Still Struggling? Here's More Help

I went to a meeting today to commiserate, and talk about moving forward. Many people are still struggling. For some people, it’s like a sine curve.

Their feelings ebb and flow.

For others, it is such dystopian doom that they are close to inconsolable.

Everyone at our get together agreed that GETTING TOGETHER was a worthwhile undertaking, and in our area, we’re planning more get togethers. If you’re not in my local area, I hope you will consider doing the same wherever you are. Strength in numbers, fighting isolation: they matter, and they help.

I talked about ways to feel better last week in Creative Car Parking. If you missed it, please start there. And THANK YOU to the people who wrote me notes about their cars that only had AM radios!

But I wanted to offer some insights that might help get you through the darkness.

First:

THEY WON AN ELECTION. ELECTIONS ARE BATTLES. THEY HAVE NOT WON THE WAR.

Second:

Just because they said they were going to do something doesn’t mean it will come to fruition.

One of my degrees is in political science and government. One of my professors, who, interestingly enough, taught 2 days a week, and spent the remainder of his time as a firefighter, taught about how the government implements things. He started his first lecture by talking about how there are only two reasons people go into public service: either they have an absolute commitment to trying to make the world a better place, or they are in it for what they can get. But, he said, the complexities of how government operates (slow and laborious) was designed to make it difficult to go from idea (whether good or bad) through implementation. It’s a feature and not a bug.

To understand “implementation”, he talked about Rube Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, who drew in the first half of the 20th century. Goldberg would take simple ideas, and create complex systems for implementation. Here’s an example of a system to help someone remember to mail a letter.

More Rube Goldberg here.

There are things that the Orange Menace can do via Executive Order (EO) but there are other things that need to be implemented. He needs compliance at many levels, even to make some of his EOs stick.

One of the things people at the meeting were concerned about is that there will be no more elections. States control elections: I don’t know any state that is looking to cancel any of the state and local elections next year. And as for the midterms, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the US Constitution says that’s up to the states, too. It would take an act of Congress to change it, and that means a new amendment passes the House, the Senate, is signed by Don the Con, and then needs to get ratified by the states. With the exception of Amendment 26, lowering the voting age to 18 (which only took a few months) it normally takes years to ratify an amendment¹.

Realistically, there ARE a number of horrific things that he will likely have EOs in his pocket for the first day. This includes the Remain in Mexico program and separating parents and children at the border. Hopefully info will pass to migrants to keep them from trying to cross the border.

He’ll likely also do another Muslim ban. Remember, that didn’t work out so well for him - there were actually multiple orders, knocked down by the courts. Full history here.

It’s anticipated that resettlement programs and Temporary Protected Status will also be gone.

These are terrible things, no doubt. But that plan to round up 12 million undocumented immigrants? While there will be some workplace raids, to REALLY do this will involve using the military (who may or may not comply) and local law enforcement, the construction of places to hold the people, and using the court system to adjudicate cases. This will cost A LOT of money. Like $88 billion (with a “b”) a year. To get that through the House will require Democratic votes (if the GOP holds the House) because they have enough deficit hawks and Freedom Chaos Caucus members to preclude their ability to pass it solely on MAGA votes. And they’ll NEVER get the Democratic votes.

Remember, logistically, they need a ton of people to implement. First, people at State, who will need to coordinate with foreign governments to accept the people, if indeed the countries will. Then, at ICE, a recalibration of roles, likely involving taking current employees away from the border they’re supposed to be protecting. And next, coordination with state and local cops to go arrest people. Lawrence O’Donnell has a great take on this. In his Thursday night show (link) he talks about who will actually be president, and one of the things he points out about the deportations, besides the cost, is that normally you need 6 cops to arrest someone, and after some math, mathematically proves that there aren’t enough law enforcement officers to actually undertake the arrests. And the total number of law enforcement officers decreases with those states that refuse to allow their officers to participate. ACTION ITEM: write or email your governor if he/she has not already announced “not in my state.”

But assume that there’s some way to round up people: we still have laws, and people will have hearings, and immigration courts are years behind. And think about this: if they need to hold people, where will they hold a million people, or even 100,000 people? They’d need to build facilities: get the land, get buildings constructed and staffed, and that’s not a quick turnaround. And while I hate to say this, a lot of construction labor is comprised of immigrants. At this link you can see the percentages by state, as well as information the associated labor shortages, by role. There will likely be a bottleneck in construction.

Again: just because they want to do things, doesn’t mean they will be able to get things done.

I’m no Pollyanna, and I believe that horrible things will happen over the next two years. I am unwilling to raise the white flag of surrender. I am unequivocally convinced that they will overreach, and that their minions will suffer more than a lot of us will, and their minions’ blowback due to buyer’s remorse will be gargantuan.

Perhaps that made you feel a little more grounded, and perhaps you’re still struggling. My other idea is for you to watch the Steve Martin move Leap of Faith. Martin plays a con man who preys on people’s religious beliefs to get them to give him money. (Remind you of anyone you know?) It’s a story about hope, faith, and a little bit of redemption. Trailer below.

1. Longest ratification was for Amendment 27, which took 212 years.