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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1h

“We live in a society” and “Everyone is 12” are complimentary halves of the best (imo) working theory of Trump-era politics.

The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 15h

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.

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 17h

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...

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Reposted by martin’s basket carrier

the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 1h

we're all very powerless right now and for some people having their cynicism proved right gives them the illusion of control

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 16h

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 16h

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 16h

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 16h

Oof thats rough. Glad you’re out safe and sharing your insight though.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 16h

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!

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 16h

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.

Mr. Chimpanzy @cyanescens.bsky.social · 17h

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

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

Very different circumstances in that we have to live here and will need to contend with consequences as experienced, not simply as observed.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

We need to break the administration’s monopoly on legitimacy, and also they need to be as base-breakingly unpopular as possible.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 1d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 2d

Revolt of the bosses includes reactionary parents crashing out that their kids refused to say slurs to their diverse classmates

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 4d

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.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 5d

People might have a fantasy of what civil war looks like in their heads but elected officials don’t have the luxury of operating on fantasies—they have a responsibility to protect lives based on options in front of them, and they might suck! But pressing the civil war button is not how you do it.

martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 5d

Jfc, the fact that people on here can discuss the prospect of civil war almost flippantly, as if it’s guaranteed to happen, is an indictment of our society-wide desensitization to political violence.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 6d

The subtext here is “I promise if you just let us have the revolution, we’ll win. We’re built different.”

Being on the political left does not make anyone immune from an American exceptionalism mentality.

Andor is a warning, not a manual on how to play out any Soviets-taking-Berlin fantasies.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 6d

Yeah, I think a lot of people in those replies watched too many movies with revolutions and assumed “yeah I could definitely do that” if it happened. And I don’t think people are ever truly ready for what a modern civil war would entail.

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martin’s basket carrier @dcpianoman.bsky.social · 6d

Fwiw I do agree with the subtlety point. That also paradoxically sets up a situation where the base might not be happy with him, because the whole point of doing subtle maneuvers is that you can’t publicize them without giving them away to your opponent.