martin’s basket carrier
@dcpianoman.bsky.social
23 followers 71 following 120 posts
Mostly lurking. Ad Consultant. Occasional pianist. Views are my own. Cat belongs to fam.
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dcpianoman.bsky.social
I’m of the mind that primaries can provide useful mechanisms for Dems who have lost connection with their constituents or are too old, but ultimately voters do decide these things and if Platner really is the better candidate *for Maine voters*, he should win.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Yep, all of it is uncharted territory (for most Americans today) and none of our options are good. All we can do is do our best. Stay safe.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
In other words, “the death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.”

“When truth leaves us… when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”
billkristolbulwark.bsky.social
Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...
Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation
Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.
www.cbsnews.com
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Like the only people who can *legally* stop ICE without getting immediately bodied by federal authorities are the feds, and we don’t exactly control the federal government anymore.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
I don’t like it either, but the goal in the near-term is winning back Congress and reasserting it’s authority to break the admin’s monopoly on legitimacy.

A lot of this is direct consequences of losing 2024 - we handed power back to Trump, and he’s using it, while civil society has acquiesced.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
“We live in a society” and “Everyone is 12” are complimentary halves of the best (imo) working theory of Trump-era politics.
figgityfigs.bsky.social
I feel lots of things that felt like, were billed as, self-actualization read in retrospect as canaries in the coal mine for the fraying commitments we owe to each other as members of a society.
aubreygilleran.bsky.social
Relatedly, I recall a lot of "the joy of canceling plans" jokes and memes from the 2010s and now folks are talking about a loneliness epidemic, and, well...
Reposted by martin’s basket carrier
merovingians.bsky.social
we're all very powerless right now and for some people having their cynicism proved right gives them the illusion of control
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Key part of wedges is making staffing adjustments by replacing Trump-sympathetic LEOs with those who are more left-leaning, who have grievances for being fired by Musk/DOGE, police negatively polarized by Jan 6, etc.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
All you can do is do everything to stack the deck in favor of “No” until that moment happens. In our case, it comes in the form of breaking the admin’s monopoly on legitimacy (via taking back Congress), making them unpopular as possible, and driving wedges between local police and federal agents.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
A friend said that ultimately the question is “will the armed goons shoot unarmed protesters and/or arrest opposition leaders extrajudicially?” and it’s impossible to know the answer in advance - you’re always rolling the dice on that.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Oof thats rough. Glad you’re out safe and sharing your insight though.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
I acknowledge those options are not great. People are being terrorized and it’s understandable that telling them to weigh between bad and worse is frustrating, to put it mildly. But those are the options *for now* while we navigate uncharted waters. This is what losing 2024 looks like!
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Yeah, this is the fundamental tension. While I also would like for ICE/DHS to stop their operations, the only ones who can stop them legally are the feds who sent them.

Getting arrested by state police means the state has control over charges and sentencing. Better Dem state AG than Bondi.
cyanescens.bsky.social
A Chicago DA will charge less & may quietly drop charges (as happened with most arrests in Portland in 2020); the feds are charging to the max & may not let you plead down.

Pritzker more likely to pardon you than Trump.

Better Cook County jail than CECOT
dcpianoman.bsky.social
I don’t disagree. I think we’re on the same page generally, Orange Man Dictator Bad, there’s just different ways the fallout of that impact affects US residents vs Canada vs anywhere else. I hope we can all get through this and prosper rather than just surviving.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Very different circumstances in that we have to live here and will need to contend with consequences as experienced, not simply as observed.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
I really do not want to hit the worst case button, for the sake of both us and the rest of the world. Maybe we get lucky, nature will do its thing, and we end up with a GOP intraparty war that halts some or all of this madness.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
We need to break the administration’s monopoly on legitimacy, and also they need to be as base-breakingly unpopular as possible.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Yeah, right now the administration has a monopoly on legitimacy because they control all three branches of government. We can challenge that if Dems control Congress, but unfortunately, the earliest that can happen is 2027.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Speaking 100% selfishly here, as somebody who travels to Chicago semi regularly, I don’t want it to be an ungovernable mess of martial law.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
It might be bad for the administration in the long-term, but I think that Pritzker understandably does not want to turn the state of Illinois into a martyr.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Any world where a gov asks state police to make a move against federal agents requires the opposition to control at least one branch of government— without that we don’t have a strong enough challenge to Trumps legitimacy at the federal level. We need the midterms.
Easy path was gone after Nov.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Yeah, it seems like he’s caught in between activists who are morally correct but only kinda understand the law (supremacy clause, how vastly out-resourced IL is compared to the feds, etc.) and feds who have the legitimacy advantage and also don’t care whether they understand the law or not.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
VA dems reposted an article from 2022 where Miyares told cops it’s fine to shoot civilians if the cops are feeling “exasperated, angry, or disrespected.” So it’s not like they don’t have something to counter the GOP pearl-clutching.
dcpianoman.bsky.social
Revolt of the bosses includes reactionary parents crashing out that their kids refused to say slurs to their diverse classmates
dcpianoman.bsky.social
So many people acting flippant about second-order consequences think they’re Luthen Rael but really they’re Saw Gerrera.

Also, even IF arresting ICE magically led to Trump’s ousting, you can’t expect a sitting governor of Illinois to offer his state on the alter of a fantasy long term victory.