment. (Just in the past 48 hours, the additions to this already long list include Trump attempting to seize control of the USPS, Trump raising the prospect of seeking an unconstitutional third term, Elon Musk gutting agencies that regulate his businesses, etc.)
In that context, can you really debate the language in an executive order? We know that more than half of these orders are illegal. Yet many of the clearly illegal ones, as well as other illegal actions such as firing the inspectors general of most cabinet agencies, are still in place.
A compliant Republican Senate has ceded its constitutional authority.
The people who write here seem to offer little consideration for this larger picture. It's ignored, or even mocked. In a previous post, Elon Musk's Nazi salute was dismissed as something that gets the "woke" crowd riled up. Also ignored here is his endorsement of the AfD, Vice President JD Vance's implicit endorsement of the same extremist group, Bannon's Nazi salute, the installing of people who openly espouse Christian nationalism in cabinet posts and other senior offices.
What I perhaps find most disgusting about the views I've seen expressed here is that they exclusively operate from the Jewish context. I'd sum it up as: Persecution is fine, as long as it happens to other people. These others include trans people (a marginalized group also mocked by those who write here) and those who criticize Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
Jewish history is long. And it is full of lessons of how the erosion of the rule of law, of protections for all, end tragically.
I commend to you the recent speech by J.B. Pritzker who puts this in the proper context.
I also ask you to engage in a thought experiment: Picture the United States on its current course two years from now. Are we allied with Putin against Europe? Have we instituted special protections and privileges for Christians in the United States? Have these EOs that you reference been used not just top quash dissent but to expel and persecute those who tried to express themselves, serving as a chilling warning to others who might also stand up?
Is the medicine too strong? Or is it actually poison?
To the people who read this newsletter and write for it, I applaud the earnestness with which you approach the legalistic issues surrounding these executive orders. I am equally appalled by the lack of context in which you frame this debate. The arguments cited assume that there is some rule of law still intact, that history-altering consolidation of power is not taking place at the very same moment. (Just in the past 48 hours, the additions to this already long list include Trump attempting to seize control of the USPS, Trump raising the prospect of seeking an unconstitutional third term, Elon Musk gutting agencies that regulate his businesses, etc.)
In that context, can you really debate the language in an executive order? We know that more than half of these orders are illegal. Yet many of the clearly illegal ones, as well as other illegal actions such as firing the inspectors general of most cabinet agencies, are still in place.
A compliant Republican Senate has ceded its constitutional authority.
The people who write here seem to offer little consideration for this larger picture. It's ignored, or even mocked. In a previous post, Elon Musk's Nazi salute was dismissed as something that gets the "woke" crowd riled up. Also ignored here is his endorsement of the AfD, Vice President JD Vance's implicit endorsement of the same extremist group, Bannon's Nazi salute, the installing of people who openly espouse Christian nationalism in cabinet posts and other senior offices.
What I perhaps find most disgusting about the views I've seen expressed here is that they exclusively operate from the Jewish context. I'd sum it up as: Persecution is fine, as long as it happens to other people. These others include trans people (a marginalized group also mocked by those who write here) and those who criticize Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
Jewish history is long. And it is full of lessons of how the erosion of the rule of law, of protections for all, end tragically.
I commend to you the recent speech by J.B. Pritzker who puts this in the proper context.
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/illinois-gov-jb-pritzker-warns-against-authoritarianism-in-address-232454725674
I also ask you to engage in a thought experiment: Picture the United States on its current course two years from now. Are we allied with Putin against Europe? Have we instituted special protections and privileges for Christians in the United States? Have these EOs that you reference been used not just top quash dissent but to expel and persecute those who tried to express themselves, serving as a chilling warning to others who might also stand up?
Is the medicine too strong? Or is it actually poison?
And what role did you play in all of this?