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Notes -
Paxton's condescension at the opposition probably isn't great for the longer-term stability of the nation, but in terms of direct impact, I'm more worried about everybody else. If the future were dominated by the most authoritarian political movements in the country stomping each other's faces, well, it'd be bad, but I can't say it would be bad because of the poor innocent jerks.
It's the people in the crossfire. There's always some fuzzy edges where maybe the immigration enforcement is rough-handed to discourage illegal immigrants, or maybe the LGBT restrictions are breaking privacy For The Children, or what have you, but there's also times where people are pretty obviously hammering a matter to drum up attention, or even just because they'd be expensive in human and financial and political capital to defend, and Paxton hasn't hesitated.
Paxton's far from unique in this, and I'm not sure he's even in the top ten. If politics were the proverbial game of chicken, we've long since gone from simply throwing the steering wheel out the window, to shooting a hired driver and cutting the brake lines. But Garland's been bad enough, and we don't need two in a row.
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