#southern united states border wall

[heritageposts]

[...] More specifically, the cycle of violence in The Last of Us Part II appears to be largely modeled after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I suspect that some players, if they consciously clock the parallels at all, will think The Last of Us Part II is taking a balanced and fair perspective on that conflict, humanizing and exposing flaws in both sides of its in-game analogues. But as someone who grew up in Israel, I recognized a familiar, firmly Israeli way of seeing and explaining the conflict which tries to appear evenhanded and even enlightened, but in practice marginalizes Palestinian experience in a manner that perpetuates a horrific status quo. The game's co-director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, an Israeli who was born and raised in the [occupied] West Bank before his family moved to the U.S., told the Washington Post that the game's themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story. “I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal?” Druckmann told the Post. “This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.” Druckmann drew parallels between The Last of Us and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict again on the official The Last of Us podcast. When discussing the first time Joel kills another man to protect his daughter and the extraordinary measures people will take to protect the ones they love, Druckmann said he follows "a lot of Israeli politics," and compared the incident to Israel's release of hundreds of Palestinians prisoners in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011. He said that his father thought that the exchange was overall bad for Israel, but that his father would release every prisoner in every prison to free his own son. "That's what this story is about, do the ends justify the means, and it's so much about perspective. If it was to save a strange kid maybe Joel would have made a very different decision, but when it was his tribe, his daughter, there was no question about what he was going to do," Druckmann said.

And continuing, on the security structures featured in the The Last of Us Part II:

Besides the familiar zombie fiction aesthetics of an overgrown and decomposing metropolis, The Last of Us Part II's main setting of Seattle is visually and functionally defined by a series of checkpoints, security walls, and barriers. There are many ways to build and depict structures that separate and keep people out. Just Google "U.S.-Mexico border wall" to see the variety of structures on the southern border of the United States alone. The Last of Us Part II's Seattle doesn't look like any of these. Instead, it looks almost exactly like the tall, precast concrete barriers and watch towers Israel started building through the West Bank in 2000.

Illustrations, from the article:

The first barrier Ellie and Dina encounter when arriving in Seattle / West Bank barrier.

. . . article continues on Vice (July 15 2020)

Backup -> archive.today link /archive.org link

[mariacallous]

After months of spewing racist remarks about Kamala Harris and ginning up his base about invasions at the border and the promise to harm millions of immigrants, Donald Trump will once again be the president of the United States. Despite his naked racism and misogyny and attacks on his political opponents, the American people have chosen to send him back to the White House. Candidates use the last days of their campaign to make their final case before the American people. They say the thing you want voters to remember as they’re casting their votes on Election Day. The last thing Trump wanted millions of Americans to hear from him and his campaign? A cacophony of bigotry. Trump chose to host a rally in New York City that was reminiscent of a Nazi rally held there 85 years ago. He was set to speak in front of thousands of his fans in his hometown — but first, more than two dozen surrogates would get on stage to make the case for him. Comedian and podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to a pile of garbage, said Black people carve watermelons on Halloween and made crude comments about the sexual habits of Latinos. David Rem, who the campaign said is a childhood friend of Trump, called Democrats “degenerates.” Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Harris was a “Samoan, Malaysian low-IQ” person. (Harris’ father is Jamaican, and her mother is Indian.) The only comment the GOP attempted to do damage control on was the “joke” about Puerto Rico. Having such explicit racism on stage during a rally for a presidential campaign speaks volumes about the Republican Party and America at large. White conservative ideology, and by extension, Trump, has long been threatened by the sense that full racial equality was just on the horizon. It is not an accident that Trump began his political career after America elected its first Black president. During their own presidential campaigns, famous Alabama segregationist George Wallace promoted keeping the races separate and George H.W. Bush deployed an ad implying his opponent Michael Dukakis would let violent Black criminals out of prison. Ronald Reagan touted his love of “states rights” at a speech in Mississippi near the site of where civil rights workers had been brutally murdered 16 years earlier. Critics viewed it as a wink to racist white Southern voters. Still, no other major-party presidential candidate has embraced explicit racism the way Trump has. Trump entered the political foray during the Obama administration by leading the charge in the false claims that the president was secretly born in Kenya and thus ineligible to be president. A few years later, in a now infamous scene, he would come down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce that he was running for president himself and referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists. His major policy promise was to build a wall along the southern border. As president, Trump instituted a ban on people from several majority-Muslim countries entering the country, told three members of Congress who are women of color to “go back to where they came from,” and tried to send in the military to squash racial justice protesters. His reelection campaign in 2020 was marked by more of the same. During his speech accepting the GOP’s nomination, Trump said Democrats wanted to release “criminals” into suburban neighborhoods and declared on X that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” referring to Black Lives Matter protesters. Much of that seems tame compared to the 2024 campaign.

[girlactionfigure]

⚠️ IRAN PREPARES, HOME FRONT CHANGES, SPECIAL FORCES VIDEOS - Tuesday afternoon - events from Israel  

...‼️The United States detects preparations in Iran for a missile attack on Israel. (Amit Segal - Ch. 12)

⚠️HOME FRONT COMMAND.. as of today (Tuesday), at 14:00: added restrictions in new and wide areas throughout the country until Sat. Oct 5, 20:00.  The reason for this change is the item above.

.. Restriction on activities and gatherings: Carmel (Haifa and wide area), Wadi Ara, Menashe, Samaria (West Bank), Sharon (Central cities), Dan (Tel Aviv), Yarkon, Shefala (Beit Shemesh and wide area), Jerusalem (and wide area), and Shfela.

.. Educational activities can ONLY be held in a place where you can reach a protected space in time with capacity in case of an alert.

.. Gatherings and services can be held with a limit of up to 30 people in an open area and up to 300 people in closed spaces.

.. Workplaces can operate in a building or place where you can reach a protected space in time with capacity in case of an alert.

.. Infographic: https://IDFANC.activetrail.biz/ANC0110202493864

.. Police: The Israel Police is prepared to implement the directives of the Home Front Command to the general public, following the change in the defense policy in the last hour.  Civil discipline saves lives.

❗️PUBLIC ROSH HASHANA PRAYER EVENTS CANCELLED.. The impression is that this is a warning about a more specific and immediate event, not about a general escalation from Lebanon.

.. Mass hataras nedarim at the Hotel cancelled.

.. Event at the Sultan’s Pool cancelled.

.. The Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Places Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz calls on the public to take cautionand observe the mitzvah "and be very careful for your souls" - to obey the instructions of the Home Front Command and not to come to the Western Wall plaza tonight.

.. Message passed on to the Hasidim in Gur: Do not come today for prayers to the city. and prepare for the possibility that they will not be able to come to Jerusalem for the holiday.

▪️SPECIAL OPS.. Since the beginning of the war, the IDF has conducted dozens of targeted operations in areas near the border in southern Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.  The soldiers identified and breached underground access points near the border area, exposed extensive weapon caches, assembly areas for terrorist operative operations, and more. During these operations, the troops also collected valuable intelligence and methodically dismantled the weapons and compounds, including underground infrastructure and advanced weaponry of Iranian origin.

The troops also uncovered and destroyed underground infrastructure, struck thousands of targets and hundreds of weapons storage facilities, tons of explosives, and hundreds of living areas for operatives, command centers and more. 

Footage of IDF raids on terror targets in Lebanese territory: https://bit.ly/3ZLNw4x

Footage of the destruction of terrorist infrastructure in the area of the border: https://bit.ly/4gM9wCs

There are many more videos linked here -> https://t.me/idfofficial/10605

❗️TZAV 8.. IDF: In accordance with the situational assessment, the IDF is calling up four additional reserve (combat) brigades for operational missions in the northern arena. 

▪️AIR TRAVEL.. The airport is working as usual at the moment and there is no change in the airspace.

.. Israir is expected to operate flights using six leased planes over the holidays, to help maintain aviation continuity. 

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❗️IRAN MISSILE THREAT - Tuesday afternoon - events from Israel  

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

( VIDEO - Home Front advice for holiday synagogue service - make sure to know the path to a protected space, have enough time and capacity. And what about the children? )

⭕HEZBOLLAH JUST FIRED 4 LONG RANGE MISSILES AT TEL AVIV.. a few minutes ago - they missed, hitting the sea.  No alarms due to the wide miss.

‼️The United States detects preparations in Iran for a missile attack on Israel.  On this basis, Israel has raised Home Front restrictions in the center and Jerusalem areas.  

.. The Pentagon: Satellite images show that Iran has prepared a large number of ballistic missiles to attack Israel.

.. IDF reminds:  defenses are NOT perfect, you MUST follow Home Front commands and take shelter when instructed.

.. The US Embassy in Israel asked its employees to stay at home and be prepared to go to shelters.

.. British Foreign Secretary Lammy announced that Britain is negotiating with its Iranian counterparts and calls on that country to exercise restraint in the midst of growing tensions in the region.

.. Reuters: Oil prices jumped 3% amid reports that Iran is planning to attack Israel.

📌HOME FRONT COMMAND..  center, Tel Aviv and wide surrounding areas, Jerusalem and wide surrounding areas, Samaria

.. Educational activities can ONLY be held in a place where you can reach a protected space in time with capacity in case of an alert.

.. Gatherings and services can be held with a limit of up to 30 people in an open area and up to 300 people in closed spaces.

.. Workplaces can operate in a building or place where you can reach a protected space in time with capacity in case of an alert.

📌PUBLIC ROSH HASHANA PRAYER EVENTS CANCELLED..

.. Mass hataras nedarim at the Western Wall cancelled.

.. Event at the Sultan’s Pool cancelled.

.. The Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Places Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz: do not to come to the Western Wall plaza tonight.

.. Message to Hasidim in Gur: Do not come for prayers to the city. 

❗️SPORT EVENT CANCELLED - Soccer / Football between Beitar Yerushalayim and Maccabi Haifa.

🔹IDF spokesman: "Iranian firing on the State of Israel will have consequences - I will not say more than that."

🔹IDF spokesman Brigadier General Hagari: "IDF fighters found a "plan for the occupation of the Galilee" by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanese territory.”

🔹US Central Command: 3 additional US aircraft squadrons are on their way to the area, and one of them has already arrived.

🔹The US continues to transfer military equipment non-stop to the region.  Huge military transport planes land in Jordan and Syria almost non-stop.

🔹Haifa Municipality: In light of the unusual security situation, the city council meeting scheduled for tonight is postponed.

🔹Russia to Israel: withdraw the troops from southern Lebanon immediately.

♦️ONGOING TARGETED ATTACKS in Lebanon cities.

♦️TARGETED ATTACK in Khan Yunis, Gaza on a vehicle.

♦️SYRIAN RADAR.. A radar position of Syria that attacked and destroyed a short time ago by the Air Force in southern Syria.

[justbeingnamaste]

The Biden Administration has admitted to flying as many as 320,000 illegal immigrants on secret flights into the U.S., in an effort to decrease the number of illegal immigrant encounters at the Southern Border.

“It means that while record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country.

Use of a cell phone app has allowed for the near undetected arrival by air of 320,000 aliens with no legal rights to enter the United States.

It comes after a controversy over a 2022 transportation program in which the administration used taxpayers money to move migrants throughout the country on overnight flights.”

JOE BIDEN’S BORDER CRISIS BY THE NUMBERS:

Since Joe Biden took office:

There have been 8.7 million illegal crossings nationwide. 

There have been OVER 7.2  MILLION illegal crossings of our Southern Border.

The total number of illegal immigrants who have entered through our Southern Border is greater than the population of 36 states. Including;

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 

There have been 1.8 million known gotaways who evaded U.S. Border Patrol.  

Since the start of FY 2024 there have been OVER 1 million illegal immigrant encounters.

In January, there were 176,205 illegal immigrants encountered at the Southern Border. 

January was the 35th straight month, where monthly illegal immigrant encounters have been higher than even the highest month seen under President Trump. 

Under Biden, over 340 of these individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the Southern Border.

So far in FY24, there have been 58 individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watch list who have been stopped trying to enter the U.S. illegally between ports of entry. 

This total is more than the encounters in all FY17, FY18, FY19, FY20, FY21, and FY22 combined. 

Over 20,000 Communist Chinese nationals have illegally crossed the Southern Border since FY24 began in October. 

Communist Chinese nationals are exploiting Joe Biden’s failed Far Left open border policies at “record-breaking figures,” becoming “the fastest-growing demographic entering the country illegally.”

The surge in Communist Chinese nationals encountered at our Southern Border has raised serious concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is exploiting the Biden border crisis for nefarious reasons.

Biden’s Far Left open border policies are to blame for this historic crisis. 

There are OVER 60 instances of Joe Biden and his Administration taking actions that undermined our nation’s border security, including halting the construction of the border wall. 

In August 2022, Biden and his Administration decided to make the border crisis WORSE by formally ending former President Trump’s successful ‘Remain in Mexico’ program.”

The Biden Administration announced on May 10, 2023, that it would allow for the release of some migrants into the U.S. with no way to track them. 

Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has now admitted that 40 percent of catch-and-release migrants have disappeared. 

Despite this historic crisis Joe Biden has only visited the Southern Border ONCE, and it was widely panned as nothing more than a photo-op.

  https://www.gop.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=742   

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Markos Moulitsas (kos) at Daily Kos:

Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that besmirched Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s military record during the 2004 election? The architect of that discredited group was Chris LaCivita, who is now one of Donald Trump’s two campaign managers. It’s no accident that Republicans now are using many of that group’s same tactics to tarnish Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s excellent military service.  Walz is among the highest-ranking retired enlisted service members to have ever run on a major presidential ticket. Only three vice presidents have ever had military service in the enlisted ranks, and only one president has.

Let me explain what all that means.  There are two kinds of leaders in the military: the officer track (lieutenants, majors, colonels, generals), and the enlisted track. Leaders in the enlisted ranks are called noncommissioned officers (NCO), which are the sergeants of various stripes (literally). Officers set the strategy and tactics, and sergeants execute those orders. They are two different tracks. To become an officer, it requires a college degree, whereas that’s not the case with the enlisted. I was enlisted, working up from private when I was in basic training, to specialist when I finished my service. The next rank up would’ve been sergeant. My son is a specialist today, and he will no doubt become an NCO before he finishes his service. 

Walz, who reached the rank of command sergeant major before he retired, is being accused of retiring when his unit was called up, instead of deploying. This accusation can be traced to this paid letter to the editor published in 2018 by two retired (and clearly conservative) high-ranking Minnesota National Guard members. The letter coincided with Walz’s first run for governor of the state. “When the nation called, he quit,” the two men wrote. To be very clear, when you see conservatives like Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance claim “stolen valor,” that is just false. Heck, even the notoriously conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board said the claim is bogus. Walz never pretended to have served in war; he never made up accolades. The original accusation is simply that when Walz’s unit deployed to Iraq, he quit.

So what exactly happened? 

Walz joined the National Guard at 17, serving first in Nebraska and later in Minnesota. The National Guard is a reserve component of the U.S. Army, with dual state and federal duties. So under state command, they’ll do things like riot duty, state disaster support, counter-narcotics efforts, patrol the southern border if they have Republican governors looking to score political points, etc. They can also be federalized. That happened with my son’s California unit, where he spent the past year in the Middle East. There are National Guard units in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. Walz rose up the ranks over 24 years of service until he reached the highest rank possible at the state level, command sergeant major. It’s a big, big deal to reach this level. 

[...] Walz didn’t quit his service to his nation. Far from it. He served 24 years in uniform, and he’s continued serving his state and his nation ever since—in Congress, in Minnesota as governor, and, next year, in Washington as the vice president of the United States.  Republicans pretend to honor military service, but it’s all an act. I would never deign to insult Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s military service. It is an honor to serve, and those who do it should be treated with the proper respect. Anyone who mocks someone who has honorably served is mocking all my brothers and sisters in arms, including my son.  Even worse, Republicans are currently rallying around a presidential candidate who famously used a claim of bone spurs and four education deferments to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Donald Trump didn’t avoid service because of his conscience, which would in itself be honorable. He did so because he was too hoity-toity to serve.

Dear right-wingers who are trying to swiftboat Tim Walz: His military record is of sterling reputation.

See Also:

MMFA: These major news outlets-- especially The New York Times-- amplified JD Vance’s lie about Tim Walz’s military service without rebuttal

[mcgnagallsarmy]

Top 10 Nick x Charlie fics I’ve read (June 2024)

Don't Believe Him by 7ate9

When Charlie tells his study group he's dating Leed's rugby star Nick Nelson, they don't quite believe him. It's embarrassing to go with them to the rugby game, with their voices in his ears telling him he's mad, but Nick is always there to prove those voices wrong, even when he doesn't even know they exist.

first fluttering (of its silken wings) by thetomkatwholived [G]

What if the leaves were real? Charlie lives in a world full of Flutters, where his leaves follow him almost everywhere. Enter Nick Nelson, who hasn’t seen his Flutters in years.

Let it Out and Let it In by 7ate9 [M]

Nick was the last person to see Charlie Spring before he went missing. They spent the afternoon together, and Nick kissed him goodbye and watched him walk away. Charlie never made it home. In the wake of his disappearance, their friends and family have to deal with the fallout. Nick is holding out hope for Charlie to come back, because he doesn't know what he'd do if he doesn't.

look now, the sky is gold by kissmeinnewyork [T]

“Your mum’s been texting me.” Charlie can just about make out Nick’s bemused expression over his shitty student halls wifi connection. “She’s been doing what?” In the days after Nick goes to university, Sarah Nelson looks after Charlie like he's her own. (A collection of stories about found family, empty nests, house keys and Nick, Charlie and Sarah).

Narlie Waves by waveofyou [E]

A Heartstopper California AU where Nick (31) and the HS crew we know and love live in SoCal. Charlie (29) leaves his London office to work in San Diego for a year. Nellie makes a new puppy bestie. Nick is adorable teaching little first graders. Charlie looks hot playing the drums. Nick looks hot surfing. They…ahem…enjoy Nick’s pool…and shower…and balcony. The boys weirdly get snowed in at one point. In Southern California, go figure. Nick helps Charlie see that he's deserving of big, loud love from a certain golden retriever person. Charlie helps Nick to trust that his love is not conditional, that he's safe to fully express himself. A leaves falling, flower petals swirling story of queer love with a spectacular ocean view 🍂🌊🍂 ⚠️ This is NOT a slow burn. They feel the spark, follow it and make fire Any explicit sections are denoted with “🍂🔥🍂” Any triggering flashback, panic attack or detailed eating disorder moments with “🍂⚠️🍂” …so they can be skipped and the story still enjoyed- I’ve written it so no major plot is lost by skipping these sections Alternates between Charlie and Nick POV ♥️

now i've read all of the books beside your bed by thetomkatwholived [T]

Tara smirked. “Yes, Charlie Spring. Isaac is one of his best friends. He posts booktube videos.” “Booktube?” Darcy rolled her eyes. “Get on the internet, Nicholas! Youtube videos specifically about books. Isaac has a really great channel. Awesome queer recs.” She handed an earbud to Tara, and they both huddled around her phone. Or, Nick sees Charlie for the first time in years in Isaac's video and maybe that crush he thought was dulled comes back in full force. At least he can get all the recommended books at the new bookshop in town…

The Quarantine Chronicles by CJShips [T]

Inspired by the Heartstopper Mini-Comic: The Haircut, aged-up Nick and Charlie navigate pandemic life. I hope to make this a series of vignettes, but I wrote this first chapter as a stand-alone. Come on Charlie, just get here Nick begged internally, raising a hand to scrub his face. … Irrational thoughts that he’d been walling off for hours began to break through. What if Charlie’s flight had been re-routed? Or not taken off at all? Or what if the flight had arrived at SFO but for some reason, Charlie wasn’t on it? What if the United States sealed its borders and Nick became trapped in a different country from the most important person in the world? … For the first time since he and Charlie moved to San Francisco eight months ago, Nick wondered if it was a terrible mistake.

We Just Keep Going by agreatwave [M]

“Nothing’s wrong, nothing happened,” He reassures. “I just want to come home.” “Charlie - ” “I just really want to be with you tonight,” Charlie interrupts. Nick’s heart skips a beat. “Is- is that ok?” Charlie asks when Nick doesn’t respond immediately. This, more than anything, sets off an alarm in Nick’s head. It’s rare, these days, for Charlie to question things like he used to. OR When another long term couple breaks up, Charlie needs reassurance. Nick is more than happy to give it.

the wedding dance by steelknuckles [G]

Nick has two left feet, so he's lucky to have Charlie to guide him during their wedding dance. If love was a piano, it would be every note from top to bottom.

you only stay by peaceoutofthepieces [G]

“Ben talked to you at the cinema?” Nick interrupts, his voice shaking. His eyes are wide, and he grips Charlie’s hand tighter. “When did you talk to Ben?” “Oh.” Charlie looks down. “Uhm, outside, just before I left. After you’d gone back in.” He glances up in time to see Nick’s expression go pained, and he reaches his free hand over so he can grip Nick’s and squeeze back. “What did he say?” Nick asks quietly. “It doesn’t matter,” Charlie tries, but Nick’s kicked-puppy look only strengthens. “He just—it was the same thing about denying his feelings and being a dick about it. Telling me he never liked me, but I was pathetic enough for him to feel sorry for me. Usual Ben things.”

[whencyclopedia]

Battle of Camden

The Battle of Camden (16 August 1780) was a major battle of the southern theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). It saw a British army under Lord Charles Cornwallis decisively defeat an American force under General Horatio Gates, thereby securing British control of South Carolina and allowing Cornwallis to invade North Carolina.

Background: Fall of Charleston

On 29 March 1780, over 12,000 British and German soldiers under the command of Sir Henry Clinton dug in outside the landward walls of Charleston, South Carolina, and began to lay siege. Over the course of the next six weeks, the British siegeworks crept closer to the city walls, as the ubiquitous roar of artillery echoed in the sky. Charleston was, at the time, the largest and most important city in the American South. Its capture would provide the British with a base from which to launch an invasion of the South, one of the most economically significant regions of the United States. The exports of southern cash crops such as indigo, rice, and tobacco were used to fund the American war effort; should the South fall back under British control, the US would lose access to this major source of revenue and would be less capable of military upkeep. The amputation of the South from the body of the United States would, it was believed, be the fatal blow to the young republic.

This was a fact that Major General Benjamin Lincoln, commander of the Southern Department of the Continental Army, knew all too well. As the British completed their entrapment of his army in Charleston, Lincoln knew that time was running out for both his army and the South, and he could only hope that help was on its way. General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the American forces, was unable to come to Lincoln's aid himself, as he was currently in New Jersey with the main army keeping an eye on the sizable British force in New York City. However, Washington was able to spare two regiments of Continentals (or regular soldiers), sending them south under the capable command of Major General Johann de Kalb. Simultaneously, the 380 troops of the 3rd Virginia Regiment under Colonel Abraham Buford crossed into South Carolina, intent on coming to Charleston's defense.

But before either of these detachments could arrive to reinforce the city, Lincoln's hand was forced. By early May, Clinton's siegeworks had approached the city walls, allowing the British to unleash an artillery barrage that engulfed the wooden buildings of Charleston in flames. Unwilling to subject his army and the city's residents to further carnage, Lincoln surrendered on 12 May; at least 2,500 Continentals were taken prisoner (the British reported over 5,000 prisoners), and Charleston was occupied by the British. Clinton then set about pacifying the state of South Carolina, offering pardons to any Patriot militiamen willing to change sides and fight for the British; as a result, the British were able to recruit nearly 4,000 men for their Loyalist militias over the summer.

Clinton also dispatched Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton, and his infamous unit of elite Loyalists known as the British Legion, in pursuit of Colonel Buford's Virginians. On 29 May, Tarleton attacked Buford at the Battle of Waxhaws on the border between North and South Carolina. The battle quickly devolved into a bloodbath, as Tarleton's troops allegedly massacred the Continental soldiers while they were trying to surrender; this led the Patriots to coin the phrase ‘Tarleton's Quarter' to refer to the brutality of British officers. With the elimination of Buford's regiment, the last remnants of the American southern army had been destroyed, leaving the South open to British subjugation.

Satisfied with this outcome, Clinton returned to New York City in early June, leaving his second-in-command, Lord Charles Cornwallis, in charge of finishing the pacification of South Carolina. This was easier said than done, as the brutality of Waxhaws inspired hundreds of men to join Patriot militias that were sprouting up across the South Carolina backcountry. Men like Thomas Sumter, Francis Marion, and Andrew Pickens led small bands of partisan fighters on attacks against British and Loyalist troops, frustrating Cornwallis' attempts to solidify his authority in the region. As the weeks wore on and Cornwallis' grip on South Carolina began to slip, the Patriots spotted a chance to regain control of the state. But to do so, they would have to rebuild their southern army fast.

Continue reading...

[maklodes]

I think the issue for Democrats on immigration is that the Republicans have a fairly simple story:

There is a legal protocol for coming into the United States.

People who come to the United States without following the legal protocol are breaking the law.

The United States should stop them from continuing to break the law by deporting them.

This is somewhat muddled, in the first Trump era, by the obsession with building a physical wall as a barrier on the southern border and banning Muslims, and currently by increasing hostility toward all immigrants regardless of legal status, but it does still have a certain compellingly simple logic.

Democrats have tried to neutralize the Republicans by being "tough on immigration," but I think that fundamentally the flailing attempts at toughness are not really a substitute for a simple, compelling position that can be summarized in under a hundred words.

Sometimes the three-word phrase "comprehensive immigration reform" is used, but often they don't really supply any clear meaning. One is almost left with an apophatic theology of comprehensive immigration reform: "no, it's not open borders. No, it's not continuing to muddle through with what we're currently doing. No, it's not Trumpian cruelty, racism, and nativism."

I guess I can understand that there may be some intra-coalition disagreements on what good immigration policy looks like, but is staking out a coherent position and saying "here is where I stand. Maybe some Democrats disagree with me, but this is my position" really worse than throwing up your hands and saying "immigration is just a Republican strength, but maybe we can beat 'em by trying to minimize the salience of immigration and focus on areas of Democratic strength like reproductive rights?"

[dhaaruni]

Do you have any suggestions on sources to check out to understand American conservative ideology? I’m honestly trying to make a good faith attempt to understand it and why so many Republicans don’t seem to appreciate things that Democrats do for their income bracket (if they’re lower income) just bc of their stance on immigration? Like to me, Biden lowering bank overdraft fees matters more than immigration

Books, podcasts, articles, documentaries, anything!

I'll list out sources for you at another point but first of all, I think you're really misunderstanding how the conservative mindset works. You understand that people by and large vote on social issues and not economic issues right? That's why rich liberals vote for Democrats while poor conservatives vote for Republicans. The way it works is that the ethos of cultural conservatism is about preserving culture, and immigration changes the culture of a country and here's the key part, this applies even to people that aren't interacting with immigrants. They have to press 1 to get English sometimes when they call the pharmacy and that's enough to drive them up the wall! Moreover, the reality is that social liberalism is tied to education and also wealth, and the people who have less money are more likely to want to preserve what they do have, which in essence, is the "culture" of their nation.

Now, those people aren't going to vote Democrat anytime soon but the reality is that even during the peak of Stephen Miller putting kids in cages, Americans still didn't want to increase the amount of immigration, they just wanted the *visible* cruelty to stop, they're totally fine with welcoming asylum seekers into the country, giving them warm food and a hug, and sending them right back to where they came from. That's why Remain in Mexico helped Trump so much, Mexico did the dirty work of detaining and sending back migrants for the US like Turkey does it for the European Union, and the wealthier countries didn't have to get their hands dirty and their citizens often had no idea what was happening.

The issue that Democrats have right now with regards to immigration is that "elites," both Democrat and Republican, are more open to immigration than voters of either party although obviously Republicans are more opposed. Plus, liberals are opposed to high-skilled immigration from China and India in particular because Asian immigrants compete with them and their kids for education and jobs, like just look at how Democrats talk about how affirmative action negatively impacted Asian kids when it objectively did! Like, white women didn't benefit the most from affirmative action, that's a blatant lie.

The reality is that if only elites voted, the United States would be a center-left country but obviously it's not. Like, the huge negative reaction residents of blue cities are having to Republican (and Democratic!) shipping migrants up north is just so telling because it's very evident that Democrats don't want poor brown migrants who don't speak English around them, they just want to virtue signal about being pro-immigrant sanctuary cities without putting in the effort. That aside from the fact it's extremely obvious that most of the "asylum seekers" who show up at the southern border aren't qualified for asylum under international law, they're economic migrants, which is why people are demanding changes to asylum laws.

The reason that most non-white working class people still vote Democrat is because the Republican Party is extremely racist, with the exception of Black people and that's due to the history of slavery in this country. If Republicans toned down the racism even like 15% and stuck to racism against Black people and kept their mouths shut about Latinos and Asians, Republicans would get 40% of the Latino/Asian vote like Greg Abbott did in 2022 in Texas even if they likely wouldn't get to 60% like Ron DeSantis did in 2022 in Florida. And obviously, you understand as well as I do that if Republicans won 40% of the Asian and Latino vote nationwide, they'd get 400 electoral votes due to their also cleaning up among non-college white voters. Black people are 13% of the country and they can't carry Democrats without Dems winning over enough white voters and people are just allergic to admitting this fact.

All this in essence is why Democrats being reliant on rich liberals to pay for social programs they don't use is biting them in the ass. People with money, who are by and large college educated, simply don't want their taxes to go up, and to win non-college voters, Democrats have go right (on policy not just in terms of messaging) on cultural issues, primarily immigration, climate (no "green energy" or being mean to the oil/gas industry and fracking), and anything related to LGBT issues beyond "keep gay marriage legal" (even though nobody except like, Muslims in Michigan, is voting on LGBT issues one way or another). Abortion is the one "cultural" issue which helps Democrats but that's because kids are expensive and a huge undertaking especially if you don't want them, so it's still selfish and not really for the "greater good" that most people, including many Republicans, are pro-choice.

Moreover, Democratic donors and the "groups" (shadow network of activists, think tanks like the Center for American Progress, and Dem staffers who are well to the left of elected officials) don't want to move away from cultural liberalism since they skew wealthier than the general population and would rather talk about mincing the definitions of acronyms nobody uses and canceling student loans for the overeducated and downwardly mobile than public schools not letting kids take math classes and Medicaid negotiations because those issues don't impact them or any of their friends and families.

At the end of the day, the reason conservative ideology doesn't die out is because when push comes to shove, people prioritize their own self-interest. Obviously there are caveats and sometimes people opt to help others and society at large, but placing ourselves and our loved ones over the rest of the world is an intrinsic part of human nature and one that we need to understand if we're intent on changing society. Does that make sense?

[mariacallous]

What would Donald Trump’s foreign policy look like, should he win a second presidential term? The debate ranges between those who believe he will abandon Ukraine, withdraw from NATO, and herald a “post-American Europe”—and those who predict he will escalate the Russian-Ukrainian war and continue his fiercely anti-communist policies. Foreign governments have been frantically reaching out to Trump and Republican circles to understand, if not influence, the future direction of his policies; one such visit may have even played a role in Trump’s acquiescence to the most recent batch of U.S. military aid to Ukraine following months of delay by many of his Republican supporters in the U.S. Congress.

One fact is already clear: If Trump regains the presidency, he and his potential advisors will return to a significantly changed global landscape—marked by two regional wars, the threat of a third in Asia, the return of great-power geopolitics, and globalization measurably in decline. While many expect a Trump 2.0 to be a more intense version of Trump 1.0, his response to the dramatic changes in the geopolitical environment could lead to unexpected outcomes.

Trump may now be less eager to abandon Europe given fast-rising European defense spending and an ongoing major war. The strengthening U.S. economy and flux in global supply chains could facilitate a broader decoupling from China and market-access agreements with allies. Expanded Iranian aggression could make it easier for Trump 2.0 to build a large international coalition. An examination of these and other changes of the last four years could yield surprising insights into how a second Trump administration could differ significantly from the first.

Since Trump left office, the U.S.-Mexico border crisis has worsened significantly. In 2020, Trump’s last full year in office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection carried out 646,822 enforcement actions, including against three individuals on the Terrorist Screening Data Set. By 2023, this had skyrocketed to 3.2 million encounters, including 172 people on the terrorist list. Under the Biden-Harris administration, there have been some 10 million illegal border crossings, including nearly 2 million known so-called gotaways—illegal crossers who could not be apprehended. The unsecured border, broken asylum process, and overwhelmed immigration courts have enabled significant fentanyl trafficking, resulting in over 200,000 American deaths in the last three years.

For a second Trump administration, sealing the border would be the critical national security issue, overshadowing all others. The Republican platform calls for completion of the border wall, the use of advanced technology on the border, and shifting the focus of federal law enforcement to migration. It also proposes redeploying troops from overseas to the southern border and deploying the U.S. Navy to impose a fentanyl blockade. Americans now see the border as a major problem, and Congress is likely to support significant spending. This reallocation will impact other areas, since the U.S. Army and Navy are already struggling with personnel and fleet size targets. Navigating tensions with Mexico and Central American countries, many of which have free-trade agreements with the United States and receive U.S. assistance, will be challenging.

Facing escalating regional wars and the smallest U.S. military in generations, Trump would likely oversee the most significant U.S. military buildup in nearly 50 years. The U.S. Armed Forces are shrinking, and the defense budget is close to its post-World War II low in terms of both federal budget share and percentage of GDP. The capacity, capabilities, and readiness of the U.S. military are weakening, and the defense industrial base has atrophied. The disastrous defeat in Afghanistan has led to a significant drop in Americans’ confidence in the military.

Trump has long supported a bigger and stronger military, but his administration’s modest budget increases primarily went to personnel, operations, and maintenance, with little investment in capabilities. Under then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, the 2018 National Defense Strategy abandoned the long-standing U.S. doctrine of maintaining readiness to fight wars in two regions simultaneously, focusing instead on deterring China in the Indo-Pacific. Today’s Trump-approved Republican platform pledges a larger, modern military, investment in the defense industrial base, and a national missile defense shield. Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, likely the next chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has proposed a detailed plan to raise defense spending from 3 percent of GDP in 2024 to 5 percent within five to seven years. This plan aligns with Trump’s policies and could lead to a domestic manufacturing boom. Trump could announce the first-ever trillion-dollar defense budget with broad Republican support, determined not to be remembered as the president who let China surpass the U.S. militarily.

Notwithstanding the Biden administration’s climate agenda, the United States’ historic rise as the world’s energy superpower could empower Trump to pursue more punitive policies against Russia and Iran while wielding greater leverage over China. The United States is now producing and exporting more energy than ever, even as its carbon emissions have decreased, largely due to the shift from coal to gas. In 2019, the country became a net energy exporter. Since 2017, total energy exports have nearly doubled, and the country has surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer. By further ramping up liquefied natural gas exports to Europe, a second Trump administration could reduce Russia’s influence, reshape European geopolitics, and strengthen trans-Atlantic ties. It would also greatly reduce the trade deficit with Europe, something Trump frequently rails about. Expanding energy production would also increase U.S. leverage over China, the world’s largest energy importer. Greater production—as well as closer alignment with Saudi Arabia under Trump—could do much to lower gas prices in the United States and oil prices globally. This, in turn, would allow Trump to pursue more aggressive strategic policies, such as striking Iranian nuclear assets or, should he wish to do so, diminishing Russian oil and gas exports.

The relative strength of the U.S. economy and major shifts in trading patterns would give another Trump administration far greater leverage on trade—including winning a trade war with China and striking new or revised trade deals with others.

Many Americans have a pessimistic view of their country’s economy, but it is far stronger relative to its peers than in 2016 or 2020. This year, the U.S. economy will account for an estimated 26 percent of global GDP, the highest share in almost two decades. It was nearly four times the size of Japan’s when Trump first entered office, and it will be seven times as large by the end of this year. As recently as 2008, the U.S. and Eurozone economies were similar in size. Today, the former towers over the latter, with the U.S. economy almost 80 percent larger. Britain’s relative decline is similar.

The strength of the U.S. economy would give Trump the leverage to strike the fair and reciprocal trade deals he seeks. Japan, facing an ever-aggressive China and urgently needing to boost economic growth, might build on the 2019 U.S.-Japan market access deal. Trump could resume the talks with Britain from the end of his first term with more leverage; a former Trump official indicated that a deal with Britain would be a priority in a second term. Trump might also revisit negotiations with the EU, following up on a market access agreement signed in 2019 following his imposition of tariffs. After eight years on top, the United States has overtaken China to be Germany’s top trading partner again. Trump’s aim to secure better deals is evident, and he may find more willing partners than before.

The same dynamics may lead to a far broader trade war with and decoupling from China. The U.S. economy has grown relative to China’s over the past eight years, with the gap widening in both directions: The U.S. economy is larger and the Chinese one smaller than economists expected. The forecast for when China’s economy might surpass the United States’ keeps sliding further and further into the future and may never happen at all. The International Monetary Fund projects that China’s share of the Asia-Pacific region’s GDP will be slightly smaller in five years than it is today, and it may never become the majority share. Even China’s official, flattering statistics suggest its economy is experiencing a lost decade due to deeply structural challenges, not temporary ones.

Over the past eight years, the U.S. economy has also become less dependent on foreign trade, including with China. In 2016, China was the top U.S. trading partner, accounting for more than 20 percent of U.S. imports and about 16 percent of total U.S. trade. By 2023, China slipped to third place, accounting for 13.9 percent of imports and 11.3 percent of trade. This shift would give greater credibility to Trump’s threats to revoke China’s most-favored nation trading status and impose wide-ranging tariffs. While these measures would have economic costs for Americans, around 80 percent of Americans view China unfavorably today, a significant increase from 2017, and the United States is now better positioned to withstand a protracted trade war with China than a few years ago.

Trump 2.0 would have the potential to lead a broader containment approach toward China. First, Trump and most Americans blame the Chinese government for the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 1 million Americans, forced the U.S. economy into a deep recession, and likely cost Trump his reelection in 2020. Whether through trade measures, sanctions, or a demand for reparations, Trump will seek to hold China accountable for the estimated $18 trillion in damage the COVID-19 pandemic caused to the United States. In parallel, he is likely to end the attempts at partnership made by the Biden administration and Trump during parts of his first term. Issues like climate change, public health, foreign investment, Chinese land purchases in the United States, and Beijing’s role in the fentanyl epidemic will be viewed through the lens of strategic independence from China, as outlined in the Republican platform.

Second, the United States’ major European allies have become much more critical of China than when Trump left office—the result of COVID-19, Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomacy, Beijing’s support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and mounting issues concerning trade, technology, and supply chains. The references to China in the 2024 G-7 summit statement and NATO summit communique, compared to the last versions under Trump in 2019, make that clear. Europe is following Washington’s lead in imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, restricting Chinese telecoms from 5G infrastructure, and exposing and punishing Chinese espionage. A second Trump administration could build a coalition against Chinese behavior.

Third, the United States’ Asian allies are enhancing their military capabilities and cooperation among themselves. Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and others are increasing their defense spending, and the United States recently negotiated expanded military access to key sites in the Philippines. Improved regional alliances and partnerships, including the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) pact, the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States), much improved Japan-South Korea relations, and growing Japan-Philippines cooperation will strengthen Trump’s hand with Beijing.

However, the China Trump will face is more powerful and aggressive than ever before. It has significantly increased its military harassment of Taiwan, the Philippines, and India. It has also deepened its strategic partnership with Russia: The two countries declared a “partnership without limits” in 2022, and Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023 that the world is undergoing changes “we haven’t seen for 100 years—and we are the ones driving these changes together.” China’s navy, already larger than its U.S. counterpart since around 2015, could be about 50 percent larger by the end of Trump’s second term. How would Trump respond if China attacked Taiwan? Washington assesses that Xi has ordered the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be prepared to win a war against Taiwan by 2027, and U.S. war games consistently indicate the U.S. could lose such a conflict. Trump continues to hew to the decadeslong policy of maintaining strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan’s defense, even if he has included Taiwan in his familiar critique of allies not doing enough for their own defense. Nevertheless, the continuously eroding balance of power and rapidly evolving correlation of forces could make Trump less likely to assist Taiwan than one might suspect given his overall China policy. As Trump recently acknowledged in the bluntest of terms, Taiwan is 9,500 miles away from the United States but only 68 miles away from China.

Trump would return as commander in chief with the largest European war since World War II raging in Ukraine, the increased presence of U.S. forces on the continent, and European NATO members ramping up their defense spending. The much-changed situation in Europe could make him far less likely to withdraw U.S. troops, end support for Ukraine, or seek a grand bargain with Putin.

Trump’s persistent haranguing of European allies when he was president, coupled with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has prompted European countries to rapidly increase their defense spending. Whereas only five NATO members spent at least 2 percent of GDP on defense in 2016 and nine did so in 2020, 23 do so now. European NATO nations have increased their collective defense spending by more than half since Trump first took office, far ahead of the United States’ much smaller increase during the same period. Germany has even surpassed Britain as Europe’s biggest defense spender. The burden sharing Trump pushed for is beginning to happen: European NATO allies are now shouldering a greater share of bloc-wide defense spending, and Europe also provides the majority of aid to Ukraine. U.S. companies and workers are benefiting: The U.S. share of global arms exports rose from 34 percent to 42 percent over the most recent five-year period.

In his first term, Trump welcomed both Montenegro and North Macedonia into NATO, even though neither met the 2 percent mark at the time. His inclination to move U.S. forces farther east along NATO’s frontier is now a reality. Today, 20,000 U.S. forces are stationed in the alliance’s eastern frontier states, part of what Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Christopher Cavoli called a “definite shift eastward.” With the addition of Finland and Sweden as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO now has a significantly reshaped posture.

While the 2 percent floor for defense spending is now grossly inadequate, European states are proposing higher benchmarks. The European Union has released its first-ever defense industrial strategy, and many European countries are planning further increases in spending. Were Trump to preside over the June 2025 NATO summit in the Netherlands, he could not only announce “mission accomplished” with respect to the 2 percent target, but that NATO has collectively pledged a higher 3 percent floor.

Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”—but has also threatened to dramatically increase arms support to Ukraine if Putin does not comply. He has never outright opposed military aid to Ukraine, acquiesced to congressional passage of a large supplemental in April, and recently concluded a positive call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Having observed how Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan sunk his presidency, Trump may be determined to avoid a similar loss of Ukraine.

Facing a Middle East with escalating Tehran-backed conflicts and a near-nuclear Iran, Trump 2.0 might also double down and increase U.S. military involvement to douse the fires Tehran has lit.

Trump is likely to end the Biden administration’s pressure on Israel to end the war against Hamas, de-escalate against Iran, and withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. Trump would end Biden’s embargo on certain U.S. arms deliveries to Israel, halt aid to Gaza, and de-emphasize humanitarian concerns. Trump has consistently supported an Israeli “victory”—a stance repeated by his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance—and called on Israel to “finish the job.” Trump has walked back his previous endorsement of a Palestinian state, suggesting a very different approach to the “day after.” If a major war between Israel and Hezbollah breaks out, Trump’s track record suggests he would support swift Israeli action with less concern for civilian casualties, with full U.S. support but no direct military involvement.

Trump 2.0 would quickly face the choice of whether to take preemptive military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran is now a nuclear breakout state, capable of producing enough weapons-grade uranium for several bombs in less than 10 days, even if weaponization may take several months to a year. Berlin, Paris, and London, antagonists to Trump 1.0’s Iran policy, may be supporters of Trump 2.0’s, as Iran’s growing military alliance with Russia, nuclear progress, and support for the Houthis have shifted European attitudes. Having repeatedly passed the wartime tests by Iran and its proxies, Israeli anti-air capabilities have rapidly improved, as has coordination with Arab partners. Trump will likely recharge his maximum-pressure approach, but he may be more likely to threaten Iran directly than ever before.

Trump 2.0 could also launch a campaign against the Houthis similar to that against the Islamic State during Trump 1.0. He would inherit a 24-nation coalition that is currently failing to restore freedom of navigation through the Red Sea. Despite the most intense U.S. naval combat operations since World War II, Suez Canal transits are still fewer than half of what they were a year ago; so far, over 90 commercial vessels have been hit and more than 100 warships attacked. Just as he declared the defeat and destruction of the Islamic State to be his “highest priority” on the first day of his presidency, he may flip the mission from a defensive to offensive one by hitting Houthi launch sites, targeting critical infrastructure, eliminating Iranian naval support, and directly threatening Tehran. A successful campaign could restore commercial shipping, lower energy and shipping costs, and foster diplomatic cooperation with European, Middle Eastern, and Asian governments.

Even if Trump’s instincts and inclinations remain unchanged, the world’s vastly shifted circumstances could prompt unexpected approaches. If Trump 1.0 was an alliance disruptor and protectionist, a second Trump administration could turn out to be a coalition builder and forger of significant trade deals. Concerns over U.S. abandonment of Europe and withdrawal from the Middle East may prove to have been hasty, with altered circumstances leading to greater stability in Europe and a rollback of Iranian aggression in the Middle East. Dealmaking with China may give way to the best opportunity to build a Cold War-like coalition to blunt aggressive Chinese behavior.

[darkmaga-returns]

In July 2019, I crossed the international bridge from El Paso into the sprawling Mexican border city of Juárez to gauge the effects of President Donald Trump’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy.

On that blazing hot summer day, as 20,000 of an eventual 75,000 had just been expelled under the policy, I made my way by taxi to a shelter high up on a rise in the dangerous neighborhood of Anapra. The shelter is within eyesight of Mexico’s side of the American wall and El Paso beyond. I was soon interviewing recent expellee Veronica Janeth Tejeda of Yoro in northwestern Honduras as she played with one of her two expelled children in an outdoor yard between small residential buildings.

Veronica and many other immigrants expelled under Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy back then almost perfectly illustrate the policy’s power to end the greatest border crisis in U.S. history. Their 2019 testimonials matter greatly now that Trump is about to give the controversial policy a comeback that foretells swift operational control of the U.S. southern border.

Recall that before Trump rolled out Remain in Mexico 1.0, the Flores court settlement required (and still does) Border Patrol to quickly release border-crossing families with children inside the United States, where they sink roots during yearslong asylum court backlogs. That prize proved irresistible for hundreds of thousands from across the world.

But introducing Remain in Mexico 1.0 (officially the Migrant Protection Protocols) in 2019 took all wind out of the sails. Border Patrol agents could now quickly expel illegal border crossers back into Mexico and make them wait out the years of U.S. asylum protection claims there. Such a highly deterrent policy made those ineligible for U.S. entry want to stay home instead. No one, after all, illegally crosses for the Great Mexican Dream.

That’s why Remain in Mexico worked so well then and foreshadows a more tranquil border norm very soon again.

[undefeatednils]

On Twitter I legit saw people share the Jesusland map again...

It's been 20 years, and liberals still make the same stupid suggestion about having solid Dem states join Canada.

At the same time, it also reminded me that between 1968 and 2004, Virginia was a solid GOP state, and since 2008, it has voted for the Dems consistently.

At the same time, in the last ten US elections, Ohio has voted for the winner of the election (based on the Electoral College) every time. Except 2020. When Biden won but Trump still carried the Buckeye State.

In the 2004 map meme, both states were part of "Jesusland".

The new version I saw posted included Virginia in the list of states that "should" join Canada. Which would be legitimate border gore thanks to West Virginia.

At the same time, Virginia does feel incredibly volatile, like it's Democratic majority is largely based on DC-adjacent counties that are closely connected to government jobs. In a Trump 47 world, this could easily change, as these jobs will likely be reduced in number and become less career- and merit-based, but rather based on political affiliation with the current administration.

Any breakup of the United States is incredibly unlikely, yet it's also important to consider logistics for that hypothetical.

Ages ago, someone posted a semi-joking map of their most plausible US collapse scenario. It showed the US only losing the coastal states, with the rump USA consisting of the Greater Mississippi River Basin, including the Ohio River Basin and thus the Old Northwest/modern Midwest. Based on logistics and geography, it really does feel very reasonable. Though it lacks in cohesion when looking at demographics and economics.

In my mind, unless the US somehow first decides to move its capital into the interior (s. the 19th century proposal of creating a new capital, Metropolis, on the Kentucky-Illinois border), the only parts of the East Coast that might consider leaving are the states north of the Mason-Dixon-Line.

Maryland and Virginia are too connected to the political power center of DC to have an incentive to leave. The states south of Virginia with an Atlantic coastline meanwhile follow similar-enough politia and demographic trends to the Southern states bordering the Mississippi to go their own way if Virginia doesn't.

That would leave Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in the northeast.

Delaware and Pennsylvania deserve an asterisk due to economic concerns. Delaware's economic niche of a domestic tax haven isn't unique. South Dakota is also competing for this niche. Pennsylvania, meanwhile, as part of the so-called Blue Wall/Rust Belt, is economically very similar to Michigan and Wisconsin and Ohio. But if Pennsylvania stays with the Mississippi Core, Delaware would effectively be surrounded by the rump USA. Plus, Delaware, too, is rather connected to the DC ecosystem.

Meanwhile, it should also be noted that climate change and internal migration can't be ignored either and need to be addressed.

The Great Lakes region is, together with the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, projected to "benefit" from it and to continue to enjoy high quality of life.

On the other side, parts of the Sun Belt will become less suitable for large-scale, safe habitation, and since it would become the primary center of economic and political power in such a scenario, that would be a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, this has been a geopolitics essay.

[fatehbaz]

Many of my Okinawan relatives, including one great-uncle, came to the United States via Revolutionary Mexico. Morisei Yamashiro became a farmworker and labor organizer in the fields of Southern California’s Imperial Valley. There, Okinawan, Japanese, Chinese, Black, Filipino, South Asian, Indigenous, poor white, and Mexican workers labored [...]. According to his son, Morisei could speak several languages including English, Spanish, Japanese, and Okinawan dialects [...]. Before the internment of Japanese and Okinawan Americans, there were early FBI raids on the communities. Labor organizers were among the first to be targeted. [...]

This story was provocative for several reasons. I knew of the world of the Revolutionary Atlantic and the radical currents which produced what Julius C. Scott calls the “common wind” of abolition. I first wondered if there might be a story to tell about the Revolutionary Pacific and the influence of the Mexican Revolution upon it. [...] [T]he story invited me to think anew about internationalism, which I understand as a recognition of the ways that people have been unevenly waylaid by the global capitalist system and developed forms of revolutionary solidarity to confront it.

---

To consider these provocations, I examined the reflections of another Okinawan migrant, Paul Shinsei Kōchi, who had traveled a similar path [...]. Kōchi’s memoir Imin no Aiwa (An Immigrant’s Sorrowful Tale) [...] describes how he found internationalism in Revolutionary Mexico. It details his escape from Okinawa and from the surveillance and repression of imperialist Japan; his solidarity with Indigenous Kanaka Maoli in Hawai‘i, with Tongva people in California, and with Yaqui in northern Mexico as well as with Indian, Chinese, and other Asian immigrants and with Mexican peasants in the revolution; and his subsequent position of internationalism.

��Paul Kōchi’s story demonstrates how the uprooted, dispossessed, and despised of the world came to know each other in shadows, in the tangled spaces of expulsion, extraction, transportation, debt, exploitation, and destruction: the garroting circuits of modern capital. Whether crammed in tight ship quarters; knocking together over the rails; [...] in the relentless tempo of industrial agriculture; inhaling the dank air of mine shafts; [...] coughing, fighting, singing, snoring, and sighing through thin walls, or corralled [...] in jails and prisons, the contradictions of modern capital were shared in its intimate spaces. Within such sites, people discovered that the circuits of revolution, like the countervailing circuits of capital, were realizable in motion, often through unplanned assemblages. Roaring at their backs were the revolutionary currents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, currents that howled from the metropolitan hearts of empire and wailed across the peripheries of the global world system. Standing before them, in the middle of its own revolution, was Mexico. From the vantage point of these struggles, the new century did not simply portend the inevitability of urban revolts and insurgencies at the point of production, but an epoch of peasant wars, rural uprisings, anti-colonial movements, and, of course, the Mexican Revolution. Mexico, as both a real country and an imagined space of revolution, would become a crucible of internationalism [...].” (51–52) [...]

---

From farm worker strikes at the U.S.-Mexico border; art collectives in Chicago, Harlem, and Mexico City; and a prison “university” in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, [...] the Mexican Revolution staged a significant set of convergences within which internationalism was “made.” [...]

“The Internationale” (1888) [...]. Famously, Frantz Fanon took the second line of the song, “Arise ye wretched of the earth,” to title his indictment of colonialism in and beyond French Algeria, Wretched of the Earth. [...] [U]nless a radical tradition was “able to constantly keep alive that challenging, questioning and probing of the real scene around it,” it would only ever be [...] a snare of revolutionary nostalgia where hope is trapped and strangled, rather than a living, breathing tradition that might allow us to survive (Healey and Isserman 1993, 13–14). This is perhaps the central lesson [...], to think of internationalism not simply as scripture imposed from above, but as the messy work of collectively making and remaking the world in which we live.

---

Text by: Christina Heatherton. “How a Family Story Reframed My Understanding of Internationalism and Revolutionary Solidarity.” UC Press Blog. 3 April 2023.

[the-scientist-blog]

The “red alert” of March 19, 2024, as detailed in the last post, continued to preoccupy my state of being as did the American border immigration crisis. And I began to consider our nation’s homeless people and realized again there is no time to waste in the transition from dirty energy to clean energy.

A small fraction of America’s homelessness challenge is a result of undocumented migration stemming from economic disasters around the world. True, not so much now, but can you picture how much greater the world sidewalk tent encampment situation will be if there were hundreds of thousands of thirsty, starved human beings clawing to get into our country, in Canada and Europe, seeking survival because where they were born is unlivable? In my mind this is chill inducing.

This will be reality a few decades from now because we are already too late to curb a warming planet in time to allow the southern continents to be mostly habitable. To a certain extent, the climate relocation calamity has already begun. I believe what we are witnessing at our Southern border is NOTHING compared to what lies ahead. As a nation, we are unprepared to deal with what is currently happening on the other side of the border. So how can we possibly adjust to what’s coming unless our government gets its immigration act together? Even then, a humanitarian crisis will unfold as we watch recordings of destitute people scramble for food, water and shelter on the other side of an unbreachable wall. The hundreds of tons of relief pallets that our nation donated to the Gaza tragedy pales in comparison to what will be required during the next decades across the Rio Grande, the Nogales border and the CA border. No amount of legal immigration vetting can prevent the illegal crossings that can take place on our surrounding boundaries. A mid-April, 2024 filmed boat landing in Carlsbad, CA serves notice as a dozen illegals jumped out and disappeared in the city - and some had cars waiting. Customs and Border Protection of San Diego reports that since 2020, in California alone, maritime smuggling is up by almost 140%. Many of our coastal citizens believe migrants simply get dropped off and dwell in the neighborhoods. The San Diego region has seen 185,000+ encounters so far this YEAR, up 70% from the prior year.

In 2023 alone, 124,000 legal immigrants moved into California: 42% Asian and 38% Central American. This is why the net population was up. At some point in time the United States of America will be overwhelmingly populated by immigrants seeking a sustainable life. Yet, how do we say no to human survival? Our lawmakers will be in a quandary unless they learn how to cooperate with one another way ahead of this pending human debacle. Do we wait 50-60 years like we waited to witness climate change? How can we get around this? My answer: Begin each day visualizing your future while thinking of a positive, healing environmental movement. A united climate action spirit will do wonders for getting us where we must be. The forthcoming wave of human migration spurred by the Southern hemisphere warming requires a precise plan of response.  I shudder to think how our current government and corporate leaders will agree on a master plan. To date, U.S. immigration law is extremely complicated and confusing for all involved....