So how big is this thing at the border?
So how big is this thing at the border?
6 states siding against a supreme court decision to deny access to federal authorities seems big, if thats happened in my lifetime I've not heard of it before
So how big is this thing at the border?
6 states siding against a supreme court decision to deny access to federal authorities seems big, if thats happened in my lifetime I've not heard of it before
It’s republicans grandstanding to impress their racist base.
It’s technically sedition and if democrats wanted to they could arrest or kill them all, but they are cowards.
So instead it will just blow over. It’s nothing. It will lead to nothing. It’s just stupid pandering for racist scum.
It’s nothing.
It's a demonstration that the US federal government does not exist in any meaningful sense. That's not nothing and very soon it'll lead to things that are even more not nothing
Its something and nothing at the same time. It is yet another demonstration that the fed government doesn't want/can't govern, and it is a constitutional crisis. But the actors involved are only pushing this for pandering/grandstanding for electoral ends. They aren't pushing this to actually secceed or push any political agenda beyond elections. That's what makes it nothing.
Its the same way Jan 6 was nothing because even though it was inserectionist the peoppe there had no clue what they were doing beyond the spectacle of it and what they were doing was never going to matter beyond spectacle.
I agree that the implications are down the line. That's how cynical pandering to the chud base has always worked. Its hard to say when any of this will lead to an actual "something" though. Eventually yeah the chuds aren't going to be happy until they order the national guard to open fire on the feds, but at that point even the base is still only politically engaged in that spectacle and not its implications. That's why people at Jan 6th thought they could just fly home like nothing happened, because they are completely detached and unaware of the implications.
it means that mayobrained right-wingers perceive the racist violent federal border agents as "not being racist and violent enough"
They're stepping in to do the work for free, and the feds look at it and shrug their shoulders and think "eh sure why not"
Wishful thinking I’m afraid
If they were to allow Texas to do anything it wanted then sure, you'd be right. Some governors saying they side with Texas against the Supreme Court (when they aren't technically violating what they've said yet) doesn't mean anything.
The Supreme Court says the federal government can cut through the razorwire to reach where they need to reach. It doesn't say Texas can't put razorwire up, so they haven't violated that. It's 100% nothing for now. If Texas decides it wants to turn it into something and stop the federal agents from doing their job, then it becomes something.
Yeah, i agree with this. Its technically a huge thing, a real constitutional crisis if this was a functioning government. But even in something like this, its not even meant to be real politics, just pandering. Like these libs and chuds will literally take their pandering to what should be the brink, but its ultimately empty and meaningless
You want to maintain empire, you better be willing to enforce it's primacy. A truly "American" president would have meal team 6 merc Abbot within the hour. No trial, no deliberation, straight up kill the challengers of the union.
Every dem voter is going to get an email citing it as more evidence that Democracy Is On The Ballot and demanding more donations.
"The South is rising in revolt and I am doing everything I can to encourage them. Here's why I need you to open your wallet and pour out the last few pathetic copper fennigs stuck to a piece of gum in the bottom to aid my path to the white house where I will make your life measurably worse"
Better than any Biden pitch I’ve heard so far
We need to let the voters decide whether to enforce sedition laws. Make sure to
Biden to force him to do something."Also there is literally nothing Biden could do about the situation so don't ask"
Yeah. It's sedition. The feds should have everyone involved, at minimum, gitmo'd, if not hung. It's a big deal. This is balkanization/civil war stuff. The feds have total, unambiguous authority over the border and the states have zero, zip, nada.
It's wild they haven't moved to shooting yet. BLM faced more persecution blocking a road to ask for police reform. These hogs are doing such a fundamentally illegal thing that a whole civil war was fought to decide the very issue of state authority and Biden doesn't know whether to kiss them on the lips or give them all of their demands. The democrats could have had a huge groundswell of support for any action they take like they did with January 6th, but they've spent the last three years trying to prove to republicans that their border policy is just as fascistic. All of the orgs dedicated to that issue are now vote machines for the democrats or are opposed to them.
If the feds do something like Waco or Ruby Ridge they don't have my support. If they do that level of violence here, that's the clearest case for its justified use to the broadest number of people. I'd clap like I did on January 6th whenever anyone on either side got what they both deserve.
It goes back at least as far as O'Bummer, too. His border policy was "I am going to do everything the fascists demand because then they will like me and invite me to their tea parties." Sucks. the democrats never had a solution to the GOP. idk. Bunch of wack ass fucking model UN losers. You can't fight fascism with a more borng, pedantic, multicultural fascism, it turns out.
BLM faced more persecution blocking a road to ask for police reform.
That's because it was leftist. The Texan hogs just want to do a particular fascist thing slightly differently than the way the federal government wants it done.
I agree, except i think it will probably blow over without any direct consequences for now (they'll come down the line). The reason i think this is because while it is sedition - the states/governors are only engaged for the spectacle of it as a grandstand to the hogs. They aren't politically engaged in pushing for actual secession or balkanize, because that isn't their goal. And i don't think the Biden Admin is going to do much but fundraise off this and call it a win/win for politicians in both parties.
6 states siding against a supreme court decision to deny access to federal authorities seems big,
25 now
Over a completely fictitious, made up, bullshit "crisis" that doesn't exist and, I cannot stress this enough, is fake.
Do you think they factored in rising food prices caused by scaring off all the migrant farm labor as a calculated way to make Muricans poorer and more miserable so they'll blame it on Joe?
no more half measures walter
The fuck, really!?!??
Lol, lmao.
26 including TX
The Liberal Dropsite Massacre
Right now it's political theater, but it's planting the seeds for something in the future to be more than just theater
exactly and unfortunately it does set the table for some nasty shit. not like 1860's civil war as so many envision it though. the fort sumter in this case is much more likely to be something like a wave of pickup truck pogroms in minority areas and the local/state pigs basically refuse to investigate themselves.
Bleeding Kansas 2.0.
Yeah, call me when there's blue on blue fire.
Enjoy your daily calls from the IOF.
No it hasn't happened in our lifetimes. This should be massive. It is a constitutional crisis, technically. But none of the parties are engaging in this for those reasons. It is 100 percent pandering and grandstanding, and is only about bullshit electoral agendas. So it probably won't actually be anything, even though it is technically massive lol
Edit: the only important impact could be later on down the line. Like every escalation of cynical Republican pandering to their genuine fascist base. Eventually the hogs won't be happy until they order tge national guard to open fire on feds. Which will be mostly hilarious when it first happens. Itll be another Jan 6 kind of thing where its technically treason, but no one involved understands what they are actually doing or than it is treason or what comes next. They're just in it for the spectacle with no actual politics or understanding of the implications of the thing they're howling for
I do wonder when someone who truly has ambitions of being a real warlord or autocrat will appear.
When peoole like that are able to do anything it'll be the result of a more material Balkanization and it'll exist in regions where no other law is being enforced.
Politicians today are only in it for their own egos at this point, because none of them have meaningful power to be an autocrat or warlord, because they just don't have that kind of real power. That's why libs Teump derangement is so unserious. Even if everything libs claimed were true about what Trump wants - that he wants to be a dictator and end democracy - it wouldn't matter because even a president doesn't have that kind of real power. They just get to rubber stamp bullshit and have their ego stroked
I think you're right overall but we shouldn't rule out the possibility of one of the sides painting themselves into a corner and then chosing to escalate rather than the alternative. The problem inherent in brinkmanship is that it's very easy for things to spiral out of control.
I can guarantee you that no balkanization is going to happen in the US.
Why? Because this is no longer the time period where individual states can build up their gold reserves as a store of their wealth. No, the US dollar is unparalleled in history in the sense that it allows the US to get “free lunches” from all over the world with junk papers.
I love quoting from this article from 2022 because the Californian finance department accidentally revealed a very crucial fact:
If you look at all of the personal income tax returns that were filed in California in the year 2020, just 1% of the total number of income tax returns that were filed were responsible for more than 49% of all of the personal income tax that was paid in that year. And unlike most of us who get our income from wages and salaries, that very narrow band of taxpayers derives a lot of their income from things like capital gains, stock markets [and] bonuses that are tied to corporate or stock performance. So when the markets are doing very well, those individuals are doing very well and state revenues are doing very well. Conversely, when the markets go south, their fortunes don't do very well and the state's revenues decline as a result.
Let’s parse this paragraph: California, the richest state in the US, derives much of its tax revenues from capital gains such as stocks and bonds. Yeah, good luck losing access to the dollar, if any US state even dares to contemplate about seceding for real. Their wealth and living standards are going to plunge overnight. Good luck with that.
Just because it'd be irrational for it to happen, doesn't mean it won't happen
This is just the equivalent of rich kids who live off their parents’ wealth throwing tantrum. At the end of the day, nobody dares to cut ties from the family wealth. Sure, some might be crazy enough to do it, but most of the time it doesn’t end well for them.
No country is ever going to give up the dollar just to trade with Texas. Literally nobody. This is how the US impose its sanctions and embargo against Cuba and all the Bad Countries.
Good take. Material analysis gives us an insight into the most likely scenario.
100-150 years ago it would be a real event but now it's some bullshit we're all going to forget about in a month
We're having these false "existential threats to our democracy" crises with such frequency and regularity now that everyone will be too desensitized to the warnings when the actual threat does arise.
the actual fascist takover threat is already here lol
The libs will probably use it as fuel in their woke scolding about voting blue no matter who. Gotta preserve democracy 🙏 Hillary 2024
And we can all say "yea it's an example of how Biden is literally not going to do a single goddamn thing even if multiple states explicitly say they're ignoring the federal government to be cruel to vulnerable minorities"
I'm not if libs appreciate how bad this is going to hurt him, not great to be the guy who supports genocide abroad and is doing literally nothing to stop the fascists at home.
Libs screeching daily about democracy under attack since 2015, spends the next two election cycles paving the way for Republicans to materially harm the bare bones scrap of American democracy that remains, say I told you so in 2028
This has the potential to be the tankie Biden moment, but he's only militant about doing violence to foreigners.
My money is on this being the thing that directly causes the US to balkanize, and only because it seems to be against the hexbear main consensus. This site was wrong about the invasion of Ukraine, I think this is going to be Hexbear tradition.
Wrong about the beginning of events, but correct about their trajectory once they have begun
But often only because we go "No, that won't happen, that would be stupid and counterproductive for the West" but then they just do the thing anyway and so we just go "...okay, well, they're gonna lose then"
Ever since Ukraine, my partner scoffs whenever I say “nothing major is going to happen.” I can’t say they’re wrong
I had a large discussion with some colleagues about there not "being anything going on in Ukraine" because they had finally, after weeks/months of scaremongering, picked up on the news that "something was going to happen in Ukraine".
This argument took place on february the 24th. I had not heard the news because I had finally tuned out, because nothing was going to happen lol. I literally said "I'll call it a war when there's tanks rolling into Ukraine!" Not knowing that at that moment, tanks were rolling into Ukraine.
Happens to the best of us, literally. Lenin said revolution wasn't going to happen in his lifetime.
Ukraine is like the only thing this site has been wrong about, and that's only because we forgot the number one rule -- the stupidest thing that can happen is the one most likely to happen
Yeah I'm a Marxist-Contrarianist too
So a Marxist
Naw my vibe based interpretation says not shit happens
Disclaimer: I was wrong about covid
I just assume it's all gong to happen now. Once years started to happen, all bets were off.
I actually anticipated a war in Ukraine (because I had been listening to Alex Mercouris and for months throughout 2021 he was very pessimistic about the various diplomatic negotiations leading up to February 2022), I simply did not expect it to happen this soon. I thought it would be another year or so, but those who had been following closely the US-Russia summit in 2021 knew that the US was dead set on provoking a war in Ukraine.
I think anyone who thinks this is going to cause the US to balkanize needs to step outside for at least 3 hours. Screenshot this comment and feel free to @ me in 2-6 months when the current state of affairs has led nowhere.
The "nothing ever happens" crowd will be proven wrong soon
Less "nothing ever happens" and more "it is ridiculous to think Texas will balkanize over what is essentially a slap-fight over immigration when the state receives ~40% of its revenue from the federal government and, among other things, has critical infrastructure fail statewide during cold snaps and is reliant on federal aid anytime a moderately strong storm forms in the gulf of Mexico" - but be sure to tag me in case I miss Abbott's announcement of Texas' secession from his militarized wheelchair lmao.
it's safer to say "eventually"
I think anyone who thinks this is going to cause Russia to invade Ukraine needs to step outside for at least 3 hours. Screenshot this comment and feel free to @ me in 2-6 months when the current state of affairs has led nowhere.
bro they were massing like 200k soldiers on the border for several months before that, it's not comparable
I never said anything like that in regard to Ukraine so frankly the comparison is pointless. Theory-crafting balkanization of the US & making cool maps is all well and good but let's be serious about things.
The most recent example of something similar I can think of is Eisenhower ordering the national guard in to force Arkansas to allow Ruby Bridges into a previously all white school. Of course, that that had a much narrower physical scope than the border. I don’t think the number of states whining means that much as several of them aren’t Mexico land border states so as a practical matter they’re just complaining/engaging in political theater.
Actual enforcement of the Supreme Court order is a mixed bag. It’s easy enough to have the feds reclaim specific crossing sites, and as this is more about political theater I think Abbot will buckle before actually telling the Texas National Guard to fire upon federal agents (and for that matter, those guardsmen risking themselves like that in the name of an election year stunt). The larger border with the razor wire is a different story as it’s easy for Abbot to send people back in to replace the wire after the feds remove it, and the federal government might decide it’s not worth the cost to keep removing it.
Why remove the wire when you can just remove abbot
UwU I’m just a widdle pwesident of amewikkka what do you expect me to doooo
If they actually do secede, then every country in the world needs to immediately invade them on the side of the US and secure the nukes
no nukes for the new south. say no to nuclear proliferation!
A coalition of Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, and several other south and Central American countries invading a newly independent Texas to resubsume into Mexico would be absolutely hilarious.
Eisenhower sent deputy US Marshals, to escort Ruby Bridges to school in New Orleans. He federalized the Arkansas National Guard, to enforce the integration of Little Rock Central High School.
It's going to be a huge load of nothing. Just like Jan 6th was nothing, just like the Bundy Ranch standoff was nothing, just like the Malheur Wildlife Center occupation was nothing. Biden doesn't have the cojones to do anything decisive about it, doubly so because it's an election year.
Biden doesn't have the cojones to do anything decisive about it, doubly so because it's an election year.
True. That's the main reason this is even happening right now, because its an election year. Despite all the implications of this that should matter and are actually high stakes, the reality is that to these governors and the Biden Admin this is just a stunt thats a part of US electoral politics
I might vote for the guy if he started mowing down border patrol hogs and their paymasters lmao
Probably it'll blow over in a couple of weeks. The feds next step for things like this is usually to find something they fund and pull funding...probably in this case they could just pull any border funding they give to Texas, and that would be enough for Texas to say "fuck it, we can't buy more razor wire without the funds" and give it up. That's almost always how these things end up.
If not, next step would be to use force, which at worst would result in a minor skirmish at one or two spots between the local forces and the feds. The local forces would lose that fight pretty much immediately. I would guess most of them are all talk and as soon as the feds roll up with tanks and start shooting, they'll give up because they'd rather not die for some stupid border skirmish. The feds may not even have to shoot, what tools do the local forces have to stop an APC from just running over the razor wire? The die hards might stick around and they would die, hard. Perhaps there will be some token fall guy somewhere that spends a long time in jail afterwards, we don't know about him yet because he's not going to be anyone relevant. Nobody that matters will be punished for this in any capacity, just a few local goons will die and some middle manager soldier type will be made an example of.
Either way it ends with Texas and their allied states using this as yet another campaign talking point to show how the fed is doing le government overreach, push their agenda as usual, and the racists will eat it the fuck up forever. There's no way in hell this is anything more than a political stunt, even if it gets a few folks at the border shot by the feds. A small price to pay for the GOP to push their agenda. Sure, their stunts are getting flashier and flashier because they need to, but the GOP doesn't want to balkanize so there's no way it'll go that far.
Either way it ends with Texas and their allied states using this as yet another campaign talking point to show how the fed is doing le government overreach
Exactly. That's the whole point of doing this for them, and the entire reason its happening in an election year.
It is just a stunt. Its a stunt that has some really high stakes implications that should matter in a functioning society - but we don't live in one if those. We live in one where you can throw a political stunt thats equivalent to sedition and its no big deal because no one wants to deal with that, just enjoy the spectacle
You still feel that way knowing that now it's not 6 states supporting it it's 25?
I do, yes. Republicans aren't going to go to start a countrywide civil war over some razor wire on the border. That's the only other way this ends, either the funding cuts and a few local force deaths stop this, or it's literally civil war. I guess the secret 3rd option is that Biden just does nothing and Texas keeps doing what they're doing. That's also pretty likely. Either way 2 of those 3 options are basically systemically nothings, and a civil war is highly highly highly unlikely.
please can something funny happen, my life is so boring, i'm not asking for much, i want to see abbott taken to a government black site and returned with an obvious flesh tone antenna sticking out of his head, something of that nature
The should take him out of his wheelchair and put him a solitary box covered in some sort of lubricated oil.
Libs are already doing the "we can't do anything or republicans will call us authoritarians" line.
So it's not like it's going to start a co flict but it's just going to demonstrate with extreme clarity that democrats are literally completely useless for foreign affairs and also will not do literally anything even when multiple republican states are explicitly ignoring federal law to murder vulnerable minorities.
Basically it's just gonna knock dems down another 15 point in the polls and all those "moderates" libs are obsessed with are just gonna sneer even harder when a liberal explains to them how letting Republicans do literally whatever you want is the pragmatic and reasonable decision.
I mean it's giving Ted Cruz the opportunity to look like he's actually standing for something lmao.
In the meantime they might literally start gunning down migrants approaching the border while liberals tell you you're a child if you think k Biden should do anything about it.
Yeah I have no idea what's going on. With the border, I just assume that it's bullshit because Republicans have been crying about the border for like... my entire life and everything has been seemingly OK thus far apart from the fascist response to migrants at the border.
America is going to become undebatably fascist pretty soon. The libs didn't prosecute J6 hard enough, now there's a precedent that a revolt isn't a life ruining thing for right wingers.
Prepare for American balkanization
Liberal analysis
The second coming
Lmao the libs didn’t prosecute January 6th hard enough? They put everyone who was there in jail for life basically. They prosecuted it in an unprecedented way, clamping down hard and freezing assets. I have no idea what you are talking about, FBI went on a hog hunt afterwards.
The issue with libs isn’t that they didn’t freak out enough over January 6th, that’s basically the exact opposite of reality. They couldn’t have possibly overreacted more than they did
Nothing ever happens.
I really want to see at least one shootout between state and federal agents, but it's probably not going to happen.
Bigger than my large adult son.
I've not
Is this contraction a midwestern US thing? Or some other dialect?
Most English dialects contract to "I haven't". Some parts of England do the "I've not" thing, but I rarely've heard Americans do it.
Just anecdotally as an American in the South, Midwest or Great Plains (try and find me now FBI): In other circumstances you definitely can use I've in American English, like "I've been waiting," and "I've not" doesn't sound unnatural to me, just a little stuffy, but "I haven't" is for sure more common.
We should all start using the clearly superior I'ven't.
My favorite is contracting "you all are not" to "y'all'ren't" (rhymes with tolerant). There's also "y'all'dn't've", "you all (would|could|should) not have". No one intends to say those, but I think a US Southerner talking at a natural or fast pace might end up saying them.
that's weird?
I couldn't tell ya, it's just the words I use
I'ven't
Seems like the US version of brexit in the making: Some right-wing politicians are grandstanding to their base, the neolibs and the cons don't expect it to escalate further, but their rabid supporters want it to, so it will, completely surprising all at the head of this movement.
Or maybe they manage to roll a
Not by itself enough to cause balkanization or civil war, but still represents growing divisions in the US-American bourgeoisie which could lead to those events in the near future.
As a Texan, I would like them to take away our electoral college votes for failing to comply. Lets see the orange fatty win the presidency without Texas's 40 electoral votes. Abbot should be held in contempt and indicted.