Departing people for activism would be illegal as it violates the first amendment. Most of the recent orders are illegal - it’s important remind each other of that to avoid falling into the trap that we’re supposed to fall for of thinking that these are things a president can do.
The trap we need to avoid falling into is believing that what the law says presidents can do is the limit of what they can get away with.
- Reality-based community
The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.
- Unitary executive theory
- Alternative facts
- American Exception: Empire and the Deep State » Interview w/ Jeffrey Sachs
I’m not saying he won’t get away with stuff he lawfully can’t do. I’m saying that it’s easier to get away with it if too many people think it’s legal or normal.
That quote about reality-based community is also made up.
- Reality-based community
What are you going to do when they start? Protest?
Skill issue. I would simply recite the
magic spellrelevant Constitutional clause, and the President would be compelled to immediately cease and desist.I’m thinking about protesting and maybe a tax strike, particularly if the Supreme Court says that actually a president can withhold federal funding despite earlier courts repeatedly blocking previous presidents from trying the same crap.
But it’s not about me specifically. I know it’s cliché, but the guy in power only has power to the extent that people accept it. Right now there are lots of people out there who hate these orders, but are confused about whether they are legal, or assume they are legal, and are therefore less likely to resist. Public outrage is a real force that many governments have found themselves unable to simply shrug off.
