Since he's saying this under a reactionary Republican administration, does he also realize he's agreeing that they should be in charge of who qualifies for an ID card and how hard/$$ it is to get one?
MattY next week: well gosh maybe we should just consider that if gulag labor will help the economy then we should be willing to give our lives for the cause if we are called, at random, on the street, by the special police
Yglesias is one of those people who's drifting along in a temporary dream world in which he thinks there are no consequences for anything he says. Fox News, top to bottom, has that same problem.
It would be deeply unfair to accuse Matt of a "heel turn." This isn't much of a shift. But going with "hey libs let's sign up for the panopticon surveillance state" *right now* speaks to his specialness.
I am reading "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar El Akkad and there's a story in the book from his dad about a soldier in Egypt tearing up his papers. That's where Matt's idiotic ideally naturally heads. No rights without your papers, means no rights at all.
I have a passport to cross the border. Crossing the border is a legitimate reason to require proof of residency or citizenship. Within our borders, requiring people to carry ID sounds very unconstitutional, very un-American. The Fourth Amendment is just as legitimate as second.
The dangerous country where I can get robbed of my ID at any given time also wants me to make sure I keep said ID on me at all times. The US never sought nor acquired a mantle to this continent. Bragged about manifest destiny but never earned it. Can’t expect slavers to learn, except by the sword
My mom grew up in a country where people are required to have IDs on them at all times.When she was a teen she was stopped by police and her boyfriend didn't have his ID so they just took him away and detained him. My mom is scared of cops to this day.She felt safe in the US until a few weeks ago.
His political commentary career should have ended when he couldn't differentiate between the statements "90% of Democrats voted against it" and "90% of those who voted against it were Democrats."
Love to leave my wallet at home and then renditioned to a foreign concentration camp because I forgot to keep my proof of personhood with me at all times
why bother with a card? Just have a symbol or patch stitched on to your clothes. Maybe of a bold, bright color like yellow. You can even pick different patches for different types of people.
Just arranging a system of compliance where citizens can and will be challenged at random to prove citizenship, as one does in a healthy democracy. One also imagines the enforcers will be lenient and understanding, yes?
That's already the case ... in the US, you have to pay for Pre and submit to some bastard or bitch questioning you to get the same treatment people flying within EU get by default.
or go back to the notion that certain fabric colors or types of fabric or styles of clothes or jewelry could only be worn by the upper crust of society so we would all know which strata of society we were interacting with
I sincerely cannot think of a less provocative, less trolly thinker than Yglesias whose whole thing is mostly just to insist that obviously true things are in fact true.
"what if we made everyone carry documentation and set up police checkpoints everywhere? maybe we could make rectangular concrete buildings, and have lines to get bread.
"No social programs though—that's communism, i hate communism"
I can’t stop thinking about all those kids that died in Normandy, Belgium, and Anzio to name a few. They would be both furious and heartbroken over our sharp right turn into fascists.
It's an incredible argument to make, but also an incredible way to make it. It's noticeably not even saying 'we shouldn't be grabbing people off the street and sending them to foreign jails without trial, we don't even have the most basic system to make that not straight up kidnapping'
Funny thing about this idea is that it's the exact sort of thing that conservatives have lost their mind over when mentioned in any capacity. Ie gun registries.
I am open to the id of a standardized driver's license/id as I sell alcohol for a living and trying to find where the birth date is on ids I don't see much (or do see much) is a real pain. Matt here is just being a despicable asshole who will never suffer from his trash ideas.
“O say does that star spangled banner yet waaaaaave/
O’er the land of the [national ID card system], and the home of the [legal expectation to have your papers on you at all times in case your citizenship is challenged].”
Yggy care more about American freedom and human rights than a mid-90s evangelical wingnut hopped up on LaHayes’s LEFT BEHIND series, challenge level: impossible.
"if that's what conservatives want, that's what we have to do" is giving big "if you get dinner on the table fast enough, maybe he won't hit you" energy
Yes, people must STOP. Join my MYI Club today! Matt Yglesias Ignorers. We have a cheer, a secret handshake, etc. 'Matty, Matty, Who is he? We ignore him and now we're free!' ALSO 'There's a stupid guy online! We don't listen to his whine!'
Historically, Evangelicals have been EXTREMELY opposed to national ID, which they see as part of an end-times antichrist conspiracy. Not saying they won't flip for Trump, but it would be a flip.
I have travelled all over the world for more than 50 years, and with the exception of Customs/Border Controls I have never — NEVER EVER EVER — been asked for “my papers”. Not once.
idiotic
It’s interesting how people immigrate to America seeking freedom from oppressive authoritarian regimes, only to arrive and then demand that America itself become oppressive and authoritarian."
SMH
We can use passports or state-issued ID cards for proof of identification; there's a whole rent-seeking cottage industry that exists in this USA to "verify" identities. Real ID is a federal standard for state cars which will soon be required to enter federally-controlled zones (e.g., airports).
However, we are not currently required to carry around our IDs at all times on pain of being thrown into an immigration detention center if we do not have it when a law enforcement officer demands to see it.
Thanks for your time with this - Would it be fair to say the problem here is more lack of due process and checks on enforcement forces than the existence of id cards? That's how I'm interpreting this.
Was going to say he’ll turn 180° on this the moment he gets detained due to his last name, but that would require him venturing out into public (challenge level: impossible)
What if - and stay with me here - you go to that restaurant where DHS Barbie Noem had dinner and your purse gets stolen? And your magical ID card is in there?? Just wondering....
I wish there was a document that would tell your citizenship. We definitely need to create this! A little booklet with on one page, your biographical info, a picture, your DoB. Then maybe a few more pages to stamp when you cross a border, or staple a visa. A blue cover with a country symbol maybe?
Many countries have national ID cards. We accept them when you open a bank account as a foreign national. DMV could have done that with Real ID; to verify citizenship and be used for voting. That would have been cost effective. Instead, conservatives went out of their way to disenfranchise people.
And believe it or not, they often check them less than the US ... in Poland, you can fly domestically/within EU without ID, you can buy a train ticket for cash without ID, you rarely get carded for booze if you look over 20.
Well, we already have a de-facto internal passport ... can't buy an Amtrak ticket in person/for cash without ID, nor fly domestically in the US. I've done both in Poland without ID in the last 2 weeks (they check ID on trains, but only if you bought ticket online to prevent fraud/duplication).
took 25 year fight to get correct name on birth certificate. Don't think fascist bueracracy is up for the task. Even if i thought it should be a thing.
Me a white person, forgetting my national ID. A scary misunderstanding.
My married into brown side of the family and in laws forgetting their ID - immediate deportation to El Salvador Gulag from Texas 100 mile Border checkpoints.
Matty G here is basically the type of liberal that agrees with conservative policies and wants to implement them and thinks they're just being too mean about it
We need to stop listening to all these assholes. They can take their opinions to Belarus, Hungary or any of the Stans where they’d feel more at home than the US and our pesky freedoms.
Go to some of those countries and you get carded much less than in the "Land of the Fee." In some EU countries, you can even board a plane without ID, unlike in the US (flew WAW-VIE last week, all they checked was boarding pass -- basically pre-9/11-hysteria security, it was great).
How horrible to think that we all could have to carry around papers with this everywhere we go or we might be arrested. Definitely not the America I grew up in.
I know I'm being all 'racial' here, but, as a Black person living in the United States all my life, I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, this is the most #WhitePrivilege thing I have seen all day. *He* would not have to show his "card" several times a day! We brown people would! So, just stop...
Obviously this is just a special case of, How is Matt Yglesias going ensure that all and only those people who are in fact US citizens come to possess an ID card?
We have a "cédula de identidad" and EVERY PANAMANIAN CITIZEN, from the poorest of the poor to the hoity hoitiest of the rich, from the cities to the boondocks, has one.
But the country has a huge, national-level infrastructure to ensure that, in a completely neutral manner.
If you forget it at home, is the penalty being disappeared to a foreign prison? Because that's what would happen here (to certain demographic groups, at least). Yglesias might be right in a sensible country, but America is absolutely not that and probably won't be for the foreseeable future.
The fact that we don’t have a national ID card in America has apparently not protected us from deporting people to foreign prisons. I’ve become convinced that American hysteria over government ID and American hysteria over undocumented migrants are 2 sides of a coin.
i don't think it is philosophically possible to say "forgetting your ID card should be a crime and the penalty should be deportation" and not straightforwardly be a fascist
I’m from Brazil. We have a national ID card. I’m a white middle age school mom. If I forget my ID it’s not a big deal. If a black young man (working and employed) forget his, he might be lead to jail (for a while). It’s never about the ID, it’s always about prejudice.
yes this is what americans experience in cars, basically. Being in one gives cops the ability to treat you like shit (and ask for your id, of course), but not everyone gets treated like shit
I've never understood what caused Brazil to check identity documents so much. Like what happened in the past that you need to verify identity to ride a bus to the next city over?
Military dictatorship from 1964 to 85. During that period people were arrested for being against the regime. Having an ID was essential to not being arrested or killed. Yes, they were killed with no judicial process. USA is spot on that fast track. Nowadays is just heritage from those times.
he said he is "open to the idea" that "the process for determining who gets deported be a rule that you're expected to have your papers on you at all times"
lmao what do you think the consequences of being challenged re: your citizenship are when you can't produce your papers on demand at random on the street
*Currently living thru regime that renditions people based on no facts other than perceived immigration status*
"Matt DID NOT SAY you'd get deported if you don't have your citizenship card! How can you even imply that from him saying everyone should carry a card proving their immigration status?"
That would depend on the system and laws, presumably. When I lived in Japan I was "required" to have my residence card on me at all times but the punishment was not deportation. (I do not think this is a particularly desirable system but it's not wildly insane).
You're straightforwardly a liar, an idiot, or a racist (the Matt Yglesias bingo) if you think being detained by ICE because you don't have your ID (sometimes if you do) doesn't mean you're at risk of extended detention, cruel and inhumane treatment, death, or deportation
I remember my dad telling me that he was proud to be able to walk around without documentation because that was nazi stuff and we were free to just exist. I will grant, that was a privileged vantage, but at minimum I thought that was the ideal we wanted, not be on lists of who is okay and who isn’t.
This is wild since conservatives are the one’s that made a national if illegal… they were afraid it will be able kill voter fraud lies and be able to be used to hunt people down by the federal government…
I always thought we had to carry our ID, driver’s license/state ID. Because we have to produce our birth certificate, social security card, & multiple pieces of mail to get our driver’s license/state ID, you would think that counts as proof that we’re legitimately here. Disenfranchising is the point
I sincerely cannot think of a less provocative, less trolly thinker than Yglesias whose whole thing is mostly just to insist that obviously true things are in fact true.
After working at a public-facing financial institution, I’m here to note that the number of people who don’t carry any ID to facilitate anticipated transactions is shockingly high. It’s insane for anyone to think a national card to be required for 350+ million people and be logistically possible.
Matty's transphobia has now pushed him so deep into the Nazi subculture that he thinks secret police should be able to round up and disappear any American citizen they want as long as they say they didn't believe the victim when they claimed they were a citizen or legal resident.
i think he's just saying that this card doesn't exist currently, so there's no card to demand. you might have a driver's license or a passport, but there's no national ID card everyone carries. it's a very dumb point.
so "if that's what conservatives want" refers only to second part of statement--rule about having your papers on you--and he's saying that if they want that rule we need to have the national ID too. yes i think that's the right interpretation.
he believes that if the (liberals, democrats, people who are not trump) create the card that it will somehow ensure that the card's system is "fair" or whatever.
this is one of those posts that's extremely revelatory of how he thinks. very platitudes as politics without depth.
Conservatives have historically opposed national ID but would support a national "papers please" law (which is batshit). It reads funny, but I'm 99% sure what he's saying here is that conservatives would have to get on board with a national ID to get a national "papers please" law.
It's stupid and naive, but it's stupid and naive in a different way than just saying "do what the conservatives want". Or at least, with a few extra steps towards roughly the same thing 😜
I think he's trying to be clever because American conservatives have been historically hostile to federal ID programs. But apparently Noem is implementing Real ID this year so I don't think that hostility is very salient at the moment.
yeah i was just talking about that. the much bigger story here is the normalizing of the concept that its ok to send people to a death camp without their ID.
How many times do the liberals have to crack open a door on our personal freedoms just for a conservative to burst through before they get that their actions create a permission structure.
Eh, you made me look and I don’t think it’s quite that. He’s saying that conservatives who want accelerated adjudication of citizenship / legal status should support building systems to do it, but that such things are anathema to the “I ain’t going in no gubmint database” libertarian right.
I'm being a little tongue in cheek, but it does seem to me that his logical trap of: "If you want to do your fascism, you'll have to agree to my bureaucracy!" isn't as iron-clad as he's implying.
I’ve never understood the desire to be seen by many people as an asshole. I’ve certainly acted like an asshole many times in my life, but I’ve never wanted or desired everyone to be like, “he’s such an asshole.” Matt, he loves it, I’ll never understand it.
YGLESIAS: (accidentally, one presumes) actually, you know what would be easier? if people just wore something attached to their clothes that marked their identity. that way cops wouldn’t have to ask you for your ID. it could be a specific color, depending on your identity,
I think a masked man without a badge should be able to threaten people with deportation on the street, but I do think he should have to follow the rules about it 🤓
I really super duper do not think it's ok to have your citizenship challenged at any fucking time, to the point where you have to have your card all the time, actually.
*WHY* is the assumption that you'll be challenged on your citizenship SO FUCKING OFTEN that you HAVE TO HAVE PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP ON YOUR PERSON ALL DAY EVERY DAY????
Yglesias is suggesting the creation of an actual wallet inspector with enforcement powers whose job will be to make sure your wallet inspection goes wrong.
What gets me is how non committal he is about it. “I am sort of open to the idea”
You want Nazi Germany papers and you’re not even sure?? Do you want it paid for, staffed, implemented, rammed through courts so you can decide if you like it???
Even beyond the cruelty to immigrants and the racism in enforcement, under such a system the cops can simply disappear your wallet while they disappear you.
I'm old enough to remember a time when conservatives' number 2 concern (after the gov'ment taking their guns) was the creation of a national ID to track people.
please alt-text your screenshots so people who don’t want dogshit takes from people like this in our feed can mute their names and don’t have to see them
I sincerely don't know who this guy is except people I follow keep reposting him into my timeline. He appears to be a massive ... troll and I wish people would stop feeding him. Or, at least, yes, let me mute his name so I don't have to deal with his obscene takes.
Comments
https://bsky.app/profile/captainruck.bsky.social/post/3ln77elvaks23
https://www.inc.com/melissa-angell/dont-have-a-real-id-you-may-need-one-even-if-youre-not-flying/91178217
Tell him to go and fuck himself, tell his friends to do the same.
Because a man who'd trade his liberty for a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them, and neither shall he keep.”
https://open.spotify.com/track/2rLzZfoR6NbxvMYx4ltH4P?si=rC32-6iGQ4uI_7Kx_zcgCQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A0A74SLRs9XpMlbtRp1aXjP
https://immigrationhistory.org/item/geary-act/
Can the guv just kidnap/traffic you to a prison in another country and force you to work for free in a sweat shop??? No due process????
Bc that’s what I’m seeing happening and it’s anti-constitutional treason BS.
"No social programs though—that's communism, i hate communism"
and I'm afraid of questions about my id because I look different when no one is looking at me.
*beckons an agent holding zip ties and blindfolds*
-- Brave Sir Robin
O’er the land of the [national ID card system], and the home of the [legal expectation to have your papers on you at all times in case your citizenship is challenged].”
"you're expected to have your papers on you at all times"
I guess me and Mattie ain't the same
It’s interesting how people immigrate to America seeking freedom from oppressive authoritarian regimes, only to arrive and then demand that America itself become oppressive and authoritarian."
SMH
What do you use to confirm your ID when filling out governmental papers, or just general proof of identification?
In Canada, most use a driver's license, but those who don't drive can apply for a services card, like this one.
It's the only way.
https://bsky.app/profile/wheatulrich.bsky.social/post/3lmxam5oz3c2l
wired: "government can ask for proof of your identity whenever they feel like it."
My married into brown side of the family and in laws forgetting their ID - immediate deportation to El Salvador Gulag from Texas 100 mile Border checkpoints.
Citizen until proven non-citizen.
The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused.
It’s clear at this point, we have to bypass these freaks. They are too far gone.
Woosh!
We have a "cédula de identidad" and EVERY PANAMANIAN CITIZEN, from the poorest of the poor to the hoity hoitiest of the rich, from the cities to the boondocks, has one.
But the country has a huge, national-level infrastructure to ensure that, in a completely neutral manner.
(The potential for non-arbitrary enforcement is considered unconscionable.)
The second was not.
"Matt DID NOT SAY you'd get deported if you don't have your citizenship card! How can you even imply that from him saying everyone should carry a card proving their immigration status?"
He's "open" to me having to carry around some sort ID all the time lest I get gulag'd?!?
Fuck off, man. No. I'm not doing that.
it doesn't happen often, but it still sucks when it does.
this is one of those posts that's extremely revelatory of how he thinks. very platitudes as politics without depth.
It's stupid and naive, but it's stupid and naive in a different way than just saying "do what the conservatives want". Or at least, with a few extra steps towards roughly the same thing 😜
(naked man in public fountain logic)
How fucking up his ass IS he?
Deport Matt first.
You want Nazi Germany papers and you’re not even sure?? Do you want it paid for, staffed, implemented, rammed through courts so you can decide if you like it???