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I had a longer effort post that got eaten by the gateway monster but as a change of pace from all the LLM talk I'm curious if any one was watching the SOTU. My reflexive read was broadly positive but I also felt a bit uneasy with there being not just one but two CMHs and two Purple Hearts and a Legion of Merit. My feeling is that this was not the proper place, at the same time I think that Trump may have scored a significant mid-term coup by by calling on people to stand if they felt that the first duty of the government is to the citizens of the nation, "why wouldn't you stand for that" feels like something that will be showing up in campaign commercials come August.
I think he’s really revitalized the format of the SOTU on a pomp and spectacle level. I suspect future administrations will keep this format.
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The exact quote was, "the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens" ... which is a bit more obviously Orwellian than your paraphrase. Maybe that's just a question of style; as a question of substance, both the original quote and the paraphrase are wrong.
The first duty of the American government is to obey the Constitution.
That's a complicated duty, and far-too-often breached, but at least technically that's the duty that qualifies our leaders to fit the definition of "the American government" rather than for an entry in the wiki for auto-coup. It's not always even a popular duty, though it's generally at least popular enough that "pass an amendment to widen what other duties the government can legally handle" doesn't ever get considered. Many people think violating the Second Amendment would be a good way to protect American citizens from shootings. Most think violating the Tenth Amendment often helpfully protects American citizens from being taken advantage of. Some think violating some combination of the Fourth through Eighth Amendments is a good way to protect American citizens from criminals. A few think violating Art. I election laws could be justified to protect American citizens from bad politicians. Many thought that violating the Assembly Clause was justified to protect American citizens from Covid.
They're all wrong.
Those are all real threats that American citizens deserve some protection from, true, and so are illegal aliens (both in the sense that some are serious criminals and in the sense that all of them do a little bit to undermine the rule of law), but the concept of protection is not a backdoor password to unchecked power, and it it seems pretty transparent that the people who attempt to use it that way are more interested in the power than in the protection.
...and the first words of the Constitution are the Preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The lens through which the rest of the document must be read is one of in-group preference. In fact, just to hammer the point, home, the power (and, implicitly, the duty) to "establish a uniform rule of naturalization" - i.e., standards for who gets let into the in-group, and who has to remain on the outside - is explicitly granted to Congress by Article 1, Section 8. No need to muck around with "necessary and proper" implicit federal powers, like we do for such trivial things as setting up the Fed. No, establishing and policing the boundary between Americans and non-Americans is very much within the scope of the Constitution's mandate.
If you want to do nitpicky exegesis, this only singles out "ourselves and our Posterity" as the intended beneficiary of the "Blessings of Liberty", since the "to" can't attach to any of the preceding clauses (provide for the common defence "to" ourselves(...)...?). Moreover, it's just listed as one among many objectives. The "We the People" bit, as much as people like turning it into a shibboleth for their favoured political package, does not seem to be doing anything apart from identifying the party in whose name the following document is issued.
It seems like a rather unreasonable leap to go from something that amounts to "In order to strive towards objectives A, B, C, D, E and F, we proclaim the following set of rules to constrain the behaviour of $entity" to "The first duty of $entity is some mixture of C and D but only for the beneficiaries stated in F". It would even be unreasonable if you just said that {A,B,C,D,E,F} together is "the first duty" of the US government: the whole point of having a constitution is to not leave it up to the government, or any future individuals, to determine how to best implement these six things, but to establish a priori a common agreement on how it is to be done, so that these instructions (hopefully less ambiguous than the original goals) can henceforth be used as a terminal goal. You would not need a constitution otherwise, but could just have a one-paragraph blob saying "the government shall form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, (...)".
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“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”
I would say our government is designed to protect American’s right to life, liberty, and property. Maybe Trump’s meaning was merely about safety but I think you could read it more broadly (especially consistent with his general America first messaging) that our government should be focused on protecting our lives, our liberty, and our property.
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I see where you're going with this, and to some extent agree that a shared commitment to the words is what embodies the power of the American government, but I wouldn't go wholesale on this because it'd be too easy to See Like A State and circularly define that the first duty of American Government is to protect American Government (defined as a polity that obeys the Constitution), and governments protecting themselves qua governments over the actual opinions of The People is basically the definition of totalitarianism.
So I think I'll argue that there is a Zeroth Principle in the Constitution that the American people choose to bind themselves by it until and unless they decide to change it (via the established procedures) or replace it, for which some procedures have been written, but other routes are implied to exist by the Declaration of Independence.
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No you're actually wrong. The first duty of a government is to serve its people. Constitutions are just a means of achieving that.
No, that's the first goal of a government. And Constitutions are the means of achieving that, not just a means, because it's such a complex and difficult-to-evaluate goal that you have to operationalize it in terms of more objective rules; otherwise in practice it stops being a goal and starts being an excuse.
So Britain, famously lacking a constitution, is… what? A Mad Max anarchy?
Britain has a constitution, it just isn't codified in one place. Most of it is even written down, although in one famous case only in an anonymous letter to the editor of the Times.
(Nor is the US constitution codified in one place - just most of it. The most obvious example is that the President is elected is generally seen by Americans as one of the most important parts of the American constitution, but it isn't in the Constitution).
What do you mean? Article II is fairly specific as to how, exactly, the President is elected (by the Electoral College).
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Asking a yes-no intention with the transparent intention to treat "yes" as an endorsement of the bailey and "no" as an attack on the motte is one of the oldest tricks in the motte-and-bailey arguers playbook.
I'm sure that Republicans will run on "Democrats are for illegal immigrants, we are for you" in the mid-terms, regardless of what Democrats say or do, and that the Democrats will respond with stories about Republicans deporting nurses, military spouses etc. The voters already know that the Democrats are insane on immigration, and that Trump in particular is borderline-insane in the other direction.
I am reasonably sure that the effectiveness of these lines does not depend on a specific audience-participation kafkatrap - if the Democrats actually had a credible immigration policy, then running tape of them not dancing like monkeys during SOTU would just be standard-issue negative campaigning of the type that doesn't move elections relative to the fundamentals.
It's very easy to imagine the reverse scenario too - a Democrat president asks all those who think fascism has no place in America to stand up, most (or all) Republicans refuse because they understand that when the Democrats say "fascism" they don't mean the Nazis, they mean them. Then all the Democratic-aligned media say look at all these fascists.
I'm sure they would understand the veiled message, but I don't have the sense that they'd fall for the bait in quite the same way. I'm sure you could construct a situation where it would work, but "stand if you hate fascists" isn't going to trick anyone on the right.
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Yeah - I don't think that would move the needle either.
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If I were a Republican representative, I'd have no issue standing to such a question because i don't self-identify as a fascist. It would actually be great for all the Republicans to stand for such a question because it exposes how ridiculous the Democratic framing of the current political situation is.
And here's the blood boiling headline you would have just handed the press: "In a massive blow to Trump and the MAGA movement, even Republicans representatives say they are now turning away from fascism."
The press will do what the press will do, but that might not be a terrible message for Republicans heading to the midterms with Trump's popularity ratings being where they are.
If Red Tribe needs the approval of the press to secure political victory, political victory is no longer a viable option and we will need to find alternative paths to securing our values. We have plenty of evidence of what results from cooperation, conciliation, compromise and capitulation to Blue Tribe. There is no road forward there.
Blues and "moderates" act as though if Trump could just be disposed of, all this ferment will go away. But the reality is that Trump is the moderate, mild voice of peace. If he fails, we will escalate until either we are destroyed or until we find a way to get the outcomes we consider necessary. Trump is an expression of the wicked problem of apportioning political power in a values-incoherent society, and not the progenitor of that problem nor meaningfully in control of it.
Pure cope. The same sort of "oh, we could totally deal with all those left-wing pajama boys (who keep defeating us) if we really wanted to… but the time isn't quite right yet, and things aren't quite so bad as to warrant paying the costs this time, but one day, if they push too far" (where "too far" always recedes into the future) I've been hearing my entire life. And it's just excuses people tell themselves rather than admit their incapacity. I think RoguesPhilo on Twitter, who makes this point frequently, has the right of it:
…
…
And:
and:
It is you who are badly mistaken in your assessment.
You did not believe Trump could win a second term, and argued vociferously that all was lost years ago. Is all more, less, or about the same lost as it was in 2024?
In any case, you have already concluded that I am a liar, and I have already concluded that you are incapable of being anything other than tiresome or dangerous, and that I prefer you tiresome.
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The blues think that if Trump could just be disposed of, Red WILL be destroyed.
Believe me, they don't. I look to see what the left is thinking (as well as the right). They don't think the news is left-leaning, because if it was then Trump wouldn't have won. They think that grifters on Youtube create an "alt-right pipeline." They think that Trump is a symptom of white men afraid of losing the privilege they're entitled to thanks to DEI. They think the right is organized while the left constantly fights itself (of course the centrists should give up) and that the right will rally to the next person who will lie to them.
I actually think it's hilarious looking at The Motte and Reddit side by side.
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They are wrong, for the simple reason that everyone in place to piggyback off of his martyrdom is much more competent, and with the possible exception of Rubio also much more ruthless and power hungry. But democrats are optímates and incapable of thinking that way.
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I guess the hope of most of them is a future Red return to cucks like McCain and Romney.
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As we've discussed at some length, I think they are badly mistaken in this assessment.
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With any photos of a face caught looking awkward or annoyed analyzed as "guilty of being a fascist themselves and obviously feeling called out".
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I don't self-identify as a fascist either, but the label has been abused to the point that it is self-defeating to cooperate with its continued use.
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Is there a term for this sort of gotcha technique (referring to Trump's behavior, not your analysis)? It shows up similarly in polling, too, where it's clear that the question is blatant bait, people take the bait because of course they determine that the correct answer from their pov is "that's bait, fuck you", and then it gets used as red meat for the base.
I feel like, if a term were to exist for this, it should allude to Greek tragedies. It's one of those cases where everyone, including the baited, can tell that it's bait and that the winning move is to just simply answer in the most straingforward, simple and honest way possible, but their pride prevents them from doing so because that would be giving their enemies a "win." So they respond with something like "that's bait, fuck you," which is precisely the response that most benefits the baiter.
Unfortunately, what's likely the most famous Greek example of something like this already has very strong connotations of motherfucking, so something else would need to be found for the term.
I don't think that works out either because your answer will be twisted into whatever is most convenient to the person framing it.
"Politician A says he supports position B but he voted for Bill C. We need less dishonest politicians in Washington, we need someone who not only talks the talks, but walks the walks. Vote for Politician D"
As long as there is a Bill C that can be, with the proper framing, made to seem like it's in opposition to position B (and there always is), then answering straightforwardly did nothing to help. Worse, it might make you seem gutless and insufficiently defiant to your base. Trump didn't go from laughing stock political outsider to 2 term POTUS by giving the straightforward, compliant answer to this kind of question, he got there by doubling down on "that's bait, fuck you" every time.
The press and political opponents can always twist whatever they want however they want. But by responding straightforwardly and honestly, one can at least claim to hold principles instead of having to admit that they're calculating tribalists who make decisions based on tribal allegiances rather than principles.
And moving up a level, a tribe that accepts or even encourages its leaders to submit to such tribalism has to admit that it's a tribe that is merely trying to beat the Enemy because they're the Enemy, rather than following principles that they believe the government and society at large should follow. This was one of the many small mistakes of the progressive left, in the "It's okay to be white" or "Islam is RIGHT about women" things. My perception is that the fact that there was even a single random blue-haired leftist who, when confronted with such a slogan, hemmed and hawed about dog whistles instead of straightforwardly and honestly answering, "OF COURSE it's okay to be white! I want white people to feel perfectly okay being white, and the principles and policies that I am (we are) pushing doesn't conflict with that in any way, so much so that if you or anyone else believes - incorrectly - that such a conflict exists, I will actively help you resolve that conflict, by crushing whatever might be making white people suspect that such a phrase is wrong" placed another chink in the armor that tribe was wearing.
Trump has been noted to be not only an unusual, but a downright unique figure in US politics. Given that, I think it's reasonable to believe that copying his techniques and tactics isn't a good way for accomplishing the copying of his political success.
They would have a much better argument for not taking the bait of they hadn't spent the last decade falling for everything Donald Trump, bait personified, did.
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What penalties do you observe for being a calculating tribalist who makes decisions based on tribal allegiance rather than principles? Do you observe these consequences to be uniformly applied? If I argue that being such a calculating tribalist is the correct response to the current situation, what would your counter-argument be?
By no means.
"Principles" are another way of saying "rules". To the extent that we use the term "rules", we use it to refer to legible rules. But it is not possible to construct a perfect, legible ruleset that covers all situations and contingencies, such that human judgement is obviated by a flowchart.
The point of society is to promote good things and suppress bad things. Values-coherence allows people to do this under generalizable rules which rely on those coherent values for grounding. When values are mutually-incoherent, this is no longer possible, and attempts at sticking to generalizable rules is signing up for exploitation without meaningful limits.
How did this chink in the armor manifest, in your view? Obviously not only did a single activist do this, but it was the default response for Blue Tribe as a whole, with any dissent being exceedingly marginal and fringe.
People talk (foolishly, in my opinion) about Woke being dead. It is obvious to me that Woke did not "die" because principled moderates put it back in a box, but because Red Tribe burned many of its own principles to go all-in on tribal warfare, and turned out to have better terrain for it than the Blues. The moderates had more than a decade to fight, and in that time they accomplished nothing significant, fielded no champions, won no battles outside the context of Red Tribe treating the culture war as a war.
Trump will not last forever. A large portion of the Republican elite very clearly want to wash their hands of him and go back to the way things used to be. That is not an acceptable solution to Red Tribe, though, and every success we have had at securing our values has come from refusing to accept this exact sort of "moderation".
"It's okay to be white" was effective because Blues really do believe that it is not okay to be white. They could not allow themselves to let it stand.
"Stand if you disavow fascism" is effective not because Republicans won't stand, but because many of them will, not because they are notably less fascist than those who remain seated in any objective sense, but because they want the people making the demand to be nicer to them. In doing so, they weaken my tribe, and I hold them in contempt for doing so.
The basic fact is that at the object level, it is not the case that Blues have a problem with people being white in the same way that Reds have a problem with Fascism. The actual difference in tribal attitude and inclination cannot be handwaved, and while it is obvious that it cannot be agreed upon either, the current situation does not require agreement for things to proceed along their current trajectory. Speaking in broad generalities, it appears to me that Reds are not fascist to any significant degree, but Blues are actually quite racist against white people. Perhaps this perception is wrong, but if it is not wrong then it makes no sense to demand symmetrical responses.
Woke isn't dead at all. It's merely mostly off stage. The woke have figured out that the trans stuff freaks the normies, so they're biding their time until they get another election (the normies having forgotten all their excesses already). As soon as the Democrats are back in charge, all the woke stuff will come back, by executive order, by law, by corporate action, everything they did before, in spades.
I expect the Trumpian response to "stand if you disavow fascism" would be some version of calling the person asking for it a fascist. But only Trump can pull that off.
Newsom has figured that out. "The woke" won't shut up about his one act of "throwing them under the bus" despite all the pro-trans bills he passed. They haven't "figured it out" at all, they simply don't talk about it because they genuinely don't think of themselves as engaging in the culture war at all. They don't think about trans issues because there's no need to think about it when there is only one position one could possibly hold.
They will comment in 50 reddit threads and argue back and forth for an hour about how only the right cares about trans issues.
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The big ones in recent memory that I see are the reduced credibility of most mainstream journalism outlets due to their obviously and blatantly tribal behavior with respect to Trump starting over a decade ago, and also the 2024 election, where I believe plenty of marginal Democrats and would-be Democrats seemed to tear away from the party due in part to the blatant tribal hypocrisy in that same period of time. I don't know, but I heavily doubt that it's uniformly applied. If you were to argue that, I would respond that, based on your writing, you likely have very good, very strong reasons for believing that, and unfortunately there's no real way to adjudicate which one of us is correct.
I think it lowered the rate at which white people (and white-tolerant people) were won over by the ideology in question, especially among young people who were just awakening politically and just gaining the right to vote.
That's not my perception. Principled moderates didn't put it back in the box, and principled moderates largely can't (I think, most likely, no one can, just like no one can put things like Nazism or Communism (by many people's lights, wokeness is the latest iteration of this) "back in the box" - they'll always be with us, and that's why we'll always need to keep developing new antibodies against them, because god knows that they aren't stopping their continual evolution). What I think happened is that people who actually do care about principles got turned off from the Democratic party, and due to how the 2 parties are, at a baseline, around 50/50, there didn't need much of a shift to change the election results, which had downstream effects with respect to Common Knowledge about how much other people liked wokeness. Which was never popular organically, but rather popular like Kim Jong Un is in North Korea.
And, indeed, it ain't dead. It's not even hibernating. It's going just as hard in full force, in the many little and large fiefdoms that it still owns. Again, I doubt it's possible to kill it, and I don't even have much of an idea on how to reduce it further.
I mean, to whatever extent that the Red Tribe wants to crush wokeness, I'll root for them and even help them along, in the same way that I would root for a surgeon to cut out a malignant tumor. But I'm not sure what sort of "moderation" you're talking about that would be the right-wing equivalent of a blue-haired leftist deciding that progressive leftist critical race theory/third-wave-feminist-informed principles find it perfectly okay that white people feel okay being white.
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