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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   31587 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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I'll just link to the comment I made on @Dirty_DemSoc 's "WHY BOTHER" post. Since its relevant to the protests AND the assassinations.

Quote:

And yet we know that democratic elections don't completely avert violence, or else Mexico's most recent election wouldn't have been so damn bloody. Turns out that violence is also a way to influence outcomes in a democracy, when you don't expect the votes to go your way 'organically.' So there's a bit of a feedback loop.

Right now we're in a phase where a minority faction is fomenting chaos for want of being able to achieve their goals via electoral process.

In a sense, this is ALSO one faction that is demonstrating that it has motivated, competent shooters on its side, so if something real DID pop off they are at least capable of carrying out deadly violence. The capacity for this violence is no longer just theoretical.

Of course the basic motives will be more complex than that, but the goal of having mass protests is ALSO to demonstrate "we are numerous, we are organized, and we could turn violent if things don't change in our favor!"

But we had a spate of lefty-coded assassination/killing attempts going back at least to Trump's earshot, and THAT trend is a bit scarier because the people of his tribe either ignore it (tacitly approving, I'd say), line up in support like with Luigi, or actually denounce it and try to lower the temperature and root out the radicals among them who are willing to get froggy.

Anything other than the last option will mean MORE attempts going forward. I'm waiting with a TON of consternation for the first FPV drone-based assassination that succeeds.

PLEASE try lowering the temperature, Dems.

PLEASE try lowering the temperature, Dems.

I agree, but let us also remember to pin some blame on Trump for doing the ICE raids as flamboyantly as possible.

Obama deported 410,000 people in 2012 and managed to avoid cameras far better.

I am convinced Trump wants liberals to overreact because it's the best campaign ad and the mobs are happy to take the bait.

Yes, black bag the illegals in the dead of night and try to suppress news coverage of the "dissappearances."

Quiet, stealthy operation.

Do you believe the left would sit quietly by for such tactics?

There's a huge gulf between that and what Trump is doing currently. Trump is making these raids as much a spectacle as possible.

Did we forget the Studio Ghibli rendition of the crying handcuffed deportee tweeted by the White House? What about videos captioned "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight"?

He even has fucking Dr Phil accompanying raids now.

And I'm suggesting that it wouldn't really matter.

The riots in 2020 were triggered by one guy dying under sketchy circumstances.

If Trump didn't give them am impetus, I think they'd find one.

It's not particularly surprising for Trump to run on a mass deportation platform... then make a big deal about fulfilling that promise.

The riots in 2020 were triggered by one guy dying under sketchy circumstances.

This seems like a spectacular failure to grasp the deep, unresolved tension in the US over how law enforcement conducts itself. There were anti-police protests in 2014 under Obama as well. You can't attribute these things to a single police murder.

then make a big deal about fulfilling that promise.

This is not making a big deal out of enforcement. It is ostentatious cruelty (one might even say the cruelty is the point :v).

You've also got things like ICE going after valid visa holders, calling immigrants "invaders", and the DHS declaring intent to "liberate" LA from the socialists.

So what's the deep, unresolved tension surrounding keeping noncitizens in the country?

Is there any reason other than "it helps us win elections?"

So what's the deep, unresolved tension surrounding keeping noncitizens in the country?

The competing interests and preferences of nativists, anti-nativists, employers, consumers, etc... combined with a deadlocked political system that effectively leaves immigration policy up to the caprices of executive discretion.

Is there any reason other than "it helps us win elections?"

What is that supposed to mean? Illegal immigrants can't vote, so the "importing voters" theory doesn't hold up so well, and their mere existence alienates the xenophobe vote, so it's hard to call it a winning electoral strategy. Even if you think they're wrong, you should probably take immigration advocates at their word when they offer humanitarian and economic justifications for supporting immigration.

Illegal immigrants aren't supposed to vote. That doesn't mean they do not. Many states give them DLs and auto-register everyone with a DL. In addition, many jurisdictions dont actually check ID (as in photo ID or any other) when people vote, particularly by mail.

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