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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16125 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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Trump is calling for the arrest and trial of six Democrat lawmakers who posted a video telling the intelligence community not to follow unlawful orders,. The video claims that the current administration is threatening democracy and the constitution, and that the military "must refuse illegal orders."

Trump also apparently had another post that just said, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."

This is the first time I have genuinely increased the probability of a real civil war breaking out, this is an absolutely terrifying escalation by both sides. While the Democrats were hinting extremely obviously that the military / intelligence community should basically pull off a coup, I also think that Trump hinting back that they should be executed is way beyond the pale.

Hopefully we're still in nothing ever happens land? I for one do not want to live through a civil war.

I'm just gonna post a transcript here because the reaction to this seems insane to me.

[Video opens with the six congresspeople (Elisa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, Jason Crow) identifying themselves and giving their military/intelligence backgrounds] We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community. Who take risks each day to keep Americans safe. We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military. But that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this constitution. Right now, the threats to our constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders [Kelly]. You can refuse illegal orders [Slotkin]. You must refuse illegal orders [Deluzio]. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution. We know this is hard and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant. But whether you're serving in the CIA, the Army, our Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back. Because now, more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our constitution, and who we are as Americans. Don't give up [Kelly]. Don't give up [Deluzio]. Don't give up [Crow]. Don't give up the ship [Slotkin].

Characterizing the speech above as a call for a coup or sedition seems crazy. Like, courts have held that some of the orders Trump has given the military on American soil are unlawful! That is literally a thing that is happening! Trump is, as literally as possible, giving the military illegal orders as determined by a court of law. This is not even getting into the boat strikes that I think are straightforwardly murder. "If the president tells you to do something illegal, as he has already done, you must not do it." "THIS IS TREASON!"

All of this is happening in the context of a serious battle for authority on a grand scale. Whether the troops should (that's a moral should, not a legal should) be listening to their elected president Donald Trump or U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb is precisely the issue in question. To a big chunk of the country, the legal wing of the government has vastly overstepped its remit and is engaged in constant tendentious legal warfare to undermine the elected leader of the country. They are misusing the authority that they have been given and have no moral right to use the tools that they are attempting to wield.

If you see the world in that way, what is this video saying? Firstly, this video wouldn't be made if the makers didn't think that Trump was giving illegal orders, or was about to do so. So they're not just speaking about a hypothetical, they're standing up and saying, "Either the orders you're being given now, or the orders you're going to get soon, are illegal and you should ignore them". They are not only attacking the president and by extension those who voted for him, they are deliberately attempting to usurp his power of command.

So it's more like,

"Don't listen to the president, listen to me instead." "THIS IS TREASON".

which, yes, it is.

Obviously, this depends on a particular interpretation of events and of the role of law which you don't hold, but that's the reasoning IMO.

EDIT: Not to mention that of course

We need you to stand up for our laws, our constitution, and who we are as Americans.

is going to raise the temperature considerably because it firmly casts Trump's voters and those who approve of his actions as being criminal, unconstitutional and unAmerican. Which is the problem that #Resist has had from the start, because this is a very dangerous place to be if you don't in fact hold majority support. It's more or less how the Right lost control twenty years ago - by framing anyone who wasn't in favour of Christian social teachings and maximally liberal economics as being unAmerican, they made a generation of voters and politicians who didn't care at all about being American on those terms.

All of this is happening in the context of a serious battle for authority on a grand scale. Whether the troops should (that's a moral should, not a legal should) be listening to their elected president Donald Trump or U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb is precisely the issue in question.

To ask this question is to answer it: Jia Cobb, until some court above her says otherwise. The President is not above and superior to the judiciary. You want to know why people say Trump wants to be king? Shit like this. Apparently Donald J. Trump is to be the sole arbiter of what the law is and what is legal and illegal and no one may gainsay him!

If you see the world in that way, what is this video saying? Firstly, this video wouldn't be made if the makers didn't think that Trump was giving illegal orders, or was about to do so. So they're not just speaking about a hypothetical, they're standing up and saying, "Either the orders you're being given now, or the orders you're going to get soon, are illegal and you should ignore them". They are not only attacking the president and by extension those who voted for him, they are deliberately attempting to usurp his power of command.

The constitution does not give the President, or any official, the power to give orders contrary to itself or to law. To the extent the President's orders are unlawful, he has no authority to give them.

Yes, that is the answer of one faction. The answer of the other faction is that they do not trust Jia Cobb and her ilk to determine what is and is not lawful and correct (and they do not always believe that those are the same thing). You can hate that people think that way, but they do in fact think that way.

If I may engage in slightly more naked culture warring, I think that the last ten years can be best modelled as a huge extended temper tantrum by the Anointed, in response to having the basis of their power and their right to wield it challenged. (By Trump in the US, by Brexit in the UK).

Taking over the legal system and the pipeline of legal trainees doesn't actually mean you get to wield the power of the law as you please in perpetuity, but instead means that people will stop taking lawyers and the law seriously. Likewise for the academy, the metropolitan police, the bastions of culture. Ultimately, the power of those things do not come from anything that's written down, they come from the coordinated agreement of many people to take them seriously. That's why England gets along fine with no written constitution. And it's also why no written constitution can survive if it sets itself too firmly against the needs and desires of the populace.

Yes, that is the answer of one faction. The answer of the other faction is that they do not trust Jia Cobb and her ilk to determine what is and is not lawful and correct (and they do not always believe that those are the same thing). You can hate that people think that way, but they do in fact think that way.

I have no doubt that people think that way. I think that way about a great many decisions of our current Supreme Court. But I think the government should obey them anyway. I thought the Supreme Court judgement striking down Biden's student loan forgiveness was not a well reason decision, but it still would have been wrong of him to say to hell with the court and do it anyway.

If you think we should only have a judiciary if the judiciary makes decisions you agree with and produces outcomes you like and when that doesn't happen we should instead have a single executive take the law and its determinations into their own hands then I think you are anti-American. You are clearly opposed to the fundamentals of the American experiment and what it means to be an American.

I have no doubt that people think that way. I think that way about a great many decisions of our current Supreme Court. But I think the government should obey them anyway. I thought the Supreme Court judgement striking down Biden's student loan forgiveness was not a well reason decision, but it still would have been wrong of him to say to hell with the court and do it anyway.

Most of the time, most people think this way. But there is a window - broader than the Overton window - that you have to stay inside, or you lose the Mandate of Heaven.

I argue that:

The judiciary must, most of the time, make decisions that people broadly agree with and produce outcomes that they broadly like. This is a fundamental and underappreciated requirement of the Rule of Law.

As America or any country grows more diverse (on many axes) it gets harder and harder to stay inside this window for the majority of people for the majority of the time, with the resulting slow-motion breakdown that we see. FWIW I genuinely don't get the impression that most Trump supporters want a single executive king: instead they want Trump or someone like him to drag the Republic back within their window and then leave it to continue ticking along as before.

If you think we should only have a judiciary if the judiciary makes decisions you agree with and produces outcomes you like and when that doesn't happen we should instead have a single executive take the law and its determinations into their own hands then I think you are anti-American. You are clearly opposed to the fundamentals of the American experiment and what it means to be an American.

FYI I'm not American if you mean that as a personal 'you'. I'm just observing what I see in Anglo countries more generally. But of course many Americans have their own ideas of what it means to be an American! I find this essay very revealing on the topic. It mentions at one point an interview with Captain Preston, a minuteman who had fought against the British.

Excerpt below:

“Captain Preston, what made you go to the Concord Fight [on 19 April 1775]?”

“What did I go for?”

“Were you oppressed by the Stamp Act?”

“I never saw any stamps, and I always understood that none were ever sold.”

“Well, what about the tea tax?”

“Tea tax, I never drank a drop of the stuff, the boys threw it all overboard.”

“But I suppose you have been reading Harrington, Sidney, and Locke about the eternal principle of liberty?”

“I never heard of these men. The only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’ psalms and hymns and the almanacs.”

“Well, then, what was the matter?”

“Young man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had governed ourselves and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”[4]

Here is the central problem in American history, as liberty and freedom are essential values in American culture. Scholars have attempted to study it in many ways.

The leading approach might be called the text-and-context method. It begins with American texts on liberty and freedom and fits them into an explanatory context that is larger than America itself. Historians have discovered many different contexts by this method. They variously told us that the meaning of American liberty and freedom is to be found in the context of Greek democracy, Roman republicanism, natural rights in the middle ages, the civic humanism of the Renaissance, the theology of the Reformation, English Commonwealth tradition in the 17th century, British opposition ideology in the 18th century, the treatises of John Locke, the writings of Scottish moral philosophers, the values of the Enlightenment, and the axioms of classical liberalism.

All these approaches have added to our knowledge of liberty and freedom but none of them comes to terms with captain Preston. As he reminded us, the text-and- context method refers to books he never read, people he never knew, places he never visited, and periods that were far from his own time. [5]

FYI I'm not American if you mean that as a personal 'you'. I'm just observing what I see in Anglo countries more generally. But of course many Americans have their own ideas of what it means to be an American!

I did intend that more in royal-you kind of way, not necessarily you specifically. I appreciate the clarification.

Most of the time, more people think this way. But there is a window - broader than the Overton window - that you have to stay inside, or you lose the Mandate of Heaven.

I assert that:

The judiciary must, most of the time, make decisions that people broadly agree with and produce outcomes that they broadly like. This is a fundamental and unappreciated requirement of the Rule of Law.

Perhaps I should take a different tact. My impression, based on polling, is that Trump's deployment of the National Guard to DC is not just unlawful, it is also unpopular. Here is a Quinnipiac poll from August finding voters disapprove 56-41. Here is an NPR-Ipsos poll from late September showing a disapproval of 47-37 for DC that rises to 52-34 when the question is about National Guard deployment to "your local area." To the extent Trump's resistance to the judiciary is premised on having popular support over them, I do not think that is the case with this issue.

I find this essay very revealing on the topic. It mentions at one point an interview with Captain Preston, a minuteman who had fought against the British.

Thanks for the article! I'm enjoying it so far.

I did intend that more in royal-you kind of way

Allowing the informal/singular you (thou) to die was unironically a huge mistake. If wonder if the French have the same problem with polite 'vous' and plural 'vous'...

[Polls]

Interesting and worthy of thought, thanks.

Thanks for the article! I'm enjoying it so far.

Good! He's one of the only really good bloggers I'm aware of, without any particular crankish tendencies.

The constitution does not give the President, or any official, the power to give orders contrary to itself or to law. To the extent the President's orders are unlawful, he has no authority to give them.

You are being overly literal to hide what's being said.

Suddenly announcing that illegal orders from the President shouldn't be followed may literally be a hypothetical claiming that to the extent the orders are unlawful they don't need to be followed. But what it actually means is "the President is giving out illegal orders now and they should be disobeyed now," even if the speech doesn't literally include the word "now".

Suddenly announcing that illegal orders from the President shouldn't be followed may literally be a hypothetical claiming that to the extent the orders are unlawful they don't need to be followed. But what it actually means is "the President is giving out illegal orders now and they should be disobeyed now," even if the speech doesn't literally include the word "now".

The quoted section is just a factual description of what is occurring, according to the branch of government charged with making that kind of determination.

Gillitrut has not tried to claim that the video was hypothetical, but rather, pointed out that a judge has in fact ruled some of Trump's orders illegal. Therefore the Democrats in the video are not casting baseless aspersions, explicitly or otherwise, but reacting to already-established legal fact.

That's a big part of the problem, though, right? It's not a legal fact, it's a legal assertion. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra then by the rules of the Catholic church (AFAIK) what he says is true for all time, but that doesn't make it a fact. And indeed, many will completely ignore it because they don't think the Pope is valid (schismatics) or they don't care what Catholic rules say (all non-Catholics).

EDIT:

It's not a legal fact, it's a legal assertion.

For the avoidance of doubt, what I mean is that it's not an actual literal fact like 'the boiling point of water is 100C'. Instead it's an assertion that under the rules of the legal system is treated like a fact, but that doesn't make it literally so.

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