TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
No bio...
User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3d ago
Do you have an actual point here?
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
2mo ago
First, 2A rights and duties of the Executive branch are using "shall" in very different contexts, at least from the Judiciary's perspective.
Also, 2A rights are still largely intact? Some states can screw with you a bit or place some minor restrictions on firearms, but none have been able to ban them outright.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
9mo ago
That's... accounted for? The second article you posted mentioned that neither side really seemed to have a clear physical advantage in stature. If it was a tiny girl that was <100lbs vs an NFL linebacker then a gun might be more understandable, but that wasn't the case here.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
I don't have to dance to your tune.
It's because you can't, because there's going to be novel legal theories somewhere, because that's how common law systems work and this entire line of argument is silly.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
It's a novel argument because whether the president is an "officer" hadn't come up in this context. If you disagree with this, feel free to cite the court case that specifically argues this point in an identical context.
You're effectively arguing that lawyers should never be allowed to make new arguments even if the situation is different.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
You really seem to want to catch me with supposed double-binds and contradictions instead of actually addressing important points.
If the contradictions are true, then fair enough. Like earlier when you mentioned "hey you say Trump's restrictions didn't do much, but then say that illegal immigration exploded when Biden removed them". I could certainly see why someone would think that was a bit weird so a clarification was justified, and even with that clarification I probably wasn't giving Trump enough credit to what might have happened if he didn't do his EO's.
But this is just a nothingburger. I feel like I'm reading the following: "first you said 'immigration', then fell back to 'illegal immigration'. Aha! A concession! Then you said Trump had bad PR because of saying stuff like 'shithole countries', but he didn't say that in a televised address, meaning it wasn't public, yet PR has the word 'public' in it. A contradiction!"
To the object-level claim here, if Trump says something inflammatory to a group who all then promptly leak it to the press, then yes, that's a PR problem. The two options Trump has are either 1) get his leaky ship in order, or 2) think it but don't say it, or at least say it in ways that aren't so clearly controversial. Every time you hear the media complaining about "dogwhistling", it's just Republicans doing this. But Trump never seem to get the memo, which is why he keeps shooting himself and the cause of immigration restrictions in the foot.
The president has wide discretion
They have wide discretion because most of the INA is subject to "may" clauses instead of "shall" clauses right now. Also, R's are looking to have a durable advantage on court appointments due to Dem weakness in the Senate. The idea that R's auto-lose every court case is just not correct.
We've tried things like this before
I don't see any reason for optimism that the compromise
What things have we tried like this before? And why are you talking about a compromise? R's have a trifecta, and immigration is an animating issue, AND Dems are (or were, before the deportation nonsense started) on the back foot on this topic in public opinion. This would be a diktat, not a negotiation.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
2mo ago
you're repeatedly drawn back to this complete bullshit well, and you can't even deflect well.
and the last one is the only bit that fucking matters?
Nope, I'm done with this. And since you've both stated and demonstrated that you don't want engage without going to personal attacks then I'm just probably not going to reply to you much any more.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
2mo ago
I covered this in my earlier post. Yes, the flood that happened under Biden was his fault, although it didn't seem deliberate. It seemed like he wanted to roll back Trump's immigration vibes in nebulous ways, but they way they (Biden or his handlers) effectuated that had unintended consequences that were functionally open-borders via loophole. I know a lot of conservatives on this site take the approach of "never attribute to incompetence that which can plausibly be explained by malice if it involves the outgroup", but the Dem response to immigration afterwards sure made it seem like they knew they fucked up and had dropped a grenade at their feet that they never intended.
Coalitions in the US are large and amorphous, so both your points 1 AND 2 can be correct for different Dems, and they occasionally rotate turns at the wheel depending on who wins elections or who has dementia.
Better immigration laws are needed because the US system is fundamentally broken in ways that only Congress can fix. Executive orders can help (or hurt), but they're just bandaids on a bullethole. You can try mangling interpretations of laws created decades ago and hope the courts don't notice, but they have the annoying habit of saying "hey bro, you can't just ignore Congress" and striking things down. In the status quo, the best conservatives can hope for is Obama-era levels of immigration. At worst, they can expect open borders with next to no recourse. Changing the laws on the books could significantly help that.
MAGA experienced a wave of euphoria from Trump's election until about around the time of the trade disputes. They felt like they were on top of the world, and that nothing could stop them. They notched a few wins against wokeness, but their major victory was in the realm of vibes.
It's increasingly seeming like those days are over. Scott Sumner's article details who's up and who's down over the past few weeks:
Who's Up:
-Neoliberals
-The experts
-TDSers
-The elite media
-Chinese and Canadian liberals
-Deficit hawks
-Principled conservative free speech advocates
-Integrity hawks
-Rules hawks
-Critics of bullying
Who's Down:
-Mercantilists
-The populists
-Anti-anti-trumpers
-Fox News
-Non-US nationalists
-Deficit doves
-Unprincipled conservative free speech advocates
-Issues people
-Autocracy advocates
-American exceptionalists
Edit for more opinions per moderator request: I agree with this article that the vibes have definitely shifted, as it's been clear in my (adversarial) conversations with MAGA that the mood has changed from combative (pre-election) to triumphalism (post election until a few weeks ago) and then back to combative with a hint of disillusionment (today). Any opposition movement is going to have principled believers and cynics, e.g. people who think we should have free speech as a general rule and people who only claim to like free speech but really want to censor their opponents when they come into power. Winning means these splits that could be swept under the rug get blown out into the open, and the pendulum starts swinging back the other direction. Hopefully we don't swing back to crazy wokeness, but I'd pretty much take any alternative at this point. A decade ago I would never have seen myself cheering for The Experts or The Media, but I've seen the alternative now, and it's just so much worse.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3mo ago
Funny, the Democrats explicitly wanted to pass a very conservative immigration bill last year before Trump sabotaged it for cynical reasons.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
8mo ago
I strongly agree with your first suggestion of requiring IDs + making IDs easy to get for lawful citizens.
Third, I’d take reports of anomalies seriously. I don’t care what people think they’re seeing, but if it’s possible fraud, it deserves a full investigation. And prosecution for fraud should be a part of that.
I disagree here. How would this be different from the status quo? Giuliani and smaller Trump-aligned groups filed tons of lawsuits with next to no evidence... and they mostly just got thrown out of court due to having no evidence. People like Raffensperger were investigating claims people were making, but they consistently came up empty.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
So the Democrats have a whole bunch of riots, then steal an election
Once again, there's no evidence the election was stolen. Just an endless gish gallop from Trump, and his supporters motte-and-bailey'ing him with vastly weaker claims when pressed (e.g. "the election was stolen because the media is biased against Trump") before going right back to assuming the strong claims were true when they weren't being pressed.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
2mo ago
That is, Nielsen revolved around the question of whether a statute commanding that the government "shall take" custody of this class of criminal aliens only applied if those criminal aliens were detained immediately after release from jail. It had nothing to do with a requirement for the government to take custody of those criminal aliens and not doing so.
Sure, the central question in Nielsen was about the timing, but the background opinion surrounding that debate was that "shall" = "requirement". This is referenced several times.
The Board of Immigration Appeals has held that subsection (c)(2), which requires the detention of aliens “described in” subsection (c)(1)
Respondents in the two cases before us are aliens who were detained under §1226(c)(2)’s mandatory-detention requirement
Paragraph (1) provides that the Secretary “shall take” into custody any “alien” having certain characteristics and that the Secretary must do this “when the alien is released” from criminal custody. The critical parts of the provision consist of a verb (“shall take”),
It's the same thing for Guzman Chavez. Sure, "shall" isn't the primary question at stake, but that doesn't mean the courts are treating it as something other than an obligation:
But this argument overlooks the rest of §1231’s directive, which states that DHS “shall” remove the alien within 90 days “[e]xcept as otherwise provided in this section.” §1231(a)(1)(A). And, as noted above, “this section” provides for post-removal detention and supervised release in the event an alien cannot be removed within the 90-day removal period, §§1231(a)(3), (6). Interpreting §1231 to apply even if withholding-only proceedings remain pending longer than 90 days thus does not “mak[e] it structurally impossible” for DHS “to satisfy its statutory obligation,”
And lastly:
So, now you've proven zero out of three attempts to show "shall" as enforceable in any approach at an immigration detainment or deportation context, despite the very laws in question being driven by long periods of administrative neglect of the law. Do you care to try a fourth time? Do you think it's a coincidence that you keep conveniently making this class of mistake? Do you think anyone reading you could possibly miss it?
Cut it out with this nonsense. I think this is a productive debate and am enjoying it from that sense, but statements like "Do you think it's a coincidence that you keep conveniently making this class of mistake?" are just obnoxious.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
2mo ago
The last major legislation was in 1986, and it was a mess of compromise and had some incoherencies that would later become evident. Add those issues on top of being 40 years old, and yeah, I'd say it's hardly a surprise things aren't exactly in the best shape today.
The reform bill in 2024 would have gone a long way to fixing it. With that dead, Republicans could have (or could still do, I guess) their own party-line bill now that could fix a lot of the issues.
Is there something specific you're looking for? I'm not sure how much of what you wrote were genuine questions, or whether they were just gesturing at political nihilism and implying that since we didn't get it perfect 40 years ago then there'd be no point in doing anything ever.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
2mo ago
This wasn't true to any serious extent, other than how laws are always interpreted by the judicial system
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
5mo ago
In contrast, watch this video of Trump sound like a lunatic or of this video where he talks about "itchy" heaters. He's clearly suffered a pretty significant mental decline since 2016.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
5mo ago
This is the only sane take. The people claiming this is like a prisoner's dilemma are crazy, given that the prisoner's dilemma involves some level of personal gain (or at least losing less) for playing. Here, it's just pure negative. Nobody here gained from Biden's pardons, nor did they gain by the J6 pardons.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
8mo ago
This strains credulity when the party controlling the presidency has shifted back-and-forth across US history with a nearly metronomic frequency. Also, if Dems only need to take an L "once in a while", why don't they win, say, 2/3rds of House + Senate seats?
It's like a YEC claiming God specifically buried dinosaur skeletons in the ground to mislead scientists.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
10mo ago
In pure polling terms, the Comey letter made Clinton go from +5ish over Trump, to ~+1ish. It'd revert a bit when he posted the "lol jk" retraction 3 days from the election, but most of the damage had already been done. By contrast, Trump being convicted of felonies did almost nothing since he's judged on an extremely generous curve. So in terms of polling, the Comey letter was far worse.
If the left was anywhere close to being as conspiratorially minded as the right is, it could have easily claimed that Comey made a conscious effort to throw the election to Trump with his October Surprise, and that the 2016 election was therefore functionally "stolen". But of course, they didn't do that.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
10mo ago
What in the world?
Trump has never been good at debating. At best he's been OK, as in he's been good enough to not crumple to someone like Jeb Bush's attacks back in 2016, but he's never really gained much from debates, he's just treaded water.
Then in 2020 he gave one of the worst debate performances in presidential history.
And he flubbed strategically in 2024 by letting Biden debate way early, when there was still time for the Dems to change horses. Trump is in a much weaker position because of that debate than where he was before it.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
Please link the court case.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
If Biden wanted to cut down on illegal immigration, he could do it now, without any additional Congressional authority.
I addressed this in the post. To summarize, yes, he could fix it now, to at least some degree. Reimplementing the Remain in Mexico would help. The problem with all of these fixes though is that they're bandaids on bullet holes that don't address fundamental issues like this bill would have.
The Obama administration began counting repeated deportations of the same immigrant as multiple deportations. This was well-known at the time and confounds a simple analysis. Moreover, you neglect to discuss DACA.
His hawkishness was specifically a reference to this chart. Yes, Obama was also more willing to give amnesty than Republicans ever were.
The "shithole countries" remark was not something Trump said in public as part of a "PR" strategy. It was something allegedly said in a closed meeting. Are you saying that Trump is responsible for rumors about him?
Multiple people referenced the exact same remark shortly after the meeting was over, so I think it's safe to assume he really said it. If you want to keep contesting that specific statement, just choose any of his other ones. His hostile rhetoric towards immigrants wasn't exactly a secret.
So what? You were arguing just a few paragraphs ago that these policies don't matter! Trump's policies didn't do anything, because Obama was better, but then Biden undoes Trump's policies, which makes everything worse!
The overarching point on Trump was that his policies were bombastic and good at catching headlines, but that they didn't do much in practice. Comparing the number of illegal immigrant border encounters during Trump's term and Obama's second term is quite similar. Biden was worse than both of them because he tried to go back to Obama's policies, but by then the asylum loophole was well known.
I can grant that in a theoretical alternate universe where Trump didn't do anything on the border, immigration could have surged far worse than it did due to exogenous factors and immigrants catching on to the loophole faster, so Trump's actions might have stopped a surge that would have happened. It's tough to know for sure, but it's plausible.
The reason he did this was as obvious as it was cynical: he didn’t want Biden to have a “win” on the issue.
This is reading Trump's mind.
Multiple senators such as Tillis said this was the reason. Trump himself motioned at the idea on Truth Social when he said he didn't want to "absolve" the Democrats on the issue.
it really makes me question your ability to digest evidence
I just think you're not very astute.
Can it the personal attacks. I enjoy debating people who disagree with me because I think it makes my arguments stronger, but I've had problems in the past with you reverting to personal attacks.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1yr ago
There are problems in the enforcement of justice, but it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. I presume you're referring to the Hunter Biden stuff? Well, that's largely symmetrical to Trump's Russia investigation: Lots of smoke, not much actual fire (at least by the president himself), yet partisans whip themselves into a frenzy over the issue since they're getting a maximally damning picture due to their filtered media consumption. Biden could very well face a frivolous impeachment trial like Trump did as well.
Because Republicans haven't been able to find any evidence to verify it despite looking very hard for years now.
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