“All it requires is the ability to open your fucking eyes and be honest about what you see.” And it also requires people like you who can frame and explain things in ways that help people open their fucking eyes. Thank you.
On the broad point of the nature of the law: the correct response to a conservative insisting that we have to be Nazis to irregular migrants because they're "illegal immigrants" and we have to "enforce the law" is to say "Okay! Let's change the law so that all migration to the United States [or wherever] is lawful, and then we'll reduce 'illegal immigration' to zero overnight!" (this is also the correct policy).
But more academically this idea is one of the more infuriatingly facile ones in the pantheon of conservative "thought", because the law does not exist simply to execute itself. The purpose of laws is to *achieve* something, and the only justification for enforcing a law is to make that result happen. We don't criminalise murder so that people can be arrested and put on trial for murder; we do it to stop murder happening and punish it when it does happen. Immigration law, likewise, does not exist so that immigration law can be enforced; it's a means to an end, and we can only evaluate it in respect of its ends (intended or actual, both of which are terrible).
You already said that though - you gave people a chance at reform with amnesty in 2007, and they rejected it. In 2016, they once again had a choice, and once again chose less immigration and Trump. And then in 2024, even more people chose Trump and less immigration.
So people should give up their beliefs when people they disagree with are in power? Did the right wing give up it's beliefs when nominally "left" ideas had temporary dominance? No they didn't. When abortion was legalized, did the Christian right find another issue? That's not How Things Work, amigo.
"We are all criminals." Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious to everyone—that the point of deploying "storm troopers" (the real and the cosplayers) is to make everyone a criminal at any time for whatever reason (first for your skin color, then for your lack of housing, … eventually for your political views).
And thank you. I had that figured out at 14, right at the moment I figured out the catholic church was bullshit and then had the utter teenage idiocy to say so publicly. Have since discovered that all my poor, queer, trans and jack-mormon friends figured out the same thing (what insurers call "inherent vice") even earlier. Veterans (and only some) a bit later. I think not understanding this might be a good definition of what the woke call "privilege".
The real crimes and conspiracies are taking place on K Street, luxury yachts, golf courses, and in corporate board rooms. Not only overlooked and unpunished as far as crime goes, but celebrated as "creating value." A multiply convicted "white collar" criminal (but maybe child rape is a blue collar crime? - Not sure) has been "elected" once again, and "real crime" is whatever he says it is.
Keep speaking resistance, Hamilton! Repeat and repeat; your words just become more invigorating and creative each time you write.
My immigrant ancestors came to this country and formed unions, which lent strength and a vibrant sense of community to our family. Our dearest family friend fled Ireland with a price on his head during the Black and Tan Rebellion. He became an international union representative in this country, using his words and example of resistance to inspire.
I don’t know how many of us receive these essays, but I’m pretty sure than more than just a few of us feel motivated and energized to get off our hands and at least do something.
And hey, if the cops don’t see enough people breaking the law, the state can just change the law and PRESTO, now millions of people are instantly “illegal”. See Germany 1935.
I used to play bridge and the one rule you have to know in bridge is "count the aces". If you miss an ace going down, you know nothing about the game you're in.
Okay, let's call them pretexts: they've been coming since the first day. You're right: some people swallow them, just as Trump says: "hook, line and sinker." But there's no serious attempt to make the pretext stick. Even if it's utter nonsense. A pretext is there to exculpate, but if you don't even try to make them stick, what or who are you going to exculpate? Meanwhile, aces are being played and you're not noticing them.
He could forget all the pretexts, and still do everything he's doing and more, and he doesn't give a tinker's toss because he knows that there is nothing that you can do. That's why he doesn't entertain himself by dreaming up pretexts. Instead he presents the most ludicrous reason for what he is doing that he can think of to present as the reason for what he's doing. If that's a pretext, then it is a pretext to throw a ball so a dog can fetch it back for you.
The bitterest pill yet to be even lapped at by America is this: every single president who preceded the 47th could have done exactly the same as he is doing, including the 47th, actually, in his previous iteration. And, still, no one would have been able to do anything about it. They produced a handbook on how to do what he's doing. They told you what he would do. They told you what they were telling him that he would need to do. I don't think anyone read it, to be honest. What was the point? No one has written a book telling you how to stop him doing what he's doing. And without that, Project 2025 was set in concrete from the Inauguration.
One final point: Gandhi actually got India off the British. Can you imagine? Gandhi got the British to piss off. And, what's more, you getting your country back from your president is in the same order of things. You are no Mickey Mouse country.
However, Gandhi succeeded for one reason that does not apply to you in the US: they had nothing to lose, and Gandhi himself was magnanimous enough to forsake anything that he had to lose. And men who have something to lose will never, ever, join in revolution for the chance at something better. Because you are too greedy. You'd sooner hide.
There have been "bloodless revolutions". In some ways, the collapse of the Soviet Union was relatively bloodless - the blood came from what's ensued. Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution. Belgium. Now, the United States of America. Any revolution to counter what has even happened up until now will need to be a counter-revolution. But what has happened up until now has not in fact constituted an abrogation of the constitution. That means that the fundamental set of rules by which your country is governed allow of it being governed as it is being governed now. It's all a question of interpretation.
Which is why I maintain that all the other 45 1/2 presidents could have done the same. Could have rigged the Supreme Court. Could have invented emergencies. Could have militarised, albeit temporarily, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Could have engaged in commerce and then manipulated the markets. Could have threatened the territorial integrity of foreign sovereign states and then petitioned them to nominate them as Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Could, in short, have taken the piss out of the very document they swore to uphold upon being inaugurated. I remember a well-edited section from the Godfather III in which Pacino acts as the godfather to his nephew: with each holy vow cutting momentarily to its blatant breach, as murder after murder is committed in his name.
No revolution is "them against us". Algeria probably came closest, but even it splintered ultimately. Except one. One was easy. It involved a territory that the revolutionaries had already taken and which the established power needed to attack from outside, the complete reverse of what a revolution usually is. It was yours. When it came to mulling over what form of government it would take, the answer was not a unanimous "republic". Even Haiti, 28 years later, could not unanimously decide on "rule by the will of the people", after its people had struggled for 13 years to free themselves.
Upon emerging from the Philadelphia hall in which the discussions took place, the socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel collared Benjamin Franklin and asked him, as were she enquiring into the sex of a newborn baby, "Well, doctor, what have we got - a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic," said the good doctor. "If you can keep it."
I think you just lost the baby, because you can incorporate as many safeguards as you want into a written document, but they mean pretty much nothing if you maintain the army under the control of the one person who can tear it to shreds.
I suggested to my wife that we need to get some tactical gear, yellow-lens sunglasses and face masks to wear whenever we go out. Not only can we do whatever we want with impunity, but we will also present as "One of Us".
Excellent. You have a real talent for cutting through the bullshit—but more importantly, you carry through that commitment by rousing the troops without brightsiding them. This is rare, at least in my experience. Deeply necessary.
Brilliant piece, and you absolutely nail it. Except... I'm not so sure about this:
"Those who are helping him do this want to use that power in service of a racist deportation campaign, a borderline neo-Nazi ethnic cleansing of America."
I've never thought this to be their goal - just the misdirection. Maybe, (because I'm not a racist), I just don't get it, but I believe that - just like Trump - an unquenchable thirst for power is the real driver. Just look at the people Trump, (who has twice married Eastern Europeans), has enlisted to help him:
- Kash Patel - brown.
- JD Vance - married to a brown person.
- Stephen Miller - wife is Jewish.
Hey... I'm not saying they're not racists. I'm sure they are. But I don't buy, that ethnic cleansing is the end game. It's the "look over there - butterfly" device they use to acquire more power and wealth. In a nutshell: it's all about greed.
Remember trump and his “where’s my Negro” moment? They showcase a few Brown and Black people foolish enough to think they can accrue power otherwise denied to them, and tada! suddenly they aren’t racist. It’s the oldest racist trick in the book. So maybe we’re both right—it’s about greed *and* racism.
“All it requires is the ability to open your fucking eyes and be honest about what you see.” And it also requires people like you who can frame and explain things in ways that help people open their fucking eyes. Thank you.
Literally every word of this ⭐️
On the broad point of the nature of the law: the correct response to a conservative insisting that we have to be Nazis to irregular migrants because they're "illegal immigrants" and we have to "enforce the law" is to say "Okay! Let's change the law so that all migration to the United States [or wherever] is lawful, and then we'll reduce 'illegal immigration' to zero overnight!" (this is also the correct policy).
But more academically this idea is one of the more infuriatingly facile ones in the pantheon of conservative "thought", because the law does not exist simply to execute itself. The purpose of laws is to *achieve* something, and the only justification for enforcing a law is to make that result happen. We don't criminalise murder so that people can be arrested and put on trial for murder; we do it to stop murder happening and punish it when it does happen. Immigration law, likewise, does not exist so that immigration law can be enforced; it's a means to an end, and we can only evaluate it in respect of its ends (intended or actual, both of which are terrible).
You already said that though - you gave people a chance at reform with amnesty in 2007, and they rejected it. In 2016, they once again had a choice, and once again chose less immigration and Trump. And then in 2024, even more people chose Trump and less immigration.
Why not find another issue?
So people should give up their beliefs when people they disagree with are in power? Did the right wing give up it's beliefs when nominally "left" ideas had temporary dominance? No they didn't. When abortion was legalized, did the Christian right find another issue? That's not How Things Work, amigo.
"We are all criminals." Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious to everyone—that the point of deploying "storm troopers" (the real and the cosplayers) is to make everyone a criminal at any time for whatever reason (first for your skin color, then for your lack of housing, … eventually for your political views).
And thank you. I had that figured out at 14, right at the moment I figured out the catholic church was bullshit and then had the utter teenage idiocy to say so publicly. Have since discovered that all my poor, queer, trans and jack-mormon friends figured out the same thing (what insurers call "inherent vice") even earlier. Veterans (and only some) a bit later. I think not understanding this might be a good definition of what the woke call "privilege".
The real crimes and conspiracies are taking place on K Street, luxury yachts, golf courses, and in corporate board rooms. Not only overlooked and unpunished as far as crime goes, but celebrated as "creating value." A multiply convicted "white collar" criminal (but maybe child rape is a blue collar crime? - Not sure) has been "elected" once again, and "real crime" is whatever he says it is.
Very well said
Well-said. Many people can't see what's in front of their faces so it's verynhelpful to explain the realities to them (without blame or rant.)
Keep speaking resistance, Hamilton! Repeat and repeat; your words just become more invigorating and creative each time you write.
My immigrant ancestors came to this country and formed unions, which lent strength and a vibrant sense of community to our family. Our dearest family friend fled Ireland with a price on his head during the Black and Tan Rebellion. He became an international union representative in this country, using his words and example of resistance to inspire.
I don’t know how many of us receive these essays, but I’m pretty sure than more than just a few of us feel motivated and energized to get off our hands and at least do something.
And hey, if the cops don’t see enough people breaking the law, the state can just change the law and PRESTO, now millions of people are instantly “illegal”. See Germany 1935.
There is a lot that can be done.
The media are idiots. So stop watching them. All of them.
They report so ignorantly it is if they are complicit.
Cancel any TV package that pays to carry their channel.
I canceled Paramount Plus.
I canceled Direct TV.
Do not drink Coors beer.
Do not shop at Hobby Lobby.
Do not vacation in Florida or Texas.
Make this list bigger.
Every liberal should turn their 401k into cash. It is a bubble anyway.
If someone caves for money. Withhold yours.
50 million doing this. People notice.
Protests?
Nobody cares if it doesn't cost them $$$.
Protests are to show that it will cost $$$.
But protests alone? Does nothing.
Tesla sales are down.
Canada is not buying US goods.
Put on the pressure.
BIG OIL especially.
Liberal stay home days.
Millions cutting their gas purchases to only what is necessary.
Spend your $$ with supporters.
Cancel Culture? Sure is.
They're not pretexts. Nothing is a pretext.
I used to play bridge and the one rule you have to know in bridge is "count the aces". If you miss an ace going down, you know nothing about the game you're in.
Okay, let's call them pretexts: they've been coming since the first day. You're right: some people swallow them, just as Trump says: "hook, line and sinker." But there's no serious attempt to make the pretext stick. Even if it's utter nonsense. A pretext is there to exculpate, but if you don't even try to make them stick, what or who are you going to exculpate? Meanwhile, aces are being played and you're not noticing them.
He could forget all the pretexts, and still do everything he's doing and more, and he doesn't give a tinker's toss because he knows that there is nothing that you can do. That's why he doesn't entertain himself by dreaming up pretexts. Instead he presents the most ludicrous reason for what he is doing that he can think of to present as the reason for what he's doing. If that's a pretext, then it is a pretext to throw a ball so a dog can fetch it back for you.
The bitterest pill yet to be even lapped at by America is this: every single president who preceded the 47th could have done exactly the same as he is doing, including the 47th, actually, in his previous iteration. And, still, no one would have been able to do anything about it. They produced a handbook on how to do what he's doing. They told you what he would do. They told you what they were telling him that he would need to do. I don't think anyone read it, to be honest. What was the point? No one has written a book telling you how to stop him doing what he's doing. And without that, Project 2025 was set in concrete from the Inauguration.
One final point: Gandhi actually got India off the British. Can you imagine? Gandhi got the British to piss off. And, what's more, you getting your country back from your president is in the same order of things. You are no Mickey Mouse country.
However, Gandhi succeeded for one reason that does not apply to you in the US: they had nothing to lose, and Gandhi himself was magnanimous enough to forsake anything that he had to lose. And men who have something to lose will never, ever, join in revolution for the chance at something better. Because you are too greedy. You'd sooner hide.
Yes. Greed, in "growth clothing", has taken us to the cliff edge. And I fear our species is about as smart as Wile E Coyote when it comes to cliffs.
There have been "bloodless revolutions". In some ways, the collapse of the Soviet Union was relatively bloodless - the blood came from what's ensued. Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution. Belgium. Now, the United States of America. Any revolution to counter what has even happened up until now will need to be a counter-revolution. But what has happened up until now has not in fact constituted an abrogation of the constitution. That means that the fundamental set of rules by which your country is governed allow of it being governed as it is being governed now. It's all a question of interpretation.
Which is why I maintain that all the other 45 1/2 presidents could have done the same. Could have rigged the Supreme Court. Could have invented emergencies. Could have militarised, albeit temporarily, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Could have engaged in commerce and then manipulated the markets. Could have threatened the territorial integrity of foreign sovereign states and then petitioned them to nominate them as Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Could, in short, have taken the piss out of the very document they swore to uphold upon being inaugurated. I remember a well-edited section from the Godfather III in which Pacino acts as the godfather to his nephew: with each holy vow cutting momentarily to its blatant breach, as murder after murder is committed in his name.
No revolution is "them against us". Algeria probably came closest, but even it splintered ultimately. Except one. One was easy. It involved a territory that the revolutionaries had already taken and which the established power needed to attack from outside, the complete reverse of what a revolution usually is. It was yours. When it came to mulling over what form of government it would take, the answer was not a unanimous "republic". Even Haiti, 28 years later, could not unanimously decide on "rule by the will of the people", after its people had struggled for 13 years to free themselves.
Upon emerging from the Philadelphia hall in which the discussions took place, the socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel collared Benjamin Franklin and asked him, as were she enquiring into the sex of a newborn baby, "Well, doctor, what have we got - a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic," said the good doctor. "If you can keep it."
I think you just lost the baby, because you can incorporate as many safeguards as you want into a written document, but they mean pretty much nothing if you maintain the army under the control of the one person who can tear it to shreds.
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/well-doctor-what-have-we-got-a-republic
I suggested to my wife that we need to get some tactical gear, yellow-lens sunglasses and face masks to wear whenever we go out. Not only can we do whatever we want with impunity, but we will also present as "One of Us".
"I find that events in America in 2025 are conspiring to make me sound like, you know. an Elizabeth Warren t-shirt slogan, and for that I apologize"
Sure god forbid you sound like her "tax the rich" tshirt during the formation of a new American dictatorship. That would be soo cringe.
Excellent. You have a real talent for cutting through the bullshit—but more importantly, you carry through that commitment by rousing the troops without brightsiding them. This is rare, at least in my experience. Deeply necessary.
Brilliant piece, and you absolutely nail it. Except... I'm not so sure about this:
"Those who are helping him do this want to use that power in service of a racist deportation campaign, a borderline neo-Nazi ethnic cleansing of America."
I've never thought this to be their goal - just the misdirection. Maybe, (because I'm not a racist), I just don't get it, but I believe that - just like Trump - an unquenchable thirst for power is the real driver. Just look at the people Trump, (who has twice married Eastern Europeans), has enlisted to help him:
- Kash Patel - brown.
- JD Vance - married to a brown person.
- Stephen Miller - wife is Jewish.
Hey... I'm not saying they're not racists. I'm sure they are. But I don't buy, that ethnic cleansing is the end game. It's the "look over there - butterfly" device they use to acquire more power and wealth. In a nutshell: it's all about greed.
Remember trump and his “where’s my Negro” moment? They showcase a few Brown and Black people foolish enough to think they can accrue power otherwise denied to them, and tada! suddenly they aren’t racist. It’s the oldest racist trick in the book. So maybe we’re both right—it’s about greed *and* racism.