> all I can think is what a fucking lay-up

I am nervous about the US right now. So many cases are going to end up at the Supreme Court that is controlled by conservatives. It may not be the lay-up you think it is.

Also what happens if Trump just decides to ignore a court loss as he did with the recent deportation of Kilmar Garcia?

I don’t agree with Roberts but he isn’t a hack. For what it’s worth, he also went to Harvard.

I think conservative Harvard graduates are among the most eager to impose their will on Harvard. Look at Harvard grad Elise Stefanik, for example.

It will take a majority of states, and their military backing, forcefully overthrowing Trump.

I really hate to be alarmist, but it does feel more and more that we're headed to massive, coordinated state against state violence.

Perhaps. The Courts and the Legislature have yet to defend their powers, but the crunch point to do so is approaching. When we get past the stage that they have fully capitulated to Trump then it'll get truly ugly.

Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back.

I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forgotten how it hurts more than anything else.

> Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back.

> I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forgotten how it hurts more than anything else.

I can sort of theorize that human society does have the ability to cycle that is partially based on human life spans / human memory. It is like a LLM that runs out of context and then starts forgetting what it learned in the earliest part of the context. For humans it is related to our lifespans as we culturally forgot what we have learned, and thus have to relearn it.

That said, I think that periods of peace are punctuated with war. War resets the pressures that build during peace. This is similar to how refactors or rewrites are needed every once in a while as the technical debt builds up as requirements and use cases change over time, especially if no one was paying down the techn debt as you went.

Cultural ouroboros. Eventually we become so distant from our past selves culturally that we identify once normal, helpful, natural things as foreign. I'm seeing this with the new wave of mental illness in my generation.

Or you could find illegal conduct for congress people, have them sued in criminal courts, and then hold elections to elect people (republican or democrat) who will make congress function as it is meant to.

Perhaps someone can provide security services to republican congress people who are threatened with violence if they dont toe the line, so that they are safe enough to stand up to trump. (This is an actual reason given for their cowardice)

The core fundamental problem from my viewpoint in the US political system is unlimited campaign contributions which empowered the ultra wealthy. This means that elections are fought between ultra wealthy people and politicians have to first appeal to the rich people to get them on their sides, rather than the majority of the people.

You need to fix this, otherwise you have muted the impact of the majority of people in your democracy.

From a geographic standpoint, the conflict isn’t state vs. state this time around, though, it’s rural vs. urban. Blue cities in red states. Red counties in blue states. Not very conducive to conventional military conflict.

The biggest irony here is that after Roberts, the justices Trump appointed are the conservatives most likely to do the right thing. Gorsuch and Barrett are fine justices (even if they have opposing views to mine), Kavanaugh could be worse. Hopefully he doesn't get to choose another one or we'll get another Alito or Thomas.

Columbia's administration obviously has no issues silencing free speech and dissent based on their actions though.

Seems like it could mean death for Columbia as a desirable college honestly

Probably not, they'll just pump up international student numbers to recoup and basically gut the domestic student experience. There's near infinite demand for American universities overseas even now.

I think you're wrong. I know several bright students that have decided to not go to the US now given the persecution and targeting of international students.

You can't expect the brightest minds to study in an authoritarian country.

Really? That demand is rapidly dropping, for all kinds of terrifying reasons

Intl students are not mad. Who is going to pay the US intl student premium, to add the Columbia tag. Intl students are paying for very specific future life paths.

they probably don't have a $50 billion endowment to weather Dump's petulance.