They’re waking up, a little bit.

A lot of what made them change is the protests this week in DC, meetings with congresspeople, going to their offices in a big crowd, phone calls that are blowing up their phones to 4,000% of the usual traffic level.

https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/a-suggested-approach-for-dealing

It’s nowhere near what is required, they’re still sleepwalking. But the pressure is working, a little bit, and a lot of the solidarity that’s being developed to put pressure on them is going to be useful as things get worse and worse.

there’s nothing the state could do to prevent it

Whoever wrote this needs to go back and read Thomas Jefferson or pretty much any history of any collapsing authoritarian regime in history.

They could obey the orders. Or, they could say “lol no”. What’s he going to do, activate their remote-control collars?

The US military, National Guard included, goes through training that heavily emphasizes support for the constitution and what to do about illegal or unconstitutional orders.

It’s actually pretty dangerous to start to bend the knee to an authoritarian despot in this way. By presenting Trump’s illegal bullshit as some kind of pre-ordained structure that other people will have to follow, of course, because that’s the system, they are normalizing it. Even if he were following US law, which he isn’t, they’d have the option to tell him to go fuck himself, and they’d be in some excellent historical company in doing so.

The article is misleadingly phrased.

He “tried to fire” her. She’s obeying the law by not leaving, since he had the exact same authority to fire her that my nieces do. And there’s no “arguing” about it. She’s not arguing, she’s just ignoring his invalid order.

More federal employees should do this. Don’t just go along with his random illegal bullshit.

Under Trump’s new orders, ICE is now allowed to target migrants at sensitive locations, like schools and churches, for arrests and potential deportations.

And FUCKING HOSPITALS. And quizzing people about their immigration status when they seek help for a medical emergency.

It would have taken fewer words to just not excise hospitals from your partial list of “sensitive locations,” but I can see why you wouldn’t want to talk about it. It’s real fucked up.