My Debut in The UnPopulist

What the collapses of two communist regimes teach us about the rule of law in the United States

I published my first piece in The Unpopulist yesterday, and it is accessible here.

In it I argue that the contrast between Czechoslovakia's peaceful Velvet Revolution and Romania's violent regime change offers vital lessons for Americans today about the importance of actively defending legal institutions and norms against authoritarian threats. Enjoy!

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

It seems to me that you are both overstating the extent to which Trump is eroding legal norms, and understating the extent to which they were already eroded when he took office.

A root cause of both mistakes being the failure to acknowledge the degree to which Trump is merely doing unto his foes as they had already done unto him.

But secondarilly, failing to admit the degree to which constitutional government had been compromised already by farcical doctrines designed to defeat constitutional limits on federal power.

[Absaroka]

My parents always said "two wrongs don't make a right". Did yours?

[Social Justice is neither]

So you just accept getting punched in the face repeatedly by someone that hates you and wants you dead or at least completely destroyed?

[Malika la Maize]

Is being dead < completely destroyed?

[AmosArch]

Progs are all for changing 'norms' and traditions as fast as possible when it benefits them but someone starts targeting the systems which they have built to stuff the bureaucracy with their diehard supporters, funnel money to their organizations, and wage war against the native population by importing in a more supportive voter base and make it nearly impossible to get rid of them then suddenly its too far.

Who cares that marriage was considered between a man and a woman since the beginning of civilization? Who cares that we've never had children to take drugs to 'change their gender' get with the times bigot!

We need to completely preserve sending billions of taxpayer money to NGOs that funnel it to leftwing causes and often right back to outright supporting Dems in elections. Its a several decades long tradition!

[John F. Carr]

"Finally, citizens must treat legal norms as civic obligations."

Reminds me of this recent interview with a professor of "philosophy of biology":

And so, I think, for example, going back to the issue of like social norms. So I think of social norms essentially as rules of conduct that regulate behavior in social groups in order to stabilize ultra-cooperation. And I think that you can get that through many different cognitive avenues. And one of them, I mean, the humans are the obvious example. But the best case, I think, for social norms outside of human beings is actually not in the animals you might expect. It's not... I mean, in my view, it's not in cetaceans, like dolphins and whales. It's not even in chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. And it's actually in social insects where you get a robust institutionalization of rules of conduct that are enforced by subordinates against everyone in the colony. And even chimps don't manage really to do that very well. Chimps are still structured in highly hierarchical ways where you can get turnover of dominant individuals through alliance making and so on, but you don't get rule of all by all.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/26/342-rachell-powell-on-evolutionary-convergence-morality-and-mind/ at 1:01:33.5

[Absaroka]

That's a great essay. I think there is a lesson for both sides.

It's not OK to discard norms and due process in a hurry to get what you want. It's not OK for the administration, and it's also not OK for people protesting the administration.

HT to DMN: "it's worse than a crime it's a mistake"

It's a mistake (and a crime!) to, for example, say 'screw the due process, we want big deportation numbers now'. It's also a mistake (and a crime!) to say 'ICE is behaving like goons, let's start throwing things'. Both are also counterproductive for the respective causes.

[gVOR08]

There is, of course, a difference between the former and the latter. The former is done by the government with the force of the state behind it, constrained only by the courts to the extent allowed by the current SCOTUS. The latter is done by private citizens and is curtailed by the police and the courts.

[Absaroka]

I agree with those differences. But "both are counterproductive for the respective causes".

I like a civil society where everyone's rights are respected, by both the government and private actors. So I oppose both. As do, I think, a majority of the population, especially the swing voters in the middle. Hence "it's worse than a crime it's a (tactical and strategic) mistake".