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Comment by NoImmatureAdHom

7 hours ago

The president is a person and can make whatever proclamations he wants. Sometimes people will even do what he says! But the way the system works is:

- orange man makes dumb obviously unconstitutional proclamation about flag burning

- most likely nobody does anything about it, but if someone does there is a law suit

- the courts are like 'lol no'

- back to status quo ante

9 comments

NoImmatureAdHom

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nozzlegear  6 hours ago

You're forgetting a step:

- The entire MAGA zeitgeist takes the president's word as gospel and shifts into overdrive in an attempt to enact his proclamation through: A) social pressure; B) new state laws; C) lawsuits of their own; or, when all else fails, D) just ignoring court orders.

Because the president (this one especially, but also his predecessors) is more than just a person.

hypeatei  6 hours ago

So you'd be fine with say, Kamala, running on a campaign of crushing dissent because the courts will say "lol no"? Is that what I'm reading?

I certainly don't think any camp would be okay with that, let alone MAGAs (and for obvious reasons)

It's a common trope of centrists and republicans to say that it's okay for Trump to explore the outer limits of legal theory and executive power, but at the same time freak out at what a Democrat might do with the government.

  • NoImmatureAdHom  4 hours ago

    > So you'd be fine with say, Kamala, running on a campaign of crushing dissent because the courts will say "lol no"? Is that what I'm reading?

    No, I wouldn't be fine with it.

    Do you imagine this is what Trump is doing? Or that Democrats don't do the same? Democrats ran a long and successful campaign to crush anti-woke dissent, for instance. Broke lots of laws (and still do!) in the process. Questioning woke orthodoxy could get you blackballed or fired in government, and they wielded power to make sure the same was true in many non-gov institutions. They were even on the path to first amendment restrictions to protect this crusade. Even compelled speech in Biden's last Title IX!

    Anywho, to steelman I think you would need to explicitly make the leap from "flag burning" to "running a campaign of crushing dissent", because flag burning doesn't seem like even part of a campaign against crushing dissent. It seems like empty pandering to stupider supporters.

    • hypeatei  3 hours ago

      > Democrats ran a long and successful campaign to crush anti-woke dissent, for instance. Broke lots of laws (and still do!)

      Citation/elaboration needed. Same goes for the Title IX comment. How did Biden "compel speech" on campuses?

      > and they wielded power to make sure the same was true in many non-gov institutions

      Again, cancel culture, no matter how aggressive, is not the same as using the monopoly on violence to get your way. Woke mob vs federal agents. You could argue that some of Trump's actions like his lawsuit against the pollster aren't an official government action, but it certainly is a huge break from norms for a sitting President to sue over speech he doesn't like.

      > explicitly make the leap from "flag burning" to "running a campaign of crushing dissent"

      It's much more than just flag burning, as I've shown.

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HeyThereDave  7 hours ago

Unfortunately, step 3 is no longer a given.