Uh-oh. The villains are monologuing.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, is gloating over the Supreme Court decision to enable an imperial presidency.
…let me speak about the radical left. You and I have both been parts of faculties and faculty senates and understand that the left has taken over our institutions. The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning.
And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.
Funny, I don’t think the Left has been winning at any time in my lifetime. After Reagan and Bush I and Bush II and Trump we’re supposed to believe we’ve been triumphing because we managed to elect a couple of centrist presidents who had to struggle against a mostly conservative congress? US politics have been biased by the influence of big money.
It’s interesting that Roberts, after singing the praises of the Sacred Constitution and suggesting this decision was a natural evolution of the Federalist papers, compares the decision to the American Revolution. Wasn’t that a time when the old rules and the old government were completely overthrown? You can’t simultaneously claim nothing is different and call it a revolution.
Then, that not-so-veiled threat: the revolution will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be
. Surrender, puny Leftists! If you oppose us, our response will be bloody and crushing.
The shocking thing is that they’re gleefully promising this destruction for the benefit of a dim-witted con artist.
The Claremont Institute is also gloating!
Americans are growing angry with the regime’s unending train of abuses. Perhaps without intending to do so, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, Tanya Chutkan, Arthur Engoran, Juan Merchan, Letitia James, and scores of others have wagered everything—their property, their careers, their reputations, and their liberty—on the regime’s retention of power. They are “all in” as the saying goes. If the regime wins, they will win. But if Trump wins, we should expect that some of the worst perpetrators of the regime’s lawlessness will be held to account. An example will be made. If any of them retain their positions or end up with cushy private sector gigs, you’ll know what you need to know about the regime’s retention of power.
There are now only two paths forward: either the regime will solidify its power in November or Trump will be elected. If the former, we will descend further into the regime’s totalitarian grip. If the latter, unpleasant things will have to be done to hold people to account—people who attacked our constitutional republic by refusing to recognize limits on their exercise of power over us. In this respect, Trump’s claim that the regime is really after you and he’s just “standing in their way” is correct.
Note: the “regime” they are talking about is Biden’s, if that wasn’t clear.
Dead-eyed bald guy announcing his nefarious plans? Where’s James Bond when you need him?
And of course, “Second American Revolution” is what the Confederates said they were up to.
Trump, his corrupt SCOTUS cronies and the MAGA cult have brandished a knife, pointed it at a baby and dared people to stop them from skinning it alive come November.
So, let’s do just that.
They don’t notice that they are making the decision easier and easier because they’re too stupid to notice that you don’t gloat before you’ve actually secured your victory. They have degenerated into a bunch of particularly badly written saturday morning cartoon villains. Well, that happens if your dear leader is a narcissist, spoiled manchild that never had to struggle for anything in their life and allow them to remove anyone who could possibly be smarter or more capable than said manchild.
You have to remember that when rightwing nutjobs say “The Left has taken over our institutions,” they mean “TV commercials show too many interracial families, gay couples buying wedding rings and fat people hugging their kids. I want my all-white, all-hetero, all-conventionally attractive 1950s TV Land back!”
No political or social trends that could in any reasonable way be described as “leftist” have had any power or influence in the US, pretty much ever. The “all-powerful Left” of these people’s imaginations is nothing more than “I see gay/trans/Black/non-skinny/Latino/Muslim people on my teevee screen, and they’re supposed to be invisible and Not Normal! Waaaahhhh!”
Oh, there’s no need to worry about that. The liberals (who shouldn’t count as “leftist,” but the’d right-wing shits don’t differentiate), devoted to the process and non-violence, will not only let the fascists take over if they win the election, they’ll also join in and denounce anyone taking up arms to fight the right as “terrorists” and “tankies;” no better than the Jan 6. Insurrectionists.
Indeed, this entire line is meant to shame libs into compliance and pre-condemn any armed uprisings Trump’s very existence SHOULD prompt.
Edit: …but these right-wing shits…
We can laugh at it, but “the Left has sneakily taken over the country and we must fight to take it back” has been the alt right argument for decades and I’m afraid that people are falling for it. “The elections are rigged” is just another example.
I only wish the Left were taking over America. Sadly the best this shithole country can produce are capitalists who pretend they care about minorities.
The left all but doesn’t exist any more.
The right wingnuts aren’t fighting the left, which is mostly imaginary.
They are fighting what used to be called the center.
Ironically, who is mostly winning here isn’t even mentioned. The rich 1%. The oligarchies. The upper classes.
Proof. Cui Bon? Who benefits?
.1. Who benefits from the personal income tax cuts? The wealthy.
.2. Who benefits when Capital Gains taxes are cut? The wealthy.
.3. Who benefits when corporate taxes are cut? The wealthy.
.4. Who benefits when government regulations to fight Global Warming (CO2 reductions), air and water pollution, and workplace safety are repealed? The wealthy.
If you look at the change through time, the USA is changing its government more and more to channel all the wealth produced by the workers to…the upper classes. The 1%.
The Republic is gone, the Principiate is here.
‘
‘
Only, we bypassed Octavian and Marcus Aurelius, going straight to Caligula.
fusilier
James 2:24
We all know that economic inequality has risen in the USA.
It’s been rising for almost all of my Boomer lifetime so the Boomers have seen it themselves.
So, who is winning here?
The rich oligarchies are winning. They’ve got the money to prove it.
Let me guess. The “radical left” is anyone who is not an impotent, bald, closeted gay, Christian Dominionist.
Is there a prize?
@5
look, i realize that normies like hillary or biden r boring n old n stuff, but all the fash apologetics ive seen since 2016 that werent from conservatives have been coming from the lefter-than-thou folks. i mean, look at the deevolution of matt taibbi or those red scare podcast folks … if u dare.
like it or not, those dumb boring mundane libs you so eagerly condemn have been at the heart of the resistance to trump n his movement. what has the left in this country been good for apart from endlessly arguing and schisming with each other or occasionally acting as spoilers in elections? i realize that theyve been right about plenty of stuff, but theyve also got to pair right ideas with effective action and they seem to have a great big problem with that last one.
The rich oligarchies are winning. They’ve got the money to prove it.
And the courts and politicians to protect it from those nasty unwashed masses.
… I don’t think the Left has been winning at any time in my lifetime.
Our esteemed host did not live through the ’60s & ’70s?
Politically, everything in the US since then has been a backlash to those decades.
You can’t simultaneously claim nothing is different and call it a revolution.
Somebody needs to re-read his Orwell.
McCarthyism pretty much wiped out the left wing in the USoA decades ago :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
What passes for the (relatively) left in the States is basically most other OECD (rich, at least semi-democratic-ish) nations centre righjt to centrist. America States (not so) United of has had its Overton window shifted so far tothe reichwing its gone into the neighbouring sewer.
I lived through the 60s & 70s. I remember the National Guard gunning down liberals, and a war we should never have been in, and what we thought would be the most corrupt president of all time.
I think he meant to say “whining,” not “winning.”
“If you don’t roll over and take the right-wing revolution the death is your fault!”
Preemptive DARVO ignoring all of the pre-existing calls for death on the political right.
@ ^ Brony, Social Justice Cenobite : The Reichwing ahev been fantassising and having wet dreams aboyt literally murdering their political hate figures since .. Obama, Clinton, long before probly even. They openly discuss their hopes for what they’d like to do to their political (non-violent) enemies. Executions and oppression and trails and then they project that somuch nto us with their tinfoil hat fantasies too.
Which is why when I noted in regard to the Presidential immunity SCOTUS mis-ruling that Biden should :
Do unto them what they would do unto him (& others) but do it first
Well, there’s actually a serious case for that.
Given that they nearly did to Pence, Trump’s loyal to a fault Veep for not doing what he couldn’t do on jan 6th I doubt they’ll show any restraint if Trump gets in which is looking scarily likely. It is looking plausibly like life or death here for Biden & many others. I dunno if Biden using his immunity to literally arrest or more would be the right thing to do but it is something he would be well advised to at least consider and threaten. A state of emergency and martial law dealing with SCOTUS? Drastic but perhaps the best option? As I also noted in past thread(s) seems its either going to be Trump’s treason SCOTUS or Democracy in the USoA NOT both. Those seem mutually incompatible so let’s pick Democarcy and remove the traitors SCOTUS please shall we? Especually now they’ve given Biden such wonderful immunity to use to do it.. Sure they won’t complain when the power they expect Trunp to weild gets used against them right?
Seriously Biden , Democratic party, fix this FN SCOTUS problem now.
Seriously are SCOTUS Justices above the law? Imune from the consequences of their actions?
If I was Biden, I would TELL – not ask – tell the traitorous frauds and liars Trump appointed to SCOTUS to resign. Publicly. I’d use every means necessary including arresting and charging them with sedition and Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice and I’d durn well change SCOTUS. By executive order if possible. Isn’t it possible? I’d make that priority 1.
Trump’s justices lied to get their jobs and that’s not okay. They are corrupt and think and act as tho’ they are above the law and that’s not okay. They are a clear and present danger to the United States and are enabling and supporting domestic enemies of the USA and that’s not okay. So yeah Fucking ACT!
Confront them privately, confront them publicly. If need be arrest them. Tell the SCOTUS corrupt traitor scum that they are resigning and not facing trial or being arrested and facing trial and do the latter if they don’t do the right thing. Address the nation that a Judicial coup is NOT going to be allowed and that the current anti-SCOTUS is rendered null and void. Take away their security and publically give out their home addresses if that’s what it takes. Surround their houses with troops and state they only reason they’ll be allowed out of their doors is to surrender themselves to authorities to face trial if that’s what it takes. Tell them that that’s what you’ll do first if they don’t resign and if they don’t well, that’s what the’ll get. Oh and thank them for their gift of immunity helping and necessitating this but tell them that after they’ve been removed it won’t be needed and laws will be passed – Constiutional amendments passed – to make sure that what they puilled wll never be allowed to be tried again.
POh and tehFederalist socxiety? One big Conspiracy toattempt topervert the course of Justice by controling Justices and thus an illegal criminal organisation every member of which shall now be jailed for. They’ll like that being authoritarians with martyrdom complexes right?
Its puzzles and shits me so much that Biden won’t act strongly enough and confront them hea don and witheverything inhis arsenal here. Remove alltheir protections, callthem out, addres sthe country. state that its drastic, unprecedented but, yes, they cannot stay in offic eand thsi SCOTUS is iillegitmate which it is and need sto end now which it should. Won’t even seem to try.. When you considier what’s at stake, well..
@StevoR
I don’t know what to think about the doing it first issue. Some symbolic things, maybe. I can’t say I want to weigh in there yet.
I’m wanting the parallel massive ground level resistance otherwise.
If the country is on the brink of collapse every election, and each election “could be the last,” there is definitely something wrong with the country. I thinks it’s time the Democratic Party, since they seem to have the most sense, is honest with those who will listen, American and non-American, about the need for drastic action.
If that means packing the courts, making it clear any would-be insurrectionists will put in the dirt, making it a Constitutional right to end a pregnancy, taxing the rich, and anything else that’ll turn this around, it’s time to do it.
Note the complete lack of objective valuation. There is no thought of being correct or finding what is true. It’s just all about winning. The right has gone all in for relativism.
Maybe… the Left has long been winning hearts and minds? As in rightist churches emptying out?
Or put it this way: the Right has long been losing its mind.
Please stop calling the Right “conservative”. They do not conserve. Their very name for themselves is double-think.
Which means that the Left is by default the conservative faction, in the non-Orwellian definition of the word ‘conservative’. We believe in conserving civil rights, the middle class, the rule of law, the Constitution, democracy, the environment, decency, reason, and much else.
After the Right destroys itself and much else, we’ll have to be ‘restorationist’.
The Conservative Left is the only conservatism left.
I bet those the mind of those idiots are as rotten as their idol’s. They may make their plans known, but there will always be We The People who will come along and stop them.
“Bloodless” in the sense that Zyklon B showers kill via suffocation, and thus produce very little blood loss. Certainly nothing that can’t be cleaned up with a quick spritz of the hose before the next group of Black, Brown, and/or LGBTQ+ people are herded in for their turn. Perhaps, with the, ahem, might of big business ingenuity behind them, our benevolent far-right “revolutionary” overlords might engineer the gas chambers to drop the bodies directly into an incinerator of some sort.
There you have it: neat and tidy, and no one who might object to it will ever have to see a drop of blood. That’s certainly nothing to lose one’s mind over, now is it?
Tell them the quality of their tattoos will decrease drastically when the war starts.
Stop calling them “Right”. They are not right.
[sorry, could not resist]
On the other side, David Brin (SF author) has a blog, and for quite some time, to this day even, holds that there’s an ongoing civil war — though not a “hot” one.
cf. https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2024/06/enemies-so-desperately-want-us-civil-war.html
—
Whatever validity it holds, it’s certainly a perspective.
(Helps with theory of mind, no?)
[um, I should have note I’ve only left one of the hyperlinks in my quotation above, it being relevant; the others were to his books, which of course I think are pretty good]
After thinking about it, it’s only the violent suggestions I really have a problem with. More than symbolic could push people to do something with the supreme court or hesitant branches of Congress.
Huh, tried to post but didn’t go through here. Not sure why..
I don’t agree with violence but I do want SCOTUS Justices who have done the wrong thing, and seem to think they are above the law removed and ideally arrested. I want this SCOTUS stopped and fixed.
is there any reason beyond convention why SCOTUS Justcies can’t be arrested?
Clarence Thomas for blatant corruption, Alito for sedition and possibly aiding and supporting the overthrow of the US govt, Amy Comey OfBarrett & others for fraud obtaining,their powerful positions by false pretecnes and Contemptof Congress.
I want the Trump SCOTUS Justices who’ve done the wrong thing to be held accountable. To lose their power and face the Justcie they claim POTUS is immune from and seem to think they are above. Is that really so much to ask?
“is there any reason beyond convention why SCOTUS Justcies can’t be arrested?”
Not in principle, StevoR.
In practice, well… do you know the lawful process that precedes arrest?
Depends on who you ask, no?
Is there anything, anywhere, at any time, that a self-described “conservative” complains about that isn’t confession or projection or both?
Biden needs to use those “official acts are immune” rulings to clean house. With a huge grin on his face, on national TV, specifically thanking “my Trump-appointed friends on the Supreme Court” for giving him the legal go-ahead to do so. Said housecleaning ideally involves SEAL Team 6 or similar; we are, after all, dealing with domestic terrorists.
It’s sad and scary that my homeland’s future has gotten murky enough I start to wonder how I should take such proposals. The scary part about needing drastic action is figuring out which drastic actions to take.