The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
And, importantly, the higher up you go in the NCO ranks, not just the officers. Those are the folks that actually make things happen or not happen. As any officer worth his salt realizes.
The military at this point is the last guardrail. If they flip, it's game over.
And as far as domestic politics go, I generally (and gladly) agree that the level of basic integrity there is high. The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I'll try again, and will make it short.
We have made progress. But to get back to anything like a pre-Trump normal, we're going to need some kind of national de-MAGA-fication. We will need to root the bastards out, along with their sick ideologies.
Do you see that happening? Do you think we can muster the political will to do it? Do you think a sufficient sector of the population even want it?
I wish I could say I had some confidence that that could happen, but I can't.
I'd say the target of the "excuse" is, first, all those people who generally don't pay attention. The military going into an American city is a big enough deal to break thru to a lot of them. And their reaction will be along the lines of "Wait! What??? Why???" The excuse won't satisfy all of them, but he can hope that it satisfies enough.
Another target audience is the portion of the Republican Party that is not MAGA cultists. They have enough contact with reality to know that things can blow up in their faces. And that the necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) defense against that is a justification/excuse which sounds half-way plausible. They'll want to believe it; but they won't be on-board without it.
And the final target audience is the military. Most of them, even the very conservative ones, are clear that their oath includes supporting the Constitution. And, absent some kind of justification, military action inside the country are strictly forbidden there.
No doubt there are some who wouldn't care, even some who are devout MAGA cultists. You would have to put a lot of effort into selecting out those individuals. But if you just send in an existing unit, you need that justification.
Russell is a bit more familiar with Leslie than I am, but I have to ask, is his taking issue with Gay on civility related to a book that he is flogging about how much we need civility?
LOL
Full disclosure - my exposure to both Gay and Leslie is 100% the excerpt GFTNC cited. And knowing that Gay is second-generation adds context that clarifies her position on civility.
As Coates says, "welcome to black America".
So thank you for adding that.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I agree with this.
That said, IMO Trump has exposed seious flaws in our Constitutional order. The guardrails - the courts, Congress, the mostly non-political administrative state - have failed or at least been undermined to the point where I'm not sure what things are gonna look like post Trump.
I don't know if there is a "there" to go back to. I don't think it's going to be the same country.
We've achieved Popper's paradox of tolerance. The intolerant have taken the reins. They will not surrender them willingly or gracefully, and are not interested at all in sharing power with anyone else. Maybe we will squeak out another legitimate election or two, and maybe that will be sufficient to allow a meaningful change of regime. That is far from guaranteed, but it's possible.
But even under that circumstance, some significant changes are going to be needed to make sure the same or similar thing doesn't happen again. And I don't know if the vision and the political will is there to make that happen.
I don't know where all of this goes, but I don't really have any confidence that we are going to return to any kind of pre-Trump normal, once he is somehow off the scene.
Plus, while we in the US are losing our minds and acting out the very worst in our national character, the rest of the world is moving on. So wherever we end up domestically, it's going to have to deal with a very different international context. At a minimum, we're shredding generations of good will. We're proving ourselves to be fickle, unreliable partners, prone to enormous changes in national policy and direction every four years.
I really don't know what comes next, but I don't think it's going to be as simple as regaining and restoring all the stuff that is being rolled back now.
CharlesWT, thank you for responding, and thank you for the content of your response. It's a good start toward civility when we can agree that "Trump shouldn’t be mobilizing the National Guard".
Without intending to criticize you in the least, I'd ask you and everybody else to think about what "an excuse" means. ISTM that "an excuse" implies an audience. There must be somebody to whom the "excuse" is offered as a valid justification. In the present context, I doubt it's He, Trump's conscience, for He seems to have none. I doubt it's the MAGAts, for they need none. So, the corporate media, maybe?
Well, we are probably at the end of the line for talking about this, but I do subscribe to Descartes line that "the heart has reasons the mind will never know" so that may be what you are relating 'stakes' to. However, just because they are in the heart rather than the mind does not exempt those reasons from scrutiny, it should encourage us to investigate those as well. I'm not suggesting that people without visible stakes cannot participate, here's an example of people with no apparent stakes entering an issue and affecting a change
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/O5yK7XiYQvU
But that seems to me to be different from a Heritage Foundation flunky complaining about Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan or Vance and others complaining about the lack of civility. And in a blog, where people don't have to be forthcoming about how they are getting to their position, it can be a problem, so "stake" provides a useful rule of thumb. Like all rules of thumb, it's not perfect, but it works on the whole. For example, Russell is a bit more familiar with Leslie than I am, but I have to ask, is his taking issue with Gay on civility related to a book that he is flogging about how much we need civility?
the failures of the local authorities to enforce the law and ordinances
So, are you expecting the police to successful arrest every criminal? Because that's nothing we've ever seen in history. Or maybe you want them to somehow prevent any crime from happening?
I assume you have more sense than that. So what standard are you using for doing an acceptable job to "enforce the law and ordinances"?
what would you want the Guard or the Army to actually do?
I don't want them to do anything. Trump shouldn't be mobilizing the National Guard against the wishes of the state. But the failures of the local authorities to enforce the law and ordinances certainly give him an excuse.
P.S. the “forum similar to this one” 10-15 years ago wasn’t the old ObWi, was it?
No, the forum was one of several over the years used by a small group of people I first encountered in 1998.
wj, I don't know about you, but "20-30 years from now" there's a good chance I will not be around to "look back". One might say I don't really have a "stake" in what 2055 America will look like. For many of "we" here, the long run is becoming less relevant every day.
GftNC, sometimes it's not true that "nobody forces you to interact with" people whose views are "morally repugnant". And I'm not talking about the obvious case of fascist ICE "agents" vis a vis anti-fascist protesters. I'm talking about ordinary social situations in which you'd be called uncivil if you argue with the MAGAts present, and uncivil if you decline to attend. The shameless can always take advantage of "civility".
CharlesWT, if "two wrongs don't make a right" does that mean that 3 wrongs do? In the Portland context, I ask you again: what would you want the Guard or the Army to actually do? And, not incidentally, what do you imagine Herr Trump wants them to do? (P.S. the "forum similar to this one" 10-15 years ago wasn't the old ObWi, was it?)
Before that, it has been Italians, and before that the Irish. At our nation’s founding the boogie man was the Germans.... I won’t be astounded if, down the road, South Asians replace Hispanics as the outsiders of choice.
I went to high school just west of South Omaha. The sequence of ethnic groups there that became, or are becoming "white" was Irish, Italian, Central/Eastern European, and now Hispanic. Blacks overlapped those at first, but were basically pushed out to the north side of Omaha proper.
My guess is that South Asians don't become outsiders because there are a lot of them already here in high-skill positions -- engineering, medicine, etc. Maybe if there's a "flood" of poor climate refugees. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are 1.9B people in an area that will experience* early climate disasters.
* Arguably, Pakistan already is experiencing them, in the form of now-regular catastrophic monsoon flooding.
ps By the way, I completely agree with what Pro Bono says @11.44. And, about Ian Leslie, on reading more of his Wikipedia entry I see it says he is a "writer on human behaviour", and that "Leslie also writes about psychology, culture, technology and business for the New Statesman, The Economist, The Guardian and the Financial Times." which to me at least gives slightly more context than the extract from his website “communication strategist for some of the world’s biggest brands, at ad agencies in London and New York; he still advises companies on workplace culture and strategic communication”.
Ah, I think I'm finally getting what you mean by "a stake" in this context, lj. If I understand correctly, you mean that people who have constructed (or subscribe to) an intellectual or ideological framework with many intersecting parts, can be so personally invested in it that they feel called to dispute any questioning of any element of it. In which kind of case, of course their arguments should be examined (like everybody's) for logic and evidence. But my view is that often people's views are complex, and that sometimes one can object to (and find logical or moral fault with) some of the elements, but not all, and that occasionally discussion along these lines can throw up interesting or productive ideas as well as being an example of treating other people with respect (i.e. civility).
It is much the same with the tendency to dismiss someone's opinions or arguments based on e.g. their profession or their past work, rather than engaging with their actual ideas or arguments. Very tempting, sometimes, but surely extremely reductive. I know almost nothing of Ian Leslie (have no idea why I get his newsletter - I think someone else subscribed me), but I think this quotation from his Wikipedia entry has a lot to recommend it:
"Open, passionate disagreement blows away the cobwebs that gather over even the most enduring relationships . . . It flushes out crucial information and insights that will otherwise lie inaccessible or dormant inside our brains. It fulfils the creative potential of diversity".
On the whole question of civility, I have been marvelling at the idea that it could mean a necessity to agree with one another. Is this a widespread idea, I wonder? If so, it could certainly explain why there is so much neglect of and resistance to it. But when Charles talks upthread about a site he used to frequent:
One of the regular participants would occasionally cross the line with ad hominem attacks, insults, and general nastiness. When called to task, he would complain bitterly about the Civility Brigade.
I think the opposite of this is the real definition of civility (and I would have thought the normal one): treating other people (even those with whom one vehemently disagrees) with politeness and respect. After all, if you hate their views in their entirety, and find them completely morally repugnant in every respect, nobody forces you to interact with them. Choosing to insult them, attack them and ascribe views to them which they have not stated or have even denied surely says more about the person doing it than the person on the receiving end.
I think that the constitution could be saved, but it would take another Lincoln or FDR to do it,
....
Of course both ended up having their work undone, and here we are again.
What you're actually saying is that the necessary changes won't be permanent fixes. Which is not that surprising -- the authoritarians, given enough time, will find new weak points.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I'd say that we've made significant progress over the last two centuries. The reactionaries are trying to roll all those back. But I expect that, the closer they get to realizing their dream, the more massive will be the resistance.
In the end, they will once again fail. We will, temporarily, lose some ground. But only some. And a lot of people will get hurt along the way.
Still, 20-30 years from now (yeah, totally just spit balling on the time frame) we will look back on today rather like most of us look back on other periods in our history where the reactionaries made gains. Asking, "What were they thinking???". But naively confident that we won't go there again. Until the generations that live thru it have passed from the scene.
wonkie, I would note that, at least in the US, the pattern has included an additional phase: the group of outsiders is moved into Our Nation, and then a new group of outsiders emerges. Currently the primary group of outsiders seems to be Hispanics. (Arguably it may be more like brown Hispanics. Except that the Spanish language features so prominently.). Before that, it has been Italians, and before that the Irish. At our nation's founding the boogie man was the Germans.
I won't be astounded if, down the road, South Asians replace Hispanics as the outsiders of choice. Aided by the difference in religion; Hispanics, at least, are Christians.
Nous and Pro Bono are having a much more interesting conversation about what shape post Trump America could take if it were to avoid running off the cliff and with that in mind, these two LGM posts from Dan Nexon and Paul Campos are worth your time.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/10/is-our-constitution-learning
and
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/10/notes-for-next-time-2
I especially appreciate the gallows humor in the title of Campos' post.
I've read a good bit of Gay, (my daughter recommended her book Bad Feminist which led me to her other books) but Ian Leslie wasn't a name that I was familiar with. However, it was niggling at the back of my mind about their backgrounds. I see that Leslie is a British author who was originally "communication strategist for some of the world’s biggest brands, at ad agencies in London and New York; he still advises companies on workplace culture and strategic communication" https://ian-leslie.com/about/
He also has just come out with a book titled Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together. I haven't read that, but his wikipedia bio says "The second half of the book is devoted to ten "rules of productive argument", which Leslie deduces from encounters with specialists in interrogation and hostage negotiation," which has me wonder if he considers civility a useful ruse in order to get to an outcome you want. Which is obviously something you want to do if you are negotiating with a hostage taker, (and that might be a good description of a lot of the right), but it's not really a ringing endorsement for civility.
On the other hand Gay is a second generation Haitian-American, so I'm marvelling a bit at a white British writer who was a corporate communication strategist telling a Haitian American, in Oct 2025 after an election where Haitians in the US legally were accused of eating pets, that she's wrong about civility. Perhaps Leslie is blissfully unaware of Gay's ancestry, but I am not, and I think it should be noted.
I get the same vibe from the earlier Klein-Coates interview. Klein is wondering how it can be possible that these ideals of respect for others humanity can be so debased and Coates says well, welcome to Black America. Maybe I'm being too hard on both Leslie and Klein, but that's where I'm sitting now.
That’s because you are seeing Republicans as people who have a different worldview and position, and trying to understand them in order to live with them as a part of your community. That’s not the way that the core of the GOP thinks about Democrats. To them we are not Americans with a different point of view that must be negotiated. To them we are not really Americans, and their job is to protect America from us.
Trump is evil, and Republicans who enable his malevolence are evil-doers. There is no room for compromise on this.
When I speak of civility, I do not mean that we should not speak frankly about what is wrong. I mean that people who do wrong are people nonetheless.
I disagree profoundly with Anthony Kennedy when he says that the Supreme Court minority should be more respectful in dissenting against the fascist-enabling majority's patently wrong rulings. I think the minority has shown remarkable restraint, which I would wish to emulate, while stating plainly what is right.
Oh, I forgot the 'clear and present danger' doctrine that Hitler invoked after the 'Night of the long Knives' and that has also been a tool of abuse by US governments.
The Nazis never officially abolished or even changed the Weimar constitution. Elections still took place (with of course only one party on the ballot) etc.
Hitler ruled through the Enabling Act of 1933. Although this law was in violation of the constitution, it was passed (like its lesser known pre-Hitler predecessors) with majorities that would have been sufficient to change the constitution itself, so legal theory at the time considered such laws as legitimate.
In the US SCOTUS has in essence declared that Nixon's 'if the president does it, it means it is not illegal' is the law of the land (of course with the stated caveat that SCOTUS can and will revoke the doctrine the moment POTUS is not of the 'movement'*) and also made clear that it sees itself as the Vaticanum I pope free to ignore any tradition or holy scripture based on 'because I say so'**. No need to change the quaint piece of paper. Btw the Bible His Orangeness promotes and that Oklahoma has just made a mandatory school textbook leaves out most of the amendments with the given reason that those were not approved by the founders themselves and are thus of no interest.
*when I hear that, it automatically triggers original Nazi soundbytes about the "Bewegung"
**this included an official interpretation that the pope could order people to commit sins because obedience to the pope was more important than abstaining from sinning.
It's improbable that 'bought the farm' comes from here but it's the literary illustration of it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Much_Land_Does_a_Man_Need%3F
On “Where are the 5 words?”
The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
And, importantly, the higher up you go in the NCO ranks, not just the officers. Those are the folks that actually make things happen or not happen. As any officer worth his salt realizes.
"
And the final target audience is the military.
The military at this point is the last guardrail. If they flip, it's game over.
And as far as domestic politics go, I generally (and gladly) agree that the level of basic integrity there is high. The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
"
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I'll try again, and will make it short.
We have made progress. But to get back to anything like a pre-Trump normal, we're going to need some kind of national de-MAGA-fication. We will need to root the bastards out, along with their sick ideologies.
Do you see that happening? Do you think we can muster the political will to do it? Do you think a sufficient sector of the population even want it?
I wish I could say I had some confidence that that could happen, but I can't.
"
I'd say the target of the "excuse" is, first, all those people who generally don't pay attention. The military going into an American city is a big enough deal to break thru to a lot of them. And their reaction will be along the lines of "Wait! What??? Why???" The excuse won't satisfy all of them, but he can hope that it satisfies enough.
Another target audience is the portion of the Republican Party that is not MAGA cultists. They have enough contact with reality to know that things can blow up in their faces. And that the necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) defense against that is a justification/excuse which sounds half-way plausible. They'll want to believe it; but they won't be on-board without it.
And the final target audience is the military. Most of them, even the very conservative ones, are clear that their oath includes supporting the Constitution. And, absent some kind of justification, military action inside the country are strictly forbidden there.
No doubt there are some who wouldn't care, even some who are devout MAGA cultists. You would have to put a lot of effort into selecting out those individuals. But if you just send in an existing unit, you need that justification.
"
"Knowing that Gay is second-generation *Haitian*".
I do miss the preview. Now I'll have to start paying attention to what I write!
:)
"
Russell is a bit more familiar with Leslie than I am, but I have to ask, is his taking issue with Gay on civility related to a book that he is flogging about how much we need civility?
LOL
Full disclosure - my exposure to both Gay and Leslie is 100% the excerpt GFTNC cited. And knowing that Gay is second-generation adds context that clarifies her position on civility.
As Coates says, "welcome to black America".
So thank you for adding that.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I agree with this.
That said, IMO Trump has exposed seious flaws in our Constitutional order. The guardrails - the courts, Congress, the mostly non-political administrative state - have failed or at least been undermined to the point where I'm not sure what things are gonna look like post Trump.
I don't know if there is a "there" to go back to. I don't think it's going to be the same country.
We've achieved Popper's paradox of tolerance. The intolerant have taken the reins. They will not surrender them willingly or gracefully, and are not interested at all in sharing power with anyone else. Maybe we will squeak out another legitimate election or two, and maybe that will be sufficient to allow a meaningful change of regime. That is far from guaranteed, but it's possible.
But even under that circumstance, some significant changes are going to be needed to make sure the same or similar thing doesn't happen again. And I don't know if the vision and the political will is there to make that happen.
I don't know where all of this goes, but I don't really have any confidence that we are going to return to any kind of pre-Trump normal, once he is somehow off the scene.
Plus, while we in the US are losing our minds and acting out the very worst in our national character, the rest of the world is moving on. So wherever we end up domestically, it's going to have to deal with a very different international context. At a minimum, we're shredding generations of good will. We're proving ourselves to be fickle, unreliable partners, prone to enormous changes in national policy and direction every four years.
I really don't know what comes next, but I don't think it's going to be as simple as regaining and restoring all the stuff that is being rolled back now.
I'm at a loss, to be honest.
"
CharlesWT, thank you for responding, and thank you for the content of your response. It's a good start toward civility when we can agree that "Trump shouldn’t be mobilizing the National Guard".
Without intending to criticize you in the least, I'd ask you and everybody else to think about what "an excuse" means. ISTM that "an excuse" implies an audience. There must be somebody to whom the "excuse" is offered as a valid justification. In the present context, I doubt it's He, Trump's conscience, for He seems to have none. I doubt it's the MAGAts, for they need none. So, the corporate media, maybe?
--TP
"
Well, we are probably at the end of the line for talking about this, but I do subscribe to Descartes line that "the heart has reasons the mind will never know" so that may be what you are relating 'stakes' to. However, just because they are in the heart rather than the mind does not exempt those reasons from scrutiny, it should encourage us to investigate those as well. I'm not suggesting that people without visible stakes cannot participate, here's an example of people with no apparent stakes entering an issue and affecting a change
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/O5yK7XiYQvU
https://secretireland.ie/grapefruit-ladies-ireland-the-tart-taste-of-triumph-how-dublins-fruit-rebels-cracked-apartheids-shell/
But that seems to me to be different from a Heritage Foundation flunky complaining about Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan or Vance and others complaining about the lack of civility. And in a blog, where people don't have to be forthcoming about how they are getting to their position, it can be a problem, so "stake" provides a useful rule of thumb. Like all rules of thumb, it's not perfect, but it works on the whole. For example, Russell is a bit more familiar with Leslie than I am, but I have to ask, is his taking issue with Gay on civility related to a book that he is flogging about how much we need civility?
"
the failures of the local authorities to enforce the law and ordinances
So, are you expecting the police to successful arrest every criminal? Because that's nothing we've ever seen in history. Or maybe you want them to somehow prevent any crime from happening?
I assume you have more sense than that. So what standard are you using for doing an acceptable job to "enforce the law and ordinances"?
"
what would you want the Guard or the Army to actually do?
I don't want them to do anything. Trump shouldn't be mobilizing the National Guard against the wishes of the state. But the failures of the local authorities to enforce the law and ordinances certainly give him an excuse.
P.S. the “forum similar to this one” 10-15 years ago wasn’t the old ObWi, was it?
No, the forum was one of several over the years used by a small group of people I first encountered in 1998.
"
TonyP: I meant on the blog! But, FWIW, I am in general completely in sympathy with your approach.
"
wj, I don't know about you, but "20-30 years from now" there's a good chance I will not be around to "look back". One might say I don't really have a "stake" in what 2055 America will look like. For many of "we" here, the long run is becoming less relevant every day.
GftNC, sometimes it's not true that "nobody forces you to interact with" people whose views are "morally repugnant". And I'm not talking about the obvious case of fascist ICE "agents" vis a vis anti-fascist protesters. I'm talking about ordinary social situations in which you'd be called uncivil if you argue with the MAGAts present, and uncivil if you decline to attend. The shameless can always take advantage of "civility".
CharlesWT, if "two wrongs don't make a right" does that mean that 3 wrongs do? In the Portland context, I ask you again: what would you want the Guard or the Army to actually do? And, not incidentally, what do you imagine Herr Trump wants them to do? (P.S. the "forum similar to this one" 10-15 years ago wasn't the old ObWi, was it?)
--TP
On “The DIY party”
Before that, it has been Italians, and before that the Irish. At our nation’s founding the boogie man was the Germans.... I won’t be astounded if, down the road, South Asians replace Hispanics as the outsiders of choice.
I went to high school just west of South Omaha. The sequence of ethnic groups there that became, or are becoming "white" was Irish, Italian, Central/Eastern European, and now Hispanic. Blacks overlapped those at first, but were basically pushed out to the north side of Omaha proper.
My guess is that South Asians don't become outsiders because there are a lot of them already here in high-skill positions -- engineering, medicine, etc. Maybe if there's a "flood" of poor climate refugees. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are 1.9B people in an area that will experience* early climate disasters.
* Arguably, Pakistan already is experiencing them, in the form of now-regular catastrophic monsoon flooding.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
ps By the way, I completely agree with what Pro Bono says @11.44. And, about Ian Leslie, on reading more of his Wikipedia entry I see it says he is a "writer on human behaviour", and that "Leslie also writes about psychology, culture, technology and business for the New Statesman, The Economist, The Guardian and the Financial Times." which to me at least gives slightly more context than the extract from his website “communication strategist for some of the world’s biggest brands, at ad agencies in London and New York; he still advises companies on workplace culture and strategic communication”.
"
Ah, I think I'm finally getting what you mean by "a stake" in this context, lj. If I understand correctly, you mean that people who have constructed (or subscribe to) an intellectual or ideological framework with many intersecting parts, can be so personally invested in it that they feel called to dispute any questioning of any element of it. In which kind of case, of course their arguments should be examined (like everybody's) for logic and evidence. But my view is that often people's views are complex, and that sometimes one can object to (and find logical or moral fault with) some of the elements, but not all, and that occasionally discussion along these lines can throw up interesting or productive ideas as well as being an example of treating other people with respect (i.e. civility).
It is much the same with the tendency to dismiss someone's opinions or arguments based on e.g. their profession or their past work, rather than engaging with their actual ideas or arguments. Very tempting, sometimes, but surely extremely reductive. I know almost nothing of Ian Leslie (have no idea why I get his newsletter - I think someone else subscribed me), but I think this quotation from his Wikipedia entry has a lot to recommend it:
"Open, passionate disagreement blows away the cobwebs that gather over even the most enduring relationships . . . It flushes out crucial information and insights that will otherwise lie inaccessible or dormant inside our brains. It fulfils the creative potential of diversity".
On the whole question of civility, I have been marvelling at the idea that it could mean a necessity to agree with one another. Is this a widespread idea, I wonder? If so, it could certainly explain why there is so much neglect of and resistance to it. But when Charles talks upthread about a site he used to frequent:
One of the regular participants would occasionally cross the line with ad hominem attacks, insults, and general nastiness. When called to task, he would complain bitterly about the Civility Brigade.
I think the opposite of this is the real definition of civility (and I would have thought the normal one): treating other people (even those with whom one vehemently disagrees) with politeness and respect. After all, if you hate their views in their entirety, and find them completely morally repugnant in every respect, nobody forces you to interact with them. Choosing to insult them, attack them and ascribe views to them which they have not stated or have even denied surely says more about the person doing it than the person on the receiving end.
"
I think that the constitution could be saved, but it would take another Lincoln or FDR to do it,
....
Of course both ended up having their work undone, and here we are again.
What you're actually saying is that the necessary changes won't be permanent fixes. Which is not that surprising -- the authoritarians, given enough time, will find new weak points.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I'd say that we've made significant progress over the last two centuries. The reactionaries are trying to roll all those back. But I expect that, the closer they get to realizing their dream, the more massive will be the resistance.
In the end, they will once again fail. We will, temporarily, lose some ground. But only some. And a lot of people will get hurt along the way.
Still, 20-30 years from now (yeah, totally just spit balling on the time frame) we will look back on today rather like most of us look back on other periods in our history where the reactionaries made gains. Asking, "What were they thinking???". But naively confident that we won't go there again. Until the generations that live thru it have passed from the scene.
On “The DIY party”
wonkie, I would note that, at least in the US, the pattern has included an additional phase: the group of outsiders is moved into Our Nation, and then a new group of outsiders emerges. Currently the primary group of outsiders seems to be Hispanics. (Arguably it may be more like brown Hispanics. Except that the Spanish language features so prominently.). Before that, it has been Italians, and before that the Irish. At our nation's founding the boogie man was the Germans.
I won't be astounded if, down the road, South Asians replace Hispanics as the outsiders of choice. Aided by the difference in religion; Hispanics, at least, are Christians.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
...thought I'd pass this on to those of you who like to assess our current political travails in light of wider themes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/opinion/west-europe-america-lost.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rE8.064G._2GkKn5zEX4W&smid=url-share
Resillience is not a catchy tune, but is might be the way to go.
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Nous and Pro Bono are having a much more interesting conversation about what shape post Trump America could take if it were to avoid running off the cliff and with that in mind, these two LGM posts from Dan Nexon and Paul Campos are worth your time.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/10/is-our-constitution-learning
and
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/10/notes-for-next-time-2
I especially appreciate the gallows humor in the title of Campos' post.
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I've read a good bit of Gay, (my daughter recommended her book Bad Feminist which led me to her other books) but Ian Leslie wasn't a name that I was familiar with. However, it was niggling at the back of my mind about their backgrounds. I see that Leslie is a British author who was originally "communication strategist for some of the world’s biggest brands, at ad agencies in London and New York; he still advises companies on workplace culture and strategic communication" https://ian-leslie.com/about/
He also has just come out with a book titled Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together. I haven't read that, but his wikipedia bio says "The second half of the book is devoted to ten "rules of productive argument", which Leslie deduces from encounters with specialists in interrogation and hostage negotiation," which has me wonder if he considers civility a useful ruse in order to get to an outcome you want. Which is obviously something you want to do if you are negotiating with a hostage taker, (and that might be a good description of a lot of the right), but it's not really a ringing endorsement for civility.
On the other hand Gay is a second generation Haitian-American, so I'm marvelling a bit at a white British writer who was a corporate communication strategist telling a Haitian American, in Oct 2025 after an election where Haitians in the US legally were accused of eating pets, that she's wrong about civility. Perhaps Leslie is blissfully unaware of Gay's ancestry, but I am not, and I think it should be noted.
I get the same vibe from the earlier Klein-Coates interview. Klein is wondering how it can be possible that these ideals of respect for others humanity can be so debased and Coates says well, welcome to Black America. Maybe I'm being too hard on both Leslie and Klein, but that's where I'm sitting now.
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That’s because you are seeing Republicans as people who have a different worldview and position, and trying to understand them in order to live with them as a part of your community. That’s not the way that the core of the GOP thinks about Democrats. To them we are not Americans with a different point of view that must be negotiated. To them we are not really Americans, and their job is to protect America from us.
Trump is evil, and Republicans who enable his malevolence are evil-doers. There is no room for compromise on this.
When I speak of civility, I do not mean that we should not speak frankly about what is wrong. I mean that people who do wrong are people nonetheless.
I disagree profoundly with Anthony Kennedy when he says that the Supreme Court minority should be more respectful in dissenting against the fascist-enabling majority's patently wrong rulings. I think the minority has shown remarkable restraint, which I would wish to emulate, while stating plainly what is right.
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Oh, I forgot the 'clear and present danger' doctrine that Hitler invoked after the 'Night of the long Knives' and that has also been a tool of abuse by US governments.
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The Nazis never officially abolished or even changed the Weimar constitution. Elections still took place (with of course only one party on the ballot) etc.
Hitler ruled through the Enabling Act of 1933. Although this law was in violation of the constitution, it was passed (like its lesser known pre-Hitler predecessors) with majorities that would have been sufficient to change the constitution itself, so legal theory at the time considered such laws as legitimate.
In the US SCOTUS has in essence declared that Nixon's 'if the president does it, it means it is not illegal' is the law of the land (of course with the stated caveat that SCOTUS can and will revoke the doctrine the moment POTUS is not of the 'movement'*) and also made clear that it sees itself as the Vaticanum I pope free to ignore any tradition or holy scripture based on 'because I say so'**. No need to change the quaint piece of paper. Btw the Bible His Orangeness promotes and that Oklahoma has just made a mandatory school textbook leaves out most of the amendments with the given reason that those were not approved by the founders themselves and are thus of no interest.
*when I hear that, it automatically triggers original Nazi soundbytes about the "Bewegung"
**this included an official interpretation that the pope could order people to commit sins because obedience to the pope was more important than abstaining from sinning.
On “WTF moments at cultural borders”
It's improbable that 'bought the farm' comes from here but it's the literary illustration of it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Much_Land_Does_a_Man_Need%3F
On “The DIY party”
Quite an old one that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_homini_lupus
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.