8mo ago

'This is the crisis moment': Political scientist says Trump crossed a crucial red line

www.rawstory.com 'This is the crisis moment': Political scientist says Trump crossed a crucial red line

Jacob Levy, Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University, cautioned in a Blue Sky thread that the case involving a Maryland man the U.S. government acknowledges was "wrongfully deported" has reached a "crisis moment."In March, Kilmar Ábrego García was accused of being an MS-13 gang m...

94 comments

You meant ANOTHER crucial red line.
- We're running out of red ink for all these red lines being crossed.
  
  experts are trying to convince americans to respond, but we aren't.
  
  Tariffs have doubled the cost of red-lines, as they were sourced in S. E. Asia, processed in a small barely-know penguin island, and packaged in Denmark.
- The previous dismissals of court orders were injunctions, not rulings. That’s a contempt of court charge, not a constitutional crisis.
  Today were both the first and second rulings he has openly defied. The first was refusing to return Garcia. The second was refusing to allow the AP into the Oval Office to cover the press conference.
  
  Right, so NOW we'll see how things are, or are not, going to work. Next, the military is up. They would need to remove him from office and let new elections run. If not, then it's up to us, the last line of defense.
- I look behind us and I just see a red road. It's all red lines, all the way back.
- So that's what the stripes are got e on your flag?
- No, this is probably the first one.
  The previous one where they disobeyed a court order (turning around planes to El Salvador, stopping new planes from taking off) they successfully appealed that court order to where the Supreme Court declared that order void.
  This one (facilitate the return of a wrongfully deported man) is the first one where they've just outright refused, and are pretending they can't comply.
  This is a big deal, and it's unprecedented, even for Trump. This is the red line, and we're going to see a full blown constitutional crisis this week if it doesn't get resolved.
  
  I agree in the sense that the way things played out the narrative can be he was right the whole time, so someone inclined to avoid conflict can excuse it, but even if you're right, you're still obligated to follow court orders until you successfully get it stayed or appealed. They got a lawful order from a court to turn around flights and just didn't. The order doesn't need to be at the end of an appeal to the Supreme Court before it has effect.
- yeah its like a goalpost redline. Whelp its not really facism until he does x, oh well we are fine unless he gets away with y..............

LOL the Orange Turd crossed the line a long time ago when he tried to overthrow the government with his MAGAt army.
- I’m so sick of the media playing this fucking game.
  
  The media in this country is so infuriating. They asked if we were going to do anything about it, and Bondi says its up to El Salvador. So they asked the El Salvador Hitler, and he says "What am I supposed to do? Its not up to me to make decisions for another country, its a preposterous question!"
  Literally EVERY person in the world who could negotiate such a thing was sitting right there in that room, and none of the "journalists" suggested they work it out right now, with the whole world watching.
  Yesterday, Peter Navarro was on Meet The Press, and the host never asked him a single question about his primary source for his tariff expertise being a phony expert whose name is an anagram of his own. Its all I would have talked about, but she never alluded to it at all, even at the end when he was blathering on with weird insincere flattery of the host (I got the idea that that's how he addresses HitlerPig). The guy is a total fraud, and yet he is in charge of our disastrous tariff strategy, and she can't ask him a single question about his obvious fraudulent qualifications on the subject.
  The journalists in the White House Press Corps, and hosting shows like Meet The Press, are supposed to be the top journalists in their proffession, but they treat their jobs as if their only responsibility is to provide a platform for the worst people to present their propaganda as Truth, without any questions.
- He was openly threathening US people, or "dissidents". So he is basically saying in between lines, that if you rise against him, he'll do very crazy things. This makes me hope for a Quick removal of the rot.
  
  Everyone's waiting for someone to do something about this problem but no one seems to know what to do about it or are openly cheering it on.
- "If that's not the crisis, nothing is," he closed.
  The writer's almost there: nothing is.

Oh. Okay. THIS is the crisis moment. Sure.
- Surely this time people will all get together and walk down to DC and drag his orange ass out onto the lawn. Surely.
  
  Best they can do is applaud AOC and Sanders while they hold a speech.

The American people's passiveness with regard to "red lines" is about on par with Putin's overuse of the term. I expect a bit of whining online for 24-48 hours but no meaningful actions.
- Mass organizing in the US is logistically difficult, and all our media is owned by people who want to see the protests fail so the coverage isn't amazing. But we have millions of people protesting right now and the numbers have been growing fast. Protesters have been under threat of arrest and possible death for ages, and they're opening it up to "get black bagged and sent to tortureville forever". We have so much working against us even getting resistance off the ground and yeah we aren't amazing at it, there's a good chance we can't pull it off, but we're trying
- Would you rather people stop dissenting online?
  
  If dissenting online makes them feel like they are doing enough to not act IRL, yes.

American conservatives have proudly declared their desire to disregard these "red lines" for decades. I'm done waiting on the media to recognize them for what they are - enemies.
- You can’t wait for the media, because the media is largely owned by the far right.
  They make highly inflammatory right leaning news programs, and highly complacent left leaning news programs. It keeps the right active and angry, and tells the left to sit down and fret quietly while waiting for due process to solve problems.

- Sadly it'll be all of us going off the cliff if this shit persists.
  
  Me an European laughs in Bugs Bunny
- Man I miss old Looney Tunes.
  I went and saw the new movie with Porky Pig and Daffy Duck: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie and it was pretty darn good.
  And listen, I know now isn't really a good time to watch a movie and get distracted, but it did a pretty good job of distracting me and made my mental health a tiny bit better not having to think about what we're going through and will be going through.
  
  There’s nothing wrong with taking a little break from reality. You’ve got to let your mind a soul rest for a bit or you’ll just get depressed!

- In a world with habitual line steppers, we need a Charlie Murphy to "check" them.

And nothing will be done because it's not just Trump crossing that crucial red line, every Republican is right there behind him.
- He, his cronies, and half the party need to be tried for treason.
  
  Only half?
- And at least a third of the country (and another third doesn't care).

In a true democracy that would be way beyond the red line, but in USA today, this is just another Monday.

You're going to have to be more specific.....
- Oh come on! More specific? It's not that hard. How many red lines did he cross today?
- "Swirly thing alert!"
- They aren't talking about him tripping over that tie, so it's a different red line

No.
When he deports a citizen who is immediately killed in prison, that's a red line.
And even then only if he's white, and Christian enough.
- These are red lines of unacceptable behavior and policy, not the lines marking when Americans will actually pay attention. And even if what you describe were to happen, all the Trump supporters would just come up with excuses, while others would protest through the usual channels and be ignored.
  
  These are red lines of unacceptable behavior and policy
  Oh man, you almost had me there, good one!
  Sounds like something the Onion would have put out in their heyday, you know, before the utter collapse of reality.
- I don't think that would do mit either. Not even if it's a pregnant woman.
  It will be deflected, as the prisons fault, and Trump will continue to send pregnant women without a second thought.
  
  It's all boiling a frog. If he did that day one it would be over the line and cause response. Each step along the way that is eventually accepted makes the next step easier, which enables the one after that and so forth. They deported "criminals" not legally in the country with little protest, they faced little pushback when it turned out they weren't criminals, so they then moved on to those who are here legally. And as this is becoming mundane they're laying the groundwork for it to be citizens.
  The only line they have is what the people will tolerate, and they're expanding that day by day.

Yeah, eight years ago.

When 'Yes, Prime Minister' had a scene about salami tactics, it was referring to the Russians invading West Berlin.
It feels far more relevant to Nazi America today than the actual Russian invasion of Ukraine.
What parody are we living in?
- And also, the American people don't actually have a button to protect themselves from the government

I'm crushing your head!
CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!

Will things ever go back to normal?
- No. Even if he's gone, the world is irrevocably changed. We're all going together on this dark ride. The sooner people realize that, the better. Then maybe something can be done.
  
  Your comment reads as "no, but yes if we fix it" to me. It's that what you were trying to convey? If not, could you explain a bit please?
- No.
  I'm speaking as a fairly moderate, average American who's been around almost a half century.
  I am telling you and anyone who reads this, that this is NOT going back to normal. This is going to get worse. I promise you, you all need to understand this thing I'm about to shout here:
  NOBODY IS COMING.
  If we want to fix this, we have to do it ourselves. And I have very little allusion that liberal, comfy America and the military is going to dream of upsetting their careful balance and privilege, and they will keep their head down and keep working even as their rights are stripped away and nobody can afford food or water anymore without realizing they're boiled toads.
  Buy beans and rice. Save money. Quit expensive habits and get healthy. Update your passport and put some cash and gold aside in case you need to leave and the banks won't give you money. Maintain contact with people outside the USA in case you need contacts somewhere. I am dead-fucking-serious.
- This is the new normal
- Societies change, as often for the worse as they do for the better. It also depends what you consider "normal". For many boomers growing up in the 50's and 60's this is fairly normal. We've used to shoot students protesting an actual invasion against Vietnam.
  And then there are still a lot of immigrants here who fled really bad dictatorial shit holes. They look at headlines going "ICE deported 300 people this week" and go "It's not even a thousand and they were not gunned down in the streets and their families exterminated, what are you complaining about?". Perspective.
  Fight it however you can, or don't.
- What normal? The only thing that's really changed is that the U.S. isn't masking their crimes in flowery language. It wasn't that long ago that we were shooting student protestors in campus and segregating our population based on race. We have plenty of experience in illegally removing migrants and have already used concentration camps.
  The U.S. might put the mask back on someday, but they've been an evil empire for basically their entire existence. It's unlikely it will change in our lifetimes.
- no
  
  NO?

McGill professors love warning about red lines from their safe space in a city that's "just more European". It's a gradient, and the US is in between cherry and crimson right now.

94 comments