“In his recent forum essay on nullification, Mark Pulliam distinguished between true nullification laws — those in which a state claims that it can refuse to obey federal laws that the state deems to be contrary to the Constitution — and laws that are merely statements of disagreement or vows of non-cooperation. This is an important distinction because the states are under no constitutional obligation to endorse federal laws or to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing them.” (11/07/24)
“As advocates of liberal democracy — this publication’s constituency — dig our way out of the rubble of Tuesday’s electoral earthquake, we wonder: How much policy mayhem may the second Trump administration bring? How much corruption and incompetence? How many persecutions and pardons, deportations and internments? How many trade wars, ruptured alliances, and calls to civic violence? How many more threats to prosecute and imprison his political rivals? There is no telling, except to say that the damage will be considerable for all the reasons that have been well rehearsed in these pages. At this gloomy time, I’m afraid I need to deepen the gloom. Those of us who believe in, and fight for, liberal democracy need to consider the possibility that the greatest damage Trump’s victory will do is not in the sphere of economics or foreign policy or the rule of law. We need to view the election as a moral defeat.” (11/07/24)
“As the dust settles over election day, it’s worth reflecting that it’s not only the election results that have been at stake, but the future of the presidency and its powers. Over the course of the first quarter of this century, the American presidency has accumulated ever more power, rendering the office increasingly less constrained by either Congress or the courts. With Donald Trump’s reelection, the slide toward a dangerously empowered president has reached a moment of reckoning, particularly when it comes to foreign affairs and warfare. Throughout American history, presidents have repeatedly sought to increase their powers, nowhere more so than in the context of war.” (11/07/24)
“Near Atlanta, on a spring day in 1990, I was outside, underneath a large tent with dozens of others seated at tables, each facing a telephone. I was six years old and when the call connected to a boy on the other end of the phone who sounded like he was my age. I had no other concept of who he was. I wasn’t sure what to ask him, but knew something important was happening because my parents were very excited. I learned the boy on the other side of the phone was from East Berlin. He spoke English with an accent, yet I could understand him clearly. Perhaps with some coaching, I asked him, ‘What’s different now where you live?’ ‘We can visit our family on the other side of the city,’ he answered.” (11/07/24)
“The notion that Trump was a unique threat in American history entitled the media to ignore all the civil liberties abuses of the Biden-Harris administration. Coincidentally, that spared many reporters and editorial writers the difficulty of comprehending the policies which they tacitly endorsed.” (11/07/24)
“In Philadelphia this past weekend, I met a number of people who’d given up on democracy. … there were the grim young men who said, hell yeah, they were going to vote for Trump. They spoke of the Republican presidential candidate as if he were Tony Montana, the gangster played by Al Pacino in the film Scarface: violent, lawless, and powerful. Trump elicited respect laced with fear. According to his supporters, he’d stand up to America’s enemies abroad and be tough on crime domestically. Several said to me (with the usual preface of ‘don’t get me wrong but’) that a woman president would be too weak or ‘mixed up by hormones’ to do those necessary things.” [editor’s note: Yet another “progressive” pundit who ignores the utter incompetence of the candidate and her campaign, and focuses on her anatomy and “sexism” – SAT] (11/06/24)
“Economic planning, where the government uses policies such as taxation, subsidies, spending, or nationalization, in order to direct economic outcomes, is back in vogue. Its proponents often liken economic planning to planning done by individuals in the economy. The difference, they claim, is that national economic planning can help accomplish larger economic, national, or social goals that the individual wouldn’t.” (11/07/24)
“In the days after January 6, 2021, it appeared that the worst was finally behind us. The shock of that event was felt quite broadly at first. It seemed as though Trump might truly be politically finished, that we needed only to make it to Biden’s inauguration without another incident and we would all be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The worst outcomes had been avoided—so it seemed at the time. Yet here we are, in November of 2024.” (11/07/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“So hey, can Democrats finally start opposing genocide now? Just kidding. They won’t. … Democrats are sitting on a mountain of hundreds of thousands of human corpses they helped kill by mass military slaughter in the last four years, weeping and lamenting that now bad things are going to start happening. … Democrats are shrieking so loud today because they know they’re wrong. They know their party ran a dogshit candidate. They know it was crazy to expect the left support the party that’s committing a live-streamed genocide. It’s not anger. It’s not fear. It’s cognitive dissonance. … I should probably repeat what I said back in July: if you’re a Trump supporter who started reading me for my criticisms of the Biden administration, you are going to hate my guts after your guy gets in.” (11/07/24)
“I wrote yesterday about what’s demanded of us going forward: We must be mindfully and compassionately aware of the suffering this incoming regime will inflict, especially to people on the margins who it is all too easy to not see, and all too tempting to simply ignore. Today, I want to offer the slivers of hope I’m holding onto that America can course correct relatively quickly, and before the damage done becomes insurmountable. Only slivers, because this hope could be dashed, fully and quickly. We’re in a time when a lot can go wrong, and where the buffers we had against catastrophe are significantly weakened. While we saw a swing to the right, including in many Democratic heavy regions, Trump actually got fewer total votes than he did in 2020.” (11/07/24)
