I have an impression that the pattern of this and many other decisions is an
acknowledgment — front brain or mid-brain; don’t know — that a
second-government that isn’t the institutional one is now fully up and running.
Many years ago, when I was working with Shubik, he gave me a paper by one of
his colleagues who had been active in trying to support the Aquino government
in the Philippines as a realization of the constitutional system set up
(whenever that was done). The paper’s theme was that having laws on the books
that nominally seem to “uphold” democratic governance in one place may be worth
not-much someplace else, where the whole social culture — all the skills,
networks of relation, expectations — are built on generations-long histories of
what we would call corruption (but for them, is just how things get done).
scotus repeatedly disaggregates and ambiguously states the criteria for
something, rather than taking any concrete and intelligible stand, and when
there is a law that does take an intelligible stand, they make up some story
that it doesn’t really say what it plainly says, and put an ambiguous dictum in
its place. (Weird; like the inverse of “painting over rot”; it is taking sound
wood and somehow painting rot over it).
Now, if there were not a sophisticated enough system to put compliant apparatchiks
in a very broad swath of lower courts, lawmaking houses, etc., that ambiguation
would do limited good. But when money is very concentrated, communication very
modern, and markets very very efficient in centralizing power, and there are a few
decades to work, that kind of broad installation of corrupt actors can get done.
There is enough machinery in place to micro-manage them if needed (amicus briefs or
even individual threat and bribery), but there probably are enough collaborators
that a lot of the micro-managing isn’t even needed. It’s like a system of
“alternative laws" (next term for KAC to coin) that mostly don’t need to be
enforced if a few occasions serve to keep the precedent live in people’s minds.
So in New York or Washington the cases will be weakened by picking around the
edges, but in florida cannon can just throw it all out, and know her family
will remain safe (and maybe even her personal beliefs will be followed; who
knows re. that).
Likewise bible teaching in schools, banniing of abortifacients and eventually
contraceptives through the mail within their territory, and so on.
Because I have to (as the only form of employment I am for the moment holding)
unfortunately do a lot of flying back and forth, I am aware what a nuisance it
is to have Russian airspace unavailable. 11 time zones. I wonder when the
various red-captured states will start to declare their airspace off limits to
alrlines that fly between the coasts. LIke, flights from NY to CA would have
to go through Canada. Given the great circle already, that wouldn’t be such a
big deal. But maybe flights from Mexico or S. America to non-theocratic states
would suffer some added cost.
Eric
p.s. I have to note how much my use of terminology has been modified by
Arendt’s way of grouping things, and there are emails I sent once that I would
not send now (or would have to word differently). Not that I have the ability
to know whether her system is a good one, only that I can follow it and see
that it is very different from the offhand one I have used and usually see
used. So for instance, she would not call the Nazis “Fascists”; they were
distinct at the time and stay so in her terms. She also distinguishes mere
authoritarians from totalitarians, as part of a larger distinction between
“parties” and “movements”. In her system, “parties” seek to control the state,
on behalf of particular interests, in contrasts to “movements” which seek to
destroy it. So the Fascists were fundamentally still a party-type
organization; only the Nazis and the Bolsheviks were real movements. And the
Nazis and Bolsheviks saw each other as true peers, and looked with contempt on
the mere Fascists. Much follows from that distinction. Authoritarians have
stable goals, even if not overtly admidded outside those running them;
movements need not have any particular goals, save to keep the movement moving,
so becoming more fluid and cult-like over time — one reads about the
supervention of the SA by the SS and then the conuous invention of new inner
layers within the SS, each more detached from specific skills than the ones
before — until they collapse because they aren’t really organized around
getting anything particular done. She argues that the parties and the
movements co-travel early on, and that the parties fail to recognize the
difference in what they are dealing with, until eventually they get eaten up
and didn’t see it coming. When I read or hear Stuart Stevens I have a strong
sense of that. All that reads very comfortably with the situation at the
moment. It’s odd; a bad analogy: I think of disregulated cell populations pre-
and post-metastasis. The authoritarian parties are mere tumors, taking up
residence within the normal rules of organ development. The movements spread
to everything, and eventually undermine all rules except their own. Most of
the educated, luxuried, bribed, etc. operators now are still party-men.
scotus, the non-MTG-type elected officials, and such. The movement characters
are a different category. MTG is just the front wave of cannon-fodder for
them, and trump is too unfocused (or am I wrong; is he focused-enough on one
goal?) to really be a longer-term builder of anything (though not by too much).
I am not yet seeing who has the combination of delusion and focus to fill the
Hitler or Stalin role. But the social structure seems to have laid out the
throne, and we try to figure out who occupies it and for how long.
On Jul 1, 2024, at 11:58 PM, glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.
c
om%2fus-news%2flive%2f2024%2fjul%2f01%2fsupreme-court-trump-immunity
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claim-decision-updates%23top-of-blog&c=E,1,HjPSPMDt8Wf8_2t6B5NRgPS6e
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oM9ERREUVJg7-qQgIoTykx-HMc4-VJ15LWXlArv7k86lDYDmnX0_MAvUEwQTGSEpHEsh
T
JjBa28-h5oxQZa8k,&typo=1
Anyone care to take a stab at explaining why the ruling doesn't simply kick the
can down the road a bit? I mean, how could (say) hiding secret documents, riot
incitation at a campaign event, etc. be considered official acts of the Office
of the President? I suppose I can see some of the evidence being thrown out,
like claims about POTUS not getting involved in protecting the Capitol
building. But is this ruling really that damaging to the prosecution's case?
