In June, however, the Supreme Court expressly permitted the government to begin “developing and issuing public guidance about the executive’s plans to implement” Trump’s order. Acting on that decision, an immigration agency released the first stage of its “implementation plan” last Friday.
From the article. This is basically their plan for once the Supreme Court allows it.
The court didn’t actually rule that Trump’s changes to birthright citizenship are legal, they only ruled that the lower courts couldn’t issue nationwide injunctions to stop him.
Is that functionally different in your mind? Perhaps it is slightly different if we assume they’re going to stop here and not take it any further but that seems obviously untrue so I’m not sure why the distinction matters.
It’s different because the court is still likely to have to rule on the actual problem eventually. They might get around to ruling that Trump’s changes are unconstitutional, but they have this weird idea that the “harm” Trump would suffer by having his probably-unconstitutional plans put on hold while courts sort out their legality is somehow greater than the harm suffered by all the people who will be affected if the plans go ahead.
This is like that time when the supreme court had to hold deliberations on whether the local police in an active shooter situation could take the gun away from the shooter, and potentially violate the shooter’s second amendment rights. They didn’t rule on it right away, but issued a ruling that lower courts could not rule on the constitutionality of disarming the active shooter, and had to allow the shooter to continue shooting until the second amendment implications could be considered by the supreme court. Then they went into recess.
The Supreme Court, obviously. They will just explain how the wording is confusing and doesn’t actually mean birthright citizenship the way we typically do. Fact that they told Trump to start issuing guidance tells me they are going to tailor their ruling to that guidance.
Actually, the way they worded that decision made it sound like they wanted to hear how they would go about doing this…“legally”. Meaning, what rationale could they come up with, that wouldn’t violate the 14th amendment. They are willing to entertain arguments to that effect, but aren’t just going to sign off on a direct violation of the Constitution.
This latest outline from the Trump administration doesn’t do that. It just elaborates on what they would do, if they were allowed to proceed, anyway. But it says nothing about how they would actually circumvent the 14th amendment.
You’re forgetting something: laws and constitutions don’t matter unless those in charge of enforcing it agree with it.
Enforcing laws, the Constitution, judgements from judges - all that is done by the executive.
When there’s a fascist corrupt executive function, you get selective enforcement and convenient ignoring of parts of the law, serving the double effect of 1) keeping the corrupt executive in power and in control and 2) discrediting the institutions, furthering the corruption.
And at some point, you will also get civil war. It’s one thing for Trump to use legal slight-of-hand to look for loopholes in the Constitution…but it’s another thing entirely for him to simply violate it.
There is nothing in the legal framework of the United States that allows any president to simply overrule a Constitutional amendment. The 2nd amendment exists to protect the others from an autocratic tyrant.
Or you get a descent into a dictatorship that it’s almost impossible to organize against. Civil war is not inevitable, and I don’t see Americans being particularly eager to fight one. And the further the country slides down the dictatorship slope, the less likely it is that you can raise any kind of effective resistance.
If that’s the case, then things will eventually lead to another world war. A country as powerful as the US deciding to go full-fascist, will not be tolerated by other world powers for long.
Seems to me that the Western countries are busy trying to appease the fascists, when they’re not heading full tilt towards fascism themselves. What happens when we have a fascist USA, a fascist Russia, an authoritarian China, a fascist India, and a Europe that’s in large part fascist with residual packets of neoliberalism? Will Brazil and some African countries fight them all? Or will the next war be between the fascist world and the world that’s controlled by China?
I think you are mistaking “conflict avoidance” with “appeasement”. The rest of the western world is trying to avoid open conflict with those countries…the US included. If the US, Russia or China were to attack any of them, though…there would be war. And the so-called “fascist world” are not capable of remaining functionally united. They’ll stab each other in the back as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
None of that explains how they plan to get around the Constitution, though…which is very clear in its interpretation.
From the article. This is basically their plan for once the Supreme Court allows it.
The court didn’t actually rule that Trump’s changes to birthright citizenship are legal, they only ruled that the lower courts couldn’t issue nationwide injunctions to stop him.
Is that functionally different in your mind? Perhaps it is slightly different if we assume they’re going to stop here and not take it any further but that seems obviously untrue so I’m not sure why the distinction matters.
It’s different because the court is still likely to have to rule on the actual problem eventually. They might get around to ruling that Trump’s changes are unconstitutional, but they have this weird idea that the “harm” Trump would suffer by having his probably-unconstitutional plans put on hold while courts sort out their legality is somehow greater than the harm suffered by all the people who will be affected if the plans go ahead.
This is like that time when the supreme court had to hold deliberations on whether the local police in an active shooter situation could take the gun away from the shooter, and potentially violate the shooter’s second amendment rights. They didn’t rule on it right away, but issued a ruling that lower courts could not rule on the constitutionality of disarming the active shooter, and had to allow the shooter to continue shooting until the second amendment implications could be considered by the supreme court. Then they went into recess.
Edit: None of this happened
That’s like the difference between banning abortion nationwide and just allowing states to ban it
That doesn’t explain how they plan to get around the 14th amendment, though. It just outlines what they plan to do, once they have.
The Supreme Court, obviously. They will just explain how the wording is confusing and doesn’t actually mean birthright citizenship the way we typically do. Fact that they told Trump to start issuing guidance tells me they are going to tailor their ruling to that guidance.
Actually, the way they worded that decision made it sound like they wanted to hear how they would go about doing this…“legally”. Meaning, what rationale could they come up with, that wouldn’t violate the 14th amendment. They are willing to entertain arguments to that effect, but aren’t just going to sign off on a direct violation of the Constitution.
This latest outline from the Trump administration doesn’t do that. It just elaborates on what they would do, if they were allowed to proceed, anyway. But it says nothing about how they would actually circumvent the 14th amendment.
You’re forgetting something: laws and constitutions don’t matter unless those in charge of enforcing it agree with it.
Enforcing laws, the Constitution, judgements from judges - all that is done by the executive.
When there’s a fascist corrupt executive function, you get selective enforcement and convenient ignoring of parts of the law, serving the double effect of 1) keeping the corrupt executive in power and in control and 2) discrediting the institutions, furthering the corruption.
Yay.
And at some point, you will also get civil war. It’s one thing for Trump to use legal slight-of-hand to look for loopholes in the Constitution…but it’s another thing entirely for him to simply violate it.
There is nothing in the legal framework of the United States that allows any president to simply overrule a Constitutional amendment. The 2nd amendment exists to protect the others from an autocratic tyrant.
Is it? The American people have to actually stand up and defend their democracy. I’m not sure that’ll ever happen.
Americans have been saying that for centuries, but I don’t see them taking any action.
Or you get a descent into a dictatorship that it’s almost impossible to organize against. Civil war is not inevitable, and I don’t see Americans being particularly eager to fight one. And the further the country slides down the dictatorship slope, the less likely it is that you can raise any kind of effective resistance.
If that’s the case, then things will eventually lead to another world war. A country as powerful as the US deciding to go full-fascist, will not be tolerated by other world powers for long.
Seems to me that the Western countries are busy trying to appease the fascists, when they’re not heading full tilt towards fascism themselves. What happens when we have a fascist USA, a fascist Russia, an authoritarian China, a fascist India, and a Europe that’s in large part fascist with residual packets of neoliberalism? Will Brazil and some African countries fight them all? Or will the next war be between the fascist world and the world that’s controlled by China?
I think you are mistaking “conflict avoidance” with “appeasement”. The rest of the western world is trying to avoid open conflict with those countries…the US included. If the US, Russia or China were to attack any of them, though…there would be war. And the so-called “fascist world” are not capable of remaining functionally united. They’ll stab each other in the back as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
So who’s gonna fight the civil war?