Tag: donald-trump

The Crisis for Democracy Takes a Very Weird Turn

Published on by thekingsnecktie2 Comments

Well, this is a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

For the past eight years, I’ve been among the tens of millions singularly focused on getting a neo-fascist would-be despot in a red ballcap out of the Oval Office and keeping him out. Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to American democracy—at this point, file that under “dog bites man.” Approaching the 2024 election, his third attempt to take power (he’s batting .500 so far), right wing voter suppression, electoral subversion, and political violence all seemed likely to be key factors that might vault him back into office and put an end to 240 years of participatory democracy in the United States. But while a white nationalist autocracy remains very much a threat, more than ever in fact, the likely means of its ascent suddenly looks radically different.                                                         

Show of hands: who thought Joe Biden’s stubbornness would be the thing that ultimately toppled American democracy by letting Trump back in office?

I fear that’s where we’re headed unless a dramatic change takes place tout suite.

STAND DOWN MARGARET JOE

Lots of informed, serious voices on the left have continued to call for Biden to face reality and do the right thing for the good of the republic. Prominent among them, George Clooney made news yesterday with an op-ed in the New York Times politely but firmly calling for Biden to step aside. (For that matter, the Times’s own editorial board had published a similarly scathing plea only two days before. )

Naturally, conservatives will sneer (“Shut up and act!)”; the only actors who they think are entitled to political opinions are Scott Baio and Kirk Cameron. Even some Democrats will bristle at such boldness, a new high watermark for Hollywood chutzpah, especially for a party that has long been scorned for its showbiz connections. But George’s essay was eloquent, respectful, and right on target. He is leveraging his fame and influence for good, and good on him. Best of all, as an insider who just appeared at a massive fundraising event for Biden only eleven days before the disastrous debate, he could attest firsthand to the President’s diminished acuity.

Hey, maybe Clooney can be president. I’d take him over any Republican you care to name. But he’s just an actor, you say! Hell, so is Trump….in fact, Trump’s not even an actor, he’s just a game show host.

Meanwhile, Republican strategists reportedly are planning for a Trump landslide, and they might not be wrong. (Even Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, has warned of it, on national television no less.) We always assumed this race would be razor close, like the last two, even though in any rational world Biden would be winning by 30 points. (This just in: we ain’t in no rational world.) Instead we may be looking not only at a loss, but a blowout for the neo-fascist party, as gobsmacking and shameful as that would be as an indictment of the American character for all the world to see.  

For several years now, while livid at the neo-fascists of the Republican Party, I’ve also been angry at my own feckless side for mounting an insufficiently robust campaign to defeat them. But now that anger at the left has passed into a new dimension, one of utter disgust, and weirdly, it is making me slightly less furious with the right. Sure, they’re monsters. But who can blame them for taking over the country when we’ve made it so easy for them to do so? If we’re gonna commit political malpractice by sticking with Biden, the GOP deserves to win.

Down on the South Jersey shore last weekend, the oats-feeling among the denizens of MAGA Nation was palpable. Houses that in the past have flown Trump flags but had taken them down over the past few years had them back up again. Big-ass Jeeps and pickup trucks with Blue Lives Matter and Punisher decals, cruising around flying giant American and Trump flags, were far more prevalent than they have been of late, not to mention a noticeable uptick in the number of assholes yelling insults at me because of the Biden sticker on my car. There were even giant Trump flags being flown by sunbathers on the beach. (So pleasant!)

These people are clearly emboldened, convinced now that they are going to win in November and preparing for the retribution that will follow. But I shouldn’t say “retribution,” because there is nothing they have been targeted for or victimized by that they should seek retribution for. They purely want to exercise their power over those they hate. And even though they are a minority, we seem like we are foolishly going to put them in a position to do it.

WILL ROGERS, ORGANIZATION EXPERT

As I noted last week, Joe Biden deserves Olympian credit for all he has done to save the country after the nightmare of the Trump years. But if he stubbornly insists on remaining the Democratic nominee—which is to say, if we let him do that—he will destroy his legacy. In that event, as a John the Baptist-like Mark Leibovich has been saying long before the debate, and long before this view became commonplace in the Democratic Party, Joe will be remembered only for the final act of his political career, not the massive good he did between 2016 and now.

But clearly Biden himself cannot see that.

To that point, Democratic leaders were said to be as alarmed by Biden’s laissez faire, business-as-usual reaction in response to the debate debacle as they were by the debate itself, a sign that he truly did not appreciate how bad that performance was. He certainly did not mount an all-hands-on-deck campaign of damage control, and the measures he did take, like the Stephanopoulos interview, didn’t come close to repairing the damage. What could? Even if he had knocked it out of the park it wouldn’t have been enough. And he didn’t. (It was more like a groundout to first.)

The exchange with George that particularly infuriated many was this one:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you’re warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?

BIDEN: I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.

No, that is NOT what this is all about.

But as my friend Aaron Naperstak says, as long as Joe gets his participation trophy…..

Far be it from me to question the political instincts of a man who was first elected to the US Senate while I was still in short pants, but Joe Biden is beginning to look like he’s suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to his assessment of the state of the race. Many pundits have noted the irony that in his belief that he alone can beat Trump (a second time), he is skirting dangerously close to Trump’s own egomaniacal “I alone can fix it” mentality.

To quote another US president: I cannot tell a lie. I am losing patience with him and his ego.

Joe is beginning to remind me of Hindenburg, another enfeebled head of state who facilitated the rise of a dictatorial monster. (Volker Ullrich fans: I know it’s not a perfect analogy. Paul was cajoled—or strongarmed—into powersharing with a despot-in-waiting. Joe seems poised, out of sheer ego and obstinance, to allow one to seize power. But indulge me.)

One narrative is that Democratic “elites” are calling for Biden’s head over the will of “the people,” whom, we are told, don’t even remember the debate! (Debate? What debate?). But as Ezra Klein and Tim Miller recently discussed, the actual evidence shows just the opposite: it’s Democratic power brokers who—thus far, at least in public—are defending Biden against a groundswell of public sentiment that, we love ya, Joe, but ya gotta go.

Is it hard to retire and leave the spotlight at the end of an illustrious career? Sure. Ask Brett Favre, or Willie Mays. But it’s not up to the player, or shouldn’t be, especially when the stakes are this high. With all due respect to Joe and all he has done for this country, we cannot let him hold the party, the election, and the country hostage. If we do, per above, we’ll get what we deserve.

INFLECTION POINT AHEAD

Before the debate, I was firmly in the camp of “Don’t knock Biden, it only helps Trump.” But after the debate, that no longer obtains. I won’t fault SNL for mocking Joe when it returns in the fall, which used to enrage me. The damage is done, and we would do well to acknowledge it and fix the problem while we can. Saying out loud that he’s a dead man walking—politically speaking—is not going to hurt him any more than he’s already hurt himself, or than pretending he can win is going to make it happen.

That said:

The time is approaching when I will stop writing screeds on this topic. If Joe Biden does not soon step aside, or is forced aside, if he is the nominee of his party after the Democratic National Convention in (gulp) Chicago next month, there will no longer be any point in bemoaning his liabilities. At that point, such complaints will in fact only do harm. If Joe is the nominee, I will STFU and concentrate on making the case that, old and doddering or not, he still represents an infinitely infinitely infinitely better choice than a openly corrupt convicted felon, serial liar, adjudicated sex offender, racist, misogynist, seditionist whose party has openly published its plans to destroy the United States as we know it.

However, I will have a hard time making that case to my snickering conservative friends who for months (years, even) have been bathing in a vicious right wing campaign to portray Biden as old and senile. That’s a hard portrait to counter when Joe goes on national TV and seems to prove it.

In the past two weeks, the people of Britain have ejected the Tories after 14 years in power, the people of Iran defied the odds and elected a reformist (by Iranian standards) who favors a nuclear deal with the US (making him saner than any Republican), and the French left and center made a sensible deal to keep LePen and her Vichy Redux party out of power. Can we Americans prove ourselves as wise and as grownup as our foreign friends?

There is still time for us to change course and get a stronger candidate atop the ticket. Soon there will not be. The proof of the wisdom of that course of action is that the Republicans are terrified of it.

If the Democratic Party can’t get its act together sufficiently to deal with this situation and do the sensible thing for itself and the country in the midst of this epic existential crisis, my middling disgust with the Party—heretofore massively overwhelmed by my Everest-sized loathing for the fascist, Trumpified GOP—will turn to open contempt. And I won’t be alone. We’ve watched the Republican party destroy itself, morphing into a death cult of personality. If the Dems botch this, and if Trump wins and has a downballot coattail effect that carries into the House and Senate (in addition to the Supreme Court he already owns), and if he wields absolute power in a second term, come 2028 there may be no more Democratic Party left to pity and mourn.

Tick tock, and watch this space.

*********

Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

SEAL Team Six

Published on by thekingsnecktie8 Comments

So let me get this straight. One party is running a presidential candidate who has been convicted of 34 felonies, is an adjudicated sex offender, summoned a violent mob to try to overturn a free and fair election, and has promised to be a dictator who would openly shred the Constitution, to list just a few items on his CV. And it’s the OTHER CANDIDATE who is facing cries from his party to step off the ticket?

Now, that may seem like the start to a “Stick with Biden” plea. It’s not. The pro-democracy movement in this country is in a five-alarm emergency. But it is a good starting point for a survey of an absolutely terrible week for the prospect that we will be able to keep the dark night of fascism from descending upon these United States.

IRONY DIED IN ATLANTA

There is no denying what happened on the CNN debate stage in Atlanta last Thursday night.

For many months the Republican Party has been painting an outrageous portrait of Joe Biden as doddering and infirm and not mentally sharp enough to be leader of the so-called Free World. I have long been among those dismissing that as pure propaganda. But Biden’s performance was an enormous gift to Trump and GOP, confirming their caricature of him in front of some 51 million viewers in a display far worse than even the most pessimistic Democratic strategist could have imagined.

There’s no need to rehash it here in yet another agonizing post-mortem. We’ve seen them all, and from all the most respected pundits.(But if you want to wallow, I recommend David Remnick, Mark Leibovich, Tom Nichols, Jennifer Rubin, Ronald Brownstein, Jeet Heer, Fintan O’Toole, Melissa DeRosa, Matt Yglesias, and even an institutionalist like Peter Baker.)

In an already razor-close race, it felt like a death blow. Biden had one job and he blew it, giving the worst debate performance ever in what some rightly called the most important US presidential debate ever. Personally, I have not felt that sick to my stomach since Election Night 2016. And it’s hard to imagine that the memory of that horrific performance will be forgotten. “It’s like seeing your grandma naked,” James Carville later said, with characteristic élan.. “You can’t get it out of your mind.”

Like many people, I felt terrible for Biden, as honorable a man as there is in American politics, subjected to this humiliation in the twilight of his career. But in terms of its implications, I feel more terrible for the republic. The United States is in danger of collapsing into an autocratic white nationalist theocracy, and thanks to a confluence of factors, the pro-democracy forces working against that outcome have mustered a champion who is not up to the challenge.

Joe Biden is a national hero. He was probably the only Democrat who could have beaten Trump in 2020, and thank god he got the nomination. Once in office, he pulled us out of a historic pandemic that had been homicidally botched by his predecessor, revived a moribund economy and brought it roaring to life better than ever, restored sanity to US foreign policy and repaired our badly damaged reputation abroad, and enacted the most progressive and successful legislative agenda since FDR, despite outrageous Republican obstructionism and a defeated opponent who had convinced some 30 percent of the electorate that Joe wasn’t even a legitimately elected chief executive. Hats off, people.

But the cold hard fact is that we need a candidate who can beat Donald Trump, a world class grifter at the head of a fanatic fascist cult that poses an existential threat to American democracy and the stability of the whole wide world. As Mark Leibovich of the New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic has long been saying, if Biden insists on running for re-election and loses—a loss that seems more likely than ever now—he will be remembered only for his RBG-like stubbornness, and the fascist darkness that he allowed to settle over the country. And we will be complicit because we didn’t demand better.

FRANK SINATRA HAS A COLD

Setting aside Biden’s performance, David Frum made the salient point that the whole premise of the debate was a farce. Why did we let Donald Trump stand up there like he was any other legitimate candidate for the White House, and not a seditionist who had led a violent effort to overturn the last election, a crime for which he is awaiting trial, and yet has the gall to ask for his old job back? (Shades of CNN’s disgraceful Trump Town Hall last year. And I thought they’d fired Chris Licht.)

Why was the first question not, “Mr. Trump, considering what you did on January 6th, not to mention leading up to it and continuing after, why should any American trust you with the presidency a second time?”

I dunno. But it wasn’t.

After the debate the Democratic Party immediately cleaved into two camps—stay the course and dump Biden—who were at each other’s throats as bitterly as the intra-party divisions over Gaza. (Just what you want in the run-up to an election.)

When it comes to the Biden loyalist argument, there are two sub-groups.

One is naïve: “Trump is awful! And Joe is right on everything substantive!”

That is the kind of statement that begs for the reply, “Bless your heart.” In other words, it’s sweet and kind and innocent, and above all, true as the day is long….but it is also utterly irrelevant. If the issue were Trump’s personal ghastliness and horrific record versus Biden’s inherent decency and policy accomplishments over the past three years, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. Joe would be cruising to re-election by a thirty-point margin. But reason is not in play here.   

Yes, absolutely, Trump is the one who should be under pressure to step down. Yes, Biden stumbled but Trump spewed outrageous lies with the force of a firehose (Everybody wanted Roe overturned?) which the CNN moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, didn’t bother to challenge. But too many Americans gladly buy his snake oil, not to mention the fact that he is the head of a party of craven, power-mad bootlickers who collectively don’t have an atom of integrity among them and wouldn’t stand up to him even if he called their wives ugly and claimed their dads shot JFK. 

“Anybody can have a bad night!” the stick-with-Joe camp says. Sure. But when Obama had an infamously bad debate against Romney in 2012, he was not already being relentlessly accused of suffering from dementia.

“Joe had a cold!” Please. And the dog ate my homework, and my girlfriend lives in Canada, and Tonya Harding broke her bootlace. You think that carries any weight with the voting public?

DREW BLEDSOE REDUX

Which brings us to the second “stick-with-Biden argument,” which is a pragmatic one: “There’s no realistic way to move Biden aside for another candidate, trying it would do more harm than good, and even then that mythical replacement would probably do no better.” As Joy Caspian Kang wrote in The New Yorker (in a piece called “The Case for Joe Biden Staying in the Race”), the backup quarterback is always the most popular man in town.

This is a somewhat more persuasive argument, but not necessarily correct. It’s true that there’s never been a change at the top of the ticket this late in a presidential race. But there’s never been an opposing candidate who staged a self-coup, who was a convicted felon, or who promised to be a dictator and build concentration camps either. It’s also true that there is no obvious heir, except Kamala Harris, who presents problems of her own given the racism and misogyny she already faces, as well as logistical and procedural hurdles concerning campaign finances and such. But none of those are reasons for mulishly sticking with a losing candidate, especially when the stakes are this high.

One voice calling for course-staying has been that of Rick Wilson, of the Lincoln Project, who argued that Democrats were being weak-kneed, and that Republicans would lock arms and defend Trump even if he had shat himself on live TV. He went on to ask what would have happened to Great Britain if the British people had given up at the first sign of Nazi bomber planes over that green and pleasant land in 1940.

I like and respect Rick Wilson a lot, but I think he’s dead wrong here. Sure, if Trump had explosive diarrhea onstage Republicans would still say it was the greatest debate performance in human history……but they are speaking to an audience of Kool-Aid drunk cultists. The same Jedi mind trick does not work in the reality-based world of the left, or for swing voters. To minimize the disastrousness of Joe’s performance is suicidal denialism. And for what it’s worth, the Battle of Britain analogy is flat-out wrong. No one I know is giving up the fight against Trump—on the contrary. A better analogy would be to ask: what if Britain had no RAF in 1940, only slingshots, and still thought it could beat the Luftwaffe, and opted to stick with that plan instead of upgrading at least to rifles.

And here’s the proof: The Trump campaign seems privately terrified Biden will drop out, which is why they are acting as if it’s impossible. Republicans were crowing with delight as soon as the red lights went off at the end of the debate, but they won’t be crowing if a more electable candidate takes over as the Democratic nominee. Lara Trump told Fox News that the Dems can nominate only Kamala, which is a tell that they would love that, rightly or wrongly. She went on to say that skipping to another candidate would be a violation of “the democratic process”—which is quite a statement from the people who tried to storm the Capitol in 2021.

Of all the Joe-steps-down scenarios, an abdication in favor of the Vice President might actually be the most plausible. There have even been calls for Biden to resign before the election, which would give Kamala (some) of the advantages of incumbency. Adam Serwer made a cogent case for that in The Atlantic, as did Jeannie Suk Gerson in The New Yorker, Lydia Polgreen in the New York Times, and her fellow Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. Tellingly, Rep. Jim Clyburn, the South Carolina eminence grise who saved Joe’s nomination in 2020, tactfully told MSNBC that he would support Kamala as the nominee were Joe in fact to step down.

Will Biden be convinced to step aside, perhaps as the result of a somber, come-to-Jesus intervention by the likes of Obama, Bill and Hilary Clinton, Clyburn, Schumer, Klain, et al, not to mention Dr. Mrs. Jill, who so far seems to be very much inside the bubble? I don’t know. God knows what’s going on behind the scenes even as Democratic leaders put up a brave front. Maybe they’re awaiting the polls, which are beginning to come in and are not good. Maybe negotiations are ongoing.

Or maybe the Democrats will just move on in hopes that the debate will have little impact and be soon forgotten, that the two sides are already calcified and it won’t matter (much), that Trump’s impending sentencing will further change the conversation, that it’s all about turnout, etc etc. That strikes me as self-deluding madness, but hey, what do I know? I do know, however, that Biden’s lack of public urgency on the matter, and his all-is-well bonhomie, is reportedly making top Democrats even more concerned, as a sign of detachment from reality.

So we shall see. But I’m worried anxious nervous scared terrified.

If Joe will not stand down, I will be by his side and do everything I can to re-elect him. But in this life-or-death crisis for the republic, we progressives and Democrats and others on the left have made our task far more difficult than it had to be by running a candidate with such liabilities, and it got exponentially harder last Thursday night.

Which brings us to the other front on which American democracy—already hanging on by its fingernails—took a baseball bat to the ribs this past week.

WITH AN ASSIST FROM THE POTOMAC SIX

Trump had a very good week not just with the debate, but because the bought-and-paid-for legal arm of his campaign—er, I mean the Supreme Court—finally handed down a pair of decisions that helped him immeasurably, both in his effort to stay out of prison, and in terms of the hell he will be able to unleash should he manage to regain the presidency.

The first was  the Court’s decision in Fischer vs. United States striking down an obstruction charge used to convict hundreds of January 6th insurrectionists, and at the heart of two of the four charges Jack Smith has brought against Trump in his own J6 case. We already knew that case would not come to trial before the election, thanks in part to SCOTUS’s feet-dragging, and now, when it does, half of the charges will have been wiped away. Unless Trump is already president by that time and orders it dropped altogether.

The statue in question, 18 U.S.C. §1512(c)(2), clearly states that 20 years in prison await anyone who corruptly “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” Sounds like January 6th to me. But the court twisted itself into knots to find a way to argue that that’s not really what it says. Even Amy Coney Barrett thought that was ridiculous, and dissented. (Oddly, KBJ joined the majority, temporarily trading lunchroom chairs with ACB.)

But the second and far more reaching was the Court’s decision in what election expert Richard Hasen called “the most important case in this Nation’s history,” aptly named Trump vs. United States. That case addresses The Former Guy’s absurd claim that he is a once-and-forever king who has total immunity for everything he ever did or will do.  

Seems like a no-brainer, right? To say that the president is above the law defies the fundamental democratic principle on which this country was founded, as I wrote last March, in a piece called “History Will Shake Its Damn Head”:

It boggles the mind that the highest court in the land is even bothering with this ridiculous appeal, one that has been thoroughly debunked by lower courts, and the consideration of which poses vast dangers to the republic. But bothering it is….

At the time, the chief consequence of the Court granting cert seemed to be the delay it caused.Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, called it “the approach that helps Trump the most while appearing not to,” tweeting, “The Court effectively granted Trump immunity for his alleged crimes, regardless of whatever ruling they make later.”

But few observers thought the Supreme Court would actually endorse Trump’s imperial claim. One who did was the highly respected retired federal judge and conservative anti-Trump icon Michael Luttig, who back in March argued that the only plausible reason the Court took the case was because at least one or two justices (read: Clarence and Sam) believed Trump was in fact immune. Now Judge Luttig had been proven right, and the delay has turned out to be a sideshow compared to the astonishing decision itself.

The Supreme Court has said that a sitting US president has total immunity for any official acts he or she undertakes, no matter what the motive and even if for a corrupt purpose. That is a tectonic reinterpretation of the Constitution. (Originalism rocks, amirite people?)

The devil is in the “official acts” part. The SCOTUS’s right wing cabal knew it could not say “Presidents have total immunity.” A sixth grader knows that’s unconstitutional. So it has seized on this fig leaf, opening the door for Trump and any criminal successors (Don Jr.? Ivanka?) to claim that any given act was “official,” no matter now criminal or corrupt, and therefore beyond the reach of the law, even when those acts are patently NOT official. Good news for fans of the Unitary Executive Theory!

Back in March, my friend Scott Matthews predicted that SCOTUS would rule this way, allowing Trump to claim that his actions regarding overturning the 2020 election were part of his duties as chief executive, or at least sufficiently close, placing them in an area where presidential immunity is already settled law. (That was what—hold onto your red baseball hat—the Wall Street Journal thought, too.) Of course, it’s risible that trying to overturn an election would fall under a president’s official duties, but not inconceivable that a Supreme Court with a right wing supermajority would rule that way. It wouldn’t be the first time those folks in black robes reached in and decided a presidential election.

Here’s what I wrote back in March:

If the Court makes an honest assessment of Trump’s immunity argument, I’m betting on a 7-2 ruling against him, delivered at the very end of its term, in early July. But if the majority takes the coupmaking-is-an-official-act position, it could go 6-3 the other way.

So two cheers for me and my own prognosticatory skills.

In an incredible two-fer, the Court not only handed down this endorsement of monarchy, but with it also managed to create further delays in the Trump case by sending it back down to Judge Tanya Chutkan of the DC District Court to distinguish between immune and non-immune presidential conduct in this matter, which (ahem) is something else I predicted last March. So having already gifted the GOP by taking that case at all, when it could easily have let the lower court’s decision against Trump stand, and by taking as long as humanly possible to decide it, the Court’s right wing supermajority has now continued acting as an arm of the Trump campaign by kicking the case back down, creating further delay. Even Trump’s state-level conviction for electoral fraud in the Stormy Daniels case is now in question, with sentencing—which was supposed to take place next week—now pushed to September, so his lawyers can claim that the SCOTUS decision somehow applies to actions he took even before he was president. Chutzpah, thy name is Donald…..but who can blame him and his Republican allies when these batshit claims have consistently gone their way? (Look for Aileen Cannon to find a way to throw the Florida documents case out, too, even though much of what Trump is charged with was post-presidency.)

That is why Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society spent forty years getting control of the US justice system in the first place.

HAIL CAESAR

The impact of the SCOTUS decision on Trump’s January 6th case and other legal troubles is one thing. But the implications for a corrupt president in terms of the havoc he can wreak in office are far more chilling.

Writing in The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner called the decision “an invitation to dictatorship,” noting that “Had the Supreme Court ruled similarly on Richard Nixon’s claims of being above the law, Nixon never would have been forced from office.” Kuttner also called it another cost of Trump’s having been allowed to name three justices, writing, “The Court is now a corrupted institution and a shameless enabler of a corrupt president.”

I quibble only with the word “now.”

In her dissenting opinion—joined by Kagan and Jackson, which pointedly did not include the adjective “respectfully­— Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.”

Here’s the legal scholar Kim Wehle, in The Bulwark:

We don’t need to imagine the threats that Sotomayor is foreshadowing here. We lived through a president who acted with the mindset of a tyrant, one who stoked a bloody insurrection after other machinations to steal an election failed. At the end, even the Republicans who had tired of Trump were making the case that the legal system would serve as a check on him. 

Now, that guardrail has been significantly diminished. And the American people will be left to rely on the delusional belief that future presidents will choose to act in good faith with their own conscience as a guide rather than abuse the virtually unlimited power the radical majority just gave them.

Republicans, naturally, praised the decision, scoffing at the risks. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson actually said with a straight face: “No one who is elected (president) is going to be prone to this kind of crazy criminal activity. What the court is saying here follows common sense and, of course, our Constitution as well.”

(Pause to take in crippling irony.)

The obvious question is: Would the Court or its right wing amen corner give Biden the same immunity? Of course not.

It did not take long for progressives to seize on that idea by suggesting—in jest—that Biden should just order SEAL Team Six to assassinate Trump, since the Supreme Court had just ruled that that was totally kosher. Less tongue in cheek, some called for Biden to test the limits of this eyepopping expansion of executive power he has been given, say, by appointing ten new Supreme Court justices (we control the Senate, right?) and daring the GOP to stop him.

Or hell, he could just call the election off altogether, right?

For his part, Trump doesn’t need SEAL Team Six when he’s got six toadies on the highest court in the land happy to do his bidding and kneecap his political opponents and shield him from criminal accountability for his actions.

The Court—painstakingly bought and controlled by the American right—is shameless in abetting the march of fascism. And why wouldn’t it? A third of the justices owe their jobs to Trump, and two others who pre-dated him are even more radically in his camp. The sixth, John Roberts, seems to flatter himself to believe he’s a moderate and an honest broker (“Balls and strikes!”) while consistently bowing to the wishes of his archconservative fellow travelers, making him either a coward or so deep in his own self-delusion that he’s feckless.

If Trump regains the presidency, the Supreme Court has already given him the “steal home” sign to do whatever the fuck he wants, secure in the knowledge that he will never be prosecuted. Don’t doubt for a second that he will. You think you saw criminality and corruption and neo-fascism in his first term? The second will make that look like a garden party.

Adam Serwer, in The Atlantic:

If Trump wins, he will have the presidency Nixon wanted, one in which nothing the president does is illegal. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, which aspires to staff a future Trump administration, has made clear that the MAGA right contemplates using this newfound imperial power to employ political violence against its opposition. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts told the far-right network Real America News. Trump’s supporters seem less to wish to govern than to rule indefinitely by force, and they believe that the Court has given them its blessing.

Eight years ago this month, the joke around Great Britain was that England just had its worst week since 1066, with the Brexit vote and a loss to Iceland (Iceland!) in the 2016 Euros. Someday we may look back on this week as the worst one America’s had since….well, the week of November 8, 2016.

KICK SAVE AND A BEAUT

Earlier this spring, Bill Kristol wrote in The Bulwark that we should not expect the courts to save us from Trump, any more than Bob Mueller or the House J6 Committee did, let alone the Senate in his two impeachments. Only we can save ourselves. “After all,” he wrote, “here the people rule.”

For now.

But we are not asking the courts to “save” us. We are simply asking them to apply the law fairly, and not act as Trump’s personal law firm.

As I wrote last March, “Maybe Kristol is right. Maybe even if all the trials are delayed, Biden will beat Trump anyway….But the ‘system’ is sure giving Donald every possible advantage to avoid that fate.”

And that is why Biden’s disastrous debate performance is so worrying. The Supreme Court has again helped Trump’s re-election prospects, and on top of that, laid the groundwork for a horrific far-right wing autocracy should he win. Are we going to throw up our hands and let that happen?

I don’t know the right path forward re the election, and smarter people than me presumably are at work on that even as we speak. But I do know that we appear to be on the verge of allowing an entirely preventable tragedy to unfold out of sheer incompetence, inertia, and unwillingness to get up and do what needs to be done.

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Photo: Six key members of the Trump campaign, Legal Division.

“Resisting The Right”—an Online Discussion

Published on by thekingsnecktie1 Comment

Next Saturday June 15, at 3pm ET, I’ll be doing an online conversation with my dear friend James Carroll regarding my forthcoming book RESISTING THE RIGHT: HOW TO SURVIVE THE GATHERING STORM, as part of Writers for Democratic Action’s Democracy Book Club.

Formed in August 2020, Writers for Democratic Action began as a small group of writers, poets, and journalists—Paul Auster, Peter Balakian, James Carroll, Carolyn Forché, Todd Gitlin, Siri Hustvedt, and Askold Melnyczuk—who believed the Trump administration to be uniquely dangerous to our society. Today it is a volunteer organization of writers, readers, editors, and booksellers with a membership of more than 3000 worldwide, standing together to champion democracy and the institutions that embody and protect it. 

The WDA is devoted to defeating Trump in 2024; to fighting the wave of book banning in places like Florida and Texas and censorship in all its guises; to connecting citizens to their bookstores and libraries; to defending civil liberties including the right to vote and to have our votes counted; and to advocating for justice and equality in the US and across the globe.

Every month, the WDA’s Democracy Book Club features a book on a pressing issue related to those matters. In the past year the Club has done talks with Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Dahlia Lithwick, and many others. I’m honored to be included in that parade.

My book surveys the current emergency for democracy in the United States and what we can do to protect the republic from the autocratic forces that Trump represents. Out of prudence—but not fatalism—it also contemplates the “worst case scenario” of a second Trump presidency and what we can do should that dark fate befall us.

You can register to see my talk about it with James Carroll here.

Having previously previewed it in these pages, here’s another brief passage from the book, which is available for pre-order now from OR Books here in New York, and will come out next month.

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The primacy of the vote in a democratic society can hardly be overstated. Every other nightmare, no matter how horrible—whether it’s a policy of forced birth, or of kidnapping immigrant children, or of accelerating an environmental catastrophe that threatens the very future of human life—can be addressed so long as we have recourse to free and fair elections as a means to eject elected officials with whom we are unhappy. But once that is gone, democracy is gone with it.

As the Yale historian Timothy Snyder notes in his slim but seminal 2017 book On Tyranny, when free elections disappear, few citizens realize they are voting in the last one. That paradigm, of course, is common in many nations that succumb to autocracy. In the modern era, the demise of a democracy via an extralegal takeover, violent or otherwise, is much rarer than one that begins at the ballot box, with an authoritarian party ascending to power through legitimate or quasi-legitimate means, then slowly choking off the very mechanisms it used to gain that power and installing itself in permanent control.

 In How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer voluminous historical examples, including Mussolini and Hitler of course, but also Fujimori, Chávez, Orbán, Erdoğan, and to some extent even Putin.Almost all follow the same pattern, which involves capturing the courts, controlling the media, neutering (or co-opting) the legislature, and installing loyalists in every relevant arm of the bureaucracy. Surprisingly, control of the military and law enforcement—the chief tools of old-school autocracies—are less important, and typically fall into place once the other goals are achieved. Also omnipresent in these scenarios: vicious demonization of the regime’s critics and opponents that justifies their subjugation.

For America to go down that dark path, all that remains is for the GOP to obtain control of the US government, which it very much aims to do in 2024. When it does, it is unlikely ever to give it up.

But rare is the autocracy that needs to maintain power through total repression of a seething, resentful populace, or can. More often a Stockholm syndrome takes effect, an invitation to conspire in one’s own bondage.

“The truth about many in the GOP base (is) they prefer authoritarianism to democracy,” writes Jennifer Rubin, noting that about 26 percent of the US population qualify “as highly right-wing authoritarian,” according to a recent study—twice the number of the runners-up, Canada and Australia. In order to keep the American experiment alive, we will have to reckon with this demographic, the one that facilitates and gives oxygen to the Republican Party’s campaign for countermajoritarian power and is energized by it in return.

Autocrats want you to be discouraged. Instilling a sense of apathy and resignation is one of their favorite and most frequently reached for tricks, as they prefer a public that believes it has no power to improve its lot and can’t change things. But we do and we can—and the ferocity of their gaslighting is evidence of that power and how much they fear it. Human history is thick with examples, even with regimes far more brutal than we have yet faced in the United States.

“Ordinary people are not powerless to challenge the political and economic élite who have such disproportionate authority over our lives,” writes Professor Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor of Northwestern University. “But our power is often located outside of the institutions of tradition and influence.” In fact, even in the best of circumstances, when American democracy is functioning reasonably well, change typically comes from forces outside the government putting pressure on it—which is to say, from the people. Should a truly repressive, retrograde right-wing government come to power, the onus will shift even more in that direction.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa has spoken of democracy dying the death of a thousand cuts, but autocracy can be brought down in the same way. Many of those thousand cuts are in the seemingly small, quotidian actions of ordinary citizens like you and me. Our starting point is the simplest of all, which is the very way we think about what we are doing, for the psychological preparation for the pro-democracy struggle requires full-time vigilance to the ways that autocracy demands our complicity.

In On Tyranny, Snyder advises us: “Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” This impulse to bend voluntarily to an oppressive regime is what he calls “anticipatory obedience,” and need not even take the form of active support. It can be simple apathy, and a Niemöllerian indifference to the sound of marching boots and knocks on neighbors’ doors, and to the even almost-inaudible sound of democratic norms falling one by one.

We are often regaled with Frederick Douglass’s famous line from 1857, that “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” But it’s well worth considering the longer quote, and the context of that maxim:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

The first thing to understand, then, is that the source of all political power, even in the most repressive police state, is the consent of the people.

“Obedience is at the heart of political power,” wrote the political scientist Gene Sharp in his three-volume magnum opus, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973), calling the submission of the citizenry ”the most important single quality of any government, without which it would not exist.” The citizens of free countries give their obedience gladly, while those living under despotic regimes give it less so. But they give it nonetheless. 

“To say that every government depends on consent of the people does not, of course, mean that the subjects of all rulers prefer the established order to any other which might be created,” Sharp continued. “They may consent because they positively approve of it—but they may also consent because they are unwilling to pay the price for the refusal of consent . . .The degree of liberty or tyranny in any government is, it follows, in large degree a reflection of the relative determination of the subjects to be free and their willingness and ability to resist efforts to enslave them.”

In other words, repression only works when the people are cowed by it.

Admittedly, it sounds naïve. How can an unarmed citizenry under the heel of a tyranny that controls all the levers of power, including a monopoly on violence as exercised by the police and armed forces, possibly avoid submission? 

In his own epic history of nonviolence, The Unconquerable World (2003),Jonathan Schell writes of the delusion “that the foundation of all state power is force,” arguing that it is a confusion of police power with political power. “Terror, even as it keeps its practitioners in office for a time, destroys the foundations of their power,” Schell argues, contending that “each time the  Soviet Union used its tanks to crush a rebellion in Eastern Europe, it was diminishing its power, not increasing it.” Even Clausewitz, Schell writes, was of the opinion that “military victories were useless unless the population of vanquished army then obeyed the will of the victor”—a formulation that calls into question the very definition of victory itself.

But let’s not stop with Clausewitz, an admirable enough figure as far as Prussian generals go. Even Adolf Hitler, the very model of the most monstrous totalitarianism, declared that occupying a conquered nation was largely a psychological matter. “One cannot rule by force alone,” he wrote in the midst of subjugating much of Europe in July 1943. “True, force is decisive, but it is equally important to have this psychological something which the animal trainer also needs to be master of his beast. They must be convinced that we are the victors.”

Sharp then asks a bold question: What happens if the people refuse to accept militarily successful invaders—or domestic oppressors—as their political masters? His conclusion is that “noncooperation and defiance by subjects, at least under certain conditions,” has the power to thwart those rulers, and even destroy them.

“If this is true,” Sharp asks, “then why have people not long since abolished oppression, tyranny, and exploitation?” The answer, primarily, is that “The subjects usually do not realize that they are the source of the ruler’s power and that by joint action they could dissolve that power”—and tyrants have every reason to keep them from so doing. As we have just observed, inculcating a sense of resignation, hopelessness, and despair in the citizenry is the ruler’s greatest tool. Sharp goes on to cite the South African philosopher Errol E. Harris that, consequently, a public subjected to despotism “become[s] its accomplices at the same time as they become its victims. If sufficient people understood this and really knew what they were about and how to go about it, they could ensure that government would never be tyrannical.”

“A nation gets the government it deserves,” Harris wrote. That is not to blame the victim or to allege weakness, only to say that a despotic regime can only remain in power if the citizenry is unwilling to mobilize sufficiently against it (without underestimating how difficult that mobilization might be). That is bitter pill for any nation to swallow, but it can also be inverted. If it is only the complicity of the ruled that enables their oppression, that acquiescence can also be withdrawn. Therefore, it is within the power of the oppressed to be the means of their own salvation. 

 It is this understanding that is central to any American defiance of an autocratic right-wing regime that might arise under Donald Trump and/or the Republican Party. We are the majority, and power flows only with our consent, which we have the capacity to withdraw.

It Does Matter

Published on by thekingsnecktieLeave a comment

Last night I was proud to be a New Yorker.

Actually, I’m proud of that most of the time. (Exceptions: Kitty Genovese. The ’95 Knicks.) But I was especially proud when twelve brave and honest ordinary New Yorkers had the courage to do what the Republican-controlled US Senate would not—twice…..what the entire craven, erstwhile GOP has been unwilling to do….what the US justice system at large had been unable to do for more than 60 years, and that is hold Donald J. Trump accountable for a few of his many crimes.

While Congress and the federal judiciary are mired in the grip of the neo-fascist Federalist Society, New York State got ‘er done, as they say in Real ‘Merica. So hats off to that jury, and to Alvin Bragg and his team, and to Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over this fraught case masterfully and fairly, despite constant attacks from the defendant and his army of brownshirt wannabes.

What follows from here is anyone’s guess, but for one fleeting moment, we got a W. Which is more than the Knicks managed in Game 7 of the ’95 Eastern Conference Semis.

FLORIDA MAN CONVICTED

As David Leonhardt of the New York Times succinctly put it this morning, the long of the law has finally come up with Donald Trump. After 77 years of outrageously undeserved good luck, combined with a Roy Cohn-like willingness to manipulate the system, and all the benefits that obscene inherited wealth and privilege bring, not to mention a cult of fanatics and one of our two major parties defending him, he was no longer able to dodge at least this one situation.

Leonhardt:

(Trump) has spent decades on the edge of legal trouble. First, he was a New York businessman whose company violated discrimination laws, failed to repay debts and flirted with bankruptcy. Then, he was a president who impeded an investigation of his 2016 campaign, tried to overturn the result of his re-election defeat and refused to return classified documents he took from the White House.

Throughout, his central strategy was the same: delay. Try to push off legal problems for as long as possible and hope that a solution somehow presented itself. It usually worked, too. And it seemed to be on the verge of working again this year, with two federal trials and one state trial in Georgia all unlikely to finish before Election Day.

Yesterday, however, a criminal jury judged Trump for the first time. The verdict was guilty, 34 times, pronounced late in the afternoon in downtown Manhattan. The prosecutors argued that Trump had falsified business records to hide a sexual affair from voters and corrupt the 2016 election. After two days of deliberation, the 12 jurors agreed. Trump has become the first former president of the United States to be a convicted felon.

Barring a reversal on appeal, or some weird intervention by the Supreme Court (don’t rule it out), Trump will now carry the scarlet F for the rest of his miserable life. That’s especially important as this looks to be the only one of Trump’s multiple criminal trials that will take place before Election Day.

And the beauty of it is, because this is a state conviction, even if Trump somehow goes on to win the presidency despite this historic stain, he can’t pardon himself because it’s not a federal case. (So let’s keep a Republican out of the governor’s mansion in Albany, shall we?) Apparently he could, however, sue to have the conviction vacated on the grounds that imprisonment would keep him from fulfilling his constitutional duties as president. But we’ll cross the Francis Scott Key Bridge when we come to it.)

Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), excommunicated from the GOP for opposing Trump and serving on the House J6 Committee, wrote in The Bulwark:

It is a sad day for our nation….this isn’t a point of pride. Despite this verdict, America still looks like so many struggling democracies, where strongmen violate laws and bend the system to their will. The anti-Trump coalition, this uneasy and awkward alliance, must stand together, united to defend the sanctity of our system and the presidency.

He’s right of course. But at the same time, it is a point of pride that we were able to overcome the Republican gaslighting and Trump’s own legal maneuvering and at last hold him accountable in a court of law, the way most reasonable nations do with corrupt former leaders. (See; France, Italy, South Korea, Peru.)

Trump now faces 20 years in prison:. (That’s four years apiece for each of the 34 charges, to be served consecutively, not concurrently, though New York state has a 20 year cap.) Of course, with no prior convictions, and a non-violent crime, and at his advanced age, it’s unlikely he’ll do any time at all. Still, it’s sobering. And let’s not forget that the judge who will decide his sentence is a man whom he has spent weeks attacking and insulting. His family members too.

There also remains the principle that the boss of a conspiracy deserves at least as much punishment as his foot soldiers. Michael Cohen got three years for his role in this exact scheme….and he expressed remorse and cooperated with prosecutors, neither of which Trump did in the slightest, of course.

So we’ll see on July 11. Meanwhile, the Times reports: “Before sentencing, Trump will sit with a psychologist or a social worker and have a chance to explain why he deserves a light punishment.” What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in that room, a scene that is BEGGING to be a “Saturday Night Live” sketch….except that what Trump will say is already beyond parody. Witness his rambling, unhinged speech at Trump Tower the morning after the verdict was announced.

I know a lot of people—Trumpies, and even non-Trumpies, and a number of hardcore anti-Trumpies—have pooh-poohed the New York case as trivial. It was a “mere” hush money trial, involving a porn star, and did not exactly have the epoch-shattering gravitas of the Florida documents case, or the January 6 case in DC, or even the election interference case in Georgia. Right?

Wrong. This is not a “hush money” case, except insofar as that payoffs were part of election interference. Which is how we should always always always—correctly—frame it. The whole case hinged on the fact that the payments to Stormy Daniels were designed to avoid damage to Trump’s presidential campaign. If it were just about hiding a one night stand from Melania, he would have been acquitted. This case was anything but trivial. It is of a piece with the election interference cases in Georgia and DC.

THE ART OF THE (IM)POSSIBLE

So that’s the legal end of it. Politics is a different matter.

There is of course a lot of wild speculation about whether the convictions will hurt Trump, help him, or have no effect. In the words of Tevye, I’ll tell you:

I don’t know.

But first of all, it doesn’t matter.

Just like the impeachments which we correctly carried through with despite the fact that we knew there would be no convictions by the cowardly Republican-controlled Senate, Trump has to be held accountable for his various crimes if we have any hope of maintaining the rule of law in this country. That is true even if his convictions have no effect on the election: we do not pursue criminal prosecution for political purposes, no matter how much Trump and his fans want us to believe that we do. That’s what they do.

I would even go so far as to say we had to pursue this prosecution even if we knew or feared that conviction would help Trump politically, again, just as we did with the impeachments. Because in long run, doing otherwise would be worse for American democracy. Please recall: Trump’s two impeachments, even absent convictions, did not cause him to be re-elected as Republicans had warned, Br’er Rabbit-like.

So, having just said that the as-yet-unknown political fallout of yesterday’s events doesn’t matter, let me simultaneously argue that it does. Very much.

Because regardless of what people say, genuinely or with an agenda, it’s kind of a big deal when a former US president is convicted of 34 felonies. Democrats and other anti-Trump forces should shut that from the rooftops and never let the Republican Party or American voters forget it.

What will Trumpists say? They’re already saying it: that it was a sham trial, politically motivated, orchestrated by Biden, blah blah blah. All lies, and total projection of what they want to do. But let’s not let them get away with that and control the narrative. We have to counter it with our own message, which is the truth. And you can tell that Republican leaders are afraid of that truth because of the desperate ferocity of their outrage over the verdict and their pathetic efforts to show Donald Trump how much they are on his side.

POLL POSITION

For some time now polls have shown—remarkably—that a small but significant number of would-be Trump voters have said they would abandon him (or at least consider abandoning him) if he were convicted of crimes. That always surprised me. Why would that be the thing that changed their minds after sticking with him through so much else? Especially when one could easily see MAGA Nation chalking a conviction up to the Deep State unfairly going after him, which is exactly what Donny & Co. pre-emptively claimed, and have doubled down on overnight?

Yet now that it’s happened, we’re instantly seeing a Joey Chitwood-style, screeching rubber, tire-smoking 180 to the received wisdom that of course it won’t have any effect.

The pessimism is understandable, because we’ve been burned before, over and over. There have been so many things over the past nine years that should have sunk Trump, beginning with “McCain’s no hero,” all the way through Access Hollywood, revelation of the Stormy Daniels incident itself, Russian interference in 2016, wanton corruption while Trump was in office, the Zelenskyy call, telling people to drink bleach, and on and on all the way up to and including an attempted coup. So we can be forgiven for being beaten down, and jaded, and—Charlie Brown and the football-like—bearish on the notion that this at last will be the camelback-breaking straw.

But it might be. And we shouldn’t forfeit the chance to make it so. If not, it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is exactly what the right wing would like.

Here’s Bill Kristol in The Bulwark:

Inflection points don’t inflect themselves. We have to act to make certain moments inflection points.

Later on, long after the struggle is over, commentators will say this or that moment was an inflection point. But it only became an inflection point because people at the time, in real time, made it an inflection point.

So Trump has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of 34 felony counts. But it’s up to the rest of us to make sure our fellow citizens know this, understand this, grasp the significance of this. It’s up to us to make sure Trump and his apparatchiks don’t succeed in gaslighting Americans about this.

The coming weeks—and there only about 20 of them before Election Day—are uncharted waters, and promise to be rough ones. (Eddie would go? Yeah. But in this case, we are all Eddie, and we have no choice.) No one knows how any of it will shake out, including the consequences of yesterday’s verdict.

But one thing we should absolutely not do is cede the fascists an advantage and downplay how damning yesterday was for Donald Trump, and the starker-than-ever electoral choice that is now before the American people.

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Photo: Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP

Grilling The King’s Necktie

Published on by thekingsnecktie1 Comment

This month marks seven years that I’ve been writing this blog, and with mathematical convenience, my 300th essay in it.

It has been my great pleasure—and therapy—to vent more or less weekly lo those many years, and I am grateful to everyone who has supported this labor of love and self-care on my part….by which I mean everyone who reads it, or even just diplomatically moves it into the trash folder every week without bothering to unsubscribe. Your kindness and tact are much appreciated.

To commemorate this anniversary, I’m turning the tables and letting myself be interviewed by my good friend Isabella Tuttisanti del Barilla, the renowned Italian photojournalist, internationally famous sunglasses designer, award-winning amateur pastry chef, and professional parkour competitor. (Good luck at the 2028 Olympics in LA, Isa!)

Edited for clarity and vetted against libel by The King’s Necktie’s crack legal team of Saul Goodman, Esq. and Dewey Cheatem & Howe LLP. (Note to self: This month’s retainer is overdue.)

TLDNR

ISABELLA TUTTISANTI DEL BARILLA: It’s nice to see you again, Bobby. It’s been what? Three years?

THE KING’S NECKTIE: Yes. Since Kuala Lumpur, and “the incident.” You in the clear now?

ITdB: Yes, the doctor gave me an ointment; thanks. And thank you for asking me to do the interview. Do you mind if I smoke?

TKN: I’d prefer if you didn’t.

(She lights up.)

ITdB: So what made you start writing this blog?

TKN: Concern for my own mental health, mostly. When Trump came to power….I hate to say “elected,” because I don’t dispute that he won the Electoral College, or that that’s the super fucked up way we choose our presidents, but I don’t want to suggest that a majority of Americans voted for him. Just enough to make it happen.

Anyway, when Trump came to power my head was at risk of exploding with every passing day and every new outrage, so after a few months I needed a way to let off that steam. Luckily, the Internet exists, or I’d be standing on street corners handing out mimeographs.

But when I started writing this thing in May of 2017, it felt self-indulgent to me—like, who gives a shit what I think? But I really didn’t care, because I was so angry. So I began writing the blog primarily just as catharsis, and I figured if anyone other than me got anything out of it, that was a bonus. I’m a big Peter Greenaway fan, and back in the ‘90s, at a Q&A at the San Francisco Film Festival, I heard an audience member ask him about the accusation that he makes films only for himself. And Greenaway looked surprised, and said. “I think it’s the height of arrogance to imagine that one makes films for anyone but oneself.“ That’s my ethos too, with this blog.

I do feel a little embarrassed still, but I can’t stop. Or more precisely, I should say that I am unwilling to stop. If I didn’t let off that steam, I’d go nuts.

Does that answer your question?

ITdB: Sorry—I nodded off. What were you saying?

TKN: Just that—

ITdB: Where did the name come from?

TKN: I’ve always been fond of the quote that appears on the masthead, ever since I first read it years ago, but I was under the impression that it was from Edward Abbey. Then I learned that wasn’t the case. Apparently when he was the editor of his college literary magazine at the University of New Mexico in the Twenties, he’d used that it on the cover of an issue and attributed it to Louisa May Alcott, for the sake of sheer absurdism, I presume. After I learned that, I was under the mis-impression that the quote was really from Diderot, the French Enlightenment philosopher. But then a  sharp-eyed reader informed me that it was really Jean Meslier—another Frenchman—who was an apostate priest turned atheist in the early 19th century. But I like the original Louisa May Alcott joke. For a long time, about once a month I’d get some wiseacre writing to tell me it wasn’t Alcott, so finally I put a disclaimer in the fine print saying, “Yes, I know it was really Meslier.”

ITdB: Yes, but isn’t it a little violent? The imagery? Especially in these fraught times?

TKN: I hear you. When I started the blog, as angry and upset as I was about Trump, the idea of political violence in the US wasn’t really a worry. Obviously, the quote is just a somewhat tongue-in-cheek quip about the insidious power of despotism and organized religion, which frequently go hand in hand, you may have noticed. But after January 6, talk about stringing up political leaders doesn’t feel so metaphorical, or distant anymore. So I’ll admit it makes me a little uneasy now. But at this point, the brand is what it is.

ITdB: Everyone has their reasons, right?

TKN: Right. So why shouldn’t I? Like the bit in Catch-22, where they ask Yossarian about his request not to fly any more missions: “Suppose everyone felt that way?” And he answers, “Then I’d be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?”

ITdB: One of the things about this blog is that it’s a bit….

(pause)

TKN: Long-winded?

ITdB: I was going to say exhausting. Have you ever thought about writing shorter pieces?

TKN: What do you mean?

(Long, uncomfortable pause)

I kid. Yes, of course. Lots of people have suggested that. I’ve tried it, on occasion and I understand the advantages. But the whole point of this blog was as a place for me to vent without any adult supervision, and without the editorial hand that’s on me in all my other work—for the good, usually. That includes both work-for-hire and my own stuff, where my agents and editors and publishers often press me to be briefer, for my own good. The blog, by contrast, is deliberately and unabashedly self-indulgent in that regard. But my feeling is that nobody’s under any obligation to read the whole piece, or any of it. So I’m happy with this paradigm.

ITdB: But don’t you think shorter pieces would be…..you know, better. And have more reach, and more impact?

TKN: Yes. How’s that for brevity?

Also, the speed at which I write doesn’t give me a lot of time to reflect on a piece and cut it down before posting. Like Mark Twain said, “Pardon the long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

ITdB: I think it was Louisa May Alcott who said that.

BLOGGER WALKS INTO A BAR

ITdB: Speaking of which, what about the humor in the blog? Personally, I don’t find you very funny, but I’m told some people do.

TKN: (annoyed) Awaiting your question, Isa.

ITdB: The question is, what do you say to the complaint that the jokes—“jokes”—detract from your credibility, and represent a lack of seriousness?

TKN: Well, first I would say that humor and seriousness are not antonyms. You can use humor in a deadly serious way. In fact, Ferne and I have spent a lot of time delving into that area. But semantics aside, I understand the critique.

ITdB: Awaiting your answer, Roberto.

TKN: The answer is that the humor is integral to the style. In my book, Resisting the Right, which is about to come out, I indulge in it less, for that very reason. The tone is similar, but I don’t veer off on absurdist asides, and I’m generally a little more sober.

ITdB: Not a quality you’re known for in your personal life.

TKN: Funny. And they say Italians are humorless.

ITdB: What about the criticism that you’re just preaching to the chorus—

TKN: Choir.

ITdB: …..or worse, doing harm by actively insulting and alienating people who aren’t as anti-Trump as you are?

TKN: I never set out to reach Trump supporters. That’s not what this blog is about. It’s about rallying our side. I wanted to commune with kindred spirits, and exchange information, and organize, and keep up morale. It’s purely a cheerleading task—as Jacques Servin of the Yes Men describes what they do. I didn’t intend to reach across the aisle and change the minds of any Trump supporters….and I think it’s safe to say that, as far as I know, I haven’t.

At this point I think very few Trump supporters are persuadable anyway, and I don’t wanna spend my time trying. I know there is a small sliver of folks in that squishy middle who might go one way or the other, and I know they might be pivotal in November, so I’m glad somebody with more generosity and patience than me is trying to woo them. But that’s just not what I do.

ITdB: But aren’t you doing harm by alienating them? By feeding their sense of snotty liberals who look down on them?

TKN: I suppose. But are they really reading this blog in the first place?

ITdB: Probably not. Even I don’t read it, and I hate Trump.

TKN: Compliment received. But man, I am really sick of being told to walk on eggshells so as not to offend Trump supporters. Fuck that and fuck them. They damn sure don’t worry about offending us. I don’t think it does democracy any good to infantilize these people and not call them out for their outrageous and destructive anti-American bullshit, or pretend that they’re good faith actors or that the things they’re saying and doing are “legitimate political discourse” and not an active attempt to put an end to the republic. That just plays into their game, which is the deceitful subversion of the democratic process.

When it comes to the contemporary Republican Party—which should rightly be renamed the Trump Party, by the by. I don’t think the “GOP” deserves that title, or the legacy of Lincoln, and I say that as someone who, in his youth, was a registered Republican. It’s the Trump Party now, and we should call it that.

ITdB: Focus, babe.

TKN: What I’m saying is that when it comes to the contemporary Republican-slash-Trump-Party, we are not dealing with rational actors or a legitimate political party any more. We’re dealing with a radical insurgency that intends to exploit the very means of democracy in order to destroy it, all the while shrugging and feigning innocence, or worse, acting like they’re the real defenders of the Constitution and the principles this nation was founded on, and not neo-fascist white nationalist theocrats. And we should not let them get away with that bullshit.

ITdB: (smiling) Now that’s what I came for: vintage King’s Necktie. A very on-brand diatribe.

TKN: One tries.

ITdB: Any concerns about self-righteousness?

TKN: A few. But you don’t have to be perfect or blameless yourself to notice that the next guy is a monster. Or idolizes one.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE, SANS IDIOTS

ITdB: Do you ever go back and read your old essays?

TKN: Rarely. Drunk dialing old girlfriends usually doesn’t end well. But I admit, I do occasionally have a reason to pull up an old post, and I’ll read a bit, or skim it.

ITdB: And?

TKN: And I usually find some nice stuff, but I’m also often embarrassed at what obviously should have been cut. To circle back to your earlier point about brevity.

ITdB: OK, so sticking with just people who are predisposed to share your politics: what has the reaction to the blog been over the years?

TKN: It’s been amazing, and I remain really humbled by that—

ITdB: I would take issue with the word “humble,” or that you can claim to “remain” that way….

TKN: —I’ve just been surprised at how many people read it, and the positive feedback I’ve gotten. I have some diehard supporters who I commune with every week online, people who I know only through the blog. And then sometimes I’ll run into an old friend, or even a casual acquaintance, and they’ll tell me they read it every week and love it, and I can tell from their comments that they really do. That always astounds me, because of course I have no idea how it’s landing with most people. A few people have told me, “Your blog got me through the Trump years,” which like I say, is a huge part of what I set out to do.

I’m actually shocked that so few people have unsubscribed—only a handful, literally less than ten, and I’m equally surprised which ones they were. I think there must be a substantial number of folks on the distro list who are too polite to hurt my feelings, and just dutifully move it to the trash every week.

But people have been so supportive. For example, I have a wonderful woman named Gina Patacca who is a professional copy editor who voluntarily edits it pro bono every week. Bill Moyers became a fan and a promoter of the blog, and even began publishing some of my essays on his own site, so that was a huge thing for me. I’m honored, and in his debt.

ITdB: How did that come about?

TKN: The blog was sent to him by a mutual friend, the great Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Bill Jersey, who’s now 96, and who’s been a friend and mentor to me since I first left film school. So as the saying goes, “It’s not what you know, or even who you know, but who knows you.”

Ferne has been the most supportive of all. You’ve heard of a golf widow? She’s a blog widow. Sometimes she’ll see me staring off into space while we’re in line at the supermarket or something, and she’ll say, “You’re writing your blog, aren’t you?” But she couldn’t be more supportive, which means a lot, because she’s a much better and smarter publicist for the blog than I am.

ITdB: You’re lucky to have her.

TKN: I know.

ITdB: Any haters?

TKN: Oh yeah. I’d be falling down on the job if there weren’t. Occasionally some Trumper stumbles across it. But less of that now than in the early days, which either belies the conventional wisdom that the algorithm seeks to create conflict, or confirms the other conventional wisdom that it silos people and trades in confirmation bias.

ITdB: What essay drew the most fire?

TKN: The most—and most hateful—pushback I got was for a couple of posts about gun violence in 2018, in the wake of Parkland. Even my essays about abortion have not been met with that kind of vitriol….though those two demos overlap a lot, which is worrying in its own right.

But it was a real glimpse into Bizarro World, with right wingers attacking me and saying crazy shit, like claiming I’d never been in the Army, for example. Which I assure you I was. But you don’t have to take my word for it, because Uncle Sam keeps records. Unless you want to believe they’re forged too, as part of some grand Illuminati-brand conspiracy.

ITdB: Let’s not rule that out.

TKN: Plenty of folks don’t. After all, lots of records were destroyed in a mysterious fire at ARPERCEN in the ‘70s.

RESISTING THE RIGHT

ITdB: So has writing the blog fulfilled your expectations, the ones you had when you started it?

TKN: Oh, yeah. Exceeded them. It’s let me develop a different set of muscles than I use as a screenwriter, which has been my main gig for more than twenty years. And it’s led to various opportunities, which I’m very grateful for.

ITdB: Perfect segue. Do you want to plug your book?

TKN: Does Rose Kennedy own a black dress? If I can’t plug it on my own blog, where can I plug it?

The book is called Resisting the Right: How to Survive the Gathering Storm, and it’s being  published by OR Books here in New York. It’s available for pre-order now and will ship at the end of June. It’s a kind of “worst case scenario” guide for what to do if Trump retakes power, and we find ourselves living under a right wing Christian nationalist autocracy, which a second Trump term would be.

ITdB: Jesus Christ. I don’t even want to think about that.

TKN: But we have to.

ITdB: So it assumes a Trump win is a fait accompli?

TKN: Far from it. I am guardedly optimistic that we will prevail, if we stay focused. The book aims to help us do that, and then contemplates what we can do if we fail. I think it’s only prudent to plan for all contingencies. That’s something I was trained to do in the Army—both in the infantry and in military intelligence—and I’ve tried to apply that mentality to our current political crisis.

So the first part looks at the current state of play and how we got here, and what we can do before November 2024 to shore up our democracy and prevent a Republican return to power. In that regard it goes way beyond Trump, because even if he were to drop dead at the defendant’s table in a Manhattan courthouse tomorrow, the fascist movement will carry on.

The second half looks at how to respond if the worst does befall us, and is structured as a handbook for ways Americans can push back across a range of areas: civil disobedience, economics, journalism, public health, education, religious organizations, the arts, and even interpersonal relations, among others.

In writing it, it was my privilege to speak to loads of highly experienced and eloquent folks and to try to distill their expertise and recommendations, from Rev. Norvel Goff, Sr., who was a deacon at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, at the time of the 2017 mass murder there, to Zoharah Simmons of SNCC, who was a legendary leader in the Civil Rights Movement; to MacArthur winners Jon Else and Dave Isay; Rabbi Michael Berenbaum; Tim Heaphy, who was the lead investigator for the House J6 Committee; Jacques Servin of the Yes Men; Tom Hall of the Back Row Manifesto; Shantal Palacio of the New York State Department of Education; the political strategist Jim Bernfield; the journalist Eric Alterman; the incredible James Carroll, who graciously wrote the foreword; and many others. It also draws on the work of folks like Gene Sharp, Saul Alinsky, Maria Ressa, Masha Gessen, Hannah Arendt, Tim Snyder, and so many more.

ITdB: I don’t mind telling you, Bob, I hope we don’t need your book and it sits on a high shelf and gathers dust.

TKN: Me too. But as I say, American authoritarianism isn’t going away—it has been with us in one form or another since before even the founding of this county, and it’s a safe bet that it always will be. In that regard, I would describe the book more broadly as a manual for defending democracy. And that’s a never-ending struggle.

Two other things about it that I want to mention, if I may.

ITdB: As Barack Obama told Mitt Romney, please proceed.

TKN: In the book I discuss how “resistance” is really the wrong word, per Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, who wrote that the forces of human rights and democracy are not the ones “resisting.” We are the mighty river that authoritarians and their supporters are trying to dam.

Similarly, “Gathering Storm” is in the subtitle to allude to ‘40s fascism. But like “resistance,” the word “survive” is misleading. Because my prescription is not just for survival, and a return to the status quo ante, meaning pre-2016, pre-Trump politics, but how to get on the path to something better—something closer to a true democracy, which the US has always aspired to, very ostentatiously, but never truly achieved for all its citizens.

ITdB: You mean, to build back better?

TKN: To coin a phrase, yes.

ITdB: Then I hope you sell a whole library of books, and that no one ever needs them.

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN (BUT I HAVE A ROUGH TREATMENT)

ITdB: So how long are you going to keep this up? The blog, I mean.

TKN: Well, after the 2020 election a lot of people asked me if I was going to keep writing it. I think that was a common feeling at the time—that we’d ejected this motherfucker from power, and now things would get back to normal. But I never thought that would be the case, or that it would be safe to relax.

I’ll admit, though, that I didn’t think the nightmare was going to continue at this intensity, and even get worse, in terms of the danger we’re facing, I didn’t expect that a guy who summoned a mob to try to overthrow the government by force would stand a 50-50 chance of being returned to power. But what did Mencken say about underestimating the American public?

ITdB: And after November? What’s the future of the blog then?

TKN: Well, if Trump wins they may come kicking down my door, so I dunno. I don’t flatter myself to think that mine will be the first house they’re gonna visit, by the way; I think I’ll have a few weeks while they go after The Nation and The New York Times and The Bulwark and MSNBC first. But I do think free speech and criticism of the government is going to be a lot more fraught if that nightmare comes true. A lot.

But even if Joe wins, I think a violent white nationalist insurgency is here to stay, including its political arm, which is to say, what we used to call the Republican Party. So I don’t anticipate hanging up my blogging spurs any time soon.

ITdB: So you’re going to keep writing this thing until you die?

TKN: Or until fascism in the USA is put down for good like the rabid dog it is. Though that’s an insult both to rabies and to dogs.

So whichever comes first, yeah. I’d put my money on death.

********

Illustration: Photo by Ferne Pearlstein, taken at Grand Army Bar in downtown Brooklyn, April 5, 2024.

Behold Democracy’s Last Stand

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The Supreme Court will surely reject Donald Trump’s absurd claim of total immunity for any crimes he committed while president, right???

That’s what all the experts have been telling us for months. Even after the Court made the brow-raising decision to hear the case at all—rather than letting stand a definitive lower court ruling that slapped down this Hail Mary argument, which it could easily have done—and even after it took as long as possible to take up the case and schedule oral arguments, aiding Trump immeasurably with that delay, we were still told over and over that the justices—even the shamelessly partisan right wing ones—would ultimately do the right thing.

They had to, right? They’re not stupid people, unfamiliar with the Constitution. They have lifetime appointments and are not beholden to Donald Trump, even though he put three of them in their jobs. They might be believers in a revanchist right wing ideology, but they couldn’t possibly be that shamelessly partisan…..right???

The better question is why we continue to be so naive. The NFL may have changed the kickoff rule, but Lucy is still pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, and like Chuck, we seem to fall for it every time.

Here are Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, both of them savvy, veteran Supreme Court observers, describing the self-soothing reasoning:

There were promising signs: (The justices) had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote).

We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

That was the collective delusion. The only question now is when we’re going to wise up and recognize what is right before our eyes:

That the archconservative majority that controls the US Supreme Court is a corrupt arm of a neo-fascist movement.

Hyperbole? I’ll gladly eat crow if that turns out to be the case, come June. But oral arguments yesterday do not bode well.

PARTISANO

Lithwick and Stern’s piece was one of the best on yesterday’s terrifying shitshow, so I’ll put this in cruise control and let them take it for a bit. (Wake me in a few.)

After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends.

This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act…..They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.

Echoing a thought experiment about SEAL Team Six posed in the lower court hearing, Trump’s counsel, John Sauer, told Sonia Sotomayor that, under the right circumstances, the president could legally order the US military to assassinate a political rival. Similarly, he told Elena Kagan that a president could order the military to mount a coup, again, if the right circumstances arose. What those circumstances could possibly be he declined to explain.

Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis tweeted: “Unbelievable that Supreme Court justices who see forgiving student loans, mandating vaccines, and regulating climate change as a slippery slope toward tyranny were not clear-eyed on questions of whether a president could execute citizens or stage a coup without being prosecuted.”

Elections expert Marc Elias tweeted: ”I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the US Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

And here’s Edward Luce of the Financial Times: “Still can’t quite digest that a former and possible future American president is telling the supreme court that he should have immunity to kill political rivals. Utterly surreal.”

But according to Trump’s argument, almost EVERYTHING a president falls within the scope of the his official duties. (Hell, even the Pope doesn’t get that kind of authority, but has to be deliberately speaking ex officio to be considered infallible.) But as Justice Sotomayor asked, if everything a president does can be classified as an “official act,” what was Nixon’s pardon all about? Tricky Dick certainly agreed. “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal,” as he infamously told David Frost. But he still took he pardon, didn’t he?

Trump, of course, has long believed that he (and he alone) is above the law, both as a private citizen and as president. “I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president,” he said in 2019, during the Mueller probe of his collusion with Russia over the 2016 election. No one disputes that this megalomaniacal malignant narcissist thinks that. But for the Supreme Court to agree? When you’re a star they let you do it, I guess.

That belief has not prevented Donald from embracing the opposite tack when it served his needs, of course. Lest we forget, in his second impeachment trial, in January 2021—the one stemming from his actions on January 6—Trump’s own lawyers argued explicitly that the proper avenue for adjudicating the charges against him was post-presidential criminal prosecution, by way of dodging the more pressing threat. “After he is out of office,” said one of those lawyers, Bruce Castor, “you go and arrest him.”

But that was then.

It’s impossible to imagine this Court responding positively if it were Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Bill Clinton arguing that they had absolute immunity to do whatever they wanted as president. (In fact, the same Republicans who are on Trump’s side in this case just recently tried to impeach Joe Biden). And in the wake of a SCOTUS decision in favor of Trump, you can be sure that no future Democratic president—if there are any, or any free elections at all in  America—will ever be allowed to make the same defense, without the Court finding (or inventing) some loophole why it doesn’t apply to them. The one thing you can count on is that the Court will frame its ultimate decision in such a way that Biden is not able to avail himself of that same imperial authority, only Donald Trump or some other Republican successor.

SEARCHING FOR THE REAL KILLERS

But “what the president does” did not seem to be on the docket yesterday, only the actions of his foes.

“Five justices sent the message, loud and clear,” wrote Lithwick and Stern, “that they are far more worried about Trump’s prosecution at the hands of the deep-state DOJ than about his alleged crimes, which were barely mentioned…..(T)he court has now signaled that nothing (Trump) did was all that serious and that the danger he may pose is not worth reining in. The real threats they see are the ones Trump himself shouts from the rooftops: witch hunts and partisan Biden prosecutors.”

Much-respected retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig remarked, “The Court and the parties discussed everything but the specific question presented.” Several times when the special counsel’s advocate, former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, wanted to talk about the specifics of this case, and of Trump’s conduct, the right wing justices insisted he go back to hypotheticals carefully constructed to bolster their own pro-imperial position. (Gee, I wonder why.)

In fact, the right wing justices seemed singularly focused on avoiding any mention of the pertinent facts of this case, such as Trump’s own actions for which he is criminally charged, or—speaking of future presidents—the fact that he is again running for the highest office in the land.

“I’m talking about the future!” Kavanaugh declared at one point to Dreeben, pitching himself not as Trump’s human shield but as a principled defender of the treasured constitutional right of all presidents to do crime. (We’re sure whatever rule he cooks up will apply equally to Democratic presidents, right?)

Nixon, too, famously professed not to be acting not out of self-interest, but on behalf of future presidents. Trump has echoed that farcical claim. Justice Neil Gorsuch actually said: “I’m not concerned about this case, but I am concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives.”

Which is more appalling: that he’s “not concerned about this case”—that is, the one before him—or that he thinks the DOJ is the real danger here?

Sam Alito even made the Orwellian argument that total immunity is necessary to prevent future presidents from committing illegal criminal acts:

“Now, if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”

The mind reels. (PS The defendant in question is not a president who headed off into a peaceful retirement, or even left office peacefully at all, but one who tried to mount an autogolpe and has since encouraged his followers to political violence even as he runs for the White House yet again.) So Alito is worried that the threat of a post-presidential prosecution would have a chilling effect on presidents who wanted to commit crimes while in office? I suppose that’s correct—and, like all deterrence, intentional.

Is there a genuine risk of overzealous prosecutors going after a genuinely innocent former president for partisan reasons? Sure. But it has never happened in 235 years of American democracy. Very much the contrary, in fact: there has been an extreme reluctance to charge former presidents with anything, even when they have in fact committed major crimes.

You know what has happened in our history, though, and very recently? A president trying to overturn an election by means of a violent self-coup. And that guy is still out there, and seeking a return to power. Which danger do you think is more real and pressing?

But none of that matters to the Court’s right wing cabal.

FALL OF A FIG LEAF

The night before oral arguments, Never Trump conservative Tim Miller of The Bulwark suggested on MSNBC that the right wing supermajority on the Supreme Court‑—including a justice whose own spouse helped foment this very insurrection—was playing a cowardly and deceitful game that would enable it to maintain a patina of legitimacy by ultimately rejecting Trump’s absurd claim to total immunity, but only after it helped re-elect him. Like many, Miller suggested that not even these Unitary Executive Theory-friendly justices are willing to endorse a completely imperial presidency. (Hell, Joe Biden might get ideas!) But they are moving as slowly as possible—not to mention the consideration of that claim in the first place—in order to aid Trump’s bid to regain power after that they can reject it with an Alfred E. Neuman-like “What, me worry?” shrug of faux innocence.

After oral arguments, however, I am forced to take a far darker view that the Court may not even bother with that fig leaf, but will simply agree with Trump’s outrageous neo-fascist assertion.

It’s true that it’s notoriously difficult to parse how a Supreme Court decision will go based solely on the justices’ questions. (Some, such as George Conway, have specifically counseled caution on that front, and even offered cause for optimism.) The justices may well have been engaging in some wild-ass thought experiments in order to shape the contours of this very grave matter, on the way to a rational and clear-eyed decision. Or not.

But it may not matter.

Even if the Court ultimately rules against Trump, the delay (and further delays it might cause by sending the case back down to Judge Amy Chutkan for further clarification) have already been a massive gift to Trump and his cause. For that matter, so was the mere matter of dignifying his claim in the first place.  

Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat of NYU, an expert on authoritarianism, tweeted: “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and involves giving them a respected platform.”

Were there any bright spots? Only a few. At one point, Trump’s own attorney admitted that some of his acts related to overturning the election were “private,” opening the door for Smith’s prosecution to proceed even if some charges will be thrown out. But the delay alone could still be deadly to the special counsel’s case, to say nothing of depriving the American people of a verdict before they go to the polls.

It is ironic that Trump benefited—again—from the justice system’s generosity the very same week that Harvey Weinstein had his conviction for sexual assault in New York state thrown out on what some would say is a technicality, though others believe it is a more substantial issue of jurisprudence. (The good news: he still faces 16 years in prison in California for a separate rape conviction.) The system sure is good at meticulously protecting the legal rights of rich and powerful white guys, the more horrible the better. In fact, Ronan Farrow has already written of the ways in which the New York court’s logic in overturning the Weinstein conviction might also help Trump get off. As it were.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN NEW YORK

Over the past years, we have been shocked time and time again by the unthinkable coming true, from Trump’s election in the first place to the court overturning Roe. But we should not have been shocked by any of it, because it has been telegraphed far in advance. The same thing is happening now with the immunity claim.  

It is fitting that SCOTUS is arguing this issue even as a perma-scowling Donald Trump sits petulantly at the defendant’s table in a New York State courthouse in Lower Manhattan, on trial for election interference in the form of hush money payments to a porn star, and his illegal efforts to hide those payments from the authorities. (Chutzpah Hall of Fame: Trump even tried to take the payments as a tax deduction. Very on brand.)

But Trump certainly does not want to be at that defendant’s table, as his Resting Asshole Face shows us every day. He does not think the law applies to him the way it does to ordinary mortals, which is how he has lived his whole miserable, entitled life, and more or less what his lawyer in the J6 case argued before the Supreme Court. Much as he would like to stay home eating cheeseburgers and watching Fox and Friends, however, he can’t just not show up in court, because for the moment, he is subject to the rule of law. If he didn’t turn up, some New York State Troopers would come knocking on Trump Tower and haul him down there in cuffs.

The image of Trump sitting at the defendant’s table and scowling (when he’s not nodding off or farting) is a reminder that, for the moment, the rule of law still pertains in the United States. But if he has his way, he will never be a defendant in a courtroom ever again, nor held accountable for anything at all. And a lot of people—including some in black robes (and some in white ones) are working very hard to help him achieve that goal.

If Donald Trump wins the election and regains the White House in November, you will never again see a picture like the one that illustrates this essay, because Donald Trump will squash all criminal proceedings against him and his allies, pardon the January 6 insurrectionists whom he summoned to try to overthrow the government, and operate as the head of state who is above the law and can do whatever he wants.  

COURTING DISASTER

Of the four criminal trials that Trump is facing, the NYC trial will likely be the only one that will take place before the election, or maybe at all, since it concerns crimes he (allegedly) committed before becoming president. In fact, it concerns crimes he (allegedly) committed in order to become president. If the Court rules in his favor, the DC, Georgia, and Florida cases may all be thrown out.

Therefore the Supreme Court decision on Trump’s immunity claim may prove a pivotal nail in the coffin of democracy. At the very least, it is a damning statement about the dysfunction of our political and legal system, largely owing to deliberate sabotage by the American right wing going back to the time of Newt Gingrich if not before. As Liz Cheney wrote in a New York Times op-ed when the Court first agreed to take this ridiculous case, “It cannot be that a president of the United States can attempt to steal an election and seize power but our justice system is incapable of bringing him to trial before the next election four years later.”

Oh, but it can be. If the archconservative members of the Supreme Court—three of who were put there by that individual—want it to be.

But even if Trump—incredibly—skates out of this jam the way he has so many near-death experiences before, the failure to lock him up will not be the final word. As we all know, even conviction and incarceration—though richly deserved—in and of themselves would not be enough to keep him out of the White House, by law. Only the voters can do that. Notwithstanding the title of this essay, the New York trial not really democracy’s last stand, nor is the J6 case, nor Florida nor Georgia; it is but one in a series of events that collectively comprise that die-in-place defense. The really pivotal one will be on Election Day.

Because in the end, the courts will not save us, any more than Mueller did, or the Senate did in two impeachments, or the House Committee on January 6 did, and we would be foolish to count on them to do so. The only people who can save American democracy are us—the American people—at the ballot box in November.

**********

Photo: A disgruntled criminal defendant on trial in Lower Manhattan, April 2024. Credit: Getty Images.

In Praise of Argument’s End

Published on by thekingsnecktie3 Comments

It’s been a hectic few weeks.

Iran launched a drone and missile attack on Israel that was almost completely repelled by Israeli air defenses—with the help of intel from its Arab neighbors. (!) So maybe Jewish space lasers are a real thing after all.

Over in Washington, the chief advocate of the space lasers theory, Marjorie Taylor Greene, began trying to oust Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House for being insufficiently fanatic.

Numerous red states threatened librarians with prison time for disseminating books that Republicans dislike. (Hey, in science fiction, are the people banning books and throwing librarians in prison usually the good guys or the bad guys? Asking for a friend.)

What else? Oh, the Supreme Court parsed whether the January 6th insurrectionists really did anything wrong, with Sam Alito (and to a lesser extent, an unrecused Clarence Thomas, whose own wife was part of fomenting that insurrection) suggesting that the people who attacked the Capitol were just “protestors” and that punishing them would chill free speech. (#legitimatepoliticaldiscourse)

It would also put a dent in bear spray sales.

Out west, Arizona made abortion almost completely illegal with no exceptions, affirming a law from 1864, a time before it was even a state. In response, Donald Trump—evidently operating in that same Civil War mode—seemed to think bleating “states’ rights” was a winning strategy for addressing the ensuing outrage.

And speaking of The Former Guy, topping the news last week, for the very first time in our history, the United States has charged a former US President with criminal offenses and put him on trial. Two of the jurors initially chosen for the case departed within a day, one of them stating that they felt intimidated by the defendant’s well-established pattern of winking incitement of his followers to physical violence against his enemies. Meanwhile Trump fell asleep in court two days in a row, and a protestor set himself on fire outside the courthouse, Thich Quang Duc-style.

Some would have us believe that the New York case is trivial, a tawdry tale of paying hush money to a porn star, and a partisan mountain-making out of molehill material. But others have pointed out the blatant dishonesty of that spin, which is shamelessly partisan in its own right. When one gets beyond the lurid surface, what this case is really about is a presidential candidate who was already on the ropes from the Access Hollywood tape—whose own party was running away from him like he was radioactive—trying to avoid another sex scandal hot on its heels, one that would almost certainly have delivered the presidency to Hillary Clinton on a silver platter.

Luckily for Donald, Jim Comey was about to come to his rescue.

In the The New Yorker, Eric Lach writes:

Would Trump have lost the 2016 Presidential election if Stormy Daniels had gone public with her story? Prosecutors in Manhattan think maybe so.

Trump faces thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business records, which the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, claims was part of a scheme to “conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.” The case has become known as the “Stormy Daniels hush-money case,” which has made it easier for the public to dismiss, because it seems like small potatoes. In fact, the argument that the prosecutors have made in court filings is focussed on something closer to election interference. The case is about Trump lying his way into office.

So this case isn’t some trifle; it’s about cheating in a presidential election, and lying to cover it up. Trump didn’t have Michael Cohen buy Stormy Daniels’s silence in order to keep Melania from learning about a one-night stand, as he and his defenders would have us believe.

He did it to bamboozle the American people in order to win the White House.

TRY TO SEE THINGS MY WAY

It remains to be seen how the New York trial plays out and what it portends for the other three criminal trials that await Trump, in Florida, Georgia, and DC. But what I’d like to write about this week is something far simpler: The pleasure of not having political arguments any more—at least not with anybody in a red baseball cap.   

I was late to Facebook; I got on in January 2017, right after Trump’s inauguration, because I needed to vent and commune with like minds—precisely the “echo chamber” aspect of social media for which it is so often criticized. (I also didn’t start drinking coffee till I was over 50. But I hear good things about this band “the Beatles.”)

In those early days of the Trump administration, we were still fruitlessly trying to operate under the rules of American politics ante…which is part of what Trump exploited to win the election and what got us into that mess in the first place. That meant being told to “give him a chance,” and having arguments with Trump supporters who kept insisting that he wasn’t so bad (“Hillary’s much worse!”) and that at any moment he was going to “pivot” and become “presidential.”

Good times.

These days American political discourse, legitimate or otherwise, is a lot more efficient. At this point, if someone cops to supporting Trump, that’s all you need to know and the conversation can cease immediately. That declaration is an automatic credibility destroyer; nothing that person can say on the subject of politics ought to be given a shred of credence following that admission (which, incredibly, is often in the form of a boast).

And that is quite a relief.

Nowadays, on those occasions when I read a puzzling op-ed, or a tweet, or any other sort of editorial comment that seems to support a questionable position—usually one with a whiff of revanchist right wingism about it—the first thing I do is look into the author’s politics. If a quick check of the Internet reveals that they are a Trump supporter—which it often does—I consider the case closed without a nanosecond spent considering any possible merit to the argument in question, even if it is not connected to Donny. A Trump button on your lapel is an announcement of unredeemable villainy, and a forfeit of any claim to seriousness.

Is that mulishly doctrinaire on my part? I believe it is not. This is not 2017 anymore. By now, nothing can justify support for Donald Trump: not the border, not judges, not tax cuts (all of which are odious anyway, in my book, but never mind).

And that saves me loads of time. Time that I can devote to my rock opera adaptation of “Welcome Back, Kotter,” done in Esperanto.

This is not to say that we can relax. Trump may yet go on to win the White House again, as mind-boggling as that may be, in which case we will be plunged into a nightmare in which arguments with fascists will be the least of our worries. In fact, they may become extinct for different reasons, because any criticism of the Dear Leader will be punishable by arrest. (Think I’m exaggerating? Look back on what you thought was impossible in May of 2015.) But for now, bickering with assholes like Jamie Dimon, Chris Sununu, and guys in black pickup trucks blaring “God Bless the USA” are not on the agenda.

Doing everything we can to beat Trump in November is.

JESUS, ETC.

Like most FB newbies, when  I first got on the platform I argued with randos incessantly, until I realized how bad that was for my mental health, and what a sheer waste of time it was. I almost never do it anymore, and on those rare occasions when I do find myself foolishly drawn into a donnybrook, I immediately feel sick and regret it.

The “block” function is my friend, I’ve learned, self-care wise.

But I recently got into a fight with someone over an AI image of Jesus hugging Trump. The original image was clearly created without irony, but in this re-post, it was accompanied by a sarcastic remark by an anti-Trumper. (“It was at this point that Jesus realized his wallet was missing.” Pretty funny, IMHO.)

My antagonist wrote: “No matter what side you’re on, this is in bad taste.” As his politics were unclear, I genuinely wondered if he meant the original AI image, or the sardonic comment about it. So I asked.

What ensued was a stream of vitriol, a refusal to engage in any substantive way, and a flurry of ad hominem attacks on me. (On the Internet? Shocking!) We went back and forth a few times as I tried my tactful best just to get him to explain what bothered him, but even my politest and most innocent requests were met with the angry insistence that somehow they were veiled insults meant to “control” him.

In short: the dude was angry. 

The irony was not lost on me that this incredibly irate fella also professed to be a follower of Jesus Christ, and so devout in his piety that he was offended even by a painting of the Messiah. Enraged “Christians” whose belligerence belies the teachings of their hero are nothing new, of course. But encountering one face to face—or at least over fiber optic cables—was bracing.

I was really taken aback by that, but only because I was out of practice. In the old days, when I stupidly engaged with trolls more regularly, that sort of hair-trigger hostility was par for the course in conversation with Trump supporters. And one has to wonder why that is.

USED TO BE A SWEET BOY

Another Facebook tale.

Like many of us, I have reconnected with lost lost friends and classmates via social media. One such person was a kid I knew when we were all of 14, whom I’ll call Troy. We were both Army brats living on a Stateside post that shall remain nameless. He was a sweet kid: goofy and funny, a comedy nerd like myself, and a Python fan. (It was 1977.) When I saw him on Facebook after more than 40 years out of touch, and reached out, he politely wrote back to say, hey, good to reconnect, but just so you know, I think we might have some pretty different politics.

Fair enough. I checked out his profile and was surprised to find that he had indeed become very conservative, including vocally pro-NRA. A lot of his posts were quasi-libertarian, with oblique swipes at Biden, and at “wokeism,” and the subject of DEI in particular. There was a lot of rah-rah pro-military stuff as well, but nothing overtly pro-Trump.

But I didn’t feel the need to get into any of it with him, and I didn’t. We stayed cordial and non-political as I fooled myself into thinking maybe he hadn’t totally gone over to the dark side.

Then, in September 2020, when it was reported that Trump had denigrated US war dead as “losers and suckers,” I wrote him privately to ask, Army brat to Army brat: “Come on, man. You can’t possibly defend this.”

His response? “I don’t believe it’s true.”

So there you have it. As Troy showed, Trumpists have a unique ability to deny facts about their boy that are inconvenient to their own professed principles and worldview, no matter how definitively proven or empirically godawful, or both. (See also: free trade, Russia, NATO…the list goes on.)

I knew in my bones that the “losers and suckers” comment was true—it just felt far too Trumpy and on point to have been made up. And the story was subsequently confirmed by no less than Trump’s own White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine four-star who lost a son in combat in Afghanistan. In the process (and by way of defending his comrade General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs whom Trump had recently called a traitor), Kelly also delivered a scathing assessment of Trump, whom he would later call “the most flawed person” he’d ever met:

What can I add that has not already been said? A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all “suckers” because “there is nothing in it for them.” A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because “it doesn’t look good for me.” A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family—for all Gold Star families—on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are “losers” and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason—in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.

SOUR TIMES

When Kelly said that, I thought about reaching out to Troy and rekindling the discussion. But seeing online that he was still solidly right wing, and knowing that the reply would not be, “I was wrong—Trump’s a piece of shit,” I didn’t have the heart.

But recently Troy and I got into it again. He’d posted one of his snickering, passive-aggressive comments, this one accusing the left of suppressing free expression. (I realized that he still had a sense of humor, of sorts, but that it had curdled into the bitter cynicism prevalent on the right.) I couldn’t resist gently pushing back.

His reply was disingenuous, suggesting that a lot of conservatives were not Trump fans, and implying that he was among that cohort, but in the next breath saying he understood why, because of the “abortion” (his term) that Biden had made of America. (Odd choice of words, no?) I called bullshit, noting that he was trying to distance himself from Trump while at the same time defending him, and asked him to just own it, if in fact he supported the man.

But it was actually Troy’s wife (whom I don’t know at all) who came after me, teeth bared, and we sparred a bit. With classic Trumpy evasiveness, she avoided my questions, jumping from subject to subject with a heavy dose of whataboutism, defending book bans in Florida and deploying the now-commonplace right wing perversion of Martin Luther King to argue for racist policies that King would have abhorred, and along the way lecturing me on how well-read she was. Never a sign of security and strength.

But above all, like the dude I mentioned earlier, she seemed openly pissed off when I tried to be nice, accusing me of being “fake” for writing things like, “Even though we don’t see eye to eye, I’m sure we both want only the best for our country, even if we disagree on what that is and how to achieve it.”

(Am I missing something here? Maybe my attempts at civility do feel transparently false or sarcastic, at least to these people, even though I assure you that I am completely genuine. I feel as sad for these folks as I am mad at them. Maybe that comes across as condescending. Maybe my contempt for their policy positions makes those professions of empathy and common cause seem absurd. Or maybe they themselves cannot imagine sincerely wishing well to someone on the other side of the aisle, and therefore find it impossible to imagine that anyone else can.)

The bottom line is that these people are so angry. That is not news: It’s the same grievance that we have seen animate virtually all of Trumpism from the jump, bordering on nihilism, and poured into the empty vessel that is Donald, an avatar for all their fury. As I say, in my more generous moments, I can feel their hurt. How much pain do you have to be in to be that livid all the time? But then there are other moments when I remember that these are grown-ass adults who have no excuse for foisting their pathology on the rest of us, and who are culpable for the damage that they do.

And Troy—a well-educated white male, middle class or better, the son of a career Army officer just like me—can hardly lay claim to membership in any kind of beaten-down demographic. He ain’t no Appalachian coal miner, or laid off Rust Belt auto worker. Despite his ostentatious valorization of the military, he didn’t even serve himself…..but I did. The real issue, as with many right wingers, seems to be an unjustified displeasure over the erosion of his privilege in the interest of historically marginalized folks.

But I hear you saying, “Hey, King’s Necktie, you’re not exactly a beacon of sunshine yourself.” True. But at the risk of sounding like I’m rationalizing, I would suggest that my anger is what Buddhists call wrath: a righteous outrage at injustice, not some misplaced personal grudge that the civil rights movement put an end to separate water fountains.

I do realize that right wingers will make the same claim to righteousness…..I just think they’re wrong. As I have often said, one person shouting that the Earth is flat and another that it’s round are not equally right just because they’re shouting at equal volume.

LET THEM EAT CAKE (AND HAVE IT TOO)

My old pal Troy is representative of a kind of “conservative” who wants to be treated like a respectable pre-Trump Republican even as they support a version of the erstwhile Grand Old Party that has openly embraced fascism. But there is another version of this right wing archetype that eschews hostility for the façade of “reasonableness.” Which is despicable in its own way.

There may be no better example of that demographic than New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who, in his usual patronizing manner, and apropos of Alex Garland’s new movie Civil War, this past week assured us that fears of political violence in the US are ridiculous.

Given Ross’s crappy track record as a prognosticator, the fact that he’s pooh-poohing the odds of a second American civil war are very worrying. How this guy still has a job at the Times baffles me. (Maybe the payroll department thinks it’s the Washington Times he works for.)

Earlier I mentioned New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who, like Douthat, is the kind of allegedly “reasonable” Republican whose support for Trump is the sort of thing that might enable the sonofabitch to win. That support is in its own way more cowardly and despicable than that of the hardcore redhatted MAGA faithful, and certainly more cynical.

Last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” George Stephanopoulos pressed Sununu—a Nikki Haley supporter until she dropped out of the race—on his endorsement of Trump, given the governor’s recognition of all the vile things the presumptive GOP nominee has done, an attempted coup above all.

“You believe that a president who contributed to an insurrection should be president again?” Stephanopoulos asked. (Good job, George!)

“As does 51 percent of America, George,” Sununu sneered. “I mean, really. I understand you’re part of the media, I understand you’re in this New York City bubble or whatever it is, but you got to look around what’s happening across this country.” Sununu went on to make specious claims about inflation and the border before adding that it’s “that type of elitism that the average American is just sick and tired of, and it’s a culture change. That’s what I’m supporting.”

Let’s recap. First off, Sununu suggested that he was fine with fascism as long as lots of other people are. (His 51% figure is wildly wrong and deceitful, however. The number is more like 30%, even though, in our antidemocratic system, that may still be enough for Trump to win. But even a genuine majority that thrilled to authoritarianism would not make its triumph any more morally defensible.) Then he trotted out the tired reverse snobbery about the media and city dwellers and people of privilege—said the son of a former White House chief of staff and governor who followed his dad into that office.

In The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last neatly summarized the implications of Sununu’s odious stance:

Trumpist authoritarianism can only succeed when elites like Sununu give him cover.

Sununu isn’t a Trumpist. He doesn’t believe in MAGA populism. And he has no political future in the Republican party—he’s as anathema to MAGA as he would be if he were a Democrat. And yet, Sununu has been willing to campaign for Trump. To lie for Trump. To humiliate himself for Trump.

Why? Is he a dishonest scoundrel? A coward? Or a fool?

Sununu is part of a large class of Republican elites who have been not just willing, but eager, to play dice with liberal democracy.

To be fair and precise: Douthat does not identify as a Trump supporter, but his constant apologia for the man is tantamount to it. In fact, in the same way that Sununu is more craven than the unapologetic mass of MAGA, Douthat is even more craven than Chris. If you’re gonna be a fascist, do us a favor and be honest about it.

But I don’t need to argue with Douthat and Sununu any more than I do with erstwhile childhood friends, or their wives, or the Facebook rando who hates the sacrilege of AI Jesus and his BFF Donald. Their allegiance to Trumpism is self-damning.

YOU BET YOUR LIFE

To conclude, let me return to my online contretemps with Troy.

When he weighed in again, he was more succinct in reply to my blunt question about whether he supported Trump. “If it’s a choice between Biden and Trump,” he wrote, “I’ll vote for Trump every day and twice on Sunday. You know, like Democrats do.”

Per my policy, that was all I needed to know, and everything else we might talk about was ephemeral, including the original debate about free expression. “Nothing more to discuss after that,” I wrote. “Let’s let history decide which one of us chose more wisely.”

“Happy to take that deal,” he answered, with the unearned confidence of a Ron Burgundy.

And then I blocked him, and his wife, and his little dog too.

Personally, I like my odds.

*******

Photo: Palin & Cleese. “An argument is a collective series of statements intended to establish a proposition. It isn’t just saying, ‘No it isn’t’.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t!”

Profiles in Courage (Not)

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This is the third in an accidental series on autocracy’s handmaidens. I didn’t set out to do that; it’s just that the news is making it unavoidably so.

First, we looked at the despicable role of the Supreme Court in abetting Trump’s neo-authoritarian project while trying to maintain its pose of holier-than-thou high-mindedness. Then, at the role of us ordinary Americans, on whose docile cooperation that project depends. This week, we survey a few key leaders within the Republican Party who recently have had a real opportunity to stand up and defy this far right movement, but for various self-serving reasons decided……Nahhhhhhh.

Would I prefer to finish the essay on the re-release of Stop Making Sense that I’ve had on deck for like six months? Yes. So, friends, please fix our fucking democracy so I can chill out.

THE PARTY’S OVER

Remember when Donald Trump was a parvenu in the Republican Party, widely criticized by its mandarins as unfit for office, not a “real conservative,” and an electoral disaster waiting to happen?

He now owns the Republican National Committee lock, stock, and barrel. (Look for it on the Trump Organization website, next to the steaks, bottled water, Chinese-made neckties, and worthless university degrees.)  

Last week the RNC shitcanned its chairwoman, Ronna Romney McDaniel—a Trump toady who had already turned on her own uncle in favor of Donald—and replaced her with Trump’s own daughter-in-law, Lara, Eric’s wife, who is co-chair along with chairman Michael Whatley, a Big Lie proponent and longtime Trump booster.

The new regime wasted no time cleaning house. The WaPo reports: “The (RNC’s) senior leadership has been almost entirely replaced or reassigned, while dozens of lower-ranking officials including state directors were either fired or told to reapply for their jobs. A nationwide network of community outreach centers, once a fixture of the party’s efforts to attract minority voters, will be shuttered or refocused on get-out-the-vote efforts.” One inside source called it “an absolute bloodbath.”

This is true cult-of-personality, fascist state stuff, and the final obliteration of the Grand Old Party’s claim that it is the Party of Lincoln with a proud tradition of blah blah blah.

Perhaps the scariest thing for Republicans is the effect of all this on downballot GOP candidates, who can’t possibly miss the unmistakable signal that this new Trumpified RNC—like Trump himself—cares not a shit about them or their races.

Ideologically speaking, it marks the end of old school Republicanism that some of my conservative friends continue to insist is the heart of the GOP, and its final codification as the outright party of White Christian nationalism. As Heather Cox Richradson writes: “Rather than calling for a small federal government that stays out of the way of market forces, as Republicans have advocated since 1980, the new Trump Party calls for a strong government that enforces religious rules and bans abortion; books; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and so on.”

Bonus irony, for those old enough to remember: The purge and subsequent revamp is being led by Trump advisor Chris LaCivita, the same guy who led the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” smear campaign against John Kerry in 2004. Quick explainer, for those too young to remember: that was one of the most deceptive, dishonest, and despicably effective political ad campaigns in US history, one that convinced much of America that the son of a former US President who used his family connections to avoid going to war (and possibly didn’t even complete his Stateside Air National Guard service), was an uber-patriot, and the guy who actually went to Vietnam, and got wounded  there, and who had a chestful of medals, was somehow an un-American traitor. 

That ought to be an indicator of the kind of criminal, bare knuckles campaign Team Trump intends to run, and how gallingly successful it can be.

Are you shocked?

COUNTRY FIRST (BUT THE COUNTRY IS RUSSIA)

The GOP’s humiliating surrender to Trump is now complete. There are dudes in federal prison who get sodomized on a regular basis who have more dignity and agency than the leadership of the Republican Party. (If there’s any justice, Trump himself will be in that orange-suited population soon.)

Of course, in another sense, it is woefully off-base even to think of this dynamic in terms of the GOP “surrendering” to Trump. That formulation assumes that a hostile takeover is in play. It is not. The Republican Party is thrilled to have Trump; if it were not, it would have dumped him long ago. Even those old school “Rockefeller Republicans” who profess to have misgivings wind up bending the knee, if they want to remain in the Party’s good graces. Ask Oklahoma Sen. Jim Lankford, as right wing a politician as he can be, who nevertheless got censured by his own state party last week for the sin of brokering a bipartisan border deal that Trump subsequently disliked.

Even the most left-leaning outlets are susceptible to this fake narrative that there is still a “normie” wing of the GOP. Reporting on Nikki Haley dropping out of the presidential race, MSNBC (of all nets) recently ran a chyron that read, “Republicans Fail to Stop MAGA Movement.”

Et tu, MSNBC? When is the media gonna figure it out? The Republicans are not even TRYING to stop Trump. They don’t WANT to stop Trump. Trump IS the Republican Party. This chyron is like one that reads, “Arsonists Fail to Put Out Fire.”

(It was especially galling that this chyron should appear over an interview with former Republican-turned hardcore Never Trumper Charlie Sykes, who has been loudly sounding this very alarm for years.)

But that fealty to the Dear Leader need not be so blunt and brazen in order to do harm.

The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last has coined a law: “Any person or institution which is not explicitly anti-Trump will become a tool for authoritarianism eventually.”

We saw it with Moscow Mitch McConnell, who just endorsed Trump, despite years of acrimony between them, despite his speech during Trump’s second impeachment holding him “morally responsible” for January 6th, despite Trump insulting and humiliating him and launching a racist attack on his wife, Elaine Chao, formerly Trump’s own Labor Secretary. The rationale, we’re told, is that Mitch thinks a Trump win in November will give the GOP the best bet to hold onto the Senate, which is all he cares about. (Which is another way of saying that all he cares about is himself.)

Is it fun to watch Mitch get emasculated like this? Kinda. If only it weren’t at the feet of an even worse swine. A powerful, long-serving US senator on the cusp of retirement, with a history of hostility toward his party’s presidential candidate, could give that candidate the middle finger on the way out. But if Mitch had that kind of integrity, he wouldn’t be a craven POS in the first place.

We saw it again with the vastly overpraised Nikki Haley, who angered critics by not being more vocal in her condemnation of Trump when she ended her presidential run, after taking it to him fairly hard in the pyrrhic, what-have-I-got-to-lose endstage of her always hopeless campaign.

But again: should we really be surprised? A supposedly moderate conservative, Nikki ran on standard godawful GOP rhetoric, stood by Alabama’s fetal personhood decision, and promised to pardon Trump if she were elected president. Tell me again how she’s better than Donald?

When Nikki left the race, she did a pretty good Pontius PIlate impression in washing her hands of what happens from here. She certainly didn’t tell her supporters not to go over to Trump. Last writes, “If there’s been a more cowardly statement over the last year, I can’t think of it…..(Nikki Haley) has resigned herself to being a useful tool for Trump’s ongoing authoritarian attempt.” Don’t be surprised if she shows up on his ticket come summer.

And speaking of Nikki, we saw Last’s law in action with Haley supporter Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. Another alleged moderate, Sununu has also been highly critical of Trump, including calling him a “loser” and saying he should face the legal music in his various criminal proceedings. That’s the kind of behavior that earned him the same sort of undeserved credit from desperate and dewy-eyed liberals that Nikki got. (The bar for principle in the GOP is pretty low.)

But now that Nikki is out, Sununu has said that he will vote for Trump. “I’m going to support the ticket. I’m going to support Donald Trump.”

Guess he didn’t get the memo about “country over party.”

Acknowledging his previous criticism of Trump, Sununununu remarked, “Look, I don’t take any of that back, to be sure. But again, understand this is an alternative. I mean, the alternative is Biden.”

So Trump is really bad but Biden is somehow worse? That mindset is not going to age well. “Yeah, Mussolini’s a monster, but I’m loyal party guy.”

OO-OOH THAT SMELL

These Republicans, who have not the courage of those who left the party in disgust—like David Jolly or Michael Steele or Bill Kristol or Charlie Sykes or Tim Miller or George Conway—are looking down the barrel of history’s harshest judgment.

Sununu is on record arguing that our institutions are so strong that a single individual can’t undermine them, telling the New York Times (sic): “As much of a stink as (Trump) made that the election fraud in Jan. 6 and all this stuff, he still walked out the door.”

As Chris Cillizza writes, you could call January 6th—and more importantly, the concerted campaign of electoral subversion that led up to it—just a stink. Or, “You could also call it an armed insurrection on the US Capitol with the express purpose of delaying the certification of a free and fair election.” Cillizza reminds us how close Trump came to succeeding in that effort, stopped only by the actions of a few. Contrary to the conclusion that “our institutions and democracy are essentially impregnable,” Cillizza writes that he took the exact opposite lesson from that day:

To me, what January 6 proved is that we were one Mike Pence action away from the basic tenets of democracy being totally undermined. (And Pence had plenty of doubts before he did the right thing!). The aftermath of the 2020 election showed me how paper-thin the difference between order and chaos, between democracy and, um, not-democracy really is.

For Sununu to believe that Trump can’t do anything all that bad if he is elected again requires him to ignore ALL of the things the former president has already SAID he will do if he is elected again. Among those proposals:

+ A political weaponization of the Justice Department

+ A purge in the civil service—aimed at installing more Trump loyalists

+ A new Muslim ban

+ Retribution against news channels he views as unfriendly to him

The idea of reinstalling someone like that into office solely because he, like you, has an “R” after his name is, to borrow a phrase from Sununu, fucking crazy.

SLIPPERY PEOPLE

There were a couple other little things that came out recently that bear noting.

After getting savagely—and justifiably—mocked for her State of the Union rebuttal, it emerged that tone was the least of Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.)’s issues. The flat-out lie that Republicans will protect IVF didn’t get by me, but now her sensational story of a sex trafficked migrant has turned out to be untrue in several crucial details, including the president it happened under—George W. Bush.

Well, I’ll be.

As some wag put it, it takes a helluva lot of gall to talk about the horrors of sex trafficking and then tell viewers to vote for a convicted sexual predator. It takes even more gall to lie about it. (The Washington Post’s factchecker gave Britt’s version four Pinocchios.)

The truth was exposed by independent journalist Jonathan Katz, demonstrating yet again why a truly free and tenacious press—one not beholden to profits or political pressure—is so crucial, particularly to a democracy under siege.

The other story I want to touch on is Trump’s speech in Rome, Georgia, the heart of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s congressional district, soon after the SOTU.

Look at some tape of Don just four years ago. He was always cuddly as a cactus and charming as an eel, but back then he could at least put a coherent sentence together. His mental decline is howlingly evident. But his awfulness carries on.

Employing his usual talent for projection, Trump railed at Biden for “shouting angrily at America” in “the worst State of the Union speech in history,” describing it as an “angry, dark, hate-filled rant” and the “most divisive, partisan, radical and extreme speech ever delivered by a president in that chamber.” He called Biden “grossly incompetent,” “the worst president in history,” “the most corrupt,” as well as “crooked,” clueless, and “a threat to democracy” who would “weaponize government, weaponize the FBI, weaponize the DOJ,” alleging that “everything (he) touches turns to shit” and that he is “destroying our country,”

That is in fact a highly accurate description of a recent president, but that president is not Joe Biden.

And then he mocked Joe’s stutter.

Here’s John Hendrickson in The Atlantic:

More than Trump’s ugly taunt, one thing stands out to me about these moments: the sound of Trump’s supporters laughing right along with him. This is a building block of Trumpism. The man at the top gives his followers permission to be the worst version of themselves.

I spent some time in that part of north Georgia, and lived for quite a few years south of there, in Columbus. (Athens it ain’t.) But the people there are like the people everywhere: good, bad, and everything in between. The self-selecting batch that showed up for a Trump rally aren’t a representative sample, and undoubtedly skew toward the middle of that spaghetti western triptych. But like Nikki and Chris and even Mitch (at least at the beginning of his loathsome career), there are plenty of people who might otherwise be constrained by longstanding norms, including common decency, who have gone over to the dark side after Trump opened the door and beckoned them in.

Let’s give Hendrickson—a stutterer himself—the last word, or at least next to last:

Trump may be among the most famous and powerful people in modern history, but he remains a small-minded bully. He mocks Biden’s disability because he believes the voters will reward him for it—that there is more to be gained than lost by dehumanizing his rival and the millions of other Americans who stutter, or who go through life managing other disorders and disabilities. I would like to believe that more people are repulsed than entertained, and that Trump has made a grave miscalculation. We have eight more months of this until we find out.

And the Republican Party has welcomed this cretin into the house and given him the keys.

***********

Photos, clockwise from top left: Aspiring Trump running mate Nikki Haley; future Fox contributor Chris Sununu; an American yardbird aspiring not to wind up on the menu at Popeye’s; and a fella on his way to join Joe McCarthy and Strom Thurmond in the ninth circle of Hell.

Credits: McConnell: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters; Haley: Reuters; Sununu: Chris Cillizza/Substack; Chicken: selfie

We Get the Government We Deserve

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Last week I wrote about the ways in which the archconservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, in agreeing to hear Trump’s ludicrous immunity claim, is abetting his open desire to install a right wing dictatorship in the US. (Though only, he says, for Day One. His words, not mine.)

That effort carried on the very next day, when the Court handed down a second decision keeping Trump on the ballot in Colorado and elsewhere.

But it would be an enormous mistake to believe that SCOTUS, or any governmental institution, is the only problem. It would be a mistake even to say that the problem lies with Trump and the other cretinous architects of that neo-fascist endeavor themselves. A far more worrying problem is the extent to which many many many ordinary Americans fail to appreciate the danger, and—gobsmackingly—seem to think that Donald Trump and his fellow travelers are reasonable, trustworthy politicians who deserve their vote.

Be they deluded Kool Aid-drunk true believers, apathetic low-information voters who aren’t really paying attention, or just wildly misinformed folks who can still be won over, these citizens represent a terrifying demographic on whom the latest Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes may turn, and on whom the forces of fascism are counting. 

DO THEY CALL ME GIUSEPPE THE BOAT BUILDER?

I’ve made this point before—ad nauseam, some might say. Only a month ago, I made almost the identical argument in a piece called “Who Needs Voter Suppression?” that carried an illustration of lemmings. This week it’s sheep. Hey, do you think it’s easy to crank out 5000 words a week without some recycling?

But I continue to repeat myself because the problem remains.

We all know that the polls are—bizarrely—grim for Joe Biden. In a sane world, he would be cruising to re-election on the strength of a record that most incumbents would give their eye teeth for….particularly since his opponent is facing 91 criminal indictments, including trying to overthrow a free and fair election (and murder his own vice president along the way, though he’s not even charged for that). Yet a slim majority of Americans—at least for now—seem to think Donald Trump would be a better choice for the job.

[Pause to collect pieces of skull and brain tissue scattered across the room.]

Here’s Nate Cohn in the New York Times:

On paper, Biden ought to be the favorite…..Yet according to the polls, Trump begins the general election campaign in the lead. Over the last four months, he has led nearly every poll in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, along with the states he carried in 2020 — enough to give him 283 electoral votes and the presidency. This is not what many expected from a Biden-Trump rematch, especially after Democrats were resilient in the midterms and excelled in special elections by campaigning on issues like democracy and abortion.

Last week the New York Times ran a front page headline that read, “Voters Doubt Biden’s Leadership and Favor Trump, Times/Siena Poll Finds.” That sentence alone is headspinning, but let’s explore it a little further.

With eight months left until the November election, Mr. Biden’s 43 percent support lags behind Mr. Trump’s 48 percent in the national survey of registered voters. Only one in four voters thinks the country is moving in the right direction. More than twice as many voters believe Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them as believe his policies have helped them. A majority of voters think the economy is in poor condition.

A full 40 percent of voters said Mr. Trump’s policies had helped them personally, compared to only 18 percent who said the same of Mr. Biden’s. Only 12 percent of independent voters….said Mr. Biden’s policies had personally helped them, compared to 43 percent who said his policies had hurt them.

Was this poll taken at a Klan rally? Or in the banquet room at Mar-a-Lago? Or maybe in the Kremlin?

We know that these beliefs fly in the face of empirical reality. But facts don’t matter any more, do they? And it’s no coincidence that the people who promote that post-modernist view—the right wing—do so because the facts don’t favor them. Cui bono, people.

And the bitter, Orwellian injustice of it all gets even worse:

(O)ver and over, the Times/Siena poll revealed how Mr. Trump has cut into more traditional Democratic constituencies while holding his ground among Republican groups. The gender gap, for instance, is no longer benefiting Democrats. Women, who strongly favored Mr. Biden four years ago, are now equally split, while men gave Mr. Trump a nine-point edge. The poll showed Mr. Trump edging out Mr. Biden among Latinos, and Mr. Biden’s share of the Black vote is shrinking, too.

It beggars belief that, after Dobbs, Trump is winning a majority of American women. Latinx support for Trump is also hard to fathom, even accounting for the oft-forgotten strain of Catholic conservatism in that community. Significant numbers of Latinx voters are going over to the guy who made demonization of immigrants, especially brown ones, the whole backbone of his campaign? The one who told us that Mexicans are rapists and criminals, and wanted to wall off the southern border? The one who kidnapped and caged thousands of Latinx children? The one that wants to kick down doors in search of “illegals”—again, predominantly Hispanic people—and build concentration camps to put them in?

Of course, “Hispanics’ are not a monolith. There’s a world of difference between, say, a recent Guatemalan refuge and a rabidly anti-Castro Cuban-American born and raised in Miami. But the latter have long been in the Republican camp. What accounts for the new converts?

I dunno, but I’m reminded of that overplayed Don McLean song where Satan was laughing with delight.

Some of these results may reflect what the researcher David Atkins calls “thermostatics,” which is a fancy way of saying that, while incumbency has its advantages, there is also a hope-springs-eternal/grass-is-always-greener effect that makes voters want to “throw the bums out,” no matter who’s in power. (Triple points for me on the Cliché-o-Meter.) Not to mention a willful, collective amnesia over just how horrible the Trump years were.

In any case, if you ever get the feeling that you’re living in Idiocracy, you’re not alone. Stand by for eight Oscars for Ass.

BACKSTABBERS

Who, in the wake of January 6, thought that a mere three years later we would be on the verge of returning Donald Trump to power? Yes, the GOP and the levers it controls have been instrumental in that American Dolchstoßlegende. But like the grifters say, you can’t con a man who doesn’t want to be conned. And plenty of Americans have been happy to let themselves be suckered.

But let’s back up a little. I say “verge of returning” Trump to power, but that is an overstatement, of course.

A few days ago, this Biden-is-doomed narrative looked like it was calcifying into received wisdom. Then Joe gave a ferocious State of the Union speech that chipped away at the “old and senile” narrative and suddenly convinced a lot of people that he’s not dead yet.  (Not that his haters will be swayed. Ross Douthat wasn’t. But Ross’s judgment has been known to be iffy.) It was a reminder that Joe’s been in politics a long time, and he’s pretty good at it—something his enemies somehow consistently forget, over and over.

Afterward, a lot of pundits who’d been defeatist a mere 24 hours before suddenly saw a world in which Trump looked very mortal indeed. In The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last’s headline was “Biden Can. Win.” In The Atlantic, Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Senior’s was “Biden Silences the Doubters.”

We shall see. American politics swing back and forth harder than Tom Brady’s retirement plans.

Meanwhile, it’s weird to wake up and think that Tommy Tuberville doesn’t seem like the crazier of Alabama’s two US Senators anymore. The GOP ought to be disqualified just for thinking Senator Chloe Fineman—er, I mean Katie Britt—was the best available spokesperson to give their SOTU response. Yes, I know it’s a thankless, no-win assignment (ask Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal), but this one was awful even by those low standards. The high school drama club tone, the “American carnage” theme, the dogwhistling choice of a woman speaking from her kitchen—it was truly beyond parody. The historian Heather Cox Richardson noted that Britt “conspicuously wore a necklace with a cross and spoke in a breathy, childlike voice as she wavered between smiles and the suggestion she was on the verge of tears.” The content of her speech was all but unworthy of attention, but one lowlight was her attempt at a variation on the old Reagan line, “Are you better off than you were three years ago?”

Uh, you mean during the pandemic? Actually, um, yes. Yes, I am better off.

As Andy Borowitz quipped, Britt characterized “Biden as out of touch for not knowing the price of gas or groceries. Her nominee only knows how much it costs to silence a porn star.” But far and away the most important thing to note was her howling, outright lie about GOP support for in vitro fertilization when she and her party explicitly support fetal personhood, which would explicitly outlaw IVF, led by the nutjob Christian radical Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of her own home state of Alabama.

“Republican Politician Tells Brazen Lie”—stop the presses.

Katie Britt is said to be a formidable—and therefore scary—right wing politician. Despite this humiliating debut on the national stage, in which she was badly served by her handlers, we may not have seen the last of her.

FOLLY TO BE WISE, GUYS

The alarm over Biden’s prospects is not entirely a bad thing. It can be helpful as a wakeup call, a boon to voter registration and GOTV efforts, and a bulwark against complacency and overconfidence. (Little chance of the latter, strong chance of the former.) It also points to a way to move the proverbial needle, and a great opportunity for the Democratic Party and their man.

As the Times’s Cohn writes, “There might be a kernel of good news for Biden hidden in his extreme weakness among less engaged voters: His campaign can hope they are simply not paying close attention, and might return to Biden’s side once voters tune into the race.”

As we noted last week, criminal conviction(s) are the one thing that even Republicans say would dent their support for Trump. The aforementioned NYT/Siena poll, the one that causes a collective pants-shitting in Blue America, showed that there has been a slight dip in the number of voters who “currently believe Mr. Trump has committed serious federal crimes,” down from 58 percent in December to 53 percent now. One has to believe that that downward trend—the result of relentless right wing propagandizing—will reverse as criminal trials commence and hard evidence against him is presented. Which is precisely why the GOP, including its loyalists on the Supreme Court, is working overtime to delay those trials.

But Trump has other vulnerabilities with voters that, similarly, have not yet been highlighted to them.

Remarkably, polling shows that most Americans—incredibly—are unaware of Trump’s fanatic, fascist comments about what he’d do in a second term, and his desire to “terminate” portions of the Constitution and turn the US into a dictatorship. When made aware, their view of him (and willingness to vote for him) drops significantly.

That lack of awareness is astonishing to me, but the possibility here for Democratic strategists is obvious. As Greg Sargent, formerly of the WaPo and now at The New Republic, writes:

That’s maddening for obvious reasons. But it also presents the Biden campaign with an opportunity. If voters are unaware of all these statements, there’s plenty of time to make voters aware of them—and the polling also finds that these statements, when aired to respondents, shift them against Trump.

A survey by the veteran Democratic pollster Geoff Garin for the group Save My Country polled  voters in three swing states—Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—and weighted the results according to votes in the Electoral College.

The poll asked them about 10 of Trump’s most authoritarian statements, including: the two mentioned above, Trump’s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” his vow to pardon rioters who attacked the Capitol, his promise to prosecute the Biden family without cause, his threat to inflict mass persecution on the “vermin” opposition, and a few more.

Result? “Only 31 percent of respondents said they previously had heard a lot about these statements by Trump,” the memo accompanying the poll concluded. 

The good news for Biden is that when respondents were presented with these quotes, it prompted a rise in Trump’s negatives. For instance, after hearing them, the percentage who see him as “out for revenge” jumped by five points, the percentage who see him as “dangerous” rose by nine points, and the percentage who see him as a “dictator” climbed by seven points.

Garin also found that when presented with these remarks, “the percentage of those who view Trump unfavorably jumps five points, from 53 percent to 58 percent, and 69 percent say Trump will bring “chaos to the presidency and our country.”

In other words, when voters are presented with evidence straight from Trump’s own mouth, they see an authoritarian second term as very plausible.

Sargent notes that one interpretation of these results is that Team Biden hasn’t successfully made the case for Trump’s unfitness—yet. Maybe they’re keeping their powder dry for the summer and fall. According to this logic, when voters are adequately presented with the truth, particularly about the two central issues in this race—democracy and abortion—where the vast majority of Americans are soundly aligned with the Democratic position and hostile to the Republican one, Biden will win.

More importantly, Sargent notes that these results seem to obliterate the idea that voters just don’t care.

“In fact, all this might in some ways validate one of the Biden camp’s frequent claims—that voters are so checked out that they aren’t seriously aware of the threat a second Trump term poses.” Yes, hardcore Trumpies will never turn on their guy….but that’s not who we’re talking about. We’re talking about the slim but crucial sliver in the squishy middle who will decide the election—a segment Sargent describes as “gettable” for Biden.

“Trump’s negatives are not baked into the cake at all,” Garin told me. Fortunately for the Biden camp, between now and Election Day there are some eight months to fire up the campaign crucible and ensure that they do get baked in—good and hard.

Cohn writes that Biden can “hope that Trump will loom larger in the minds of voters as the election nears.” Beyond mere hope, that is exactly what Democratic messengers intend to promote.

In the end, Biden might well prevail by capitalizing on issues like abortion and democracy. Historically, early polls are not especially predictive of a final outcome. Many voters aren’t yet paying close attention, and there will be every opportunity for the Biden campaign to refocus the electorate on more favorable issues once the general election campaign gets underway.

FILE UNDER DUNNING-KRUEGER

There’s lack of awareness, and then there’s wanton, day-is-night, ass backwardness.

While the punditocracy is obsessed with beating up on Joe Biden—and not just the right but the center and left too—marveling that he is not more popular given his many significant accomplishments and the flaws of his opponent, consider the vast tsunami of political ignorance that engulfs America, and with which he must contend.

The Times’s Cohn related the tale of his colleague Claire Cain Miller who “interviewed a voter who said abortion was the most important issue, but blamed Biden for the loss of abortion rights in America.”

Yes, the Biden campaign may bear some blame for not doing a better job of getting the facts out there, and maybe it will do so in the next eight months. But when we are up against that kind of stupidity, one wonders if our country will soon get the kind of vile, reality-denying autocratic government it deserves. Is it just anecdotal? Yeah, but add up enough anecdotes and you get a statistically significant (or even definitive) critical mass.

Per above, Biden’s inner circle is said to be confident that they can win over that sliver of misinformed and/or insufficiently attentive voters. They’re the pros, so I hope they’re right. 

But if part of the blame for this public ignorance of Trump’s statements and misdeeds falls on Team Biden and the DNC for failing to make their case, a lot of it falls on the press. When it comes to the relative flaws of Joe vs. Don, it’s “but her emails” all over again.

While the media obsesses over Biden’s electoral prospects—a process that only further diminishes them—what is Trump up to, besides trying to get Elon Musk or some Middle Eastern potentate or (presumably) Vladimir Putin to give him half billion dollars so he can post bail in his various trials? (Good thing a guy in the red like that isn’t in possession of sensitive US government secrets!)

Whatever it is, the media isn’t covering it in any kind of remotely responsible way. Here’s the esteemed Dan Rather:

Over the weekend, the former president said that he would eliminate federal funding for any school with a vaccine mandate. That includes vaccines against chickenpox, polio, and measles. The audience shouted its approval of this dangerous, if not outright terrifying, promise. Can you imagine the consequences of that? The children who would die? Where’s the coverage and the outrage?

Then Trump confused two Democratic presidents—not for the first time—saying, “Putin has so little respect for Obama ….” Imagine the airtime that remark would get if it came from President Biden?

Rather’s conclusion is that “an informed and determined electorate can stop (Trump) at the ballot box.” No doubt about that. But that requires someone to inform them in the first place.

Greg Sargent again:

President Biden’s brain trust appears confident that he will ultimately prevail over Donald Trump due to the threat Trump poses to our constitutional system. By November, the election’s “focus will become overwhelmingly on democracy,” one top Biden adviser told The New Yorker, adding that “the biggest images in people’s minds are going to be of January 6th.”

Some of Biden’s fate lies with turnout, particularly when it comes to “the less engaged, less educated segment of the electorate, including many young, Black and Hispanic voters who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.” As Cohn notes, in 2020 he defeated Trump in the “pivotal battleground states” only by narrow margins—less than a percentage point. And now “his favorability rating is 14 points lower.”

If some of Biden’s strengths in 2020 have eroded, some of Trump’s vulnerabilities have widened. Per Cohn, Trump is “viewed about as unfavorably as he was four years ago. In fact, his ratings numbers are almost exactly where they stood before the last election” and “a majority of voters say they believe Trump has committed serious federal crimes.” In an election with razor thin margins, that could make the difference for either man.

But writing about the current presidential race in old-fashioned horserace terms is exactly what I don’t want to be doing. We are in an existential crisis for American democracy, with the candidate of one of our two major parties openly campaigning on a promise to institute cult-of-personality-style fascism. Talking about the color of ties and kissing babies at state fairs is not appropriate. It’s a habit the press finds hard to break, so it will fall to partisans outside the Fourth Estate to make that case.

FLIRTING WITH DISASTER

In the Times, Cohn writes: “Trump’s persistent unpopularity sets up an agonizing choice for millions of voters who liked and backed Biden in the last election but now find themselves left to choose between two candidates they dislike; a group sometimes known as ‘double haters’.”

Wow. Are there really people trying to decide who’s worse, Trump or Biden? No matter what you think of Joe Biden, the idea that anyone thinks Trump is a better choice to lead this country is unfathomable to me.

One of Biden’s favorite lines is, “Don’t compare me to the Almighty—compare me to the alternative.” (#DadJoke #GranddadJoke.) That contrast has never been more stark than in the 2024 presidential race. But Americans are also justifiably tired of a choice between the lesser of two evils, even if one “evil” is MASSIVELY more evil than the other evil, which can hardly be described as evil at all.

Let me be clear: I don’t believe there is any legitimate reason to vote for Donald Trump, any more than I believe there’s any legitimate reason to take the side of Vladimir Putin, or Francisco Franco, or that fella from Austria. Not saying he’s in their league, but how bad do you have to be? Trump has far exceeded the minimum standard of unfitness for public office and designation as a menace to society.

I have dear friends who are Trump supporters. (And possibly family? Not sure.) I love them. But I believe they are dead wrong on that count, and history will judge it so.

We are far from the only country to flirt so openly with fascism. Some have not only flirted but gone all the way to consummation, and smoking cigarettes together afterward while avoiding the wet spot. There has always been a proto-authoritarian strain in the American soul, though rarely has it been as ascendant as at the moment. But if it triumphs here, it will be due not only to the Proud Boys and the Josh Hawleys and the Tucker Carlsons, but to the shoulder-shrugging tens of millions who didn’t storm the Capitol, but quietly went along and didn’t stand up to stop the march of American authoritarianism either.

Democrats will run on abortion and democracy, and if that’s not enough to win I don’t know what’s wrong with our country. Maybe it will be. Or maybe the GOP will sucker enough of the American people once again, with the help of the maddening apathy of otherwise progressive-leaning young people, a far left that is living up to its reputation for devouring its own, and the furor of Arab-Americans in Michigan who think Biden is abetting genocide and therefore prefer to throw the race to an opponent who would cause infinitely more harm to the people of Palestine, and won’t stop there.

But if we return Donald Trump to power—for any reason, and as the result of any weird combination of factors, we will get what we deserve.

*******

Photo: Portrait of American voters in their natural habitat

h/t Genie Smith for the Dan Rather article

Thanks to Gina Patacca for her pro bono copy editing!

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History Will Shake Its Damn Head

Published on by thekingsnecktie5 Comments

The American punditocracy was recently rattled by news that the US Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s absurd claim that, while president, he was a king who could have legally ordered SEAL Team Six to cap Joe Biden.

I know that’s not the specific scenario in United States vs. Donald Trump, but it’s a thought experiment that was posed in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals when it heard the case, and is very much the gist of what SCOTUS has agreed to decide.

And by so doing, the Supreme Court itself may have had the effect of capping Joe Biden.

It boggles the mind that the highest court in the land is even bothering with this ridiculous appeal, one that has been thoroughly debunked by lower courts, and the consideration of which poses vast dangers to the republic. But bothering it is, which is all the more ominous as a harbinger of what is coming next, either by accident or design.

So let me jump ahead to the conclusion, for those without the time to slog through this whole essay:

American democracy is at grave risk from a homegrown neo-fascist movement, one that is abusing the very mechanisms of that democracy in order to undermine and destroy it. And the people and institutions that comprise that democracy are not only allowing it to happen, but assisting it.

TLDNR

Few legal experts thought the Court would take up this case. Trump’s claim of total immunity is ridiculous on its very face, defying the whole premise of American democracy. The DC Circuit Court obliterated it in its airtight, well-reasoned and articulated decision of last month, and SCOTUS had no obligation to hear the appeal, or even explain why it declined to do so. It could easily have denied certiorari without comment, as it does all the time, let the solid lower court decision stand, and allowed the trial of Trump to proceed. That is what it would have done if it really wanted to protect its already badly damaged reputation, and affirm its allegedly high-minded desire to stay out of partisan politics (or so we are repeatedly told).

But it did not. So one thing we can presume is that, for some of the Court’s right wing members, any semblance of integrity (or at least the appearance thereof) is secondary to advancing its Christian nationalist agenda, optics be damned. Is that shocking? Not when recent scandals involving certain justices suggest that they don’t really give a shit about optics at all.

(Trump himself openly cheered the Court’s decision to take the case—a sure sign that it is evil. But I guess he got what he paid for.)

Let’s not forget: Trump put a full third of the justices on that Supreme Court, joining two others who are— believe it or not—even more conservative than Trump’s picks, and another—the Chief Justice—who is a garden variety Reagan-era Republican who sides with them often as not.

Them ain’t great odds. Given the GOP’s campaign of election subversion, and Trump’s own personal criminality, this was always the fear: that Trump would place justices on the Supreme Court who might someday hold his fate—either electoral or carceral, or both—in their hands. And that turns out to be exactly what is happening.

Of course, the notion that the right-leaning Court is doing this explicitly to aid Trump may be a bit unfair. There could be legitimate reasons SCOTUS took up the case.

Maybe the Court feels it’s incumbent upon it to weigh in on what election expert Richard Hasen has called “the most important case in this Nation’s history.” A decision from the highest court in the land would put a definitive end to this fundamental question once and for all, and settle the matter nationwide for all of Trump’s many trials, rather than have the same issue come up over and over, to be handled piecemeal.

Yeah, maybe that’s the Court’s thinking. But that does not mean a majority of the Court agrees that the immunity claim is so much horseshit.

The best case scenario, as noted by Tim Heaphy, formerly lead attorney for the House J6 Committee, is a quick decision that has the political side effect of convincing a majority of the American people that Trump’s claim is bullshit, thus aiding his speedy prosecution. But the highly respected retired federal judge and conservative anti-Trump icon Michael Luttig argues that the only plausible reason the Court took the case is because at least one or two justices (read: Clarence and Sam) believe Trump is in fact immune. For that same reason, Luttig doubts a fast decision is in the works.

On that point, all this gymnastic speculation about why the Court is doing what it’s doing—“It just wants to go by the book, to make MAGA Nation accept its verdict!”—is beginning to feel like wishful thinking, akin to the tedious speculation about why the Republican Party at large hasn’t yet dumped Trump. I am not at all sure that this Court, like the GOP at large, wants Trump to go down to defeat, and I am even less sure that it will deliver a verdict here that hastens that outcome.

SLOWWALKING TOWARD OBLIVION

Trump has gamed and exploited the legal system his entire adult life, and continues to do so now. But that system does not have to roll over and let him do so, especially when it is very clear what he is up to. Unless, of course, the conservative elements within that system want to let him to do that, and are doing everything they can to help.

Trump’s privileged treatment by the legal system is akin to his privileged treatment by the health care system when he had COVID. In both cases, the least deserving recipient on Earth—one who had actively attacked and undermined that very system—was given the very best advantages available from it, advantages the average American would never get. Infuriating does not begin to describe it.

Oral arguments are set for April 22. A decision is not likely before the end of the Court’s current term, which would be early July. That means the soonest a trial would start—assuming the decision is not a pro-Trump travesty that shuts the case down altogether—would be late summer, and even that is unlikely. A verdict before Election Day is all but impossible.

Why is this delay so important? Because the American people have a right to hear a court of law and a jury of Donald Trump’s peers adjudicate his guilt or innocence regarding an attempted coup d’état before they go to the polls and consider him for restoration to the position of President the United States.

We all know that, shockingly, nothing thus far has dented Trump’s support among conservative voters: not paying hush money to a porn star, not “grab ‘em by the pussy,” not kissing Putin’s ass, not kidnapping migrant children, not killing hundreds of thousand by mismanaging a pandemic, not even trying to have Mike Pence murdered as part of a failed coup. Weirdly, the one thing that polls tell us would cause some of those Republican voters to turn on him would be a criminal conviction. And the Supreme Court seems eager to step in and make sure that doesn’t happen before those voters go to the polls.

In a piece titled “The Supreme Court Just Handed Trump an Astonishing Victory,” Vox’s Ian Milhiser wrote:

It’s hard to imagine the Supreme Court signing onto this argument, which has already been rejected by two other courts. Yet Trump has now, with Wednesday’s ruling, leveraged this ridiculous legal argument to delay his DC trial for at least four and a half months, and the delay will likely extend much longer because the Court will need time to produce an opinion.

Milhiser called it “a colossal victory for Trump,” one that “could potentially allow him to evade criminal responsibility for his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election altogether.”

Simply put, Wednesday’s order is a disaster for anyone hoping that Trump may face trial before the November election. And, because the nominal reason for this order is to give the justices more time to decide if the president is completely above the law, this decision raises serious doubts about whether this Court can be trusted to oversee Trump-related cases in a nonpartisan manner.

We have all heard that most legal experts believe the Court will ultimately reject the immunity claim. Then again, most experts believed it wouldn’t take it up in the first place. Even if the Court does reject ultimately his immunity claim, the sheer time it is taking to do so will have aided Trump beyond comprehension, which may be all he wants or needs. Therefore, if the political benefit of this delay allows Trump to win re-election, none of the attendant details will matter, not even a final ruling against him…..because he will be president again and can shut down this case, as part of a broader effort to institute a right wing dictatorship that he is openly advertising and campaigning on.

As my friend Scott Matthews points, out, there is also the chance SCOTUS rules that Trump’s actions were sufficiently close to “official,” where presidential immunity is already settled law. (That is certainly what—hold onto your red baseball hat—the Wall Street Journal thinks.) Of course, it’s risible that trying to overturn an election would fall under a president’s official duties, but not inconceivable that a Supreme Court with a right wing supermajority would rule that way.

Would they give Biden the same immunity? Of course not.

Obviously, if we had a functional Court whose right wing members showed a shred of principle, Clarence “Big Man” Thomas would recuse himself. But you may have noticed, we don’t. At least Ginni, who was an active collaborator in the attempted coup at the center of the case the Court will hear, will be happy. I’m sure they’ll have a laugh about it on their next trip on Harlan Crow’s private jet.

SHAKE IT LIKE A POLAROID PICTURE

As I have written here and elsewhere, future generations may well look back on the actions of the people and institutions of the United States in this period with absolute head-shaking astonishment.

Not because the Republican Party squandered its chance to be rid of Trump after January 6th. That way of thinking presumes the GOP is a reasonable political party that wants to be rid of him, and not a neo-fascist Christian dominionist insurgency happy to have him at his head. Nor will our descendants shake their collective noggin at the fact that roughly 30% of Americans are fully on board with that autocratic endeavor. We know our country has always had a robust subset of slavering pro-authoritarian troglodytes.

But they will headshake a-plenty at the foolish willingness of the vast, non-cretinous but insufficiently bothered majority to let its own democracy be destroyed, even after narrowly dodging that fate only a few years before at the hands of that very same asshole and his army of eager gargoyles.

Now, you may say: “Hey, King’s Necktie, you’re being irrational and emotional. Much as you may hate Trump, and as serious a threat as he is to American democracy, we have to play by the rules, otherwise we become what he is.”

(You can call me Bob by the way. Or Bobby. Or RJ. Or you can call me Al; it was Al all the time.)

I hear you, dear readers. We absolutely ought to give Trump due process and the full benefit of the law that any accused individual deserves. We ought to dot our i’s and cross our t’s and do everything by the book, both for the principle of it, and to deny MAGA Nation any reason to claim victimization or martyrdom or injustice. (For all the good that will do. They will cry foul anyway.)

But the Constitution is not a suicide pact. We can stay within the letter—and spirit—of the law without bending over backwards to accommodate a brazen fascist who has openly declared that, if elected, he intends to trash the very system that protected and abetted him. And the behavior of so many right wing politicians and government officials on that front, including, apparently, at least a few justices on the Supreme Court, suggests that they are not acting out of naïveté at all but active, palm-rubbing malevolence.

Right after Biden beat Trump in 2020 (it’s true, Republicans—look it up!), I wrote a piece called “The Ghost of Grover Cleveland,” ruminating on the odds that Trump could come back and win a second term. I didn’t rule it out, though at the time he seemed grievously wounded. His prospects looked even worse after the failed coup of a few weeks later, when it seemed that even the craven GOP was going to break with him at last. Apparently we all badly underestimated the depths of the Republicans’ cowardice and avarice.

I guess I figured when you were already in Death Valley, you couldn’t go any lower……but I forgot about the Marianas Trench, where the GOP seems to be building a gated community.

Devil’s advocate: Does Hasen’s aforementioned assessment of the importance of this case not argue for moving slowly and carefully? Sure, to an extent—but not when one of the factors making it so important is the time-sensitive nature of the threat a second Trump presidency poses to American democracy.

The Court certainly does not have to move this slowly. In 1974, it heard arguments in United States v. Nixon and issued its decision within weeks. It moved even faster in Bush v. Gore, issuing an opinion within a matter of days. Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of the nonprofit watchdog group Democracy 21, told the Post:

This case is just as important, probably more important, than the Pentagon Papers case, or the (Watergate) tapes case. If they wait and issue the opinion at the end of the term in June, they likely will have knowingly prevented voters from knowing if Trump is a convicted felon before they vote. They will have rewarded Trump’s delaying strategy at the enormous expense of the country and the Supreme Court.

In an op-ed for MSNBC, Wertheimer, Norman Eisen, former impeachment counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, Joshua Kolb, former law clerk on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote:

There is no excuse for the court to drag its feet. The issues have already been fully briefed multiple times, and the justices are well aware of both the legal arguments and the stakes. Unnecessary delays risk depriving voters of knowing whether Trump attempted to criminally subvert our democracy when they cast their ballots for president. 

But it wouldn’t be the first time those folks in black robes reached in and decided a presidential election.

ONLY FANS

In a recent piece for The Bulwark titled “Delay is a Choice,“ Bill Kristol wrote that in taking up Trump’s laughable immunity claim, and thereby abetting his attempt to run out the clock before November 5, the Supreme Court “broke no laws or even rules,” which speaks to the insidiousness of the act. Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, made a similar point, telling the Washington Post, “This appears to be the approach that helps Trump the most while appearing not to.” The former federal prosecutor and Mueller team member Andrew Weissmann calls the Court’s decision to hear this case de facto immunity, a point also made by Waldman, who tweeted, “The Court effectively granted Trump immunity for his alleged crimes, regardless of whatever ruling they make later.”

This latest delay of at least two months comes on top of a previous delay of two and a half months that the Court created last December when it declined Jack Smith’s request for an expedited ruling on this very issue, in order to avoid the exact problem we now find ourselves facing. (One small but hopeful sign is that the Court has fast-tracked written arguments in this case, but even then it is giving the two sides seven weeks to do so.) And there could be more delays to come. The high court could send the case back down to Judge Tanya Chutkan for further distinguishing between immune and non-immune presidential conduct, or engage in any number of other arcane and time-consuming legal maneuvers…..all while the fuse is burning down on a giant Boris Badenov-meets-Wile E. Coyote-sized pile of antidemocratic dynamite.

Yet another former federal prosecutor, Lisa Rubin, has predicted that Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump toady who is presiding over the stolen documents case down in Florida, will surely use the Supreme Court’s action as an excuse to delay that trial as well. Frankly, she would be justified in so doing, unlike many of her other rulings—just another reason why SCOTUS’s decision to grant cert is so destructive. Meanwhile, the election interference case in Georgia has already been delayed thanks to the brouhaha over Fani Willis’s conduct of that prosecution, even though her actions in no way affect the material allegations against the defendant.

All this delay means that the first criminal trial Trump will face is the New York City case against him for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. In fact, that trial, currently set to begin to on March 25, may be the only one that takes place before November. Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman believes that Trump faces “certain conviction” in that matter. But many have lamented this sequencing, as that case seems so minor, and, well…..sordid. (An opinion often delivered with a heavy dose of sanctimonious misogyny.)

Will a conviction in the Daniels case makes the same difference to Republican voters as a conviction for trying to overthrow the government? Akerman believes it should, if we are successful in reminding them that this was not just about a cheating husband trying to hide a zipless fuck from his wife, as Trump claims. Coming just days after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, when his candidacy seemed to be on life support, it was about the presidential nominee of one of our two major parties trying to keep word of a scandal from reaching the ears of the voters.

In other words, it too is a case about election interference, just like the Florida and Georgia and DC trials.

THE ONCE AND FORMER GUY

The crux of Kristol’s Bulwark piece was this, and a cutting one it is:

So those who hoped the legal system would stop Donald Trump are almost certain to be disappointed. As were those of us who hoped the United States Senate would stop Trump in February 2021. As were those who hoped the Department of Justice would move quickly to hold him accountable in 2021 and 2022. As were those who placed their faith in Republican elites in 2023 or Republican primary voters in 2024.

Where does that leave us, the American people? Relying on ourselves. Perhaps that’s as it should be.

After all, here the people rule.

For now.

Maybe Kristol is right. Maybe even if all the trials are delayed, Biden will beat Trump anyway. That would be great—perhaps even better than if he is beaten because he is damaged goods after a criminal conviction. But the “system” is sure giving Donald every possible advantage to avoid that fate.

We shall see what SCOTUS’s ultimate decision is, and how fast it renders it. I am not super optimistic on either count. If the Court makes an honest assessment of Trump’s immunity argument, I’m betting on a 7-2 ruling against him, delivered at the very end of its term, in early July. But if the majority takes the coupmaking-is-an-official-act position, it could go 6-3 the other way.

The stakes could not possibly be higher.

In case you thought Republicans were kidding about being the party of neo-fascist White Christian nationalism, at CPAC last week, outside Washington, D.C., the right wing gadfly Jack Posobiec gave opening remarks in which he said: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He then held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

What does Maya Angelou say? Something about believing people, I think.

“Democracy is evil, democracy is mob rule,” said another CPAC attendee, called Tommy Tatum, who recorded himself harassing Capitol police officers at the trials of January 6 insurrectionists, whom he has defended in their attempts to overturn the election. NBC reported that neo-Nazis and other white nationalists openly mingled and proselytized at the conference as well, and received a warm reception.

Remember when CPAC felt like a kinda kooky but generally benign Mummers Parade for Republicans? Good times.

At that same conference, Don the Con showed up and engaged in his continuing gimmick of hugging the Stars & Stripes, a trope that, to me, summarizes his whole grift in a nutshell. The idea that a person loves America so much that they can’t see the flag without hugging it is infantile. Even so, the idea that this particular individual loves America that much—despite a lifetime of evidence that he doesn’t love anyone other than his own fat ass, not even his own family, whom he would throw under the bus in a New York minute—is something that only an absolute sucker would buy. Yet he continues to do it, and his fans continue to eat it up.

If it were a Russian flag, I’d believe it.

If they regain power, Donald Trump and the GOP have openly boasted that they will shred the Constitution, extract revenge on their enemies, and institute a regime that would make Margaret Atwood blanch. Daily we learn more and more of their plans. I say “learn,” but little homework is required, because they are bluntly announcing it. It’s Mein Kampf all over again, and I won’t back off from that analogy, no matter how much the people rubbing elbows with neo-Nazis complain that it’s unfair to compare them to Nazis.

The question is, are we going to pay attention to the flashing red lights and howling warning sirens, or not?

MANSPLAINING FOR BOOMERS

Online discourse is replete with initialisms, and one that puzzled me for a long time—I’m over 21—was SMDH. Eventually I learned (for others who remember vinyl records, answering machines, and paper checks) that it stands for “shaking my damn head.” It’s what you write when something is gobsmacking, dumbfounding, or otherwise mind-blowing, in a way that beggars comprehension.

It perfectly describes how future generations may well look back on America’s inexplicable, nonchalant, self-destructive slide into a second Trump administration and the likely end of participatory democracy in these 50 states.

That is to say, something very close to TEOTWAWKI, or at least TEOAmericaAWKI. And it will not leave me ROTFLMAO.

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Illustration: Trump doing his idiotic, trademark “flag hug” at CPAC last week, apparently after sucking on a lemon.