Fascism, U.S. style

Census

I was thinking possibly that this story[1] would offer some advancement in understanding from the one[2] I included in yesterday’s issue. The answer is no, not really.

My feeling last night was that it can’t possibly go far. And the obstacles to including the citizenship question still seem insurmountable or at least very nearly so.[3] But it sounds like Donald Trump isn’t taking an effective Supreme Court no[4] for an answer.

And this is a president who I don’t think even has the mental capacity to regard himself as above the law. Rather, and I realize this may seem like splitting hairs, it seems to me he believes that his lawyers can do anything; that no defeat, even at the level of the Supreme Court, is permanent; that any problem can be solved through lawyering; and if it isn’t solved, it means his lawyers are incompetent. (I had forgotten that Hugh Hewitt may indeed offer a path forward for something even worse: Three questions, including one explicitly about legal status, instead of one, merely about citizenship.[5] But CNN seems to find a consensus among legal experts that this will not work.[6]) Further, I think he feels entirely righteous (does he ever not feel righteous about anything?) about the privilege (there have been a few times in my life when I could have used such access) he has to access this kind of lawyering.

Tara Bahrampour, Matt Zapotosky, and Josh Dawsey, “Reversing course, Trump administration will look for a way to add citizenship question to 2020 Census,” Washington Post, July 3, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-appears-to-contradict-his-own-administration-on-census-citizenship-question/2019/07/03/b720bb94-9da4-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html

Ariane de Vogue and Maegan Vazquez, “Trump faces ‘limited paths forward’ on census citizenship question,” CNN, July 4, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/04/politics/census-path-forward-white-house/index.html


Migration

What we see with the Customs and Border Patrol,[7] we are beginning to see with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.[8] But of course, yet again, we’ll be expected to see these as “a few bad apples.” Again, Philip Zimbardo tells us to expect otherwise.[9] I’m still waiting for a retraction from Brian Resnick.[10]

Sam Levin, “‘Happy hunting!’ Immigration agents swapped cheery messages about raids, records reveal,” Guardian, July 3, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/03/ice-us-immigration-messages-raids


Nonhuman Animals

Ross Andersen, “A Journey Into the Animal Mind,” Atlantic, March 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/what-the-crow-knows/580726/


War on Drugs

Lakshi De Vass Gunawardena, “Are We Fighting a Losing Battle in the War Against Drugs?” InterPress Service, July 3, 2019, http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/fighting-losing-battle-war-drugs/


  1. [1]Tara Bahrampour, Matt Zapotosky, and Josh Dawsey, “Reversing course, Trump administration will look for a way to add citizenship question to 2020 Census,” Washington Post, July 3, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-appears-to-contradict-his-own-administration-on-census-citizenship-question/2019/07/03/b720bb94-9da4-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html
  2. [2]Noah Bierman and David G. Savage, “Citizen question may be back on 2020 census as Trump administration reverses course again,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-census-immigration-tweet-supreme-court-20190703-story.html
  3. [3]Tara Bahrampour, Matt Zapotosky, and Josh Dawsey, “Reversing course, Trump administration will look for a way to add citizenship question to 2020 Census,” Washington Post, July 3, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-appears-to-contradict-his-own-administration-on-census-citizenship-question/2019/07/03/b720bb94-9da4-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html; Ariane de Vogue and Maegan Vazquez, “Trump faces ‘limited paths forward’ on census citizenship question,” CNN, July 4, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/04/politics/census-path-forward-white-house/index.html
  4. [4]Garrett Epps, “Is the Citizenship Question Dead?” Atlantic, June 27, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/court-wants-real-reason-citizenship-question/592864/; Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung, “Trump fumes as Supreme Court blocks census citizenship question,” Reuters, June 27, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-census/trump-fumes-as-supreme-court-blocks-census-citizenship-question-idUSKCN1TS1BL
  5. [5]Hugh Hewitt, “The census belongs to the president. He needs to get it back. Here’s how,” Washington Post, June 29, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/29/census-belongs-president-he-needs-get-it-back-heres-how/
  6. [6]Ariane de Vogue and Maegan Vazquez, “Trump faces ‘limited paths forward’ on census citizenship question,” CNN, July 4, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/04/politics/census-path-forward-white-house/index.html
  7. [7]Priscilla Alvarez, “Lawmakers, including Ocasio-Cortez, lash out over conditions following border facility tours,” CNN, July 2, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-clint-texas-facility/index.html; Caitlin Dickerson, “‘There Is a Stench’: No Soap and Overcrowding in Detention Centers for Migrant Children,” New York Times, June 21, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/migrant-children-border-soap.html; Adam Harris, “An Astonishing Government Report on Conditions at the Border,” Atlantic, July 3, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/07/government-report-details-inhumane-conditions-migrant-facilities/593242/; Miriam Jordan, “Judge Orders Swift Action to Improve Conditions for Migrant Children in Texas,” New York Times, June 29, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/us/migrant-children-detention-texas.html; Alejandro Lazo and Jacob Gershman, “Lawsuit Alleges Government Mistreatment of Migrant Children,” Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/lawsuit-alleges-government-mistreatment-of-migrant-children-11561608969; Katie Mettler, Mike DeBonis, and Reis Thebault, “Border agents confiscated lawmakers’ phones. Joaquin Castro captured photo and video anyway,” Washington Post, July 2, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/02/ocasio-cortez-says-dispute-with-border-patrol-agents-started-after-one-tried-take-stealth-selfie/
  8. [8]Sam Levin, “‘Happy hunting!’ Immigration agents swapped cheery messages about raids, records reveal,” Guardian, July 3, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/03/ice-us-immigration-messages-raids
  9. [9]Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (New York: Random House, 2008).
  10. [10]Brian Resnick, “The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud,” Vox, June 13, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication; Brian Resnick, “Philip Zimbardo defends the Stanford Prison Experiment, his most famous work,” Vox, June 28, 2018, https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/6/28/17509470/stanford-prison-experiment-zimbardo-interview

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