Politics Thread!

[tufty]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20xn626y81o

Certain electronic items, including smartphones and "computers" will now be exempted from tariffs. Its almost like no-one knows what they're actually doing!

It's quite like a complete and total backdown, an admission that his tariff idea was completely stupid.

[KlaxonCow]

Just a gentle reminder that while everyone's been distracted with tariffs, America has continued to become increasingly fascist and jail / deport all its "deplorables":



A tongue-in-cheek "tier list" of who needs to get the fuck out of America, pronto. But backed up by actual examples throughout.

The most chilling thing was the Trump administration saying "criminals don't deserve due process". The slight problem there being, of course, that due process is what civilised societies use to determine whether someone is a criminal or not in the first place.

How long until European countries, such as the UK, have to seriously consider asylum applications from Americans and can't reject them on "don't be silly" grounds because, no, America really is an actual active danger to certain groups, like transgender people?

[KlaxonCow]

So Trump has not just "paused" his worldwide tariffs, he's cut out a notable exemption to China's 125% tariff.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20xn626y81o

Trump exempts smartphones and computers from new tariffs

US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from "reciprocal" tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports.

In a notice, US Customs and Border Patrol said that the goods would be excluded from Trump's 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax.
[...]
Exemptions - backdated to 5 April - also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.

What's interesting here is that it's not just exempt the 125% tariff but even the 10% global tariff.

(This is why I put "paused" in quotation marks. Because everyone's weirdly taking the Trump administration's use of the word "pause" at face value, yet they are still imposing a global 10% tariff on everyone - bar Russia, North Korea and electronics from China - which is NOT a pause in tariffs. It's a discount, at best. And, if it really is only for 90 days, then it's only a temporary discount as well.

I'm also seeing journalists take Trump at face value over the "countries that did not retaliate". But this is also bollocks, as Canada, the EU and others absolutely were retaliating with reciprocal tariffs. Which is another thing that journalists are taking at face value: Trump calling his tariffs "reciprocal tariffs", which they objectively aren't, as they were not in response to tariffs being imposed on America.

This really is very worrying when news sources and journalists just use the same language of the bullshitters they're reporting on, not what is objectively true. When part of a journalist's job is entirely to "translate" propaganda into facts. Like, we're not obliging Putin in calling his war in Ukraine "a special military operation", are we? At least not without highly sarcastic quotes surrounding it.)

But Trump further undermines his own rhetoric, as he exempts one of the biggest categories of product that is shipped from China. Like "I'm placing a very high tariff on you, China... except for, you know, the biggest class of stuff you export to us". Yes, very convincingly "tough", Mr. President.

I'm sure that Tim Apple is very happy with all of this, at least.

And, of course, the whole tariff idea is dumb as fuck, so the more backing down and exemptions he makes, the better for the world and American economy - because it would be the poorest Americans hit worst by this regressive import taxation (which is what tariffs actually are).

Which is why it's so weird for conservatives to be backing Trump on this - he's very much using "big government" powers of taxation to undermine the free market. Like, a whole series of things that at least fiscal conservatives usually say they're completely opposed to - government interference in the markets, taxation, not letting the free market decide, etc. - but suddenly it's okay because the Mad Orange King says so? The same Trump who, you know, used to give money to the Democrats in times past, so really is only a "Republican", as they're the only idiots desperate enough to let him in, so that they could win.

[KlaxonCow]

But, again, we must not let the distraction of the tariffs dominate the conversation entirely, to miss the other consequences of Trump's increasing fascism.

As well as the jailing / deportation of "undesirables" - a trashing of the judiciary and legal system to explicitly target hated groups - America is also seeing a "brain drain" of historians, scientists and academics too.



Republicans have always had an anti-intellectual streak. But with the removal of the Department of Education, the criticism of universities as being "woke factories", the fact that it's getting more and more dangerous to disagree with Mad King Trump (as some of those arrests and deportations have been based on people voicing the wrong politics - e.g. protesting Israel and advocating the Palestinian cause), then anywhere-but-America is becoming increasingly attractive to academics.

Ranging from the pragmatic reasoning of a loss of government funding - so what can they live on? - to the actual threat of studying an unpopular subject in an increasingly fascist state.

Historians, psychologists, biologists, evolutionists, virologists, etc. whose research doesn't tow the Abrahamic "God made man and woman" line or the anti-vax conspiracy theories - which, you know, will be most of them, as these things are simply not objectively true - are potentially in more danger than simply having their funding removed.

With Brexit, the Brexiteers tried to paint the "Remoaners" as being "Project Fear" to merely point out the economic insanity of such a self-inflicted wound (and you'll note that they were also "tired of experts" too). And, similarly, when the Democrats talked about the last election being in defence of democracy itself, people might have thought that it was just an exaggerated "Project Fear" and not a real threat.

But both times, nah, it's just a reasonable appraisal of the consequences and, with Brexit, it's proved entirely true. Our economic and political standing has fallen, and there really were no "rainbows and unicorns" by way of compensation. Brexit just made things worse, for no advantage whatsoever (and, no, not even the "we now have control of our laws" argument. We don't really. We have to align with EU laws to sell into their market anyway. We still have to comply with their rules when dealing with them. We just gave up our place in being able to decide what those laws were).

We've barely been months into a Presidency that will last (at least) 4 years. There'll be nothing left by the time Trump, refusing to leave office, declares himself "King of America" and President for Life. Indeed, I'm sure that's part of the plan - de-funding and removing everyone and everything that would oppose his coup to permanently take over America in these 4 years, so by the time he's obliged to leave office, there's literally no-one left to go in there and physically eject him anymore. That would be one of the "other means" that Trump was considering for running for a third term.

[KlaxonCow]

Nice "tier list" summation of Trump's tariff insanity.

[F-ZeroOne]

There are now reports that there will be some other kind of tariff(s) on "semi-conductors". I'm sure the tech sector is loving this wild ride from someone who probably thinks a semi-conductor is someone that takes the stand for orchestra rehearsals!

And yes, all this economic fun and games has certainly distracted form the whole "messaging sensitive military information via unapproved channels" business hasn't it?

[KlaxonCow]

And yes, all this economic fun and games has certainly distracted form the whole "messaging sensitive military information via unapproved channels" business hasn't it?

Well, I was more concerned with the "bypassing the rule of law, in order to round hated people up and 'dispose' of them" thing, because of how that eventually turned out in the 1930s with Germany.

But, yes, there's also the sheer incompetence of that national security blunder as well.

[tufty]

Regarding the Abrego Garcia case, they're refusing to bring him back, saying they don't have to. They're openly refusing to comply with a SCOTUS decision.

If it was a Democrat president, the GOP would be tearing the door down to haul them out into the street.

[F-ZeroOne]

KlaxonCow, yeah, I'm just as concerned about the deportations; but as you'd already mentioned it I felt it would have been a bit redundant for me to mention again. They're not just being Nazis about it, they're being grammar Nazis about the wording of the rulings!

[Dio]

I wonder if this is Godel's loophole. He never stated what it was, but after the events of the last few months I wouldn't be surprised if this is basically it:
- the Constitution really doesn't restrain the executive very much, with impeachment really being the only serious lever
- the legislative branch controls impeachment, but this is purely elected, so you can get to an electoral position where the executive is effectively unimpeachable (via a majority in Congress and/or a lack of supermajority in the Senate)
- at that point, the legal branch becomes non-functional because the (massively Presidentially-appointed) executive branch can just instruct their departments to ignore legal decisions.
- and then even what remains of the Constitution is largely irrelevant, because the legal branch is what enforces that
- the executive is also the commander-in-chief, so has control over even the backstop of a popular coup
- the powers of the executive, unrestrained by the constitution, are sufficient to lock in that electoral position

or, to sum it up more concisely, there is no specific legal restraint on the executive - it's impeachment or nowt.

Although he was Austrian and thinking more of the constitutional crisis they had, Godel saw what happened in pre-WW2 Germany - he completely understood the problems that arose from an unrestrained executive branch with legislative support. (If there's a further issue he saw, it might be the question as to whether the President can permanently prevent the assembly of either House or the Senate, via the terms of the constitution or other means through executive powers, at which point he can't be impeached).

All is very far from lost yet. There's already signs the Supreme Court is not giving Trump the blank cheque some had expected. At some point the legislative branch support may waver. it may not be possible to enact the latter quickly enough before the midterms. As with Truss, the market has shown it can fuck everything over and Trump is now definitively scared of that. The power of the really hefty states like NY and CA to fight the federal government is poorly tested in the modern era. And even in the very worst case, it's not at all clear this can last past Trump, when the large number of pretenders will rip each other apart to step into his shoes.

But it does look more than a little dicey at this point.

[Mat]

or, to sum it up more concisely, there is no specific legal restraint on the executive - it's impeachment or nowt.

Well, there is the final backstop offered by the Second. I don't want to see it come to that, but it can't be denied that's part of the original intent.
We're used to seeing it touted by gun-nuts and survivalist "militias", but in reality, the threat of the Second is to keep government from going rogue.

[Dio]

Mmm. Nobody has ever analysed the second amendment in the form "An armed populace can overthrow professional soldiers" with a straight face.

It does happen occasionally. But it's usually down to the professionals switching sides or just quietly buggering off home due to not wanting to shoot people just like them. The right to bear arms therefore doesn't really move that needle too much. Indeed, arguably the opposite.

[zip accident]

Vance puzzles me. Since I last mentioned him, I've discovered he has a Hindu wife with Indian ancestry and three kids with her.

He shouldn't be associating with neo-nazis, but apparently he is.

[KlaxonCow]

The Second Amendment has become a misunderstood mythology at this point.

But if we look to the Virginia Declaration of Rights, then we see the original text - including its true intent - upon which the Second Amendment is so conspicuously based:

Section 13: That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

We can compare and contrast this to the Second Amendment, as essentially just an abbreviated version thereof:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This is essentially where the Bill of Rights comes from. The state of Virginia codified its "Declaration of Rights" for its citizens in its state constitution, and the federal government thought "that's a bloody good idea" and copied over the concept.

It can be seen that Section 12 is the prototype for the First Amendment's "freedom of speech", whilst including Section 16's "separation of Church and State" in the establishment clause (though the US Constitution does it better; Virginia's Declaration mentions Christianity by name, the US Constitution rightly does not presume any particular god - a lot of the Forefathers were deists and likely insisted upon that).

And, of course, the reason why I draw your attention to Virginia's Declaration and its relationship to the Bill of Rights in the Constitution is that, unlike the abbreviated Second Amendment, Section 13 of the Declaration retains its underlying reasoning within it:

...that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty;...

Section 13 is not remotely about the people being armed to defend against their government. It's explicit of its exact purpose.

The worry was a military coup of the newly formed nation. That former soldiers, from the American War of Independence, would not disband. That the new nation could fall to "warlordism" - divided up between warlords - or the coup of a military junta.

And, in fairness, if one reviews the history of new nations, then this is a legitimate worry to have.

But we can see that Section 13's motivation is, in fact, the polar opposite of arming against the civil power - the government - but was absolutely intended to be in defence of it:

...and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

This is not "arm the people to defend against the government". This is "arm the people, so that we don't need standing armies and can disband them". This is "arm the people, so that they can resist any military attempt to usurp the civil power from them, in defence of that civil power".

In modern parlance, the armies can be disbanded, because we'll secure the peace through a well-armed police force. The concept of "the police" didn't exist yet, but they were thinking of sheriffs, deputies, and officers of the law. Each settlement having its own "well-regulated militia" to defend the town's citizenry from external threats. The words "well-regulated militia" are so often overlooked, and combined with being "under strict subordination, and governed by, the civil power", they're describing a police force - the maintenance of the law by appointed, regulated officers. Sheriffs, deputies and, yes, posses of armed citizenry - a militia - but who're regulated under the sheriff's control.

The threat that Section 13 speaks of is standing armies. And that the "well-regulated militia" is in defence of the civil power - the law, the sheriff, the courts, the government - against any threats from external aggressors, like standing armies that didn't feel like disbanding after the war.

The Second Amendment really does not say what the NRA wants you to think it says.

As Dio rightly points out, it's certainly an absurdity in modern times. How exactly is your shotgun going to protect you from a government that's armed with drones, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, the most advanced fighter and bomber jets on the planet, and of course a vast nuclear arsenal (not to mention that we all know that they have an arsenal of devastating chemical and biological weapons as well; even if officially they are a war crime to deploy, both America and Russia keep live samples of the otherwise-extinct Smallpox in their vaults, for example)?

It's silly. If the US government wanted to kill its citizenry, then it could do so remotely, without providing a single target for our shotgun-armed citizen to fire at.

Indeed, ironically enough, they wouldn't stand a chance against the "standing army" of the United States military, which has a defense budget greater than every other nation on Earth combined.

Nah, their real defence from their government issuing the order to mass-murder the people would be the US Army refusing the order and then, realising that the Commander-in-Chief is insane, bringing him in. The true defence is that every US soldier swears their oath to the Constitution of the United States - it's to the Constitution, not to the current Commander-in-Chief - and they are not going to obey an order to nuke their own families.

[tufty]

There's already signs the Supreme Court is not giving Trump the blank cheque some had expected.

Yeah, but the enforcement of the orders handed down by the judicial branch eventually falls into the hands of the executive.

At some point the legislative branch support may waver. it may not be possible to enact the latter quickly enough before the midterms

As I have said before, I do not believe the midterms will not happen in a meaningful way. Trump will be offering the GOP a generation-long supermajority everywhere, via gerrymandering at least, in return for party support. He is not going to be voted out, much less impeached. Every day that goes by is a day he cements his power.