December 30, 2020

Buying off fascist voters

Buying off fascist voters
What Josh Hawley is teaching us.
https://stoehr.substack.com/p/buying-off-fascist-voters

Josh Hawley is the junior US senator from Missouri. He made news this morning, saying he’d help the president in his attempt to stay in power by objecting to the certification of electors on Jan. 6. That means the US Senate will debate the merits of the allegations, which are nil, before voting to approve the Electoral College vote.

Hawley is expected to be one of the leading GOP candidates in the 2024 election. The conventional wisdom says he’s doing this to get as much attention as he can from Donald Trump’s loyalest supporters. While I’m usually skeptical of the conventional wisdom, I think it’s right this time. Hawley isn’t going to the wall for Trump. In the end, he’ll vote to approve Joe Biden’s victory. This is sound and fury, but also nothing.

What’s interesting, I think, is Hawley’s opposition to Mitch McConnell—or at least the appearance of opposition. The Senate majority leader does not want to go through this song and dance, but inst7ead get on with the business of sabotaging the new president’s administration. McConnell knows Hawley’s gambit will fail, and fears failing to stop what the president is calling a stolen election might harm Kelly Loeffler’s and David Perdue’s reelection prospects, which will determine which party controls the Senate.

Hawley opposes, or at least appears to oppose, McConnell is another way. The top congressional Republican does not support giving each American $2,000 per month in covid-related economic relief, because Americans who are suffering are more likely to blame the guy in charge, which is to say Joe Biden, than they are the Republican Party. McConnell did the same thing to Barack Obama. When the former president asked the Republicans for help rebuilding America in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial panic, McConnell said his first priority was making sure Obama was a one-term president.

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December 13, 2020

A 20-Year-Old GOP Strategy Drew the Road Map for Trump's Attempted Coup

A 20-Year-Old GOP Strategy Drew the Road Map for Trump’s Attempted Coup
Why George W. Bush succeeded where Trump failed
https://gen.medium.com/a-20-year-old-gop-strategy-drew-the-road-map-for-trumps-attempted-coup-2e38260e5ff7

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Writing in The Atlantic, Zeynep Tufecki captured the sentiments of many when she argued that Trump is “establishing a playbook for stealing elections by mobilizing executive, judicial, and legislative power to support the attempt.” A smarter politician will have greater success, or so the argument goes.

But, in reality, that playbook is well-established and has already been executed.

It was 20 years ago this week that the Supreme Court issued its decision in Bush v. Gore, effectively handing the presidency to George W. Bush for an election he quite likely did not win.

The 2000 election was the most contested and narrowly decided presidential vote in more than 120 years. Bush lost the popular vote by half a million votes to his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, and his margin of victory in the decisive state of Florida was a mere 537 votes.

It's almost certain that more people in Florida intended to vote for Gore, and had all the state’s votes been counted, Democrats would have kept control of the White House. But due to an aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach by Republicans, as well as the unprecedented intervention of the United States Supreme Court, the doomsaying predictions of 2020 came true two decades ago.

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Arguably, the primary reason why secretaries of state like Brad Raffensperger in Georgia did not act like Katherine Harris and federal judges did not invoke Bush v. Gore in helping Trump’s legal effort is that the election simply wasn’t close enough to steal.

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December 1, 2020

The junior tea party

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/30/republicans-freedom-force-squad-burgess-owens?

A group of incoming Republican congresspeople intends to counter the “radical agenda” of the Democratic party, with the self-professed goal of becoming the Republican party’s alternative to “the Squad” – a group of progressive congresswomen of color including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

Calling themselves the Freedom Force, the Republicans say they will combat the “evil” of socialism and Marxism.

“We love our nation. This group will be talking against and giving a contrast to the hard left. We have the Freedom Force versus Squad; we have a group of people who believe in our country, believe in God, family, respect for women and authority, and another group who hates everything I just mentioned,” the Utah congressman-elect Burgess Owens told the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, speaking as a representative of the Freedom Force.

Owens said the group would aim to protect small business owners and the middle class. “Business ownership is the foundation of our freedom,” he said on Fox & Friends Weekend. “It’s where our middle class comes from.” He added that the middle class got its power from small businesses, while the left got its power “from misery.

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As a final warning to Democrats, he added: “You’re collateral damage if you run a business and you want to go to church and you want to put your kids in school; you’re collateral damage – that’s the way the evil Marxists and socialists roll.”

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November 30, 2020

The GOP: A party that cannot change

The GOP: A party that cannot change
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/29/gop-party-that-cannot-change/

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Swap out “Green New Deal” for “Obamacare” or the “Clinton health-care plan,” and those sentences could have been spoken by any Republican in the past 20 years. Blunt went a little further than his new colleagues, and suggested Medicare and Medicaid might have been mistakes.

It is probably unrealistic to expect the GOP tune to change. Blunt rose to national prominence during the 1990s, when a Democrat left the country in decent shape, but conservative hysteria, driven by right-wing media, led to the election of a Republican who threw all that away with reckless decisions.

Malliotakis and Mace are entering Washington four years after another Democrat left the country in decent shape, but conservative hysteria, driven by right-wing media, led to the election of a Republican who threw all that away with reckless decisions.

Yes, the blunders differ — a disastrous war and a recession for Bush; a horrific pandemic “response” and a near-total loss of norms for Trump. Trumpism lacks the niceties that led too many observers to give “compassionate conservatism” the benefit of the doubt 20 years ago. And today’s GOP is far more open about its contempt for American ideals of equality and justice than 20 years ago.

The Republican Party of 2020 may look different from its earlier incarnations, but the fundamentals remain the same: The party is fearful of change, partial to fearmongering, hostile to free elections and running short on competence.

Don’t be surprised if the GOP of 2030 looks a lot like that, too.

November 11, 2020

The Long Shadow of the Reagan Years

The Long Shadow of the Reagan Years
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/opinion/donald-trump-reagan.html

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The upheavals of our current era did not begin with Donald Trump, nor will they end now that he has been defeated. Nov. 4, 1980, was 40 years ago, a long time ago now. But in so many ways the cataclysms of 1980 created the world we live in today.

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For the life of me I have never been able to understand how so many Republicans talk about their patriotism and their love of the flag and at the same time despise the very government the Constitution created. Is that what patriotism means now — hating governance, but getting all teary-eyed and sentimental about Exxon Mobil?

It’s this enduring frame of mind that still eats away at us. It explains, just to pick one example, Republicans’ hatred of the Affordable Care Act — and why they’ve been trying to repeal it for all these years, even while swearing that they’ll protect so many of its provisions.

Because since Mr. Reagan, it’s been apostasy to suggest that good governance could ever do anything to improve people’s lives. Even the resistance to mask-wearing can arguably be traced back to November 1980: Just look at all the people who find that a mandate to wear a mask to keep other people from actually dying is somehow suppression of their freedom.

Sure, blame Donald Trump for his inept pandemic response. But blame Ronald Reagan for encouraging people to hate their own government, or to view an individual sacrifice for the common good as some kind of tyranny. The pending erasure of Mr. Trump from the White House means that the tone will change in January, from cruelty to kindness, from narcissism to empathy. But Joe Biden will find it a greater challenge to alter the core belief, now held by so many Americans, that their government is the gravest threat to their freedom.

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November 10, 2020

A Bill Barr politicized investigation altered documents...We should assume it will happen again.

THE LAST TIME BILLY BARR ORDERED A POLITICIZED INVESTIGATION, DOJ ALTERED DOCUMENTS FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/11/10/the-last-time-billy-barr-ordered-a-politicized-investigation-doj-altered-documents-for-public-consumption/

It is a fact that someone (or someones) who were part of the Jeffrey Jensen review of the Mike Flynn prosecution altered documents for public consumption. That is not speculation. It is not hyperbole. It is a fact, one that other outlets had better start replicating and enhancing if they want to prevent Barr’s green light on investigations into election irregularities, announced last night, from doing the same.

At a minimum, DOJ removed protective order footers from a set of documents shared with Sidney Powell on September 23, in advance of the first debate.

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But those aren’t the only pieces of evidence that the Jeffrey Jensen investigation evolved from inventing an excuse to blow up the Flynn prosecution into an opportunity to set up campaign attacks for the President. Pro-Trump FBI Agent Bill Barnett gave an interview that was materially inconsistent with his actions during the Flynn investigation (and that claimed to be unaware of key pieces of evidence against Flynn). When DOJ released it, they redacted it in such a way as to hide complimentary comments from Barnett about Brandon Van Grack that would have completely undermined DOJ’s claimed reasons to throw out Flynn’s prosecution.

There are more signs of irregularities with this “investigation.” But this list by itself proves that DOJ, in an investigation personally ordered up by Billy Barr, used the “investigation” to package up propaganda to help Donald Trump. The package even seems to have served to tee up an attack Trump made on Joe Biden in the first debate.

As noted, last night Barr authorized what had previously been forbidden for over forty years, DOJ’s conduct of investigations into claims of irregularities ginned up by the very same lawyers — Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani — who invented the complaints about the Flynn prosecution. One of Barr’s investigations has already altered official documents to sustain false claims. That means there’s reason to believe he would do it again, to serve the same cause. Indeed, Trump’s election loss gives Barr’s a greater incentive to repeat the process, to ensure he is not replaced by someone who would treat these alterations as a crime.

A Bill Barr politicized investigation altered documents to serve propaganda in the past. We should assume it will happen again.

September 20, 2020

If McConnell pushes through a nominee, President Biden should pack the court

If McConnell pushes through a nominee, President Biden should pack the court
Republicans have put party over principle. Biden can do something about it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/19/mcconnell-biden-pack-court/

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Democrats have only one play here: If Trump and McConnell jam an appointee through, it is not enough for Democrats to raise hell about the hypocrisy, the duplicity and the Republican refusal to play by McConnell’s own rules. It is not enough to target every Republican senator who goes along. It is not enough to have voters bombard their Republican senators’ offices with phone calls and protests. Because those things have been happening for four years, and none of them have persuaded the GOP to put the stability of the country or the obligations of office ahead of that party’s thirst for power.

So Democrats should threaten to pack the court. And, if McConnell pushes through a new justice and then Joe Biden wins, they should follow through.

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With an election looming, Democrats can give voters a say. If they vow to expand the court, then Americans can cast their ballots with that in mind. Key to the message should be that McConnell and Senate Republicans have so repeatedly broken the rules, rigged the game and stolen victories that it’s become impossible to play on neutral turf. As Murkowski put it, fair is fair.

It’s a shame we’re here. But to restore a democracy that has been battered, bruised and robbed blind by the president and his party, Democrats will need to fight harder. If Republicans steal this seat, the only reasonable response is to change the number of judges on the bench.

September 17, 2020

The Media Learned Nothing From 2016

The Media Learned Nothing From 2016
The press hasn’t broken its most destructive habits when it comes to covering Donald Trump.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/media-mistakes/616222/?utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2020-09-15T10%3A15%3A01&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=the-atlantic

We’re seeing a huge error, and a potential tragedy, unfold in real time.

That’s a sentence that could apply to countless aspects of economic, medical, governmental, and environmental life at the moment. What I have in mind, though, is the almost unbelievable failure of much of the press to respond to the realities of the Trump age.

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Also in pursuit of the ritual of balance, the networks offset coverage of Donald Trump’s ethical liabilities and character defects, which would have proved disqualifying in any other candidate for nearly any other job, with intense investigation of what they insisted were Hillary Clinton’s serious email problems. Six weeks before the election, Gallup published a prophetic analysis showing what Americans had heard about each candidate. For Trump, the words people most recognized from all the coverage were speech, immigration, and Mexico. For Clinton, one word dwarfed all others: EMAIL. The next two on the list, much less recognized, were lie and Foundation. (The Clinton Foundation, set up by Bill Clinton, was the object of sustained scrutiny for supposedly shady dealings that amount to an average fortnight’s revelations for the Trump empire.) One week before the election, The New York Times devoted the entire top half of its front page to stories about FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of an investigation into the emails. “New Emails Jolt Clinton Campaign in Race’s Last Days” was the headline on the front page’s lead story. “With 11 Days to Go, Trump Says Revelation ‘Changes Everything,’” read another front-page headline.

Just last week came a fresh reminder of the egregiousness of that coverage, often shorthanded as “But her emails!” On Wednesday, September 9, Bob Woodward’s tapes of Trump saying that when it came to the coronavirus, he “wanted to always play it down” came out, along with a whistleblower’s claim that the Department of Homeland Security was falsifying intelligence to downplay the risk of Russian election interference and violence from white supremacists. On the merits, either of those stories was far more important than Comey’s short-lived inquiry into what was always an overhyped scandal. But in this election season, each got a demure one-column headline on the Times’ front page. The Washington Post, by contrast, gave Woodward’s revelations banner treatment across its front page.

Who knows how the 2016 race might have turned out, and whether a man like Trump could have ended up in the position he did, if any of a hundred factors had gone a different way. But one important factor was the press’s reluctance to recognize what it was dealing with: a person nakedly using racial resentment as a tool; whose dishonesty and corruption dwarfed that of both Clintons combined, with most previous presidents’ thrown in as well; and whose knowledge about the vast organization he was about to control was inferior to that of any Capitol Hill staffer and most immigrants who had passed the (highly demanding) U.S. citizenship test.

Now it’s four years later. And we’re waking up in Groundhog Day, but so far without Bill Murray’s eventual, hard-earned understanding that he could learn new skills as time went on. For Murray, those were things like playing the piano and speaking French. For the press, in these next 49 days, those can be grappling with (among other things) three of the most destructive habits in dealing with Donald Trump. For shorthand, they are the embrace of false equivalence, or both-sides-ism; the campaign-manager mentality, or horse-race-ism; and the love of spectacle, or going after the ratings and the clicks.

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August 23, 2020

the party increasingly radicalized in every election cycle...

How Donald Trump canceled the Republican party
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/23/how-donald-trump-canceled-republican-party-sidney-blumenthal-lincoln

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The Republican party has been on a long journey away from being the party of Abraham Lincoln, accelerating since Barry Goldwater and rightwing cadres captured it in 1964 in reaction to the civil rights movement. After Richard Nixon embraced the southern strategy and won the nomination in 1968 with the help of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the Dixiecrat segregationist presidential candidate in 1948, the party increasingly radicalized in every election cycle and became gradually unmoored. In 1980, Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair, the place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. Surrounded by Confederate flags, he hailed “states’ rights”. As brazen an appeal as it was, Reagan felt he had to resort to the old code words.

Central to Trump’s unique selling proposition is that he dispenses with the dog whistles. His vulgarity gives a vicarious thrill to those who revel in his taunting of perceived enemies or scapegoats. He made them feel dominant at no social price, until his catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Flouting a mask is the magical act of defiance to signal that nothing has really changed and that in any case, Trump bears no responsibility.

But there has also been a political cost to Trump’s louche comic lounge act that still transfixes a diehard audience lingering like late-night gamblers for the last show. Trump is the only president since the advent of modern polling never to reach 50% approval. Despite decisively losing the popular vote in 2016, he said he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”. This time, fearing an even more overwhelming popular rejection, he says the outcome will be “rigged” and he has pre-emptively tried to cancel the US Postal Service, to undermine voting by mail.

From Reagan onward, even as the fringe moved to the center and took it over, the party did not anticipate that it was slouching toward Trump. Conservatives have consistently failed to grasp the unintended consequences of conservatism. Even when Reagan fostered the evangelical right, George HW Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the supreme court, George W Bush invaded Iraq and neglected oversight of financial markets that collapsed, and John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, Republicans believed they were expanding the attraction of the conservative project. When Newt Gingrich, Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh methodically degraded language, it seemed a propaganda technique to herd supporters. When the dark money of the Koch family and the wealthy reactionaries of the cloaked Donors Trust bankrolled the lumpen dress-up Tea Party to do their bidding on deregulation of finance and industry, the munificently funded conservative candidates did their bidding as retainers of privilege.

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August 1, 2020

Republicans Resume Fear-Mongering About The Debt. Don't Believe Them

Republicans Resume Fear-Mongering About The Debt. Don’t Believe Them.
Helping working people will not hurt the economy.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/forget-the-debt-republican_n_5f248bb2c5b6a34284bac085

Senate Budget Committee Chair Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) last week gave an ominous speech prophesying the economic horrors facing America as a result of its terrifying national debt.

Relief spending on the coronavirus crisis pushed the country into uncharted territory, Enzi warned. By next year, we will surpass even the debt burdens imposed by World War II, he added. Inflation will rise like a beast from the depths to devour household savings. The economy will collapse, and future generations will be ravaged.

“Our grandkids will find all their money has been spent, and all they can do is pay more taxes,” Enzi argued.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) reiterated the message on C-SPAN Wednesday, calling the public debt “the greatest threat to our country right now.” Not COVID-19, not terrorism, not rising authoritarian political movements abroad. “It is our national debt that will take us down,” Buck said.

Both Buck and Enzi are following through on a rhetorical strategy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) unveiled back in April when — after overseeing accelerating deficits throughout Donald Trump’s presidency — he suddenly cautioned that coronavirus relief must be limited out of “genuine concern” about the national debt. Conservative media are already attacking Joe Biden as a big-spending debt addict in thrall to the far left.

This is an old game, dishonest and unsophisticated. When Republicans have power, they cut taxes for wealthy people and spend like crazy on the military. (And banks and oil companies.) When Democrats are in power ― or when proposals to help working people are on the legislative table ― Republicans suddenly insist that adding to the national debt will bring a swift cataclysm.

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