Donald Trump’s order that the US be closed to the nationals of several Muslim-majority countries is a particularly egregious intensification of the racist immigration policies that many “liberal democracies” have pursued in recent years. It isn’t clear at the moment how this story will develop, with various US courts taking action against the order but with Homeland Security apparently indicating that they will continue to enforce it. As everybody now knows, it is being enforced even against US permanent residents who were on trips abroad, against people transiting US airports on their way back to other countries, against students in the middle of their courses. It is separating loved ones, including parents from children (a very prominent case being the British-Somali athlete Mo Farah). It also seems to be the case that the US is failing to allow people to claim asylum and have their cases properly assessed, as the 1951 Refugee Convention requires as well as US law, and that the US has engaged in some breaches of the non-refoulement obligation towards those seeking asylum.
Naturally, there are calls for European politicians to protest. Theresa May, just back from Washington and then from selling fighter-planes to Turkey’s Erdogan seemed reluctant to do so at first, but someone from 10 Downing Street has now issued a weakish condemnation. Well, ok, but what’s new here? Both European states and the US have long given people a harder time based on their country of origin and poor people from a long list of states have no chance of entering the territory by non-clandestine means. We all know of the appalling death toll in the Sahara, the Mediterranean, up through Mexico and in the Arizona desert. Wealthy states, such as Australia and the US under Clinton, have already breached the non-refoulement provisions of the Convention on many occasions, and now often pay poorer states on their periphery to send people back on their behalf (or just keep them locked in). Migrants present on the territory without authorization face “hostile environment” policies aimed at depriving them of work or accommodation, which also expose them to crime and exploitation, policies put in place by politicians who also make speeches about “human trafficking” and “modern slavery”. And Theresa May herself is no stranger to policies that abruptly refuse students entry at the border or that separate partners or parents from children. In the UK, aliens, even those present from birth, can be deported to homelands they have never seen, without due process, if law enforcement deem them “foreign criminals”. And then we have France, among others, criminalizing people who offer assistance to irregular migrants and refugees, and countries like Hungary constructing physical barriers to keep them out. So nothing much new.
Or maybe something, which matters somewhat: Trump and his henchmen feel able to do openly and proudly what those other politicians have usually done hypocritically and shamefacedly. Not for him speeches such as the ones Theresa May (and Cameron before her) make about a “proud record” of helping those fleeing persecution, speeches made whilst they condemn the persecuted to risking death and then incarcerate them in detention centres. To be honest, I prefer the hypocrisy, because at least then there is some chance of holding them to account for the betrayal of the values they publicly profess. That Trump doesn’t care is terrifying.
(Protest and campaign, of course. But one thing you can also do is to volunteer to support refugees or to donate to a refugee charity. [Bristol Refugee Rights](https://localgiving.org/charity/brr/) is one such in the town where I live, but there are many others in Europe and North America.)
{ 109 comments }
oldster 01.29.17 at 2:29 pm
I kicked in $100.00 to the ACLU last night.
It has been bad, but this is worse. Let’s hope it can be fully reversed.
Lee A. Arnold 01.29.17 at 3:05 pm
I am surprised that Trump voters and conservative Republicans are falling in line with this. They are the ones who are supposed to be smarter about military and security issues!
But from a military and security point of view, a ban on Muslims, even a temporary ban, puts U.S. citizens and soldiers abroad at greater risk; it prevents development of humint in Muslim countries; it suggests to legal US Muslims that they cannot trust DHS & FBI if they come forward with domestic intel; and it makes it more difficult for foreign allies to coordinate publicly with the U.S.
And this is all unnecessary: Trump’s excuse that “we need to find out what the hell is going on” is the dumbest excuse ever. Security & military people are mostly good and competent, and so the U.S. already KNEW what the hell is going on, and vetting standards have already been extreme.
Look at another damaging move: in U.S. trade. Trump is basically defaulting on the U.S. — and Trump (or maybe it’s Bannon calling all the shots here too) doesn’t even understand this. Pulling out of multilateral trade agreements, threatening a tariff on Mexico to “pay for the wall” etc., will coincidentally let China dominate. It will begin to lower U.S. standard-of-living compared to the world, even if it temporarily makes a few more manufacturing jobs — before they disappear again, because manufacturing jobs are disappearing around the whole world.
These things are going to weaken the United States and indeed the West. So it is hard to understand why Trump voters and conservative Republicans are falling in line with it.
sanbikinoraion 01.29.17 at 3:25 pm
Because they’re either idiots or well-enough off that it won’t affect them. Next question?
engels 01.29.17 at 3:33 pm
I am surprised that Trump voters and conservative Republicans are falling in line with this. They are the ones who are supposed to be smarter about military and security issues!
BREAKING NEWS: they’re not
Philippe 01.29.17 at 3:50 pm
@2 So it is hard to understand why Trump voters and conservative Republicans are falling in line with it.
The contradiction is only apparent. If you substitute the publicly-stated motivation, “Make America Great Again” with its hidden doppelganger, “Make America White Again”, everything falls logically into place.
bowtiejack 01.29.17 at 4:00 pm
Applying Occam’s Razor to this weekend’s Executive Order Bingo, the clear answer is that the role of Rasputin is being reprised by Steve Bannon.
Why on Saturday? Because Ivanka and Jared Kushner are members of the Jewish Lubavitcher sect and observe an especially strict no-business Sabbath. So they were out of the way.
Frank Wilhoit 01.29.17 at 4:05 pm
When someone is exhausted, it is no good to whip them; you may get one last half-ounce of productivity, but then they completely collapse.
The American people are in a state of utter intellectual and emotional exhaustion that is none the less real for being self-inflicted and avoidable. They have indulged themselves, de-educated themselves, infantilized themselves, shirked and flinched away from truth and reality for so long that they are no longer capable of understanding their surroundings, or making any kind of productive effort, or understanding why they should adhere to any higher standard, let alone actually doing it.
This is regrettable, and from one standpoint a crime without human parallel; but it is no use trying to pretend that it is otherwise. That is what the American people have been doing for decades and are still doing: pretending; and look where it has got them.
Glen Tomkins 01.29.17 at 4:05 pm
Whatever the wider issues involved, it seems that the efficient cause of this migration ban was Steve Bannon. This Breitbart.com hack is now a member of the National Security Council, by an order that also removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence from that body.
Not that we should credit Bannon alone for this order. Rudy Giuliani is making the Sunday circuit today claiming that Trump asked him how he could ban Muslim immigration, and do it legally, and that the approach the order took to circumventing the laws against discriminating by religion or ethnicity or country of origin was his idea.
Who needs the experts when you have Giuliani and Bannon to turn to for advice?
JimV 01.29.17 at 4:07 pm
Now are you starting to see why some of us were so dismayed by the prospect of Trump’s election? This jerk is not a standard Republican. (But then standard Republicans aren’t anymore, either.) He is also not your standard neoliberal monster. Sorry, I’m venting some of my upset, probably to the wrong set.
I’ve contributed (more than usual) to the ACLU, Common Cause, and Planned Parenthood, and will look into refuge charities.
Tom Slee 01.29.17 at 4:20 pm
[Dipper: not interested in your contributions on this thread or any other.]
Apparently Chris Bertram is not in favour of open borders around Crooked Timber. I find Dipper’s contributions a lively and useful counterpoint on many threads, and would like to see them here.
Chris Bertram 01.29.17 at 4:24 pm
Sorry Tom, my mileage varies.
Lenoxus 01.29.17 at 4:24 pm
I’m glad this part is there. There are some who prefer foolish/evil consistency (“At least they don’t hide their true nature!”), and I have little patience for them.
Another danger of the rhetoric now being explicitly anti-Muslim is how it shifts the Overton window. Where we once had arguments about national-security practicalities (e.g), the central justification has become “Muslims are inherently untrustworthy, a poison in the populace, full stop”.
I estimate a non-trivial probability, say 10%, that a program to expel all Muslim citizens, and/or strip them of citizenship, will be declared. The Trump administration has zero ethical imperative against such an action. (For one thing, the examples of recent Islamic terrorism that Trumpists like to cite were typically committed by people born here, and never refugees.)
Glen Tomkins 01.29.17 at 4:25 pm
I don’t know. When I want that sort of lively counterpoint to mere sense and reason, I just hop over to Red State or Bretibart.com or some such and get it straight from the source.
JW Mason 01.29.17 at 4:28 pm
It’s got to be possible to celebrate and build on the opposition to these new rules while also being clear that status quo ante was morally indefensible. My hope is that here, as in other areas, resistance to the Republican program will require, and contribute to, articulating a broader set of political principles that can then be turned into a positive program and not just a defensive reaction to whatever the administration comes up with next.
Lee A. Arnold 01.29.17 at 4:29 pm
This action tells many other immigrants who are not Muslims that it is unwise to come to a hateful U.S. U.S. is going to lose a lot of the best and brightest science and engineering students from around the world who might have come to U.S. to innovate. It is a long-term economic, security, and moral disaster for the U.S., quite an embarrassment.
Lenoxus 01.29.17 at 4:32 pm
Tom Slee:
The metaphor fits to a tee. Yes, Dipper could be brutally murdered once they are sent back their country of origin, but that’s a small price to pay for security here on Crooked Timber.
oldster 01.29.17 at 4:37 pm
It’s also worth remembering that any overt acts of terrorism prompted by this latest outrage–whether an attack on a US Consulate abroad, or on a soft target within the States–will be welcome to Bannon and Trump, both as a vindication of their world-view and as a chance to get the rubes riled up.
They need a Reichstag fire, and this is a good way to goad someone else into starting it.
(Similar thoughts apply to the complaints that this ban is going to destroy American universities. For Trump and Bannon, that’s a goal, not a problem.)
RichieRich 01.29.17 at 5:12 pm
Lenoxus
I doubt that either Trump or Bannon believe that all US Muslims are inherently untrustworthy. (But maybe they think most are?) However, I’m sure they believe that the terrorist threat emanating from within the US Muslim population is the most serious homegrown terrorist threat currently facing the US. And clearly they’re keen to avoid adding imported Jihadis to the homegrown stock.
But whether this means that their view differs from that of Obama and Hillary, or whether Obama and Hillary held the same view but were simply more circumspect about expressing it, I don’t know.
Hidari 01.29.17 at 5:17 pm
‘This jerk is not a standard Republican. (But then standard Republicans aren’t anymore, either.)’
I think your second sentence adds quite a lot of caveat to your first.
None of this is ‘out of the blue’. Trump very very clearly stated, many times, that he was going to do precisely this in the run up to the election (CF also his wall). The Republicans had numerous chances to dump him. They chose not to.
The ubiquitous ‘Hitler’ references don’t work in one major respect: the National Socialist Party was a brand new party and, therefore, to a certain extent, an unknown quantity.* The Republicans are not. We have watched the Republicans turn more and more to the hard right over the last 40 years. Trump is an extremist, to be sure, but he draws on established Republican tropes and so far barely any Republicans have spoken out against him: it should be inferred that this stems not from fear, but because the majority of them are in favour of his actions. Liberal fantasies that somehow ‘getting rid of Trump’ will solve the problem that the American Republican Party (in toto) is a threat to democracy and peace in its very essence, are just that: fantasies.
(This is not to excuse Democrat appeasement of the Republicans’ terrorism).
*In other words, you could delude yourself that Hitler ‘didn’t really mean it’ in Germany in 1933 in a way for which you have no excuse in the US of 2017.
LFC 01.29.17 at 5:24 pm
Some good points by Chris Bertram, though the difference w the Trump order is more than just an absence of hypocrisy.
Something I saw linked elsewhere yesterday: a story about an Iraqi man and his family, w valid special immigrant visas, unable to board a flight in Cairo to N.Y. (and thence to resettlement in Nashville) b.c of the new restrictions. Instead had to return to Irbil in Iraq, after having sold home, car, taken children out of school, etc. This was someone who had at one pt worked for an NGO under subcontract to a US govt agency — at a time when that meant risking one’s life, as he noted.
Under the Obama admin, this sort of thing wd not have occurred, in particular e.g. as it relates to those who had worked w the US in war zones and hold valid visas for resettlement in the US.
So it is inaccurate to suggest, as Chris Bertram does, that the only thing different here is an absence of hypocrisy on the part of Trump and his henchmen.
bob mcmanus 01.29.17 at 5:33 pm
…and this is a good way to goad someone else into starting it.
Bannon and Kushner on National Security Council, Joint Chiefs and Director of Intelligence out?
I doubt they intend on waiting for an opportunity.
Manta 01.29.17 at 5:38 pm
Interesting post, Chris.
Could you give links some sources?
(I would be interested in reading more about immigration policies in various western countries).
praisegod barebones 01.29.17 at 5:48 pm
What’s new? At least the following:
1) Border officials refusing to follow a court’s determination that holding people in detention is illegal
2) Over-turning the legal status of long-term permanent residents on grounds that are not specific to their particular case
3) Cancellation of visas *while people are in transit* with a subsequent determination that they are in violation of immigration restrictions and subject to a five year ban on re-entry.
4) Contempt for the rule of law, manifested in the by-passing of the OLC
5) Widespread popular protest, provoked by 1-4, including strike action.
I’m not in the business of claiming that the previous status quo was anything like OK, and haven’t thought so since at least 1995. But leftier-than-thou worldly-wise cynicism in response to 5) doesn’t strike me as a particular good way of helping those who were being treated unjustly before Friday’s Executive Order either.
Ronan(rf) 01.29.17 at 6:13 pm
“Could you give links some sources?
(I would be interested in reading more about immigration policies in various western countries).”
I was going to ask the same. Would be genuinely interested in any recommendations Chris or any others had.
Chris Bertram 01.29.17 at 6:24 pm
@praisegodbarebones ( and @LFC a bit) apparently random refusal to admit people who have valid visas and cancellation of permanent resident status by border officials is hardly a new feature of western immigration controls. Nor is contempt for the rule of law or the deportation of whole groups of people without adequate investigation of their specific case (see the UK language-testing students case). Recent investigation of what happened under the UK fast-track asylum procedure shows possibly thousands of people sent to their deaths. Clinton-era treatment of Haitian refugees would be an interesting US precedent for you to look at as would many of the Obama-era deportations.
As to 5, well you have a point. But my advocacy at the end of the OP that people campaign, donate and volunteer is, I submit, some evidence that I am not in fact in the grip of “leftier-than-thou worldly-wise cynicism”. Still, I know from experience that you have an almost unmatched inability to read in what I write what I intended to convey.
engels 01.29.17 at 6:29 pm
What PGBB said. And appalling as this all is watching the grassroots opposition to it unfold has been really inspiring: all those involved have my admiration and gratitude.
Which isn’t to deny that the apparati that have made these outrages possible have deep and long-standing roots in the bipartisan US State but tbh the last thing I’m in the mood for right now is yet another ’50 shades of know-it-all doomerism’ CT comments thread. Cheers.
engels 01.29.17 at 6:32 pm
(To be clear: ‘know-it-all doomerism’ wasn’t directed at the OP and I agree with especially the parts about May.)
engels 01.29.17 at 6:37 pm
(Actually it seems the comments I particularly objected to—about pointlessness of protesting etc—were on another thread so I probably should have just kept quiet—sorry.)
Chris Bertram 01.29.17 at 7:10 pm
On links, UK policy is well covered by Colin Yeo’s Free Movement site:
https://www.freemovement.org.uk/
(but some content is limited to subscribers)
I curate a general migration list at twitter:
https://twitter.com/crookedfootball/lists/migration-tweeters
There’s a also a lot of stuff at COMPAS
http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/
Javier 01.29.17 at 7:35 pm
Here is my prediction: the refugee ban will be fairly popular. At least, I think it is likely that a plurality of American citizens will favor it. When surveyed, a majority of Americans favor reducing the number of refugees admitted. Of course, most Americans also have no clue how many refugees that the US actually admits. But that won’t stop them from having opinions.
Side Note: this is a similar issue to foreign aid. Most Americans favor spending less on foreign aid, and think the government should 10 percent of its budge on foreign aid. Naturally, the US spends about 1 percent of its budget on foreign aid (and most of that is not humanitarian). Similarly, I bet that most Americans favor admitting fewer refugees while believing that the US should admit far more than it actually does admit.
Omega Centauri 01.29.17 at 7:45 pm
Echoing Hidari, and Engels.
Yes, this has been building for decades. Its really the strict father morality system that is calling the shots here, but having a well funded and organized system of promoting those values, as well as political policies and candidates that reflect them, has allowed them to become more lax about the beyond-the-paleness of many of the ideas. It seems the status of something being too extreme to be beyond-the-pale has a lot to do with its perceived acceptance or lack thereof by the masses. Trump showed that removing the limitations can be a successful path to power.
If Trump’s clumsy overreach leads him to be tossed out on his ear (which I think is possible but by no means assured), we will still need to build a long term project to promote the moral world view behind liberalism, and not just fight issue by issue. The later approach has allowed conservatives to control the framing, and with it the moral highground.
Pavel 01.29.17 at 7:50 pm
The openness and visible contempt with which Trump and Co. have been able to push through their racist insanity is the significant difference here. Genuflecting to a different system of values (compassion, etc) while secretly advocating for your own means that you believe the public opinion is largely functioning in that other framework and that public opinion matters to you as a political entity. Ignoring the narratives around compassion means you either believe you have the public on your side (or largely indifferent), or that public opinion is basically irrelevant to your methods of governance.
It’s fine to point out continuities with the previous system, but this doesn’t lead you to a better understanding of how to operate in the current one. This is because some of the rhetorical tools the public could apply in the previous context (charges of hypocrisy, appeals to better nature, etc) are no longer viable against the current leadership of either the US or the UK. You can only be shamed to do the right thing if you actually subscribe to the standards under which you are being shamed. New methodologies and ideas will have to be developed on how to re-educate the public. Hopefully some of the people here have some useful suggestions.
Raven Onthill 01.29.17 at 8:40 pm
It’s a coup.
“I am surprised that Trump voters and conservative Republicans are falling in line with this. They are the ones who are supposed to be smarter about military and security issues!”
They way they are about economics and finance? Like many teenage boys, they think they know it all.
novakant 01.29.17 at 8:43 pm
So nothing much new.
Really? I know a ton of people from one of the affected countries and they beg to differ.
novakant 01.29.17 at 8:45 pm
Also, most of my US friends are currently renouncing their country.
Matt 01.29.17 at 8:46 pm
I might quibble about a few ways that Chris characterizes some points above, but mostly hope that people will keep fighting here, and won’t grow tired. Some weeks before Trump took office, I wrote this short piece about approaching immigration policy after his election:
http://www.thecritique.com/articles/fixingthecracking/
I am sad to see that many of my worries have already come to pass. I had rather hoped that it would take longer, and more organized opposition could be built up. But perhaps this will push things to a head, and I am glad to see that protesting has had some results. The way that government officials in the Customs and Border Patrol have been defying court orders, however, is very worrisome, if not, perhaps, extremely surprising at this moment. Let’s hope that the law, as imperfect as it is, will prevail.
Chris Bertram 01.29.17 at 8:57 pm
If Boris Johnson is to be believed …. there has just been a fairly radical reduction in the scope of the policy:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/presidential-executive-order-on-inbound-migration-to-us
Moz of Yarramulla 01.29.17 at 9:14 pm
Javier@30: the flip side of that is that many USA citizens are horrified to hear that the US spends 50% of their federal budget on their military. I recall they think it should be 20%, or even as high as 25%. Albeit those numbers come from “where should the money go” exercises where people have 100% to spend (the US spends ~102%)
Similar deal with refugees and foreign aid across most of the colonising world, BTW. Even Australia (Red Cross survey<pdf) people think 10% of refugees are resettled every year when it’s 1%, and they think we should do less!).
Yankee 01.29.17 at 9:26 pm
@ Chris 25:
Both sides do it???
Good list, Brother Praisegod. Personally I thought slamming the door on Green Cards was egregious. I suppose the next step would have been to force the rest of them out, or get revalidated. Perhaps with fees, who knows why they do what they do.
Note that the egregiousness and reckless timing has had the major effect of re-energizing the Women’s March people. This is not how you boil frogs. I would have to say The Movement is off to a better start than the anti-Vietnam protests.
Jake Gibson 01.29.17 at 9:28 pm
There are a good number of Trump voters/supporters who do favor allowing only Christians. And some no one.
Hidari 01.29.17 at 10:03 pm
‘ The way that government officials in the Customs and Border Patrol have been defying court orders, however, is very worrisome, if not, perhaps, extremely surprising at this moment. Let’s hope that the law, as imperfect as it is, will prevail.’
If I was a young revolutionary (which, sadly, I’m not…on either count) I would be licking my lips at the moment, as my books of theory would be telling me that the United States is entering a textbook ‘pre-revolutionary moment’.
However, in the absence of an well organised radical left wing opposition to Trump, it might be better to describe the current state of the US as being ‘a pre-civil war situation’.
In any case, it is very very difficult to see Trump lasting another four years like this, but any attempt to remove him would seem to lead more or less directly to some kind of civil strife, either the ‘small’ kind or the ‘big’ kind.
On the other hand, if peaceful protest doesn’t work (and if the CBP have been defying court orders, it might not) who knows what might happen? Nixon’s crimes led to the Weathermen. Which in turn would lead to a more or less violent backlash.
Perhaps this is all fearmongering of course, but it strikes me as odd that no one is at least discussing these possibilities.
Stephen 01.29.17 at 10:26 pm
CB@37: assuming this good news is true (official FO statement) then should credit for the radical change go to Trump, May, Johnson, the UK ambassador in Washington, unknown persons in the US Department of State, or to some other more acceptable figures?
djr 01.29.17 at 11:02 pm
CB @ 37:
How radical a reduction in scope depends on exactly what the phrase “what [it] means to British nationals and dual nationals” is doing at the top of Johnson’s statement. It would seem weird for the UK foreign office to be explaining what US policy means for anyone apart from British passport holders, but it’s 2017 so…
J-D 01.29.17 at 11:04 pm
Lee A. Arnold
On the one hand, the statement seems to suggest that Trump does not know what the hell is going on, which seems plausible. On the other hand, the statement seems to suggest that Trump wants to find out what the hell is going on, which is not equally easy to credit.
I wonder to what extent people who don’t know what the hell is going on were drawn to vote for Trump because he seemed to have this in common with them.
If Boris Johnson is to be believed ….
That seemed worth quoting just so that I could leave it hanging there.
J-D 01.29.17 at 11:35 pm
Hidari
What is difficult for you is easy for me.
Moz of Yarramulla 01.29.17 at 11:39 pm
djr@42:
And good luck to any UK national trying to persuade US immigration that a Boris press release has more effect than whatever the border control has been told to do by their actual boss. BoJo is rarely a reliable guide to anything, but when he’s talking about forn parts I’m even less credulous.
Charles Stross says relying on Trump having Jewish advisors for his personal safety seems optimistic, so he’s going be careful on his trip in two weeks time, but he’s cancelling any visits that can be cancelled.
I’m finding out new and interesting things about my coworkers today though. Turns out more of the straight white engineers have brown and Muslim relatives than I would have guessed. They might not like them, or even want them in their family, but when family arrangements get wrecked by “the fewer” they get grumpy.
nastywoman 01.29.17 at 11:52 pm
let me try to sound not too cynical – but the main problem is – that all of these people who have this problem with entering the US -(or before the UK) – just don’t have enough dough.
If you can’t afford to buy a nice Multimiliion Flat or Shelter in Mayfair or Kensington -(or on NY Park Avenue) what are you doing in the US or UK anywhoo?
And the US or the UK NEVER had problems with letting really rich (Muslim) refugees IN – so we all should understand that it is really NOT a racism-problem!
bob mcmanus 01.29.17 at 11:53 pm
41: Perhaps this is all fearmongering of course, but it strikes me as odd that no one is at least discussing these possibilities.
Well, I for one am thinking of the worst possibilities, though not writing them in detail.
Putting Bannon and Kushner of the NSC while kicking Intelligence and Military off makes me wonder if they are right now picking overseas targets.
So many of their ambitions become easier, so much of the opposition weakened, if the United States is at war.
We have probably been pre-revolutionary, or pre-civil war since 2000, and certainly since 2008. Now we are in revolution.
Donald A. Coffin 01.30.17 at 12:12 am
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.”
Robert Ingersoll (http://www.bartleby.com/400/prose/1827.html
Layman 01.30.17 at 12:21 am
“Nixon’s crimes led to the Weathermen.”
That would be quite a trick on the part of the Weathermen, who formed in 1969. Although I guess predicting Nixon would be a crook wasn’t that hard.
More to the point, I remain skeptical in the extreme that sitting Republican members of Congress will summon the courage to impeach Trump, when so doing almost certainly condemns them to a primary challenge from the right. Perhaps they will surprise me; and then we will have Pence, who (judging by his record) seems to want more or less what Trump wants. It’s going to be a long 4 years.
Layman 01.30.17 at 12:27 am
CB @ 37, media reports in the states directly contradict what Johnson says. Among other things, holders of dual passports are being handled on the basis of the least desireable (from the Trump perspective) of the two passports. If you hold a UK and a Syrian passport, you’re treated as a Syrian. And I read people have been detained even for international connecting flights – they are not even staying in US, just transiting on their way elsewhere. I’m guessing the Trump team are unable to articulate the details of what they’ve done, to Johnson or anyone else.
Layman 01.30.17 at 12:30 am
Also, too, a transcript or audio file of this particular conversation would be priceless.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/merkel-explains-geneva-refugee-convention-to-trump-in-phone-call?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Omega Centauri 01.30.17 at 12:40 am
Hidari:
“would seem to lead more or less directly to some kind of civil strife, either the ‘small’ kind or the ‘big’ kind.
…
Perhaps this is all fearmongering of course, but it strikes me as odd that no one is at least discussing these possibilities.”
They are probably like me, thinking about it, but hoping if we don’t mention it, it won’t come to pass.
And Kevin Drum did say something about the current immigration action, this might be a hill both sides are willing to die for. So its not like some aren’t worrying about the future.
J-D 01.30.17 at 1:12 am
nastywoman
Inconsistently applied racism is still racism; ‘not motivated solely by racism’ is not equivalent to ‘not motivated by racism at all’.
Another Nick 01.30.17 at 1:17 am
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v11/d139
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v11/pg_245
Sorry, not to derail but I missed the opportunity to post these links on Henry’s 2009 open thread. J_D, if you still maintain this is unresolved, we can discuss further down the track on another open thread.
Lenoxus 01.30.17 at 1:22 am
I can only speak for myself but I believe a lot of liberals have a private fantasy of a future where, even if nothing else good comes of things, policies like these will fall on the Wrong Side of History, the way Germans perceive the Third Reich.
But I think the example of modern German shame over Naziism is clearly a historical aberration; forced by outside actors. In general, countries don’t have collective crises of conscience like that; France never grappled with its role in Rwanda or Vietnam, nor Japan with Nanjing, etc. Here in the US there still isn’t a real consensus about the genocide of Native Americans or enslavement of Africans or internment of the Japanese, except a general blame-deflection. Like, by all means we can recognize historical evil, but God forbid that encroach on America’s sense of greatness, its Trumplike insecure narcissism.
Today’s voters are the grand- and great-grand-children of Americans who told pollsters, by +60% margins, that Jewish German refugees shouldn’t be taken in. Can they be expected to grok that Granpa Was Wrong? Just ain’t ever going to happen.
In 50 years whatever sorts of conservatives exist will either be full-on white supremacists, or will insist that Trump was fundamentally a Democrat, that today’s proposals to expel this or that group to the moon base are simply nothing like the Muslim Ban of 2017, and that John Lewis, God bless him, would be ashamed of your identity politicking.
Pavel 01.30.17 at 1:29 am
@Hidari
I don’t think anyone dares to breathe the words “Civil War” too loudly, given how much American White Nationalists have been itching to start a race war for ages now.
Moz of Yarramulla 01.30.17 at 2:38 am
Lenoxus@56 modern German shame over Naziism is clearly a historical aberration
We’ve just had “Australia Day” here which explicitly celebrates the start of the genocide.
That may seem strong to outsiders, but there really is a conflict between protesters saying “no pride in genocide” and spokespeople for the status quo types saying “we’ll celebrate whatever we want to”. We’re starting a long way behind the rest of the world on that one. Various anti-first-nations measures have strong public support (using the army to enforce racially discriminatory laws, for example). It is somewhat disturbing to think about how far the government could push that stuff in light of the attitudes towards refugees, non-white immigrants and so on. There’s a tangled mess, and this year a big “change the date” movement which itself has supporters and opponents on both sides.
That said, a race war inside Australia seems unlikely because we don’t have the same history of conflict. I expect that Aotearoa would react quite differently if some of the stupidity here were tried there.
Anarcissie 01.30.17 at 3:30 am
Lee A. Arnold 01.29.17 at 4:29 pm @ 15 —
I think one economic disaster will be coming up in the short term, and it will have political consequences: the present real estate and equities bubbles will pop, as bubbles do. What will Trump and company do then? Tell yet more fables? Print lots of funny money? Start a war?
J-D 01.30.17 at 3:43 am
Lenoxus
And in that German case, consider the experience of Anna Rosmus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Rosmus
Moz of Yarramulla 01.30.17 at 3:58 am
Lost for words:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/30/scott-morrison-trump-travel-ban-world-is-catching-up-to-australia-border-protection
LFC 01.30.17 at 4:30 am
bob mcmanus @48
Putting Bannon and Kushner o[n] the NSC while kicking Intelligence and Military off makes me wonder if they are right now picking overseas targets.
From the site Newser:
Not clear, to me at any rate, exactly what the implications of this are, except that Bannon is riding high. Not an expert on the NSC and its workings (at least as these have occurred in the recent past), but I do know the overall size of the NSC has ballooned in recent years. It’s not a ‘council’, more like a mini-bureaucracy or agency, w political appointees and staffers underneath them often seconded from Pentagon, State Dept, etc. The ‘principals committee’ is prob closer to what the NSC itself was envisioned as when it was originally set up. Whether these changes are as significant as b.mcmanus suggests remains to be seen; Bannon obvs. has Trump’s ear whether he sits on the principals committee of NSC or not.
Val 01.30.17 at 4:31 am
@ 61
I’m calling for Bishop (and Morrison and Turnbull but particularly Bishop as Foreign Minister) to resign for making statements in breach of the Refugee Convention.
“Article 3
non-discrimination
The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees
without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.”
http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/3b66c2aa10
Australia was one of the 26 states that developed that convention (as was the US). If Bishop and Turnbull don’t accept it, they should either make their case for withdrawing from it, or resign.
Dr. Hilarius 01.30.17 at 4:32 am
The incompetence of the Trump regime might be our only salvation. The executive order didn’t just halt refugees, it stopped re-entry by employees (and/or their family members) of Microsoft, Google and other companies with clout. It has also disrupted the activities of World Relief, the charity arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. Impacts like this are bringing more to the streets than the usual small crowds of social-justice protestors. http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trumps-first-week-isnt-just-angering-the-left/
So far, though, “mainstream” Republican members of Congress appear to be ducking for cover and doing their best not to say anything of substance. Don’t look to them for anything other than verbal equivocation.
nastywoman 01.30.17 at 4:32 am
@54
‘Inconsistently applied racism is still racism; ‘not motivated solely by racism’ is not equivalent to ‘not motivated by racism at all’.
Yes?
And I thought by pointing to the fact that the UK and the US welcomes any Muslim from any country if such a Muslim -(or a ‘brown’ person) is showing up with a lot of dough – and then gladly gets granted all kind of residency rights was just pointing to the fact that there is always something in those countries which Trumps racism.
Like – what did I once overhear: Denzel is not Black – he is Rich!
J-D 01.30.17 at 7:07 am
J-D 01.30.17 at 7:10 am
nastywoman
Maybe that’s what you meant, but it’s not what you wrote. What you wrote was:
Yes.
reason 01.30.17 at 9:11 am
One thing I was thinking the other day, Trump has a problem in that he has no reliable allies (and he is making more enemies by the day) apart from Bannon and Flynn in the congress and in the cabinet. Those two both depend on Trump for power, nobody else. He probably knows one unfortunate leak and the GOP will turn on him (impeachment perhaps). So he is trying to do as much as possible as soon as possible. Hence the unseemly haste.
Z 01.30.17 at 9:12 am
In in the (unlikely) event American academics CT readers don’t know about it yet.
https://notoimmigrationban.com
Peter T 01.30.17 at 9:36 am
reason
I think it’s simpler – he has no idea (nor do Bannon and other flunkies) about how government works. Judging by the outcomes, he also has little or no idea how actual businesses work either. So he has no clue as to what forces he sets in motion if he signs an order.
Steve 01.30.17 at 9:41 am
I really don’t understand how Johnson’s proposed/alleged/possible exemption for UK citizens could be justified in terms of the rhetoric behind this hateful policy, given that a tiny number of UK citizens have been involved in Islamic terrorism. (Yes, that would be an AWFUL argument for banning entry to all UK passport holders, but the ostensible justification of the actual policy rests on a version of that crazy logic). My only hope is that this case portends what is to come: stupid policy put forward; some loopholes required as the result of political/economic pressure; entire policy revealed as a crazy sham. Note that is a hope: not an expectation.
Val 01.30.17 at 10:23 am
J-D @ 66
Oh well it’s not like I call on them to do it, so they’ll do it. It’s like it got retweeted and liked few times so it adds to the general message. Sometimes you have to say things just to bring them into the realm of that which gets talked about as a possibility.
Val 01.30.17 at 10:30 am
Also it appears we now have a Melbourne high school student who has been banned from visiting the US, so what are pathetic Bishop and Turnbull going to do about that, I wonder.
Anders 01.30.17 at 10:39 am
Chris – taking a step back, do you set out anywhere what limits you would consider acceptable on immigration into the US or UK? Do you actually favour fully open borders, if only domestic US or UK populations could be persuaded to accept this?
Lee A. Arnold 01.30.17 at 11:08 am
This is going to extend religious terrorism another 100 years and make it much more difficult to fight. The war on terror is partly a spy war and Bannon-Trump’s ban disrupts the methods of fighting it.
Trump’s conversation-stopper du jour — is to say, “Well, Obama did it too” — because Obama banned Iraqis at one point. And in fact, all most all of the recent Presidents (and other heads of state) have done this sort of thing. But these were always a diplomatic retaliation or in response to intel of a threat (presumably).
So, what is the threat-spike now? Well, the only threat adduced in the present case is the culminated year’s worth of implausible campaign claims that the military & intelligence people do not know “what the hell is going on”.
There is an imaginative & intellectual failure in Trump supporters who believe this: not being able to imagine how the terror threat has been handled, all along, by serious professionals charged with the serious duty of finding out “what the hell is going on”.
Then there is emotional hatred too: in believing that Obama (or any other President) would not have been doing the utmost to find out “what the hell is going on”.
And, as if this reality-TV kind of charade were not big enough, Trump the Great is finally going to find out “what the hell is going on” — in 120 days!
Chris Bertram 01.30.17 at 11:42 am
@Anders forthcoming book. I argue that migration restrictions to be just have to be justifiable from a perspective common to all. That places very stringent limits on what states may do, but there could in principle be some restrictions on, say, environmental grounds but also even on cultural grounds in the rare cases where these outweighed the interests of outsiders (for example, poor island paradise restricting the settlement of rich American tourists). Then there’s the question of the obligations on states in a world where other states are not complying with what justice requires. I argue that they have to (a) take active steps to put a just regime in place and (b) organize their policy so that it prefigures what their “share” would be under a fully-just regime and that they do not have permission to do (b) unless they are also doing (a). And nobody is obliged to comply with the immigration policies of states that don’t do (a) and (b).
nastywoman 01.30.17 at 2:12 pm
@76
‘(for example, poor island paradise restricting the settlement of rich American tourists).’
I so much LOVE this example – as the UK -(and London) could have restricted the settlement of rich Muslims – which ruined the London Paradise for ‘Common’ Londoners and which could have been (one of the tipping points) – for the truly ‘racist’ Brexit-
– Did you guys ever witness how (some) of the last ‘British’ Inhabitants of Mayfair and Kensington complain about their ‘Sheiks’?
-(before closing hours in a Pub)
and about ‘yes’ @76
– there is this theory that ‘subtext’ has become much more relevant in ‘our – oh so confusing times’ than what people are actually writing or saying.
And you might want to look into it? – as it can be a lot of fun to decipher what people are actually sayen?
Suzanne 01.30.17 at 5:00 pm
@18: Oh, good Lord. Obama and HRC held no such views.
@64: Trump is deeply unpopular but he is not deeply unpopular with the Republican base. They elected him to kick the wogs out and he is doing that. The House Republicans hold securely gerrymandered seats. The Senate Republicans are in a dicier place but most of them still dare not piss off Trump supporters.
Stephen 01.30.17 at 5:55 pm
CB@76: “the obligations on states in a world where other states are not complying with what justice requires. I argue that they have to (a) take active steps to put a just regime in place.”
Ah, active regime change. What could possibly go wrong?
alfredlordbleep 01.30.17 at 5:56 pm
Hidari 01.29.17 at 5:17 pm @19
Hitler’s ascent to power presents various unpleasant associations. But one potent today is that conservative leaders brought him to power. Not controlling him was civilization’s vain regret.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/02/20/whats-wrong-with-fascism/
Pavel 01.30.17 at 7:42 pm
@nastywoman
Looking *exclusively* for subtext undermines the kind of rhetoric of facts and trustworthiness that Progressives need at this moment in time. Modern authoritarian movements rely on chaos and the absence of any factual or trusted source of information (see the rush of the current administration to undermine the 4th estate in the US). A combination of technological amplification of marginal voices (remember that explicit white supremacists are also often marginalized and powerless in modern societies) and PoMo has allowed white supremacists and others to level all hierarchies of knowledge to a series of discrete and biased narratives. This is consistent with the rush to reject the opinions of experts as inherently elitist and useless. Ultimately, if everyone has a hidden agenda, no one knows who to trust.
A good discussion of how this process of has taken place in Russia is here: https://nobsrussia.com/2016/12/14/so-you-live-in-a-dictatorship-part-i-you-have-no-beliefs/
SC 01.30.17 at 8:11 pm
No one here has noted the other NSC appointment announced at the end of last week, Breitbart national security editor, Dr. Sebastian Gorka. Seems to me that Gorka might have been involved in the travel ban. He was a paid “policy advisor” for the Trump campaign and apparently he was at least in part responsible for some of the 130 footnotes in Trump’s “detailed plan to defeat ISIS” (That “plan”, btw, is worth another look. An immediate travel ban is mentioned, there are footnotes, etc. https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/DJT_Radical_Islam_Speech.pdf.)
Dr. Sebastian Gorka’s website has been down since he was named to the NSC but, as you might expect, he’s a Clash of Civilizations guy. Nearly all of his work seems focused on extending the terror war to every muslim.
Gorka’s essay Understanding the Enemy, published in the DoD’s Special Warfare magazine is typical, though much more subdued than some of his Breitbart work. It ends with “The confict that we are in now is potentially more deadly and more dangerous than the Cold War. Not only is the enemy totalitarian, he is not a secular, godless totalitarian like Hitler or Stalin, because this totalitarian ideology believes it has god on its side.†(http://threatknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Understanding-the-Enemy-by-Sebastian-Gorka.pdf)
J-D 01.30.17 at 8:17 pm
nastywoman
No, never. I’ve never been in a pub in Mayfair or Kensington. What are their complaints, and how well justified are they?
If you are avoiding making your meaning plain because you think I’ll have more fun guessing, you’re mistaken; guessing the meaning of people who won’t make it plain is a pain. To make it worse, in my experience when I guess at a meaning that isn’t clear to me and guess wrong, more often than not people take my guessing wrong as an insult and a moral failing.
Moz of Yarramulla 01.30.17 at 8:35 pm
(for example, poor island paradise restricting the settlement of rich American tourists)
You mean Hawa’ii, don’t you? Being a state rather than a colony like Puerto Rico hasn’t helped them as much as they might have hoped, at least as far as being able to control the flow of rich americans moving there and buying everything in sight from the occupying government.
roger gathmann 01.30.17 at 9:08 pm
ACLU is important, but it is also important to show up at airports, demonstrate. The spontaneous demonstrations have begun to drag ever-compromising Dems back to the realization that we are in no mood for the feckless Dem act of 2000 – 2006. I went up on Saturday to LAX, which I think encouraged the greater numbers on Sunday. Demonstrating since the end of the Vietnam war has seemed futile, but under Trump I think it is going to be a crucial weapon of de-legitimation. We aren’t going to get rid of this slimeball just through mediating organizations, I think.
LFC 01.30.17 at 9:40 pm
@Stephen
Ah, active regime change. What could possibly go wrong?
The context makes clear, at least to me, that CB is referring to a just immigration ‘regime’ — ‘regime’ meaning here a set of rules and practices — not ‘regime’ in the sense of the government as a whole.
Hidari 01.30.17 at 10:20 pm
@79
Given that the state that is most egregiously not complying with justice right now is the ‘United’ States, I think regime change sounds like a very good idea.
Failing that, sanctions.
Omega Centauri 01.30.17 at 10:31 pm
“Ah, active regime change. What could possibly go wrong?”
Well it always looks good, and sells as heroic patriotism, until it turns ugly. Given the high discount rate of most conservatives its a winner.
SC 01.30.17 at 11:36 pm
Just received, from my son’s high school principal, a letter and a FAQ from the Department of Education concerning the travel ban. The letter is signed by Carmen Farina, the DoE chancellor, and Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. The letter and FAQ reiterate the DoE’s position on immigration status and documentation–the DoE does not collect immigration information and all students have equal access to schooling. (Here’s a link to the pdfs sent out today: http://preview.tinyurl.com/j8sjqg3.)
The Chancellor’s letter begins “As in the past, DOE staff will not ask about or keep a record of the immigration status of a student or family member. If you do share confidential information, including immigration status,about yourself or your family, it will be protected under the City’s confidentiality policy and the Chancellor’s Regulations.”
I’m glad the DoE sent these letters but there are some details that seem more dubious than they have in the past. For example:
“DoE staff will not grant unlimited access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
“DoE staff will not release student information unless required to by law.”
“The City does not conduct immigration enforcement actions. The federal government handles immigration enforcement.”
“Unlimited”, “unless required to by law”, and “the Federal government” aren’t exactly soothing words in the context of the new administration.
Seth 01.31.17 at 12:16 am
Coup or not?
Trumps behavior reminds me of this quote from Truman regarding Eisenhower:
Truman underestimated Eisenhower, but maybe if you replace “Army” with “The Trump Organization” it fits Trump. But there is the bully factor too. The immigration EO was obviously intended not as policy but as theater: watch us throw out some randomly selected people and if you don’t want to be next, you better cheer us on!”
nastywoman 01.31.17 at 12:31 am
@80+@82
‘Looking *exclusively* for subtext undermines the kind of rhetoric of facts and trustworthiness that Progressives need at this moment in time.’
It’s not ‘looking’ and especially not ‘exclusively’ – it’s more – how can you avoid it in ‘teh current homeland’ – as more and more friends and family try to avoid some ‘difficult political discussions’ in order NOT to keep the family or friends -(somehow) together?
And that’s just my subjective theory why – while being in the homeland – so much doesn’t get said lately -(in a family or between old friends) – or it just get’s said in a way – where the subtext says a lot more than the ‘trying to be civil’ – superficial friendly words.
Like – I can’t use the F…face von Clownstick name with relatives I knew voted for Trump.
And I would love to – as ‘the kind of rhetoric of facts and trustworthiness that Progressives need at this moment in time’.
Now one could say – using the name ‘F…face von Clownstick isn’t the kind of rhetoric of facts and trustworthiness that Progressives need at this moment in time’.
But what is? – as the name doesn’t do Trump any justice as he without a doubt in my mind is much much worst than a ‘F… face’.
And so – like more and more Americans I meet – try some different and more comical relief – by currently calling Trump ‘the German’ and my homeland ‘the United States of Trump’ – and interestingly most friends I talk to right away get the -(critical) subtext – which could bring us to conversations in a Pub where a British gentleman might joke about ‘the Sheikh’ in his neighborhood – ‘who just by overpaying for his ‘shelter’ in the first place – made the neighborhood for everyone of us -(says the gentleman) – so much more expensive, that the drunken gentleman very loudly wishes that ‘the Towelhead and his sixteen wives would exit – tooomorrrow!’
And such kind of rhetoric – I feel – is NOT acceptable – even if some ‘facts’ might be in play – and so where was I…?
LFC 01.31.17 at 2:18 am
Seth @89
watch us throw out some randomly selected people
That’s not what the exec order does (or certainly not all it does), as all the coverage by now has made clear. Among other things, it prevents holders of validly issued visas from traveling, even if on the verge of departure or actually in transit, if they come from one of the seven countries on the list (cf., just to take one example, the case of the Iraqi man and his family that I mentioned upthread). This seems like a pretty clear due process violation (it’s well established that the 14th amendment [and other const. protections] applies to US govt action if that action affects non-citizens; put differently, the 14th am. is not just for US citizens).
Btw, the atty gen of the state of Washington is filing a federal lawsuit vs the whole EO, and the acting a.g. in DC has directed the Justice Dept not to to defend the order.
LFC 01.31.17 at 2:55 am
Correction: of course I mean the 5th Amendment, not the 14th Amendment; former applies to the federal govt, latter to the states.
Val 01.31.17 at 3:32 am
Some people said it would go bad fast when Trump became President, but it seems to be going down much faster than I (for one) expected, with the Acting AG now being sacked.
Meanwhile back in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull says we will get a deal like the UK where joint passport holders will be allowed entry, but the 15 year old Australian born schoolboy who was looking forward to his trip to America still can’t get a visa, as far as I know. Seems like a nice boy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/jan/31/melbourne-schoolboy-subjected-to-us-travel-ban-speaks-out-video
Hidari 01.31.17 at 6:53 am
@81
‘Not only is the enemy totalitarian, he is not a secular, godless totalitarian like Hitler or Stalin, because this totalitarian ideology believes it has god on its side.†‘
‘The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way…. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: totalitarian, science….’
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
J-D 01.31.17 at 7:25 am
nastywoman
I can’t tell; and trying to figure out is, as I observed previously, a pain.
I get a vague glimmering that perhaps you find yourself having to avoid saying what you mean to family and friends because of the risk of disrupting relationships that you don’t want to disrupt (and if that’s true it must be hard for you and I reflect on how lucky I am not to be in the same situation); but I’m not your family or your friend, and insofar as we have any kind of relationship at all, you run a greater risk of disrupting it by being obscure than you would by expressing your meaning clearly.
JoB 01.31.17 at 8:18 am
The most depressing thing I have seen in European news (in my case Belgian) was a lady from Belgium born in Iran biting her lips not to be too critical clearly thinking that it was important not to risk seeing her mother in the US again.
You see that the intended effect of the order is taking hold – people (mostly politicians) do not dare to overtly challenge it and scum creeps from under rocks to spit spite.
It all feels too much like Stefan Zweig described his contemporary’s descent into madness.
Seth 01.31.17 at 8:30 am
LFC @92
Yes, randomly selected: who ever happened to be flying that day w/o regard to legal status (e.g. Green card), past service (e.g. Translators in Iraq), etc. Random in the sense that “we don’t care who you actually are, just get out”.
Layman 01.31.17 at 12:27 pm
And now there’s this:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/30/trump-travel-ban-yemenis-coerced-relinquish-green-card?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Allegedly, C&BP agents who detain green card holders are coercing them to renounce their permanent residency while denying them access to legal counsel. If these allegations are true, it hardly seems likely that this is a tactic dreamed up on the spot, absent any direction from above, by the proverbial ‘few bad apples’.
nastywoman 01.31.17 at 6:19 pm
@96
‘you run a greater risk of disrupting it by being obscure than you would by expressing your meaning clearly.’
That is true – but as I had been through the ‘Refugees Discussion’ before in Germany and I very strongly sided with Andrea Merkels ‘humanitarian point of view’ – and went through the same type of wondering what it means ‘expressing my meaning clearly as probably Andrea Merkel went through – before a F…face von Clownstick brought her back to a very clearly expression of her standpoint – again – it is a very difficult subject for expressing meanings clearly’…?
Pavel 01.31.17 at 6:41 pm
@nastywoman
If I understand you correctly, I agree that when communicating with people you don’t want to outright alienate because your views are so diametrically opposed, you need to tone down the outrage and use different vectors of attack (i.e. communicate to them in their own language). I’ve lost a lot of friends to this election so this seems familiar. However, this seems to be a community that appreciates openness so I don’t see why you need to dig for lots of subtext here. Also, “F…face von Clownstick” is basically just an insult, not an attempt at open, honest communication. I would personally avoid it when trying to get your ideas across to anyone who isn’t part of the choir.
nastywoman 01.31.17 at 7:18 pm
@100
It’s like the auto-correct on the laptop I worked on – changed Angela’s name into Andrea…
engels 01.31.17 at 7:27 pm
In Solidarity with People Affected by the ‘Muslim Ban’: Call for an Academic Boycott of International Conferences held in the US
https://docs.google.com/a/middleeasteye.org/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNN_2HHREt1h-dm_CgWpFHw8NDPGLCkOwB4lLRFtKFJqI25w/viewform
nastywoman 01.31.17 at 7:36 pm
@101
‘However, this seems to be a community that appreciates openness so I don’t see why you need to dig for lots of subtext here.’
You mean I could tell Mr. Bertram that I think that the idea that ‘Donald Trump’s order that the US be closed to the nationals of several Muslim-majority countries is a particularly egregious intensification of the racist immigration policies that many “liberal democracies†have pursued in recent years?’
I thought that many ‘liberal democracies’ -(like France and especially Germany) – have tried to come up with admirable and humanitarian immigration policies – and many of them haven’t shown the attitude ‘F…face von Clownstick has shown as I believe that his attitude actually is not about policies and politics that much it’s just the attitude of a F…face who (by accident?) suddenly has the power for his a…holery.
J-D 01.31.17 at 8:13 pm
nastywoman
Sometimes I experience difficulty in making my meaning clear (probably in more instances than I realise). I don’t treat that as justification for renouncing the goal, still less for making obscurity a virtue. When I discover that my meaning isn’t clear, I strive to make it clearer, I don’t defend my lack of clarity.
reason 01.31.17 at 10:01 pm
1. I think this is mostly the work of Bannon – who is really scary.
2. Given that nobody from any the countries involved has ever been involved in terrorist attacks in the US, but nationals from other countries which weren’t affected have been, might I suggest that the plan is actually to encourage such attacks. In this I don’t just mean Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt (where Trump happens to have businesses), but also the Magreb states and Afghanistan which supplied recent terrorists in Europe.
This is very nasty!
Hidari 01.31.17 at 10:43 pm
Given the speed with which things are developing, maybe time to wheel out this oldie, which very noticeably did not go viral:
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed
Layman 02.01.17 at 12:03 am
Now there’s an odd story from Politico, which reports that Trump enlisted staff members of the House Judiciary Committee without the knowledge of any Members of Congress – even requiring them to sign NDAs to ensure they kept it secret from Congress – to help draft the executive order, during the transition before he was inaugurated. My first reaction was that this was a separation of powers problem of the first order, with the executive branch usurping the prerogatives of the legislature. Then I realized that the President-Elect isn’t even in the executive branch. What the fuck is this?
Suzanne 02.01.17 at 5:07 am
@108: “My first reaction was that this was a separation of powers problem of the first order, with the executive branch usurping the prerogatives of the legislature. ”
It is, but in this case, executive, staffers, and legislators are all on the same page, no? The congresspersons for whom the staffers work have no real objections to the basic goals of the executive order, so there was no special reason for secrecy except for Trump being weird. However, the arrangement did allow Hill Republicans to claim they had no idea what was coming, which has its convenience. Let Trump take the heat.
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