Johan that’s it—-exactly what my brain has struggled to accept and formulate! “…procedural constraints don’t work when the people supposed to enforce them are the ones violating them.”
But, Patricia, we're not talking about "procedural constraints."
We're not talking about "the people supposed to enforce them."
We're talking about the newest iteration of Donald's Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters -- now his private police, secret police, goon squad thugs paid by us the public taxpayers to enact Donald's private corruptions and criminality.
Murder, cruelty, concentration camps -- Donald's coin of the realm now.
Ava is great! So are you, Dr. Snyder. I love journalists and support them with thank yous. I write LTEs and Op Eds and subscribe to many newspapers to support freedom of the press.
I’m old and I still remember the phrase used by police back in the day. “ You may beat the rap but you ain’t gonna beat the ride.”
Then they put you in the back of the car, handcuffed behind you and take you down rough roads, at speed, no seatbelt and hit the brakes hard a few times
Meaning simply the threat apprehension alone is enough to make you comply.
If the pen is mightier than the sword then let the camera be mightier than the gun.
The regime appears to be blind to its own overreach. They're making the mistake Putin and Orban and Erdogan have avoided like the Plague; they're waking up the political awareness of the populace. In a way, it might be "good" that they're making it hard for us to outsource politics to them. Hopefully they won't smarten up and realize that if they can just keep it so people can go shopping they can consolidate power under the radar.
TODAY. The Senate may capitulate and fund 6 agencies.
See Schumer’s disconnect here? We must pull the PLUG to effect change. Why not now?
Oh! Some will be hurt! What did you expect? (Mostly those that live near the White House, and they will be the ones that shut down DC.)
Everybody is being hurt now. Some are being murdered. PULL THE PLUG!
We may be able to abolish ICE; however, ICE must be disarmed BEFORE any other actions take place. Moving a bad apple from one basket to another still leaves a bad apple.
I need help getting this point across. Disarm ICE and the highest risk is fully abated. ICE does not need to be armed. An “armed ICE” has proven to be too lethal to innocent citizens, dangerous to the careless gun-handling agents who shoot themselves, and injurious to fellow agents who are accidentally shot by a careless ICE agent. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/reform-homeland-security?r=3m1bs
We need nationwide BOYCOTTS AND STRIKES - marching in the streets with signs isn't enough. Coordinated nationwide boycotts and strikes will be more effective that populating our streets with protestors for a day. Tim: "It's all the above, and more."
I understand it is owned by Marc Andreessen, who is one of the most central, powerful tech billionaires. Trump supporter, very much part of the government infrastructure.
Andressen is paranoid. He told Ross Douthat in the NYT that during the summer of George Floyd he thought his staff would rise up and kill him. I do not picture the staff of a venture capitalist to be full of radicals who would do that. I doubt that they even looked up from their spreadsheets.
Amazing. I did not know that, although I do read the NYT (but not Ross Douthat). Deep down he must have felt more guilty and deserving of such violent retribution than his staff, or probably most if not all Americans.
Protest is also civilized resistance. That's why it's legal. We need to stay within the rule of law as examples for the young, for the oppressed world, for the future. Protest is our collective voice.
Five to 10 people in Berkeley Springs, WV, have been protesting every day since the invasion of Venezuela. Morgan County is Ruby red and has a population on 17.000. Many people who drive by are showing interest and expressing approval. Some community members who can’t speak out are taking us aside and thanking us, sometimes in whispered voices
Hi - Listening on the replay. In my community, a small city in central Washington state, are not waiting for the big national organizers. Today we had a big march and rally in support of the ICE OUT movement. Organized in 3 days. Hundreds turned out. This is happening on rural, conservative town. We are not waiting.
My 8th grade grandson (his parents and he live with me) is surrounded by classmates wearing MAGA merch and singing Charlie Kirk slogans. This is an upper-middle class New Jersey town with few Democrats. I've taught the Constitution/US history/ law for over 25 years in this town (and am admitted to US Supreme Court bar). We did have your 1st Am chat tonight, but I've been teaching him about the French resistance during WW II. I'm afraid if he became vocal in his class about his anti-regime feelings, he'd be bullied or hit. So for Trump's TACO period I bought him a passive resistance t-shirt with "TA" "CO" in the form of the table of the elements. Today I bought him a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt and we played his excellent new Minneapolis song. For his age, I hope teaching him passive resistance will plant the seed for when he is older.
It’s remarkable to me how similar the dynamics of what’s going on at a national level is just like at the micro level in families filled with dangerous malignant narcissists DARVO’ing everyone. Some professionals who aren’t fully trauma informed call those people simply “emotionally immature,” similar to the implication that these ICE agents just need more training. Those poor boys out there defending our country are the victims here and they just need some more guidance and their morale is slipping. There is nothing further from the truth.
Right. There is a cluster of problems with US immigration laws that should be addressed. Trump torpedoed the bi-partisan Senate bill that would have addressed the most serious of them. When all problems are emergencies held to be too serious to allow for the workings of Constitutional government to address them, that's fascism.
Clarity matters more than the label.
Call it fascism, authoritarianism, collapse, whatever.
What matters is seeing the system as it operates, not as we want it to operate.
Courts issue orders the regime ignores.
Laws exist it selectively enforces.
Institutions function on paper while failing in practice.
Clarity means acknowledging that procedural constraints don’t work when the people supposed to enforce them are the ones violating them.
Once you see that, strategy shifts from hoping institutions self-correct to organizing resistance that imposes costs they can’t absorb.
Clarity turns resistance from performative to effective.
—Johan
Johan that’s it—-exactly what my brain has struggled to accept and formulate! “…procedural constraints don’t work when the people supposed to enforce them are the ones violating them.”
But, Patricia, we're not talking about "procedural constraints."
We're not talking about "the people supposed to enforce them."
We're talking about the newest iteration of Donald's Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters -- now his private police, secret police, goon squad thugs paid by us the public taxpayers to enact Donald's private corruptions and criminality.
Murder, cruelty, concentration camps -- Donald's coin of the realm now.
Ava is great! So are you, Dr. Snyder. I love journalists and support them with thank yous. I write LTEs and Op Eds and subscribe to many newspapers to support freedom of the press.
I’m old and I still remember the phrase used by police back in the day. “ You may beat the rap but you ain’t gonna beat the ride.”
Then they put you in the back of the car, handcuffed behind you and take you down rough roads, at speed, no seatbelt and hit the brakes hard a few times
Meaning simply the threat apprehension alone is enough to make you comply.
If the pen is mightier than the sword then let the camera be mightier than the gun.
Indeed. That should be a saying.
Let the camera be mightier than the gun!
But it won’t be mightier than us turning out I suppose.
Having a camera on site to record the fascist tactics presupposes we are turning out
But yeah let’s make it a slogan
Our bill of rights says person or persons not citizen.
This means everyone in our country, legally or not, benefits from all of the protections guaranteed by our Constitution.
The regime appears to be blind to its own overreach. They're making the mistake Putin and Orban and Erdogan have avoided like the Plague; they're waking up the political awareness of the populace. In a way, it might be "good" that they're making it hard for us to outsource politics to them. Hopefully they won't smarten up and realize that if they can just keep it so people can go shopping they can consolidate power under the radar.
TODAY. We boycott! Everything.
TODAY. The Senate may capitulate and fund 6 agencies.
See Schumer’s disconnect here? We must pull the PLUG to effect change. Why not now?
Oh! Some will be hurt! What did you expect? (Mostly those that live near the White House, and they will be the ones that shut down DC.)
Everybody is being hurt now. Some are being murdered. PULL THE PLUG!
We may be able to abolish ICE; however, ICE must be disarmed BEFORE any other actions take place. Moving a bad apple from one basket to another still leaves a bad apple.
I need help getting this point across. Disarm ICE and the highest risk is fully abated. ICE does not need to be armed. An “armed ICE” has proven to be too lethal to innocent citizens, dangerous to the careless gun-handling agents who shoot themselves, and injurious to fellow agents who are accidentally shot by a careless ICE agent. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/reform-homeland-security?r=3m1bs
We need nationwide BOYCOTTS AND STRIKES - marching in the streets with signs isn't enough. Coordinated nationwide boycotts and strikes will be more effective that populating our streets with protestors for a day. Tim: "It's all the above, and more."
How do we protect SUBSTACK?
By somehow making sure it is not being bought out by the cancerous tech-bro billionaire overreach.
I understand it is owned by Marc Andreessen, who is one of the most central, powerful tech billionaires. Trump supporter, very much part of the government infrastructure.
I’d be happy if someone knows otherwise.
Andressen is paranoid. He told Ross Douthat in the NYT that during the summer of George Floyd he thought his staff would rise up and kill him. I do not picture the staff of a venture capitalist to be full of radicals who would do that. I doubt that they even looked up from their spreadsheets.
Amazing. I did not know that, although I do read the NYT (but not Ross Douthat). Deep down he must have felt more guilty and deserving of such violent retribution than his staff, or probably most if not all Americans.
I gave up on Douthat shortly thereafter.
Thank You. That is troubling.
It’s terrifying.
Protest is also civilized resistance. That's why it's legal. We need to stay within the rule of law as examples for the young, for the oppressed world, for the future. Protest is our collective voice.
Five to 10 people in Berkeley Springs, WV, have been protesting every day since the invasion of Venezuela. Morgan County is Ruby red and has a population on 17.000. Many people who drive by are showing interest and expressing approval. Some community members who can’t speak out are taking us aside and thanking us, sometimes in whispered voices
Hi - Listening on the replay. In my community, a small city in central Washington state, are not waiting for the big national organizers. Today we had a big march and rally in support of the ICE OUT movement. Organized in 3 days. Hundreds turned out. This is happening on rural, conservative town. We are not waiting.
My 8th grade grandson (his parents and he live with me) is surrounded by classmates wearing MAGA merch and singing Charlie Kirk slogans. This is an upper-middle class New Jersey town with few Democrats. I've taught the Constitution/US history/ law for over 25 years in this town (and am admitted to US Supreme Court bar). We did have your 1st Am chat tonight, but I've been teaching him about the French resistance during WW II. I'm afraid if he became vocal in his class about his anti-regime feelings, he'd be bullied or hit. So for Trump's TACO period I bought him a passive resistance t-shirt with "TA" "CO" in the form of the table of the elements. Today I bought him a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt and we played his excellent new Minneapolis song. For his age, I hope teaching him passive resistance will plant the seed for when he is older.
Thank you and with great respect for both of you.
Shari H., Orange, California.
It’s remarkable to me how similar the dynamics of what’s going on at a national level is just like at the micro level in families filled with dangerous malignant narcissists DARVO’ing everyone. Some professionals who aren’t fully trauma informed call those people simply “emotionally immature,” similar to the implication that these ICE agents just need more training. Those poor boys out there defending our country are the victims here and they just need some more guidance and their morale is slipping. There is nothing further from the truth.
There is no immigration crisis in the USA
Right. There is a cluster of problems with US immigration laws that should be addressed. Trump torpedoed the bi-partisan Senate bill that would have addressed the most serious of them. When all problems are emergencies held to be too serious to allow for the workings of Constitutional government to address them, that's fascism.
Agree we need protests every week!!!
Student ARE showing up - by walking out: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/students-ice-protest-immigration/
Please keep talking to everyone about this. You are an inspiration. Look after yourself so that you can inform us about Ukraine as well as the US.