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Presidents need congress to fund their projects and the courts to prosecute people acting against them.
Yes, and that's a structural weakness of the democratic party that can only be solved via completely changing their electoral coalition. The democrats need to abandon some group of people that relies on the government to the republicans, while pulling in an anti-government faction. My personal preference would be for democrats to totally abandon old people in favor of a stronger appeal to young people. Then democrats would be able to hold social security and medicare hostage against fulfilling priorities like student loan forgiveness and climate action. And the more power gets taken away from old people, the less their cultural conservatism would hold sway over the american public.
The democrats win the urban core, while the republicans win the rural areas. That is to say: the people who literally own more land go for republicans.
I know it doesn't exist-- yet. I'm speaking of the political moves the democrats should make in the next two and four years to take advantage of trump's double-edged sword.
These are reasons that do not support your position that it is easier to create than to destroy, they support the position that it is easier to destroy than to create.
If the president has a barrier to create, but no barrier to destroy, then that should lead you to believe that it is easier for the president to destroy than it is to create. That is the opposite of your position.
Ok if the democrats need to completely change their electoral coalition to solve this, then that seems like a pretty good indication that this change really does not favor the democrats. Helping people with the government is a pretty core belief of progressivism. If the democrats abandon that position, then to what extent are they democrats anymore?
I don't think that structural weakness can actually be solved by the democrats. The democrats are the progressive party, and progressivism is about change. Which happens though reform, or action, or creation. If the president can now unilaterally stop and / or destroy federal programs, then that does not favor reform or action or creation.
Yes there are some conservative oxen that can be gored by a left wing president. But structurally there will always be more progressive oxen, the progressives are the ones interested in change and expansion.
A man that owns an acre in the urban core is just as much a property owner as a man who owns 100 acres in Nebraska. Whose land is worth more? Where do the rich reside? In the urban core. Who has greater security needs - the property owner in the urban core, or the property owner in Nebraska?
Uh, I just realized I stupidly mistyped this in the first comment and then didn't pick up on it later. It's harder to create than to destroy; we agree on this point.
The democrats aren't the "progressive" party. They're the urban party. Progressivism is highly adaptive for urbanites, so urbanites adopt progressivism and demand democratic leaders. It's not the other way around, where progressive leaders convert urbanites.
And in any case, progressivism isn't about "helping people" in general, it's about helping specific people, who by some calculus deserve that help. All the democrats have to do is change the calculus... drop the expensive, economically useless, socially conservative old people, pull in the technocratic, culturally liberal tech bros. I'm not saying they will do that, but it wouldn't be a huge ideological stretch if they did.
You're probably thinking in terms of burglars and murder statistics. Start thinking in terms of organized political violence instead.
In practice, major rural landowners need state protection from one group and one group only- communist revolutionaries. Other groups tend to side with rural landowners, maybe in exchange for payment.
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The democrats are definitely the progressive party. Their policy is progressive. The mechanism they arrive at their progressivism doesn't really concern my argument. But if we agree then I don't care to dispute it.
What evidence is there that indicates that the US is headed towards organized political violence? Why would I think in a frame that doesn't accurately reflect the world? No, I am not going to think in those terms, and I find the idea ridiculous.
I know we're arguing about definitions, which is the lowest form of argument, but I still think it's worth trying to get you to see my side. When you say, "the democrats are... the progressive party," you're taking a descriptive view of the ways the democrats behave. And it's accurate! But it's also missing the point. It's like calling a motorcycle gang a "motorcycle helmet wearing gang". Democrats adopt progressivism because it is useful to them-- because they have particular common needs the ideology serves. They would still be (mostly) bound together if they found a different way of addressing the same needs. That's why I call democrats the urban party-- because their needs and desires are fundamentally a result of what urbanites need and want. Yes, there are non-urbanist democrats, just like there are urbanist republicans, because not all urbanites share the same needs. But serving urban environments is still fundamentally the core of what the party is and wants.
Uh, the fact that we're already here? Two trump assasins and luigi. Unless the economy skyrockets and things start getting immediately better now we're already going through what later historians will probably call "the american troubles" or something alike.
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Headed towards? Organized political violence was all over every major city in 2020- the last time anything of that scale (and with that excuse) occurred was 1992, and the political violence was comparatively less organized and restricted to one city.
To be clear, which I was not really, this is the context of the original claim I had in mind:
Ok yes the LA riots and 2020 would both meet the bar of organized political violence. But I think both of these are much closer to "tacitly approved race riots" than to "paramilitary organizations targeting political and / or ideological opponents". They are not and have not been permanent political fixtures, its something that bubbles over every 30 or so years (1967, 1992, 2025).
Even if I were to concede - and say yes, ok, these are two examples of paramilitary orgs targeting people I don't think it proves OP's point.
The 1967, 1992 and 2020 race riots were all urban phenomenon. They were targeted at urban whites, not the old or the rich or suburban / rural. Don't quote me on this but I wouldn't be surprised if the rioters burned down and destroyed more of their own community than those of who they were mad at. Even if I were to concede these count as paramilitary orgs doing paramilitary political violence, which I think is very weak, they have historically been targeting by proximity more so than anything else. They aren't going out the the country to do whatever OP has in mind.
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