JTarrou
1hr ago
Charitably and technically, it's any time the function of government doesn't follow the constitutional rule. When the structure of the constitution runs into the practice of power in reality.
Realistically and politically, it's whenever the opposing side does something that can even tendentiously be considered a constitutional issue.
But there are and will be actual crises. The constitution has been partially suspended using military and emergency powers (Lincoln, FDR, etc.). The Supreme Court has decided presidential elections, and so have private political parties. The President has started an awful lot of wars without a declaration of war.
In reality, unconstitutional behavior only becomes a constitutional crisis if another branch of government is fighting you on it, and both sides are relatively evenly matched.
JTarrou
1hr ago
If you're thinking of this in terms of race, you gotta be more granular. Look for big families. Races don't have kids, people do. And people come from families with their own norms about kids. All you gotta do is find a big, close family to marry into. Find you a girl with double digit siblings, that will do more for your genetic legacy than trying to read the tea leaves about future social climbing.
My grandfather has nearly eighty direct descendants, I have thirty nieces and nephews and almost two hundred cousins. My family reunions are hundreds and hundreds of people strong. Some of us are criminals, some are religious nutcases, some are poor, more than a few are a bit trashy. But we are fertile. There will be no shortage of my clan in the future.
JTarrou
2d ago
It's quite the gambit to move to a foreign country for a better life and then extoll the virtues of your former society whilst being loudly racist against the majority of your new one. Bold move Cotton.
"Yes, I moved to China for a six-figure salary, but I would never let one of these chinks marry my son or daughter, they're racists!" - op-ed in a chinese newspaper
Of course, it says something about US culture that our "respectable" media organs are gagging to print this sort of slop.
JTarrou
3d ago
The American left has always sided with the opponent. They sided with the Confederacy, with Germany and Russia and Vietnam and Afghanistan etc. etc. etc. The only war in our history they supported "our" side was when they got faked out by the collapse of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Had Hitler not invaded Russia, the American left would still be on side with the Nazis and Stalin.
That's what it means to be "left wing". There is no other meaning or definition that explains the political phenomena.
No national identity can include the left, because the left definitionally opposes their own nation.
JTarrou
5d ago
Assuming that one's values are permanent and universal is a common religious belief.
As Ft says, this is conflict/mistake theory and while mistakes are common, the mistakes mostly occur because of conflict that incentivizes them.
Any group of three people or more will have conflict. Any group of people will have conflict with other groups of people. That's why we join groups. The liberal really does believe that he needs every immigrant he can get to break the back of white supremacy, to make sure his group wins. His group is just not "American citizens" in the way the conservative privileges that identity.
Every identity conceals a hidden struggle, a compromise, a division. America is red tribe blue tribe, white and black, male and female. It is only by forging a common identity that supersedes those divisions that people can get on the same side. But that identity in turn needs opposition to form it. We are Americans, not Mexicans or Canadians. The conflict, resolved at a lower level, simply moves up the chain.
The reverse is also true. The removal or delegitimization of one's opponent can lead to reignition of internal struggles. As the Soviet Union failed, the US became more internally divided. Without a simple global opponent to threaten the American identity, our political divisions steadily widen, even as policy difference shrinks.
Previously the former, now the latter.
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