This sounds an awful lot like arguing in bad faith. You know what they did is withdrawing a planned endorsement.
I wasn’t intentionally doing so, but it seems most people got that impression. In any event, I will agree that it’s a distinction without a difference, and leave it at that.
They think they don’t want government to work, but if this happened they’d soon discover that there are actually administrative parts of the government that they need to function to do the things they want, like when Trump wanted to build “Wall” and then discovered that he needed government agencies to issue a Request For Proposal, evaluate bids, convince Congress to allocate funds, designate a program management structure, et cetera. It’s all the hard work of getting things done on the scale of large infrastructure projects, even if they are stupid and pointless projects.
Stranger
Okay, I’ll buy that. But I do suspect that Trump will say 'why can’t we just use the Army?’ to get around a lot of ‘how do we get this done?’ questions.
And who will there be to say NO to him?
The Army will probably say no.
I mean, really. It would be a crisis, but you’re going to have commanders refusing to follow an unlawful order (which they not only can do, but are required to do).
They used the US Army Corps of Engineers to manage the construction of 800 linear feet of border barricade in Yuma, AZ (which, at US$9,500/foot was an exorbitant waste). The Corps of Engineers has little construction capability itself and all large scale construction work is done by commercial contractors, and as anyone who has to deal with defense contracting in the last couple of decades can attest to, nothing gets done on any timeframe which even a tortoise would consider to be ‘fast’.
Stranger
Plus the Army Corps of Engineers fucks up everything they touch and all their projects are environmental disasters.
Probably John Oliver (Last Week Tonight). Excellent viewing for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
I think you’re correct that I saw that on Last Week Tonight.
Sixty Minutes also did a very good piece on the deportation (lack of) plan this past Sunday.
Yup, had they announced last year that they weren’t going to endorse candidates for president anymore, it would have been a non-issue, but to do so after the endorsement was written is just pathetic.
Hmm
Are you saying that the military would refuse an order by their Commander-in-Chief to capture and detain foreign invaders who are pouring across the border seeking to destroy our country and way of life?
(Is what I imagine their side saying.)
I don’t know. I think it’s at least possible that the military might split. I think it’s possible that could happen over disputed election results, too. I might be too cynical, but I’d rather that than being overly optimistic at the moment.
Or on November 6th.
Oh I think so too, that’s one reason why I meant that it would be a crisis. It wouldn’t be a good thing, the Army dividing against itself, if that happened. But there’s no way they’d all go lockstep and follow clearly illegal orders.
Well, I read the Bezos justification.
I don’t believe him.
I’m saying the military would refuse an order to engage in law enforcement.
Stranger
The history of military behaviour - not to mention the Supreme Court saying Presidents can do basically anything if cloaked in it being “official” - would indicate there is a 99.9% chance the military will follow Trump’s irder.
That’s not true. The US military is actually one of the strongest institutions in the world and they extensively teach officers the nature of the military in relation to law and civilian life. Now Trump replacing generals with his sycophants over time is a concern, but I think the US military would actually resist open militant fascism pretty effectively in the immediate future, and I’m someone who is an outspoken critic of how much American institutions have crumbled in the nature of encroaching fascism.
Yes but for Trump and his ilk, that would be a plus.