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Throwing in a quick post because I'm surprised it hasn't been discussed here (unless I missed it!), Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago sets up "ICE-free zones" in Chicago.
This comes on the heels of Trump sending in the national guard after Chicago PD apparently wouldn't help ICE agents under attack. I haven't read all the stuff about this scenario, but on the surface level it seems pretty bad, I have to say.
There's a video clip where that mayor is saying that Republicans want a "redo of the Civil War," amongst other incredibly inflammatory things. The Governor of Illinois is apparently backing the mayor up.
This refusal to help ICE and even outright claim that you're fighting a war with them I mean... I suppose Democrats have been doing it for a while. This seems... bad. I mean sure you can sugarcoat it and point to legal statues and such, but fundamentally if the local governments of these places are going to agitate so directly against the President, I can't blame Trump for sending in the national guard.
Obviously with the two party system we have a line and such, but man, it's a shame that our politicians have fully embraced the heat-over-light dynamics of the culture war, to the point where they really are teetering on the brink of starting a civil war. Not the social media fear-obsessed "civil war" people have been saying has already started, but real national guard vs. local pd or state military type open warfare. I just don't understand going this far, unless the Mayor of Chicago thinks that he can get away with it and Trump will back down.
Even then, brinksmanship of this type seems totally insane!
I suppose Newsom in CA has been doing it too, now that I mention it. Sigh. I hope that we can right this ship because man, I do not want to have to fight in a civil war I have to say. Having studied history, it's a lot more horrible than you might think.
Everyone throws oil into the fire and kicks mud around. From one perspective:
The government is deploying the military because of civil violations. Other types of civil violations involve running a red light, building a deck without a permit, accidentally spilling a small amount of pollutants, filing your taxes late (this is closest), letting your dog roam unleashed. If they are merely enforcing the current law, why in this manner? Does or should the military repel down helicopters to clear entire buildings and check everyone's tax documents on the presumption of guilt? Why is it doing differently here? If the law is wrong, why are they not changing regulations etc.?
From another perspective, sure, mass immigration is a threat against Western civilization and the other side hates patriots. But again, why are they not changing the laws to deal with this more thoroughly and why is all effort directed towards more pious coreligionists instead of Muslims or Hindus or Jews etc.?
From my own perspective, I have little idea what anyone's actually doing. It all seems like incompetence or self-sabotage, randomly flailing around with no coherence. I don't think anyone benefits besides China and goldbugs.
Whether those are valid reference class comparisons to illegal immigration is almost the entirety of the debate. Rightly or wrongly, people feel much more strongly about immigration than other items you listed. It may be an area where the law is lagging popular opinion.
However, assuming that they are valid I think the missing dimension is scale and state capacity. It would be wrong to bring down the military on a jaywalker, yes. But if instead of a jaywalker it was a sufficient number of jaywalkers to significantly impede the operation of a government building, jaywalking in that location not for the sake of jaywalking but for the sake of impeding. Then you might send in the military to ensure that the government building is clear of jaywalkers so that the building can operate according to its function. It would be technically true in such a scenario that you were "deploying the military because of jaywalking" but the military doesn't care about and isn't enforcing the laws against jaywalking as such.
And I support the use of the military in such a case.
But there is the possible complication - what if the majority of the people in the area of the government building would prefer that the jaywalkers successfully prevent the government building's operation?
That's the point the top comment is making. If popular opinion is in line with Trump, then the votes should bestow enough power onto the Republicans to formally change the regulations. That's the whole point of a democracy.
Instead, Republicans have slim filibuster-able majority in the House and the Senate. The House can user the nuclear option, eliminate the filibuster and pass whatever law they want to pass. If a sufficiently large majority agree with you, then win 59% senate seats and pass what you want.
The fact that Trump isn't doing that, shows that the popular opinion may not be fully onboard with this style of aggressive ICE deportation.
Given that 7 Republican house members explicitly oppose this style of ICE raids for non-violent illegals, I'd argue Trump is operating below simple majority on this issue.
"Should," according to a civics textbook model of how our "democracy" works, but, as we can see, it clearly doesn't. Yes that's "the whole point of a democracy," which is why its absence demonstrates that our "democracy" is a sham.
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