Sorry -- you don't think the cynical take is wrong because it's reasonable to assume that Rs think there will in fact *not* be another election? If the ideologues think there is one and only chance, doesn't that mean they think there *will* be elections?

Or Gorsuch. It seems unlikely to me that the author of Bostock would overturn Obergefell.

If they eventually do overturn it, though, they'll do so on religious liberty grounds, declaring current same-sex marriages unaffected and creating a nightmarish state-by-state patchwork of laws.

You've tagged the wrong Pete.

I somehow missed that you'd prefaced the quote with its author. But when I read the excerpt, I knew it was Douthat. It's always Douthat.

They're thinking of the post-American world. And giving him enough toys to make him go away and break fewer things. But they're also making things *worse* -- for everyone -- by feeding his ego today.

You're most welcome!

Agreed in the abstract. The devil is in the details! What would leaving the Union even look like? How would it happen? Would the federal govt fight to keep us? How would the California Republic (Cascadia, Pacific States, what have you) function in terms of government structures etc.?

Understood. But a sustained soft secession could down the road lead to a hard secession. By leaning into the former, we dramatically increase the likelihood of the latter -- not that's a sure thing, just that it increases the risk from 0% to some percentage above zero. A big change!

Kind of, sort of. It's really unclear whether individual states can negotiate independent treaties while in the Union: chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcont...

Agreed it's hypothetical. Even so, if we're going to game out how a soft secession would might work (which we should!), we should also game out how a hard secession might work.

I didn't say "entirely." Two examples of what we get from being in the Union: free trade with the rest of the country (the USA is among other things a giant free trade zone) and defense. How would we trade with USA minus CA? How would we defend our shores against the Chinese Navy?

A good and necessary idea; I hope it works. The problem with saying "CA is the 4th largest economy in the world" -- which I've not seen addressed -- is that our prosperity is due in no small measure to being in the Union. If it came to it, how could we maintain what we have *outside* the Union?

An excellent diagnosis and sound prescriptions. But as the oligarchy gets more entrenched and more dependent on the whims of the leader, how do small d-democrats gain leverage? Where is/are the lever/s we can use move to move the world?

I am horrified of course that the US has (at best) gone AWOL. But I simply don't understand why the Europeans aren't doing more -- it's in their (increasingly immediate) self-interest!

Monocausality never works, but, at a guess, how much backsliding of each type is due to the advent and spread of social media?

If we take the Eugenics Wars in Star Trek as future history, does that mean the transhumanists win?

"Don't wish that horizon closer." Everything is terrible, but that's an arresting, lovely turn of phrase that will stick with me.

Lousy. You've got the perfect experiences for elected office. You played football at an excellent university and got a lot our of your studies. Then your time in the pros, where you openly supported LGBTQ+ folks. You're erudite but not condescending. Run for Something! Save the Republic!