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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   27016 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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I'm asking MAGA the question "Now that you have power, what's your plan to deal with immigration long-term, especially once Democrats retake the Presidency sometime in the future"

There is no solution to that. If you wish to exercise power, you must retain power. Your dead writings have power only in as much your opponents are willing to respect them when they are in power, and the Democrats have made it clear that in general, they are not willing to respect such writings.

If you wish to exercise power, you must retain power.

This is true in a basic sense that "Democrats could just repeal anything we pass", but it's not true in this context where we're talking about making things more difficult to do by unilateral executive authority. The Dems have shown they respect the courts in at least some cases, e.g. Biden trying to ban new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, the courts striking it down, and then Biden effectively going "aw shucks guess we can't do that then".

This is true in a basic sense that "Democrats could just repeal anything we pass", but it's not true in this context where we're talking about making things more difficult to do by unilateral executive authority.

The Dems have shown they respect the courts in at least some cases, e.g. Biden trying to ban new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, the courts striking it down, and then Biden effectively going "aw shucks guess we can't do that then".

Biden not only did not go "aw shucks", he issued another ban as a lame duck, and the Democrats assert that only Congress can reverse that.

The Dems have shown they respect the courts in at least some cases, e.g. Biden trying to ban new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, the courts striking it down, and then Biden effectively going "aw shucks guess we can't do that then".

...And the Republicans likewise "respect the courts" in "some areas", and "pursue legislation" in "some areas". The question is whether Republicans should pursue legislation in an area where the Democrats don't respect the courts, and further where it's questionable whether the courts respect the law. And further, how hard should they pursue legislation, given that there are many competing priorities.

This brings up a salient point of interest.

Respecting the courts in some situations can be seen not as principled adherence to the rules of the system, but simply strategic focus on what is really important. Massing one’s best weapons at the decision point, essentially.

So, you wind up in a situation where a side can point to their principled adherence to legal norms in one theatre, while maintaining their technological and human resources superiority in another theatre. In this case, the technology is legalese and the human resources are ideologically bound members of the legal profession.

This is all, to paraphrase a prophet of our times, defection with extra steps. In the context of Democrats and Republicans, it would be unsurprising to see Republicans choosing to not let the battle hinge on Democrat’s preferred decision point. that can be a good strategy or a bad strategy, but it shouldn’t be a surprising one.

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