Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass. Most people are good.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

MAGA update: MAGA's two-tiered law system

Hitler's two-tiered legal system 
Mother Jones writes about the collapse of the USSC as a pro-democracy institution and its reincarnation as a major source of power driving the rise of a kleptocratic American dictatorship. In a lawsuit filed last January days after Trump signed an EO that denied birthright citizenship, the USSC completely side stepped the issue. Instead, it gutted all of the power that federal judges had to issue nationwide injunctions against illegal actions by Trump and MAGA elites. That decision was out of the blue. Birthright citizenship is clearly specified in the constitution, so Trump's EO was equally clearly unconstitutional.

In her dissent, judge Jackson accused the majority of establishing a two-tiered justice system: One was for the dictator and often wealthy or powerful elite allies. The other was for people targeted by the president’s illegal actions and whims. Jackson wrote: “The law-free zone that results from this Court’s near elimination of universal injunctions is not an unfamiliar archetype”. She called the decision “eerily echoing history’s horrors .... the zone of lawlessness the majority has now authorized will disproportionately impact the poor, the uneducated, and the unpopular.”

In her dissent, Jackson included a footnote citing Ernst Fraenkel, a Jewish labor lawyer who chronicled the transformation of the German legal system under Hitler. Fraenkel escaped Germany, came to the US and published a book in 1941, The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship. Long article summarized: A dictator like Hitler exercised unfettered power while life for most ordinary people are usually unaffected. Jackson commented that a “zone of lawlessness” like what the USSC created will swallow targeted people, leaving the rest to go about their normal lives and subject to laws. In other words, Hitler was above the law and did what he wanted whether it was legal or not. 

The most important injection of vitality into the dictator's two-tiered system was the MAGA USSC's 2024 decision in Trump v. US that immunized presidents (i.e., Trump) against prosecution for crimes he commits while in office. When coupled with unlimited presidential pardon power, we clearly have two-tied system of law. So here we have yet another non-trivial parallel between Trump and Hitler.

Q: About what % of voters generally, MAGA-Trump voters, and people in the MSM are solidly aware of how much wealth and power, especially institutional capture and subversion, has been transferred from average citizens to MAGA's corrupt authoritarianism, Trump and MAGA elites?*

* My estimates: ~15% of voters generally, ~2% of MAGA-Trump voters, and ~ 20% people in the MSM. 

Note: After deep dives touching on cognitive biology, institutional capture, MAGA's authoritarian tactics and policy, and etc., Pxy came to generally agree with those estimates. The full Q&A set is at this link. Most voters, especially Trump voters, and the MSM are just flat out ignorant. They cannot see the danger. They do not sense the vast flow of wealth and power from themselves to MAGA-allied elites. And, the MSM does F-level (failing) work in informing the public. Some of the few people who see the danger, but are socially or economically trapped and powerless to oppose. Plenty of evidence in the public record supports all of those assertions. .... Ignorance of how much wealth and power we have lost and how much more we will lose is literally killing us and our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.

2nd note: The situation is deeply frustrating. This post started out to be about 6 bits. But each time the writing starts, questions pop up and the answers lead to new questions, and so forth. So instead of 6 bits, this wound up being 1 chunk. There is so much more to chronicle, but TL/TC/DR keeps getting in the way.

TC = too complicated

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