If in fact, Due Process is thwarted by the #RileyLakeAct then it stands in violation of the #5thAmendment and #14thAmendment and is #Unconstitutional. Some are going to try to say, "they aren't citizens", to which we have to reply that Constitutional law was based on simply being a person.
This mindset that "illegals are aliens and not human" is absurd. This thinking would be void to the humanitarian thrust of the US Constitution. We have a serious problem when othering of people in this nation casts them as not being protected by our laws. #NoHumanIsIllegal
Great article. I’m lucky that I’m working with a third party who also does GOTV for Democrats so I don’t have to constantly watch them capitulate. I just don’t know how many of them will stand up to Trump without a massive fight on our part. They act like Trump won like Obama did in his first term and he didn’t. We desperately need a party who will fight fascism - but don’t think the Democrats are up to it. They need people like you to call them out and show us what we should be pushing harder for.
Voting against this bill means printing out 10,000 attack ads against you at the next election. At some point, progressives have to acknowledge that this is not a progressive country, and you have to win in a place where nativism has massive purchase with the people.
Let's say Democrats sink this bill, you think Ossoff or Peters would survive in '26?
But you do have to be in line with the cultural values of the people you want to win. Take this as an example, would you support a party that wanted Medicare For All, universal childcare, wealth tax but also wanted to make homosexuality and abortion illegal? And the opposing party is led by Joe Manchin, essentially the status quo party? These are the only two options you have in this hypothetical. Sincerely, tell me who you would vote for?
I agree with Sonu that the battle has been lost against Rs who have convinced Ds to get hard on the undocumented border crossers. Sadly true, an easy victory against people without the means of defending themselves, desperate to escape much harsher lives in the global south of poverty, climate crisis, dominant crime and lack of opportunity. And yet, thanks to Waleed Shahid for this essay. It calls Ds to account and reform, not just reform but transformation into moral nobility. He cites William E. Connolly, regarded as a major political theorist. His thinking has evolved to the great idea of "agonistic democracy," which essentially means that people of high moral principle must ardently strive for social and (most currently) environmental justice, and not be satisfied with an acceptable "consensus"--which some liberals grudgingly accept as realistic. He basically argues, and I think Mr. Shahid would agree, that the "good fight" is well worth fighting, nonviolently in a *war* "for the soul of America," as some politicians claim to be "fighting."
William E. Connolly sounds very appealing as long as you agree with the goal. Republicans are trying to ban abortion, no matter how much everyone tells them that the public wants it to be legal, because they very sincerely believe that banning abortion is a matter of social justice. Would you say that Republicans are right to do this? Fight the good fight, but without power, you can do or influence nothing.
This is the difference between a weird victory(2016) and a true victory(2024). When even non white voters have swung wildly to the right on this issue, who are you even defending these policies for, politically? Democrats have the strategic decision that immigration and crime is not something that they are going to fight the GOP on. Republicans have won the immigration debate, truly and decisively. This battle is lost. And criminal justice reform rarely included violent criminals, especially sex offenders.
If in fact, Due Process is thwarted by the #RileyLakeAct then it stands in violation of the #5thAmendment and #14thAmendment and is #Unconstitutional. Some are going to try to say, "they aren't citizens", to which we have to reply that Constitutional law was based on simply being a person.
This mindset that "illegals are aliens and not human" is absurd. This thinking would be void to the humanitarian thrust of the US Constitution. We have a serious problem when othering of people in this nation casts them as not being protected by our laws. #NoHumanIsIllegal
Great article. I’m lucky that I’m working with a third party who also does GOTV for Democrats so I don’t have to constantly watch them capitulate. I just don’t know how many of them will stand up to Trump without a massive fight on our part. They act like Trump won like Obama did in his first term and he didn’t. We desperately need a party who will fight fascism - but don’t think the Democrats are up to it. They need people like you to call them out and show us what we should be pushing harder for.
Voting against this bill means printing out 10,000 attack ads against you at the next election. At some point, progressives have to acknowledge that this is not a progressive country, and you have to win in a place where nativism has massive purchase with the people.
Let's say Democrats sink this bill, you think Ossoff or Peters would survive in '26?
Democrats could do popular things, like help workers. But this is easier and they can still get a lot of donor cash.
But you do have to be in line with the cultural values of the people you want to win. Take this as an example, would you support a party that wanted Medicare For All, universal childcare, wealth tax but also wanted to make homosexuality and abortion illegal? And the opposing party is led by Joe Manchin, essentially the status quo party? These are the only two options you have in this hypothetical. Sincerely, tell me who you would vote for?
I agree with Sonu that the battle has been lost against Rs who have convinced Ds to get hard on the undocumented border crossers. Sadly true, an easy victory against people without the means of defending themselves, desperate to escape much harsher lives in the global south of poverty, climate crisis, dominant crime and lack of opportunity. And yet, thanks to Waleed Shahid for this essay. It calls Ds to account and reform, not just reform but transformation into moral nobility. He cites William E. Connolly, regarded as a major political theorist. His thinking has evolved to the great idea of "agonistic democracy," which essentially means that people of high moral principle must ardently strive for social and (most currently) environmental justice, and not be satisfied with an acceptable "consensus"--which some liberals grudgingly accept as realistic. He basically argues, and I think Mr. Shahid would agree, that the "good fight" is well worth fighting, nonviolently in a *war* "for the soul of America," as some politicians claim to be "fighting."
William E. Connolly sounds very appealing as long as you agree with the goal. Republicans are trying to ban abortion, no matter how much everyone tells them that the public wants it to be legal, because they very sincerely believe that banning abortion is a matter of social justice. Would you say that Republicans are right to do this? Fight the good fight, but without power, you can do or influence nothing.
This is the difference between a weird victory(2016) and a true victory(2024). When even non white voters have swung wildly to the right on this issue, who are you even defending these policies for, politically? Democrats have the strategic decision that immigration and crime is not something that they are going to fight the GOP on. Republicans have won the immigration debate, truly and decisively. This battle is lost. And criminal justice reform rarely included violent criminals, especially sex offenders.
very well said!