I don’t believe that in a world without pro-Palestinian protests, Trump would be noticeably less pro-Israel.
The first Trump administration did not take actions such as:
deporting foreigners who expressed active support for Palestine on social media
cutting off funding from top universities whose student body was deemed too supportive of Palestinian terrorism
assert Harvard engaged in “violent violation” of civil rights law by creating a campus environment Jewish students found unsafe because university leadership did not crack down on campus protests to a sufficient extent
Regardless of whether you think these actions taken by Trump 2.0 are desirable or undesirable, I know Trump 1.0 did not engage in them.
The question is not whether Trump, in his heart of hearts, was more or less pro-Israel in his first term. The point we’re focused on here is whether pro-Palestinian protests created significant backlash from the Trump administration, which it demonstrably did: Trump 2.0 took pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian activism actions that it had never done prior to the protests themselves.
I think some of the Supreme Court justices appointed under Trump aren’t that extreme and refused to given in to his pressure.
I didn’t say Supreme Court justices. The most Trump-following judges that have been appointed and confirmed are mostly at the other levels of the judicial branch, namely federal district and appellate court judges (such as Judge Cannon in the Southern District of Florida and Judge Ho at the 5th Circuit). Since the Supreme Court resolves an ever-shrinking percentage of cases it receives certiorari on, more and more of the legal developments that affect the status quo are being resolved by such judges.[1]
And while I don’t want to turn this into a discussion about SCOTUS itself, when it came to the most important Trump-related matters before it in the past year-and-a-half (namely Trump v. Anderson on Trump’s personal eligibility for the presidency, and Trump v. Casa, Inc. on the viability of national injunctions preventing the Trump administration from enacting its executive orders on stuff like birthright citizenship), the court sided with Trump every time.
There were many points of concern raised earlier this year about what would happen if Trump were to receive a negative response from SCOTUS on a major issue (would he abide by it, or create a constitutional crisis by defying them?). Thus far, this potential problem has been dodged because SCOTUS has not given him any serious thumbs-down on anything major.
But even if it’s true that the Trump administration is making these structural changes, it still doesn’t feel intuitive to me that e.g., a stronger anti-abortion policy under Democrats, would cause Trump to get elected, which would cause structural changes, which would cause a weaker anti-abortion policy in the future. The influence is diluted through each of these causes, such that the resulting effect is probably pretty small compared to the straightforward effect “a stronger anti-abortion policy today makes the default anti-abortion policy for the future stronger.”
This is a strange example to pick, because a careful analysis of it reveals the complete opposite of what you’re claiming.[2]Roe v. Wade created the anti-abortion movement as a genuine national force with strong religious and political backing,[3] whereas it hadn’t existed (outside of tiny, local groups) before. This created a steady supply of single-issue Republican voters for decades, ever-tightening controls and restrictions in Red states, and eventually an overruling of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson resulting in even stricter regimes than what had been prevalent at common law (see: quickening and the academic debate over it).
it’s rational to expect efforts which empirically appear to work
What… empirics are you talking about? I’ve seen no empirical analysis from you on any of these topics.
I don’t have the energy right now to explain the intricacies of the American judicial branch, but I fear the fact you jumped directly to the Supreme Court when a careful observer of it knows the vast majority of relevant developments in law happen in district courts and appellate circuits reflects that I perhaps should
In fact, the decades-long fight over abortion is the quintessential example of how activism and policy changes lead to significant backlash moving forward; I genuinely don’t think I could have possibly picked a better example to illustrate my case
Trump 2.0 being more pro-Israel could be due to him being more extreme in all directions (perhaps due to new staff members, vice president, I don’t know), rather than due to pro-Palestinian protests.
The counter-reaction are against the protesters, not the cause itself. The Vietnam War protests also created a counter-reaction against the protesters, despite successfully ending the war.
I suspect for a lot of these pressure campaigns which work, the target has a tendency to pretend he isn’t backing down due to the campaign (but other reasons), or act like he’s not budging at all until finally giving in. The target doesn’t want people to think that pressure campaigns work on him, the target wants people to think that any pressure him will only get a counter-reaction out of him, in order to discourage others from pressuring him.
You’re probably right about the courts though, I didn’t know that.
I agree that there is more anti-abortion efforts due to Roe v. Wade, but I disagree that these efforts actually overshot to a point where restrictions on abortion are even harsher than they would be if Roe v. Wade never happened. I still think it moved the Overton window such that even conservatives feel abortion is kind of normal, maybe bad, but not literally like killing a baby.
The people angry against affirmative action have a strong feeling that different races should get the same treatment e.g. when applying to university. I don’t think any of them overshot into wanting to bring back segregation or slavery.
Oops, “efforts which empirically appear to work” was referring to how the book, If Anyone Builds, It Everyone Dies attracted many big name endorsements who aren’t known for endorsing AI x-risk concerns until now.
The first Trump administration did not take actions such as:
deporting foreigners who expressed active support for Palestine on social media
cutting off funding from top universities whose student body was deemed too supportive of Palestinian terrorism
assert Harvard engaged in “violent violation” of civil rights law by creating a campus environment Jewish students found unsafe because university leadership did not crack down on campus protests to a sufficient extent
Regardless of whether you think these actions taken by Trump 2.0 are desirable or undesirable, I know Trump 1.0 did not engage in them.
The question is not whether Trump, in his heart of hearts, was more or less pro-Israel in his first term. The point we’re focused on here is whether pro-Palestinian protests created significant backlash from the Trump administration, which it demonstrably did: Trump 2.0 took pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian activism actions that it had never done prior to the protests themselves.
I didn’t say Supreme Court justices. The most Trump-following judges that have been appointed and confirmed are mostly at the other levels of the judicial branch, namely federal district and appellate court judges (such as Judge Cannon in the Southern District of Florida and Judge Ho at the 5th Circuit). Since the Supreme Court resolves an ever-shrinking percentage of cases it receives certiorari on, more and more of the legal developments that affect the status quo are being resolved by such judges.[1]
And while I don’t want to turn this into a discussion about SCOTUS itself, when it came to the most important Trump-related matters before it in the past year-and-a-half (namely Trump v. Anderson on Trump’s personal eligibility for the presidency, and Trump v. Casa, Inc. on the viability of national injunctions preventing the Trump administration from enacting its executive orders on stuff like birthright citizenship), the court sided with Trump every time.
There were many points of concern raised earlier this year about what would happen if Trump were to receive a negative response from SCOTUS on a major issue (would he abide by it, or create a constitutional crisis by defying them?). Thus far, this potential problem has been dodged because SCOTUS has not given him any serious thumbs-down on anything major.
This is a strange example to pick, because a careful analysis of it reveals the complete opposite of what you’re claiming.[2] Roe v. Wade created the anti-abortion movement as a genuine national force with strong religious and political backing,[3] whereas it hadn’t existed (outside of tiny, local groups) before. This created a steady supply of single-issue Republican voters for decades, ever-tightening controls and restrictions in Red states, and eventually an overruling of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson resulting in even stricter regimes than what had been prevalent at common law (see: quickening and the academic debate over it).
What… empirics are you talking about? I’ve seen no empirical analysis from you on any of these topics.
I don’t have the energy right now to explain the intricacies of the American judicial branch, but I fear the fact you jumped directly to the Supreme Court when a careful observer of it knows the vast majority of relevant developments in law happen in district courts and appellate circuits reflects that I perhaps should
In fact, the decades-long fight over abortion is the quintessential example of how activism and policy changes lead to significant backlash moving forward; I genuinely don’t think I could have possibly picked a better example to illustrate my case
Along with strengthening the power of the originalist strain of thought within judicial and legal academia circles
Trump 2.0 being more pro-Israel could be due to him being more extreme in all directions (perhaps due to new staff members, vice president, I don’t know), rather than due to pro-Palestinian protests.
The counter-reaction are against the protesters, not the cause itself. The Vietnam War protests also created a counter-reaction against the protesters, despite successfully ending the war.
I suspect for a lot of these pressure campaigns which work, the target has a tendency to pretend he isn’t backing down due to the campaign (but other reasons), or act like he’s not budging at all until finally giving in. The target doesn’t want people to think that pressure campaigns work on him, the target wants people to think that any pressure him will only get a counter-reaction out of him, in order to discourage others from pressuring him.
You’re probably right about the courts though, I didn’t know that.
I agree that there is more anti-abortion efforts due to Roe v. Wade, but I disagree that these efforts actually overshot to a point where restrictions on abortion are even harsher than they would be if Roe v. Wade never happened. I still think it moved the Overton window such that even conservatives feel abortion is kind of normal, maybe bad, but not literally like killing a baby.
The people angry against affirmative action have a strong feeling that different races should get the same treatment e.g. when applying to university. I don’t think any of them overshot into wanting to bring back segregation or slavery.
Oops, “efforts which empirically appear to work” was referring to how the book, If Anyone Builds, It Everyone Dies attracted many big name endorsements who aren’t known for endorsing AI x-risk concerns until now.