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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Maybe you need to recognize where you're wrong. I understand I have a capacity to write in manner that compels one to disagree with me even when he's kind of agreeing with me, but you need to develop a capacity to admit when you're on thin ice, or just flatly wrong.

I'm wrong all the time.

You're just doing the "Ty being haughty" default here. You cited an article where someone suggested that protests in conjunction with impeachment might succeed in ousting Trump. I explained why I think Yglesias is way off in that assessment. In response, you first whined and called me a cynic. I replied, evenhandedly, and you now accuse me of not having read the article.

Look, you did not "explain" anything. You're under no obligation to respond to his article at all. You have every right to say you disagree. You certainly may be right. But if you mischaracterize what he says ("technique") and assert in a few sentences that what he says in several paragraphs is not right, don't pretend that you have "explained" why you think he's way off. There are obvious answers to what you've said in what he says, which shows you are not engaging with him. Again: maybe you're right and he's wrong. But you haven't bothered to explain it.

Look, I'm happy to go back and forth with you on this. But you're not offering much. Maybe you don't have time. OK. Reply when you do. I've a meeting in 30, so I might not reply until tomorrow. But if you must insist Yglesias is on to something in suggesting protests are needed and could work (contrary to the tacit admission he's wrong which you coughed up in calling me a cynic), explain why. Tell me why we're going to see mass protests and they're going to succeed in removing Trump.

Well, he doesn't say that "we're going to see mass protests" and he doesn't say that "they're going to succeed in removing Trump."

Here's the paragraph that (I think) captures his thesis:

A lawless government cannot be constrained by the institutions of the law alone. It is popular mass resistance that creates a crisis point and forces action. And if Democrats want to beat Trump’s stonewalling tactics in 2019, they should consider doing it again.

Here is some of his explanation of why he thinks mass protests can work:

Democrats entered January 2017 with extremely little formal political power. They controlled neither the House nor the Senate nor the White House, and Trump’s victory also dashed their hopes of securing a majority in the Supreme Court.

But a huge segment of the public was, rightly, outraged by the ability of a manifestly unfit president to assume office on the basis of the absurd mechanics of the Electoral College. His inauguration was met with the largest mass demonstrations in American history, demonstrations that served to deny him the traditional “honeymoon” of public opinion that would have made it easy for him to ram legislation through.

Grassroots resistance organizations began to form, many operating under the Indivisible label, with a basic goal of maximizing the political price the Republican Party would pay for every forward step. The climate of resistance helped inspire courts to slap down several versions of Trump’s travel ban, helped keep the DACA program alive to this day, inspired civil servants to leak damaging information about Trump’s misconduct, and contributed to the defeat of the Affordable Care Act repeal. ...

The mechanisms through which protest works seem multifaceted, with some of the impact driven by direct personal participation, some driven by witnessing the protest themselves, and some driven by media coverage which serves to rebroadcast key elements of the protest message. The key to it all, however, is that bothering to show up to a march is a moderately costly investment of time and energy. When a bunch of people do that, it serves as a powerful signal to the rest of society that something extraordinary is happening.

Democratic Party officials of course can’t just conjure up mass protests with the snap of a finger, but their words and actions do matter. If they want people to believe profound constitutional issues are at stake, they should abandon their aversion to mass politics and embrace tactics that worked for progressives before the midterms.

Does he say that "we're going to see mass protests"? No, and he points out that institutional Democrats are uncomfortable with them. Does he say that "they're going to succeed in removing Trump"? No, but he offers reasons to think that they have promise.

(I'm also interested in how Iran Contra is not far worse than what Trump has done. Here, a novice is fucking up. There, a group of pros subverted Congress and gave weapons to an enemy. Were the people involved in that actual conspiracy not "lawless"? I think some were actually convicted of crimes.)

I think the problems with Trump go far, far beyond "a novice fucking up." Among other things, he rejects any oversight or obligation to be bound by the law. (He literally just argued to a federal court that he could shoot someone and be immune to prosecution or investigation while he is President.) If there are mass protests, they won't be protesting the hold-up in military aid to the Ukraine. Try asking yourself, what will they be protesting? How is it different from Iran-Contra?