Presidentvalget i USA 2024

[jjkoggan]

JK22 skrev (3 minutter siden):

 

Epstein leser ikke hele bildet. Men han har rett i det med at demokratene kan ikke vinne. 

Skråsikkerhet gjør dine innlegg lite troverdige.  Sannsynlig og usannsynlig er bedre ord hvis du ønsker andre å ta innleggene dine alvorlig.  Et nyansert syn er nesten alltid et  velinformert syn.

[JK22]

John Roberts kan ha avfyrt et fatalt bunnskudd rett i skuta for republikanerne. Han hadde lenge vært frustrert over at lavere rettsinstanser kunne overstyre sentrale bestemmelser på svak grunnlag, og at det var mulig for saksøkerne å velge fritt blant dommerne for å finne den rette dommeren for egne preferanser. Dette kalles "judge shopping". Under diskvalifiseringssaken mot Trump var det observert en autoritær tendens hos Roberts som sikte på en sentraliseringsprosess, da han vil begrense andres fullmakter og tvinge gjennom et hierarkimessig system. Roberts er ikke bare høyesterettsjustitiarius for den føderale høyesteretten, han er også sjef for den toneangivende komiteen U.S. Judicial Conference sammen med dommer Jeff Sutton, formannen i komiteen. En gang hvert halvår finner den viktige konferansen sted, som skal bestemme hvordan dommerne skal praktisere sitt embeter, og hvordan rettsprosessene skal berammes med viktige regler.

John Roberts Just Dropped the Hammer on Rogue, Lawless Trump Judges (msn.com)

John Roberts Just Dropped the Hammer on Rogue, Lawless Trump Judges

For more than a decade, conservative plaintiffs have been gaming the judiciary by filing lawsuits before a hard-right judge who’s guaranteed to rule in their favor. Worse, a handful of Republican-appointed judges have made a habit of issuing sweeping decisions that apply nationwide—hobbling the federal government, short-circuiting the democratic process, and transferring inconceivable amounts of power into the hands of a few unelected jurists. The Judicial Conference of the United States, which makes policy for the federal courts, finally struck a blow against this cynical gamesmanship on Tuesday, announcing a new rule to restore the random assignment of cases and close the loophole that lets plaintiffs hand-pick their judges.

Det tok Roberts mange år, han startet arbeidet i 2021 - men nå er han nådd hans mål. Dette gjør McConnell så sinna at han ber dommere om å ignorere beslutningen. 

" - We can glean that under this rule, when somebody files a lawsuit in federal district court that challenges some kind of federal policy—specifically, if it seeks a nationwide injunction or other sweeping relief—it must be randomly assigned to any judge in that district. The lawsuit cannot simply be glued onto the one judge who happens to sit in the division of the district where the plaintiffs strategically filed to prevail in their case - "

Sutton; “I actually think the story is about national injunctions. That’s been a new development, really in the last 10 years and maybe the last two or three administrations, where that has become a thing.” Dette satt han et halt på. 

" - Look at Kacsmaryk’s decision purporting to remove medication abortion from the shelves of every pharmacy and doctor’s office in all 50 states. That is just king-level arrogance. It is monarchic. It is czarist. It is transferring so much power away from Congress, from the executive, from the people, into the hands of this one guy in Amarillo - " Godt sagt, dette setter respekten for det amerikanske rettsvesenet i fare. Dommer Kacsmaryk var rett og slett helt sprø; det er mulig at det var embryosaken i Alabama som fikk komiteen til å sette ned foten. 

Republikanerne glemt at politikk og rett skulle skilles fra hverandre, og McConnell avslørt at han er demokratifiendtlig;

All the worst people are throwing total hissy fits about this. Especially from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviews and upholds a lot of injunctions from Kacsmaryk and his disgraceful ilk. Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee, is complaining about it. Judge Edith Jones is complaining about it. Josh Blackman wrote multiple semi-coherent rants about it. None of these people have been able to raise a single, even mildly plausible defense of the current system. All they can do is whine and gripe about the Judicial Conference allegedly overstepping its bounds and making policy.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell himself, from the floor of the Senate, delivered a screed against this policy, calling it an “unforced error” and also encouraging district courts to defy the Judicial Conference’s authority and ignore the new policy. McConnell actually sent a letter to the chief judge of every district court in the country, co-signed by GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, encouraging them to disregard the policy, basically saying it’s illegal. So we’re seeing Republicans telling courts to defy the chief justice of the United States and his ultimate authority as head of the entire Article III judiciary. We might see an intra-war branch within Article III between judges who accept the policy and judges who don’t.

Dette er ikke i tråd med amerikansk lov. Konferansen er lovrammet med basis i 28 U.S. Code § 331 som gjør den ansvarlig for den amerikanske rettsordningen siden 1922, og er det viktigste arvet etter William Taft, en politiker som klarte å gjøre det umulige kunststykket ved å være president i 1909-1913 og deretter høyesterettsjustitiarius for den føderale høyesteretten i 1921-30, som i likhet med Earl Warren er legendarisk. Taft var en sterk forkjemper for institusjonalisering av det amerikanske rettsvesenet, og som Roberts anså som hans viktigste inspirasjonsfigur. 

Artikkel 3 er det tredje grunnlovstillegget av 1789-konstitusjonen som regulere det føderale rettssystemet. 

Med dette har Roberts og Sutton satt et halt for republikanernes underminerende taktikk gjennom bruk av korrupte dommere for å fremme uaksepterte prosedyrer og stoppeordrer. 

Congressional Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York have long criticized "judge-shopping."

In a statement after the new policy was announced, Schumer said the practice “has given MAGA-right plaintiffs the ability to hijack and circumvent our federal judiciary by targeting courts that would all but guarantee a handpicked MAGA-right judge who would rule in their favor,” he said in a statement this week after the new policy was announced.

Nå er det forbudt for saksøkerne å velge ut deres egne dommere, som nå skal velges helt tilfeldig for fremtidige rettsaker i tråd med eldre praksis som var respektert (stort sett) fram til 2010-årene. Ikke minst fordi det har vært en meget seriøs belastning på rettsvesenet fordi dommerne måtte stadig går i vegen for hverandre. 

Litt mer her; 

A crackdown on this key judicial loophole has three Republicans telling on themselves (msn.com)

On Tuesday, the little-known Judicial Conference of the United States — the policymaking arm of the federal judiciary — made some unusual headlines by announcing a new effort to make it harder for plaintiffs in certain lawsuits challenging state or federal policies to hand-pick the specific judge who hears their case. This crackdown on “judge shopping” is long overdue. It has also provoked a rather telling reaction from Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and Thom Tillis.

In a letter to the chief judges of all 94 federal district courts on Thursday, the senators urged those jurists to ignore the new policy — which they laid at the feet of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — because, in their view, these judges should ignore “partisan battles in Washington, D.C.” But it’s judge shopping itself, not efforts by the judiciary to rein it in, that have become a “partisan battle.” The McConnell/Cruz/Tillis letter, ironically, only drives that point home.

By way of background, every state has at least one federal district court; some states have as many as four — staffed by somewhere between two and 28 active judges (along with “senior” judges, many of whom still hear cases). To help ensure that litigants don’t have to travel too far to reach their nearest federal courthouse, district courts are further subdivided — so that, in Texas, for instance, the four district courts have a total of 27 divisions. Because of these variations, district courts have long been left to their own devices to decide how to divide cases. And in some parts of the country, especially Texas, the result has been to allow a single judge to hear every case filed in a particular division.

Although this reality isn’t new, plaintiffs have increasingly taken advantage of these “single-judge” divisions to steer nationwide federal policy challenges to specific, ideologically sympathetic judges. For example, the nationwide challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone (one of two drugs used in the most common and safest abortion procedure) was filed in Amarillo, Texas — not a courthouse with any specific connection to mifepristone, but one in which it had a 100% chance of being assigned to a certain Trump-appointed district judge, former anti-abortion advocate Matthew Kacsmaryk. Kacsmaryk remarkably, if predictably, ruled against the FDA’s approval of the drug — an approval that occurred 23 years ago.

A nationwide challenge to Biden administration efforts to combat social media disinformation was filed in Monroe, Louisiana — where it had a 100% chance of being assigned to Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty. And the state of Texas, which has filed 37 different lawsuits in Texas district courts challenging Biden administration policies, has filed a majority of them in single-judge divisions — and none in Austin (where the Texas government is actually located) or Houston or Dallas or … you get the point.

The problem quickly became evident: Many of these cases were being filed in these remote jurisdictions entirely because it allowed the plaintiffs to hand-pick the specific judges who would hear them. Indeed, Texas publicly conceded that it was filing challenges in immigration cases in the Victoria division of the Southern District of Texas in order to draw Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton. Even if the rules didn’t specifically prohibit exploiting the process this way, its repeated abuse became especially visible when two of the judges at issue — Tipton and Kacsmaryk — loudly rejected requests to transfer cases that had been shopped to them.

Quietly, some courts changed their case assignment rules. And some judges in single-judge divisions, like Judge Jeff Brown in Galveston, changed their local rules to require litigants to provide some justification for why a lawsuit with no obvious geographic tie to that division was nevertheless filed there. But these reforms were scattershot. Bigger changes required intervention at a higher level.

Enter the Judicial Conference, which includes, by statute, 26 judicial members (including the chief judge of each of the 13 federal circuit courts of appeals). Chief Justice John Roberts presides over the body. As the conference’s website notes, it “convenes twice a year to consider administrative and policy issues affecting the federal court system, and to make recommendations to Congress concerning legislation involving the Judicial Branch.” Reflecting the tenure and age requirements for chief circuit judges, 15 of the conference’s 26 current members were appointed by President George W. Bush (10 of the other 11 were appointed by President Barack Obama; one was appointed by President Bill Clinton).

Against that backdrop, the charge from McConnell, Cruz and Tillis that the Judicial Conference is engaged in “partisan” behavior rings more than a little hypocritical. The whole point of the proposal is to reduce the appearance of partisanship on the part of the federal courts. Randomly assigning judges isn’t partisan. To take the Northern District of Texas as an example, 10 of its 11 active judges were appointed by Republican presidents, along with five of the six senior judges currently hearing cases. Thus, under the Judicial Conference’s proposal, a nationwide challenge to a federal policy filed in Amarillo would still have a roughly 90% chance of being assigned to a Republican appointee; the proposal just dramatically lowers the odds of which Republican appointee it will be.

So why are these three Republican senators so upset by the proposed reform? The answer is obvious: because it will make it harder to guarantee that specific judges will hear specific lawsuits — whether individual Republican appointees hearing challenges to Democratic policies, or vice versa. And a world in which such manipulation of the legal process is not just possible, but is a common occurrence, is a world in which the courts have already become the very fonts of partisan political behavior that these senators are purporting to decry — and that the Judicial Conference is correctly seeking to curb.

Dette er så ANTIDEMOKRATISK som det kunne bli. 

Da er det ikke rart at Trump, hans MAGA, kristenfascistene og konspirasjonsgærningene hadde fri bane i GOP. 

[JK22]

Americans want a religious president. They just don't see Trump or Biden that way. (msn.com)

Denne artikkelen er veldig merkelig og meget deprimert å lese. For det vitne om et folk helt ut på vidda. 

Americans want a religious president. They just don't see Trump or Biden that way.

A Pew Research Center survey released last week found that 94% of Americans say it is very important or somewhat important for a president to live a moral and ethical life.

But, of the 12,693 people questioned in that survey last month, just 13% see Biden as “very religious” while only 4% see Trump that way. Religion is a perplexing component in this year’s Biden-Trump rematch. And the more religious Americans say they are, the more marginalized they say they feel.

That sounds like good news for Trump. But the survey held some hope for Biden too.

The Pew survey found tension among the faithful, worried that religion is losing influence in public life. But how could it not? If people of faith say that is important but vote for candidates who don't come close to living that sort of life, they're sealing there own irrelevancy with their ballots.

Greg Smith, Pew's associate director of religious research, told me he was surprised that the survey found that three out of four Democrats don't see Biden as very religious, even as they support him.

A Pew survey released three years ago this month found that a healthy majority of Americans, 58%, knew Joe Biden is Catholic, including 55% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats. And 27% of those surveyed then said Biden was very religious.

"So it's half of what it was shortly after his inauguration," Smith said of the new survey.

He said media coverage of Biden's church visits during the 2020 campaign might have heightened awareness about his faith.

Biden or Trump? I ran for president as a Republican in 2024. I won't vote for Trump (or Biden).

There's also the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling to overturn constitutional protections for abortion, which Biden and the Democrats have openly decried and successfully exploited for votes in elections since them.

Biden may be paying a religious price for holding Trump, who nominated the court's hard-right supermajority, responsible for restricting abortion rights.

Americans don't know what Christian nationalism is – or that they seem to support it

Another surprise for Smith – 54% of those surveyed have not heard of Christian nationalism, the belief that American government should be guided by or even controlled by Christian scripture.

That number has remained the same since a Pew survey in September 2022, despite plenty of media coverage since then of Trump's embrace of Christian nationalism.

"There hasn't been any discernible increase in people's knowledge of Christian nationalism, their awareness of it, despite the conversation about it in the in political coverage," he said.

They may not have heard of it. But plenty of them liked its key components.

The survey found that 42% of Republicans and people who lean toward that party said that when the Bible and the will of the people conflict, the Bible should have more influence over American's laws.

Among white evangelical protestants, that number jumps to 64%, Smith said, while 61% of Hispanic protestants and 49% of Black protestants agreed.

This flies in the face of the First Amendment's opening clause, 16 words that guarantee Americans have freedom of – and from – religion. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," that amendment reads.

As I wrote last month, Trump has a strictly transactional relationship with many voters who identify as white evangelicals. They don't care about his personal life, his transgressions with extramarital affairs and hush-money payments to porn stars. They think he has their back. That's all it takes.

The Pew survey demonstrates that, even as evangelicals contradict themselves. Seventy percent of white evangelicals said it is important to have a president who shared their beliefs. But they give Trump a pass on that.

"They do not think he's very religious himself," Smith said of the survey, which found 6% of white evangelicals see Trump as "very religious."

What about Trump's 'faith'? Trump's questionable morality gets a pass from evangelical voters. I decided to ask why.

But they embrace him – 67% of those evangelicals had a favorable view of Trump while 86% of them had an unfavorable view of Biden.

"They don't think he's personally religious himself, but they do think he is he is standing up for them, standing in for them, standing up for people with religious beliefs like there's," Smith said.

Americans are conflicted by how much religion is or isn't influencing the country

Trump campaigns as a divider, with-me-or-against-me bombast blaring at every rally. Maybe that has appeal now to people who see themselves as religious, and feel aggrieved about it.

Four out of five of the people surveyed see religion losing influence in public life and nearly half see that as a bad thing. There was also a predictable split between progressives who complained about religious overreach in society and conservatives who think religion has been shut out of important institutions like government and public schools.

Pence won't endorse Trump: Mike Pence anointed Donald Trump as God's leader. He can't take that back.

Just under half of those surveyed feel some sort of conflict between their religious beliefs and mainstream American culture, with 29% feeling like a minority due to their beliefs and 41% saying its best to not discuss religion with someone they disagree with.

"So across a bunch of these measures, and across a variety of religious groups," Smith said, "we see signs of a growing tension between how people see their own religious convictions fitting in broader society."

Smith heard in that an echo of a survey Pew released last month, which found that 71% of Americans think their political party is losing more than it is winning on issues that matter to them. That included strong majorities for both Republicans (83%) and Democrats (62%.)

Hyper-partisanship extends from the polling place to the place of worship, it seems.

Some bright spots for Biden – 66% of Black protestants hold a favorable view of him while 80% dislike Trump. And 62% of the Jewish people surveyed like Biden while 79% dislike Trump. Biden is winning with atheists too – 59% like him and 88% dislike Trump.

Both men in similar spots overall in the survey when all faiths are considered, with Biden seen as favorable by 37% and unfavorable by 62% and Trump is seen as favorable by 39% and unfavorable by 60%.

And there are still political minefields ahead for Biden, who is trying to negotiate America's role in Israel's military intervention in Gaza after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks from Hamas. That has driven a wedge into Biden's coalition of voters of many faiths, who are angry about civilian deaths and a burgeoning humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Biden's best, and unlikeliest, ally in overcoming that is Trump.

The former president appeared Monday on the radio show hosted by his former White House advisor, Seb Gorka, who asked about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, calling for new elections in Israel.

Trump could not resist using the question to smear Jewish Democrats.

“Any Jewish person who votes for Democrats, they hate their religion, they hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed," Trump said.

That drew plenty of attention and condemnation, which Biden's campaign was happy to recirculate.

But Trump's first rule of politics is never admit a mistake. So his campaign quickly doubled down with hyperbole that bordered on hysteria, accusing Democrats of turning "into a full-blown anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist cabal."

Biden should pray that Trump keeps talking that way.

Denne artikkelen informere oss om at det amerikanske folket er dum. Så dum at de ikke evnet å forstå sitt lands religionsfrihet som er innbygd i det politiske systemet og lovverket som landets eksistensberettigelse. De ser ikke ut til å realisere - tross at dette er regelen i mange generasjoner - at offentligheten er sekulært mens religion er i privatsfæren og slik har det vært i meget lang tid, helt siden 1789 da konstitusjonen tre i kraft. Hva F*** var de undervist på skolene med? Først dette med at hele to tredjedeler av folket ikke forstå det politiske systemet, nå ser vi at over 42 % av republikanerne helt ignorere den første tilleggsprotokollen og ønsker seg religiøs ensretting - og at halvparten ikke er engangs klart over den kristenfascistiske bevegelsen selv om den er drivkraften omkring mange viktige saker i hverdagslivet som abort.

De simpelt ser ikke på nyhetene. De bare ikke tenker i dybde. 

[jjkoggan]

JK22 skrev (17 timer siden):

 

Denne artikkelen informere oss om at det amerikanske folket er dum. Så dum at de ikke evnet å forstå sitt lands religionsfrihet som er innbygd i det politiske systemet og lovverket som landets eksistensberettigelse. De ser ikke ut til å realisere - tross at dette er regelen i mange generasjoner - at offentligheten er sekulært mens religion er i privatsfæren og slik har det vært i meget lang tid, helt siden 1789 da konstitusjonen tre i kraft. Hva F*** var de undervist på skolene med? Først dette med at hele to tredjedeler av folket ikke forstå det politiske systemet, nå ser vi at over 42 % av republikanerne helt ignorere den første tilleggsprotokollen og ønsker seg religiøs ensretting - og at halvparten ikke er engangs klart over den kristenfascistiske bevegelsen selv om den er drivkraften omkring mange viktige saker i hverdagslivet som abort.

De simpelt ser ikke på nyhetene. De bare ikke tenker i dybde. 

You are overthinking this.  Americans who think that religion should be involved in the public sphere are generally not looking for en statskirke, nor scripture as law, but rather that christian morality guides and inspires lawmakers to write laws, as it has been done for centuries in the western world.  There are over 30.000 christian denominations alone in the USA, so agreement on a christian nationalist government will never happen anyway.  

Secondly, only about 20-25% of americans take religion very seriously today, so you should not take the polls very seriously, since they often do not represent deeply held convictions.  Support for a grossly immoral presidential president without any serious religious background should tell you all you need to know.

[JK22]

jjkoggan skrev (2 minutter siden):

You are overthinking this.  Americans who think that religion should be involved in the public sphere are generally not looking for en statskirke, nor scripture as law, but rather that christian morality guides and inspires lawmakers to write laws, as it has been done for centuries in the western world.  There are over 30.000 christian denominations alone in the USA, so agreement on a christian nationalist government will never happen anyway.  

Secondly, only about 20-25% of americans take religion very seriously today, so you should not take the polls very seriously, since they often do not represent deeply held convictions.  Support for a grossly immoral presidential president without any serious religious background should tell you all you need to know.

Det er presist hvorfor de amerikanske kristenfascistene er i vinden; disse ignoreres og undervurderes inntil det er for sent, og de er den type som tar hele hånda når det girs en lillefinger. Det er hvorfor det amerikanske folket er dum; og disse som mener religion skulle involveres i offentligheten - ser ikke potensialitet for religionskonflikt, verdikamp og underminering av det sekulære statsstyret som har vært regel helt siden begynnelsen.

I privatsfæren finnes det meget stor handlingsrom, vet du at mange selskaper som hadde ansvaret for transport, underholdning og så mye annet som involvere folkemengder var svært moralsk strengt? Det var først i etterkrigstiden ferjene i New York - da de var på vei ut - tillatt kjønnsblandede ferdsel fremfor separate rom for menn og kvinner. I det private kunne man påvirke folkeopinionen og dermed opprettholde kulturen som ligger sentralt i politikernes tankesett og virkelighetsbetraktning. Man kunne ha streng religionsanføring uten å sette på styr den sekulære offentligheten. USA har religionsfrihet simpelt fordi det er for mange trosretninger. Altfor mange, og dette gjør at grunnlovsfedrene mener det er bedre for staten å ignorere religionen, som kan overlates til folket i det private. 

På den måte kunne USA være mer strengere religiøst sett enn Vest-Europa, slik at det var først i dette århundret man ser en voksende sekularisering i befolkningsstemningen. Som gjør at kristenfascistene valgt å gå på offensiven. 

[jjkoggan]

JK22 skrev (22 minutter siden):

Det er presist hvorfor de amerikanske kristenfascistene er i vinden; disse ignoreres og undervurderes inntil det er for sent, og de er den type som tar hele hånda når det girs en lillefinger. Det er hvorfor det amerikanske folket er dum; og disse som mener religion skulle involveres i offentligheten - ser ikke potensialitet for religionskonflikt, verdikamp og underminering av det sekulære statsstyret som har vært regel helt siden begynnelsen.

I privatsfæren finnes det meget stor handlingsrom, vet du at mange selskaper som hadde ansvaret for transport, underholdning og så mye annet som involvere folkemengder var svært moralsk strengt? Det var først i etterkrigstiden ferjene i New York - da de var på vei ut - tillatt kjønnsblandede ferdsel fremfor separate rom for menn og kvinner. I det private kunne man påvirke folkeopinionen og dermed opprettholde kulturen som ligger sentralt i politikernes tankesett og virkelighetsbetraktning. Man kunne ha streng religionsanføring uten å sette på styr den sekulære offentligheten. USA har religionsfrihet simpelt fordi det er for mange trosretninger. Altfor mange, og dette gjør at grunnlovsfedrene mener det er bedre for staten å ignorere religionen, som kan overlates til folket i det private. 

På den måte kunne USA være mer strengere religiøst sett enn Vest-Europa, slik at det var først i dette århundret man ser en voksende sekularisering i befolkningsstemningen. Som gjør at kristenfascistene valgt å gå på offensiven. 

Vi er dumme. Ingenting sier mer om manglende kunnskap om et folk enn slike unyanserte fordømmelser om et helt land og sitt folk

Endret 25. mars av jjkoggan

[JK22]

Democrats need to escape identity politics | The Seattle Times

Demokratene har problemer. De er i ferd med å miste minoritetsfolkene som tradisjonelt stemt demokratisk - og som avistegner David Horsey illustrert helt utmerket; men selv han ser ikke ut til å fatte hva han hadde laget, og ment det er demokratene som tar feil med "gammeldaglig" "identitetspolitikk" - som i virkeligheten er bunnet på sosialistisk ideologi som gjør at man automatisk hjelpe de utsatte alle sosiale kriterier som fattigdom, etnisitet og rase. Horsey som egentlig er "Never Trump", har allerede gått i "den falske konservatismen"s fallgrop fordi han ikke ser ut til å fatte hvorfor demokratrepresentanten har slike holdninger, for henne er ikke identitet politikk eller mobilisering, heller ikke sak, men identitetsmarkør for egne politisk orientering. Her i Norge vil man straks oppfatte dette, ettersom sosialistisk tenkning er innbakt i den norske fellesbevisstheten. I USA er demokratene forkjempere for inkludering - og ser ut til å ha gått hus forbi både avistegneren og de intervjuede. 

Den ene vil ikke ha arbeidskonkurranse og praktisere forskjellbehandling på et kunstig basis for å rettferdige sin holdning, en honduraner er ikke forskjellig fra en peruaner i praksis ved å komme fra en latinamerikansk felleskultur. Denne "latino" ønske å ekskludere andre på økonomiske kriterier, noe er tabu i sosialismens verden. 

Den andre vil ikke ha likeverdighet eller inkludering for å beskytte hennes sønns muligheter i MIT/Stanford i en egoistisk tro om at hennes sønn vil triumfere gjennom egne evne, dette er i praksis elitistiske holdninger der man tar sikte på en klassebevissthet. 

Den tredje vil heller ha strengere kriminalitetsbekjempelse, mens representanten vil redusere politivold, her snakker de rett forbi hverandre og ser ikke de sosialøkonomiske og sosialkulturelle rammer som muliggjør normoppløsning som voldelighet - ingen av dem er løsningsorientert, dette skyldes at de begge hadde blitt ekskludert i deres anskuelse. 

Den fjerde bare forvirrer representanten som i slutten eksplodert da hun innså at hennes vante betraktningsmodeller hadde feilet helt, her hadde hun, som var en forkjemper for inkludering, endt opp med å bli en ekskluderingstilhenger fordi hun hadde oppdaget at hun trengte noe å holde fast på. Forargelse bli naturlig å holde på. 

Hun er ikke alene. Det merkes overalt at inkluderingsfronten ikke bare slår sprekker, men også blitt lei av den absurde situasjonen skapt av "den falske konservatismen" som startet i 1950-tallet da de hvite begynte å praktisere en "konservatisme" som i virkeligheten er basert på ekskluderingsrett, som hadde gjennom den republikanske kontrarevolusjonen og deretter Trumps oppsving blitt en trussel mot det amerikanske demokratiet som for mange som hadde endt opp med å bli tilhengere av "den falske konservatisme", var blitt for uforstående og uønskede, uten å fatte at demokrati av natur er et inkluderende politisk system. 

What Liberals Get Wrong About ‘White Rural Rage’ — Almost Everything - POLITICO

Etter boken  "White Rural Rag" kom ut hadde dette fulgt til voldsom debatt - hvor det vist seg å være meget god grobunn i  den liberale Amerika for en voksende ekskludering av den rurale Amerika hvor de hadde i lang tid gjort sitt ytterst for å ligge til grunn for den rurale befolkningen, som gjentatte ganger valgt å straffe dem - som når en hund gang på gang biter hånda som gir den maten. I slutten gikk hundeeieren lei av dette, og tar drastiske affære. Man ønsker noe i retur, men altfor ofte hadde de rurale en viktig rolle i den politiske utviklingen som mer og mer hendt på demokratenes bekostning, og man kunne sanse en metthetsfølelse; tålmodigheten hadde blitt oppbrukt, spesielt etter Trump vant nomineringsvalget i Iowa, som kastet den rurale Amerika ut i søkelyset. 

Nicholas Jacobs kom med velplassert kritikk og ment at forfatterne tar for hard i, men dessverre forklarer han at det er en avgrunn mellom den voksende urbaniseringen i de amerikanske delstatene hvor de unge og arbeidssøkende drar til byer med attraktive arbeidsmuligheter mens foreldrene bli værende i grisgrendene og landsbyene i dyp konservativ innstilling der man valgt å tviholde på konservative holdninger knyttet til væremåte, tenkning og kultur/identitet ved å "slå rot" i sitt hjem. Dette var egentlig ikke normal i amerikansk kultur i 1800-1950 fordi det var meget høy mobilitet også i den rurale befolkningen - mer hva man vil finne i europeisk kultur. En "bygdekultur" hadde oppstått og bygd seg opp i etterkrigstiden, som først og fremst var mulig gjennom bilismens gjennombrudd. Ved år 1940 var den rurale befolkningen svært avhengig av kollektivtransport, som fulgt til en fortettingstendens som produsere meget mange tettsteder. 

Dette skaper nye identitetsmarkør - og dessuten burde det understrekes at USA er en immigrantnasjon med opphav i en urbanisert europeisk felleskultur, ettersom immigranter som kom til USA etter år 1800 var intimt kjent med det urbane livet som det ikke var mulig å komme utenom, slik at bare de mest fjerntliggende landområder med dårlige kommunikasjonsmuligheter hadde en sterk bygdeidentitet fra tidlig. Med bilen bli det mulig å dekke enorme områder slik at et utpregende ruralt folk kunne lettere opptre som en samlet konsensus, og dermed bli en politisk kraft. Men; overalt i verden var det sett at rurale kunne meget raskt adoptere uønskede uvaner som ensidighet innenfor identitet som religion for eksempel, da disses livsstil innbar større moralsk fokus og politisk ensidighet. Det var dette som gjør at demokratiet i Vesten forbli et urbant fenomen. Det er fra byene den liberale Vesten springer fram. 

Så når Jacobs mener de liberale demokratene må kunne snakke med de konservative rurale på deres egne språk, er det er problem om konservatismen skulle bli "tribalisert", dvs. knyttet til selvmarkering og identitetsmarkør. Slike samfunn har ofte ikke livets rett gjennom historien, da man risikere å falle bak de andre samfunnene. Distriktsdød er egentlig et naturlig resultat fordi man ikke evnet å gjøre egne distrikt attraktiv for fremtidige generasjoner eller innflyttere, samtidig som man ekskludere utenforstående. Her hadde demokratene i lang tid prøvd å hjelpe til. 

Til ingens nytte. Istedenfor, fascistutviklingen innad i det republikanske partiet og den kristenfascistiske spredningen har tilspisset situasjonen mot bristepunktet. Da er det ikke rart at demokratene skulle gå lei til slutt, og begynne med å sette folk i bås man vil deretter går fra. Dette er et tapsprosjekt for de rurale som i mange tilfeller valgt å stemme mot egne interesser fordi de er mer opptatt av holdninger som den liberale USA ikke kunne akseptere. 

I slutten på den lange artikkelen kunne man sanse Jacobs` rådvillhet. 

I wish there was a trick to solving that political problem. I’m not a political strategist or a communications expert. But I believe that the first place to start is acknowledging that the divisions between rural and urban America are more than material ones. Look at Democratic candidates who are successful in rural communities — Jared Golden, Tim Ryan, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. They do not just talk about rural deprivation and rural impoverishment, as real as it often is in their states. They celebrate rural communities’ resiliency; they acknowledge the pride of place that is present throughout rural America; they see different values that are not reflected in opinion polls and snappy campaign slogans, but rather speak to different ways of living that draw some people to the countryside, problems and all. It helps that they are authentically rural and do not pretend to be something they are not. Candidates still matter, even in a highly nationalized campaign environment.

On specific issues, this politics would acknowledge that rural and nonrural Trump voters see issues through different lenses, even if, come Election Day, they are voting the same way; you have to talk to them differently. On immigration, it would mean accepting the fact that, in some communities, particularly those with financial challenges, concerns about the social burden of immigration is not always an expression of hate. It would look at a data point on distrust in media and seek out a reason — perhaps a self-critical one — for why rural people are the most likely to feel like news does not portray their communities accurately. It would speak directly to the challenge posed by artificial intelligence and technological progress that, once again, will likely concentrate benefits among those who have already benefited and leave rural communities behind. It will see the moral costs as well as the economic costs of those developments — the end to heritage industries, the pollution of the land, the erasure of rural dignity — and recognize how demoralizing it is to be told that they should just learn to code “ for God’s sake.”

And it would give agency back to the 1 in 5 Americans who call rural areas home, not through a lengthy list of policy correctives but through a politics of empathy and shared authorship and civic engagement. Is that really so hard?

Ja, det er veldig vanskelig. Når de rurale forlange noe som motparten ikke kan gi, og nekte å akseptere det motparten kan gir dem, Jacobs synes å ha glemt at immigranter - legale som illegale - arbeider i jordbruket i den rurale USA - er det ikke mulig å kommunisere med hverandre fordi "empati" må slå begge veger. Det er ikke mulig å bare sette sperringer som med teknologisk progressivitet, intet kan stoppe urbanisering og hvis barna drar bort fordi foreldrene ikke vil tilrettelegge for at de vil bli værende, er det ustoppelig. 

Dette må den rurale Amerika forstå. Men da må de gjøre noe viktig først; kvitte seg med alle utenforstående representanter og heller satse på lokaldemokrati, som har blitt meget sterkt underutviklet i de siste femti årene. Her trenger de et helt nytt politisk system som kan fremme lokale interesser - som ikke finnes i dagens USA. 

Demokratene kan ikke lenge vinne på gårdagens oppskrift. 

[JK22]

Mexico har et stort problem. Det er i det meksikanske folkets interesse at Trump ikke bli president, ennå har president Andrés Manuel López Obrador blitt et stort latinamerikansk problem, i juni 2024 skal det være presidentvalg - ennå hadde han i de siste to år fram til nå skapt turbulens ikke bare i forholdet til USA, men også mange land i Latin-Amerika - i minst et par land er meksikanske ambassader blitt stengt - og mange har blitt frustrert over hans politikk. 

The Odds of $100 Oil Are Rising as Supply Shocks Convulse the Market (msn.com)

Det er et oljeprissjokk i april. Og det skyldes ikke angrep på de russiske raffineriene eller den israelsk-iranske konfrontasjonen, men en sjokkerklæring fra det meksikanske presidentkontoret som tok alle på senga i mars, det var besluttet å begrense oljeutvinningen - hele 35 % av oljeleveransene helt plutselig forsvant, og nærmest alt var beregnet på det nordamerikanske markedet, kjøperne får ikke lenge kjøpsavtaler. Oljeraffinerier i begynnelsen på april - spesielt i USA - fikk en sjokkmelding om at statsoljeselskapet Pemex må stanse oljeleveransene til disse utenfor Mexico. Dette rammer USA med et voldsomt slag og gjør Bidens gjenvalgmuligheter håpløst. 

Obrador hadde valgt å gripe inn fordi importutgiftene av bearbeidede raffinerivarer hadde blitt for stor, utvilsomt som et resultat av trangtid for oljemarkedet som er kastet ut i meget turbulente tider - bin Salman har ennå ikke oppgitt hans ide om å tvinge amerikanerne til å velge Trump ved å holde oljeprisen kunstig høy - og vil deretter produsere behovet med sine egne raffinerier, som må deretter bearbeide råolje, selv om det ikke er nok kapasitet fordi mye må skipes ut til andre land, spesielt USA. Det er ikke bare Mexico, flere oljeprodusentland har begynte med å satse på egenproduksjon fremfor å levere råolje til utenlandske raffinerier. Dette setter mange land, ikke minst i Vesten, i en begynnende krise fordi man har raffinerier som må ha råolje fra utenlandet. 

Nå er det mellom 90 og 100 dollar per tønne. 

[JK22]

JK22 skrev (På 6.4.2024 den 3:05 AM):

Den ene vil ikke ha arbeidskonkurranse og praktisere forskjellbehandling på et kunstig basis for å rettferdige sin holdning, en honduraner er ikke forskjellig fra en peruaner i praksis ved å komme fra en latinamerikansk felleskultur. Denne "latino" ønske å ekskludere andre på økonomiske kriterier, noe er tabu i sosialismens verden. 

Is Texas About to Turn Latinos Into Single-Issue Voters? (msn.com)

For Latinos, a Spanish word loaded with meaning - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Den første artikkelen forklarer mer om hvorfor den amerikanske latinspråklige vil ekskludere andre fra sin egne språkgruppe, det vist seg å være en rasistisk holdning som er ganske dårlig kjent; spesielt blant latinos som er oppvokset i USA - de ser på de andre som mojaditos. Dette ordet betyr "vadevandrere" ved at man vade til fots over vann som grenseelven Rio Grande - espaldas mojadas, "mojada" eller "mojado", som hadde vært en hedersbetegnelse i lang tid blant latinspråklige i sørvestre USA fra Texas til California fram til 1960-tallet. Dette ordet fikk sin nåværende betydelighet gjennom "Operasjon Wetback" i 1954, da valgt Eisenhower å starte en deportasjonsplan med den meksikanske regjeringens velsignelse. 

“It moved from a humorous-type label to a very derogatory one,” 

Etter hvert som de latinspråklige bli mer rotfast, økonomisk aktiv og mer "naturalisert" glir denne betegnelsen man tidlig hadde knyttet til sitt sameksistens som en mellomting mellom det anglosaksiskdominerte USA og det spanskdominerte Mexico helt siden 1847, over til hetsbegrep for å skape avstand mellom de bofaste og de ankommende immigranter fra sør, som etter hvert mer og mer oppfattes som en trussel. Og det er der misforståelsen oppstår, for disse sosialkonservative latinos langs grensen ofte stemt republikansk (demokratene var sterkt latinosfiendtlig) helt fram til 1980-årene og var dermed en trofast velgerskare for Reagan den gang. Så skifte de om til demokratene og begynte med å bli en fast del av valggruppen for det demokratiske partiet fram til 2020. Hvorfor? 

Jo; selv om de latinspråklige ser ned på sine egne kulturell- og språkbeslektede medlemmer som kom fra sør og dermed vil ha strengere grensekontroll og minimal immigrasjon, vil de ha seg frabedt å bli slått i slamkorn med "de andre" når det kommer strenge lover som skulle regulere immigranter som er for lengst integrert i lokalmiljø. De vil ikke ha begrensninger mot egne identitet og tilhørighet som latinos. 

In the days after the November election in 2020, I traveled from Laredo, Texas, down along the Rio Grande into one of the great heartlands of Mexican America, a place locals proudly refer to by its area code, “the 956.”

Along this stretch of the Texas border, towns are up to 98 percent Latino; Spanish is so common that Anglos have to learn the language if they want to order at restaurants.

Yet on Election Night, residents had shocked the country by turning out for Donald Trump in record numbers.

In Zapata County, where Trump became the first Republican to win the presidential vote since Warren Harding in 1920, I asked Cynthia Villarreal, a longtime Democratic organizer, what explained Trump’s success after four years of immigration raids and family separation. Villarreal told me that, in South Texas, many Mexican Americans don’t identify as immigrants; her own ancestors lived on the Rio Grande before Texas even existed.

In Starr County, where Trump had almost quadrupled Republican turnout, the then–county chair of the GOP, a retired colonel named Ross Barrera, said that he and many other Latinos in Texas wanted a border wall.

He felt pity, but no solidarity, for those crossing the border; he explained that some South Texans call them mojaditos—Spanish for the slur “wetback.”

Since 2020, Texas politicians have seemed to absorb the lesson that many Latinos will tolerate border crackdowns. In early 2021, Republican Governor Greg Abbott sent thousands of state police and National Guardsmen into Texas’s southernmost counties as part of his “Operation Lone Star.”

Residents appeared to reward him: Even if the police SUVs and razor wire were an eyesore, in the 2022 governor’s election Abbott improved on his 2018 results in almost every border county.

But soon, Texas Republicans could test just how harsh an immigration policy Latinos really want. In a raucous legislative session last year, the state’s Republican supermajority sent Abbott a monumental bill, S.B. 4. The law, currently on hold in the courts, would essentially give Texas its own immigration system, making “illegal entry”—traditionally enforced by the federal government—into a state crime.

If the law goes into effect, a police officer anywhere in the state will be able to stop, question, and arrest anyone they suspect might have crossed the Rio Grande illegally. Judges will be able to coerce defendants to auto-deport to Mexico by threatening them with serious prison time.

S.B. 4 would go far beyond Operation Lone Star, potentially moving immigration enforcement into the state’s interior. Razor wire along the river is meant to control who gets into the state; policing cities such as Dallas and Houston is about getting people out.

Will the Latinos in Texas who have welcomed Republicans’ border crackdown feel the same way if state police start arresting their neighbors?

The history here looks grim for the GOP. When Republicans in California and Arizona tried to create the same sort of “show me your papers” system—California’s Proposition 187 and Arizona’s S.B. 1070—the measures backfired. Both laws reeked of racial profiling.

People who were around in each state, including my father in California, have told me stories from those years. In Latino neighborhoods, many people came to see the laws not as immigration policy, but as a population control: an attempt to make their state less Latino.

They responded by organizing into coalitions that eventually eroded Republican power in both states—and perhaps gave birth to the popular assumption that Latinos vote mostly on immigration.

In California, my father was one of the people for whom Prop. 187 fundamentally changed the way they saw themselves and their place in this country. Growing up in a Mexican American family in San Antonio, he didn’t think of himself as an immigrant. Like Villareal’s family, our roots in Texas run deeper than the state, back to when it was called Coahuila y Tejas.

And, like Barrera, my dad heard other Mexican kids at his school smear more recent immigrants as mojaditos. When he moved to California in the 1980s, my father thought of himself as a political moderate. He was an entrepreneur and a family man, besides being Mexican by heritage. He voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential race (“Just like everyone else in America,” he joked to me recently).

Things changed when the Republican governor of California, Pete Wilson, championed Prop. 187. California was in the midst of a historic immigration surge, and as many as 1.3 million undocumented immigrants were living in the state; Wilson was flagging in his 1994 reelection bid. The measure passed, and he held on to his office. When the law went into effect, it instructed public employees—not just cops, but teachers, nurses, and anyone else who worked for the state—to report anyone they suspected might be undocumented.

“I had to start thinking: Was the name ‘Herrera’ probable cause?” my dad said. Prop. 187 erased the conceptual difference he might have felt between himself and noncitizens. He came to believe that, no matter how he thought of himself, some people in this country would only ever see him as Mexican, as an outsider. He never voted Republican again.

He wasn’t alone. In 1984, 45 percent of Latinos in California had, like my father, voted for Reagan.

By 1996, that support had cratered: More than 71 percent of Latinos voted for Bill Clinton (a 16 percent increase over his own 1992 result). Turnout among Latinos in California also increased dramatically each election year after Prop. 187.

New Latino voters were far more likely to register as Democrats; in Los Angeles County, for instance, six times as many Latinos registered with the Democratic Party than the GOP.

Prop. 187 “created a multigenerational, anti-Republican coalition” among Latinos in California, Mike Madrid, the political director of the California Republican Party from 1996 to 1998, told me.

Madrid, who grew up in a Mexican American family in Sacramento, spent years trying to get Republican campaigns to understand Latinos’ complexity. He thought then, and still thinks today, that the party’s best chance of courting Latino voters was with a message geared toward the working class, an “aspirational conservatism.” But Prop. 187 essentially turned hundreds of thousands of Latinos into single-issue voters.

Today some of the more prominent Latino officials in the country, including the former San Antonio mayor and Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro and Senator Alex Padilla of California, trace their political roots to their opposition to Prop. 187.

“You can build a multigenerational coalition when a community is perceived to be personally, individually, and as a community under attack,” Madrid said. “If I was naturalized, or my kids were born here, or my grandchildren—everyone came home” to Democrats after Prop. 187. (Madrid clashed with the Republican Party in a very public way when Donald Trump was nominated in 2016.)

Prop. 187 died in the courts; judges ruled that it violated the supremacy clause in the Constitution and infringed on the federal government’s exclusive jurisdiction over immigration.

Almost 15 years would pass before Republicans tried again, this time in Arizona, where Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070 in 2010.

Seeking to stop undocumented immigrants from accessing public services, the law mandated that all immigrants over age 18 carry their “papers” with them at all times, and it empowered cops to arrest anyone caught without proper ID.

Academics are still studying how S.B. 1070 changed Arizona. When the bill passed, the state had not only a Republican governor but two Republican senators.

Now a Democrat is in the governor’s mansion, along with one and a half Democrats in the senate (Kyrsten Sinema became an independent in 2022). Since S.B. 1070, turnout has exploded in Latino communities, far outstripping population growth. In 2008, just 291,000 Latinos voted in Arizona. By 2012, turnout had increased to 400,000; by 2016, it was more than 550,000.

Voter registration has heavily favored Democrats. According to analysis by Televisa Univision, as of 2022, just 17 percent of Latinos in Arizona are registered as Republican, compared with 44 percent as Democrats and 39 percent as independents.

In 2020, more than 813,000 Latinos showed up to vote in Arizona. While some Latino communities in Arizona saw a rightward shift, it was much more muted than it was in Texas; some areas even shifted left. In all, Latino Arizonans voted overwhelmingly for President Joe Biden, sealing his victory in the state.

Underneath Biden’s win was a large network of activists and a get-out-the-vote infrastructure that had first gotten organized in response to S.B. 1070.

Belén Sisa, who immigrated with her parents from Buenos Aires at the age of 6, was in high school when the law passed. “I was homecoming queen, varsity cheerleader—like, the last person you would think would be the undocumented girl,” she told me.

On the school bus each morning in Florence, Arizona, she looked out at an ICE detention center that employed some of her classmates’ parents, and imagined getting locked up there.

In the years after the law passed, Sisa and her family saw cities like nearby Mesa become relative “ghost towns” as immigrants left the state in large numbers.

Sometimes, her family watched protests, but they were too frightened to join in. When Sisa went to college at Arizona State University, she began meeting other undocumented young people, many of whom had started openly identifying as “Dreamers.”

She became part of a group of activists that grew throughout the state, often supporting Democrats’ electoral efforts. By 2020, Sisa herself was working as the national Latino press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.

In 2012, the Supreme Court struck down the sections of S.B. 1070 that made immigration violations state crimes—though it allowed Arizona police to continue to question the immigration status of the people they stopped or detained.

At the time, some wondered whether the Supreme Court had handed a victory to Democrats by keeping part of the law in place, because of how strong Latino opposition to it was.

Sisa recalled having conversations with other Latinos, some of whom had citizenship.“I could say: ‘You’re a lot closer to my situation than you will ever be to people that are white and born here,’” she said.

As any Texan will tell you, things are different down here. Latinos in the state are more socially conservative than their counterparts farther west. Not only do many of them not see themselves as immigrants—many identify as racially white. Across the country, immigrants are also becoming a smaller percentage of the Latino population. It’s tough to predict how S.B. 4 will play out if it goes into effect.

“Unlike, say, people in New York, I think Hispanics in Texas are more open to the idea that we need to close that border and do the right thing,” Jason Villalba, who served as a Republican in the Texas house from 2013 to 2019, told me.

As controversy around S.B. 4 has grown, and connections to laws like Prop. 187 have been drawn, some Republican architects of the bill have begun signaling that they intend for the law to target recent border crossers, not immigrants already living in the state.

Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson told judges at a hearing last week, “There wouldn’t be probable cause in almost all cases, unless a Texas officer sees somebody crossing the border.” Abbott has been ambiguous: After the law was blocked, he said, “Texas has the legal authority to arrest people coming across the razor-wire barriers on our border.”

But legislators have frequently referred to statewide enforcement. When the Fort Worth chief of police released a video in March arguing that immigration enforcement should be left to the feds, Dade Phelan, the speaker of the Texas house, wrote on X: “Any local law enforcement agency that refuses to enforce Senate Bill 4 is abandoning their sworn duty to uphold the rule of law.” State Senator Charles Perry, the author of the bill, has said in interviews that Texas essentially was forced to pass S.B. 4, because of what lawmakers see as inaction by the Biden administration.

The Constitution makes exceptions to federal supremacy during times of “invasion,” and Perry and other Republicans argue that migration constitutes an invasion, one that the feds have failed to prevent. “We’re not challenging federal supremacy. We’re saying you got supremacy. You just chose not to do anything with it. We’re going to take that role for you,” Perry told conservative news site The Texan. (Perry did not respond to an interview request.)

Villalba, the former Republican lawmaker, told me he is a believer in border security; for him, and for many other Latinos in Texas, the fact that the state wants more of a say in what happens on its own border makes sense. “But this is different,” he said about S.B. 4. “On a Saturday afternoon, when I take my son to go play hockey, and I’m wearing a baseball cap, and, you know, and a T-shirt that might not be as clean and crisp as I normally wear, and I have brown hair and brown eyes and brown skin, are they going to do that to me”—ask for his papers—“in front of my son?”

Deep south in the Rio Grande Valley, Tania Chavez is the executive director of LUPE, a direct-aid organization founded by the labor-rights icon Cesar Chavez (no relation). She and her team have spent months running “know your rights” clinics for community members to help them prepare for S.B. 4.

She said she has talked with parents about what will happen if they get arrested. “Who’s going to take legal guardianship of their kids? … Who else is listed on your bank account? … What is going to happen to your property? Those are all the things that we’re planning and thinking,” she told me. At one recent meeting, Chavez said she saw something she hadn’t seen before: Two groups of young people had driven all the way from Houston and Corpus Christi to join.

“We’re starting to see a lot of new faces,” she said.

On March 19, the Supreme Court briefly allowed S.B. 4 to go into effect, sending the law back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where judges issued a new injunction less than 24 hours later. Oral arguments are ongoing, and Texas’s defense has gotten less vociferous. Last week, Nielson, Texas’s lawyer, told judges: “Now, to be fair, maybe Texas went too far. And that’s the question this court is going to have to decide.”

But, during those few hours the law was in effect, I felt an alien thought cross my mind as I sat in my home in Austin: Should I start carrying my passport? I won’t exaggerate how worried I felt; I’m insulated by citizenship and light-beige skin. Just having that thought, however, made me dissociate: It was like someone else had forced the worry into my brain.

It’s a species of fear many people live with daily. In the Rio Grande Valley, Chavez spent two decades of her life undocumented; she knows what it’s like driving to work each day wondering if a broken taillight will bring her time in this country to an end. She said that feeling is what gets many young citizens engaged in organizing in the Valley.

But when asked if she thinks S.B. 4 might change the minds of Latinos who aren’t immigrants, who have so far supported Texas’s border crackdown, Chavez was dubious.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen until those people start getting arrested,” she said.

Denne artikkelen forklarer for oss at latinspråklige i USA er ikke ensartede, og er langt mer ustabilt enn ventet - det har blitt latt merke til at de i stigende grad foretrekke det kristenfascistiske budskapet og kristenmoralske idealer omkring abort, prevensjon, kjønn etc. - som gjør at mange vil gjerne gå til Trump og stemme på ham. Da immigrasjonen begynte å stige mot slutten på 2010-årene, så man en dreining bort fra demokratene til republikanerne blant de fastboende latinspråklige som begynte å frykte for sine arbeidsplasser, sin identitet og fordommer man hadde holdt ned i lang tid begynte å stige til overflaten på nytt.

Her må det huskes at latinidentiteten i Latin-Amerika i flere århundrer var kastebestemt etter sosialøkonomiske kriterier - slik at de som anså seg som "hvite", ikke nødvendigvis er kvitthvitt som de hvite fra nordre breddegrader, og dermed innta et overlegenhetskompleks mot resten - som ofte skapt store samfunnsproblemer. Disse med aner i den spanske halvøya var dypt beryktet for ekstreme rasistiske holdninger mot mørkhudede folk fra indianer til fargede (afrikaner). Men selv om alle andre kaster har en høyere toleranse mot hverandre når det gjelder hudfarge, har det vist seg at de stundom har mye strengere (brutale) sosialøkonomiske skillelinjer enn hva en ville vente seg. I 1980-tallet kunne butikkeiere i Brasil uten skrupler beordre drap på vergeløse gatebarn fordi de var fattig. Dette skyldes føydalisme som var introdusert og brukt som statsmodell helt fram til 1800-tallet. Meget mange i USA og Europa sitter derfor med minimal innsikt i det som skjuler seg i Latin-Amerika. 

For latinspråklige - som interessant nok ikke innse at de er i en mellomfase - er de i en skvis, de vil ha strengere immigrasjonspraksis og vil hindre flere innflyttere, samtidig som de vil ikke ha befolkningskontroll og overvåkningspraksis - fordi disses fordommer blendet dem fra faktumet om at latinos fra sør har samme språk, samme væremåte, samme kulturell bakgrunn og sist samme utseende. Dermed fant de seg utsatt for raseprofilering - og de har meget smertelige erfaringer fra apartheidsveldet i 1850-1965. Så smertelig, at latinos kunne massakreres uten konsekvenser. 

Republikanerne vet ikke hvordan å holde på latinos, i likhet med demokratene. For disses valg er uløselig knyttet tett med disses posisjon som et folk i midten mellom Nord-Amerika og Latin-Amerika.