Why Win the Race When You Can Just Game the Rules?

 

Hannah Beech: ‘“I Feel Sorry for Americans”: A Baffled World Watches the U.S.’

Cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz

From the New York Times:

Amid the pandemic and in the run-up to the presidential election, much of the world is watching the United States with a mix of shock, chagrin and, most of all, bafflement.

How did a superpower allow itself to be felled by a virus? And after nearly four years during which President Trump has praised authoritarian leaders and obscenely dismissed some other countries as insignificant and crime-ridden, is the United States in danger of exhibiting some of the same traits he has disparaged?

“The U.S.A. is a first-world country but it is acting like a third-world country,” said U Aung Thu Nyein, a political analyst in Myanmar.

Adding to the sense of bewilderment, Mr. Trump has refused to embrace an indispensable principle of democracy, dodging questions about whether he will commit to a peaceful transition of power after the November election should he lose.

 

Read the full article.

Barton Gellman: ‘The Election That Could Break America’

  

From The Atlantic:

There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path.

The danger is not merely that the 2020 election will bring discord. Those who fear something worse take turbulence and controversy for granted. The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery.

Something has to give, and many things will, when the time comes for casting, canvassing, and certifying the ballots. Anything is possible, including a landslide that leaves no doubt on Election Night. But even if one side takes a commanding early lead, tabulation and litigation of the “overtime count” — millions of mail-in and provisional ballots — could keep the outcome unsettled for days or weeks....

[I]n this election year of plague and recession and catastrophized politics, the mechanisms of decision are at meaningful risk of breaking down. Close students of election law and procedure are warning that conditions are ripe for a constitutional crisis that would leave the nation without an authoritative result. 

 

Read the full article. 

Michael Harriot: ‘Why the Democratic Party Needs Thugs’

 

From The Root:

[A]s a reasonable man with a Democratic Party averse to tearing da club up, when it came time for Obama to appoint a Supreme Court justice in 2016, instead of engaging in a political knife-fight with the Republican Party, he instead nominated Merrick Garland, a reasonable, affable white man with a mouth and toes and a judicial record that was as moderate as it was unremarkable.

As soon as Machiavellian Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell obstructed Garland’s nomination, outraged progressives begged Obama to pull out the chopper and make a recess appointment. But Obama responded with reason, avoiding a heated court battle in the federal courts that weren’t packed with Obama appointees even though the Democratic Party controlled the Senate six of Obama’s eight years in office (Harry Reid, finally invoked the nuclear option in late 2013, giving Obama one year to appoint federal judges).

The Democratic Not-So-Ruff Ryders also refused to use the debt-ceiling fight as leverage a month after Garland’s appointment was tossed into political purgatory. It wasn’t that the Democratic Party was afraid to go toe-to-toe with Republican obstructionists. Democrats pride themselves on governing with a sense of compassionate practicality. And, like most practical, compassionate Americans, they avoid conflict, as opposed to the conservative Killmongers on the other side of the aisle who long for the opportunity to take the throne on Challenge Day.

But that challenge shit is over. Trump’s the king now.

And now, in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s untimely passing, Democratic historical revisionists are pointing to the hypocrisy of the GOP after it burgled Garland’s Supreme Court seat. What the GOP did to Merrick Garland is shameful. It was wrong. Anyone who purports to believe in the Constitution should regret doing it (as if the GOP is capable of feeling shame, regret or...well, anything). But progressives have conveniently left out one part in their recounting of the Democratic fight for Garland’s nomination:

They didn’t fight!

Read the full article.

But Her E-Mails

 

David Siders & Holly Otterbein: ‘“Everyone sees the train wreck coming”: Trump reveals his November endgame’

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 
From Politico:

Following his defeat in the 2016 Iowa caucus, Donald Trump accused Ted Cruz of cheating and said the results should be nullified.

After winning the presidency that fall, Trump insisted, without evidence, that there was “serious voter fraud” in three states he lost to Hillary Clinton. Now, running behind Joe Biden in the polls, the president complains the outcome will be “rigged.”

After more than four years of nonstop voter-fraud claims, insinuations that he might not accept the presidential election results and at least one float about delaying the November election, it’s no secret. Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power this week — and his choice not to walk back his remarks Thursday in the face of widespread unease — merely broadcasts his strategic intent in terms both parties can understand.

As a result, Republicans can no longer truthfully deny that Trump may be unwilling to leave office in the event he is defeated. And Democrats must now confront the possibility they may not have the power to stop him.

It’s an unprecedented backdrop for a modern presidential race, one that could stretch the electoral process to its limits, almost guaranteeing a chaotic, divisive finish to the campaign.

 

Read the full article.

Zack Beauchamp: ‘The Republican Party Is an Authoritarian Outlier’

 

 

From Vox:

[T]here is a consensus among comparative-politics scholars that the Republican Party is one of the most anti-democratic political parties in the developed world. It is one of a handful of once-centrist parties that has, in recent years, taken a turn toward the extreme....

Over the past decade and a half, Republicans have shown disdain for procedural fairness and a willingness to put the pursuit of power over democratic principles. They have implemented measures that make it harder for racial minorities to vote, render votes from Democratic-leaning constituencies irrelevant, and relentlessly blocked Democratic efforts to conduct normal functions of government....

The GOP views the Democrats as so illegitimate and dangerous that they are willing to employ virtually any tactic that they can think of in order to entrench their own advantage. This is perhaps the party’s core animating ideology, at every level: we must win because the Democrats cannot be given power.

 

Read the full article.

Seth Meyers: ‘Trump and GOP Rush to Fill Ginsburg’s Seat Despite 2016 Hypocrisy’

 

 “It’s almost like the lying and the hypocrisy are the point, like they’re trying to rub our noses in just how shameless and unaccountable they are, that they don’t care about democracy, that they can do whatever they want....

“Democrats have to internalize the fact that this is not about principle; this is about raw political power.  And they need to use every tool at their disposal to stop it.  A Senate majority that won fewer votes than the Senate minority wants to help a corrupt autocrat install an unprecedented conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, appointed largely by presidents who lost the popular vote, including of course the current president....”

Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt: ‘Why Republicans Play Dirty’

 

There is no doubt in my mind that — whatever any past statements by individual Republican senators may have been — the Republican-controlled Senate will steamroll full speed ahead in trying to confirm a third Trump nominee to the Supreme Court.  Why?  Here is a New York Times article by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt from 2019 that mirrors my reasoning: 

The greatest threat to our democracy today is a Republican Party that plays dirty to win.

The party’s abandonment of fair play was showcased spectacularly in 2016, when the United States Senate refused to allow President Barack Obama to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February. While technically constitutional, the act — in effect, stealing a court seat — hadn’t been tried since the 19th century. It would be bad enough on its own, but the Merrick Garland affair is part of a broader pattern.

Republicans across the country seem to have embraced an “any means necessary” strategy to preserve their power. After losing the governorship in North Carolina in 2016 and Wisconsin in 2018, Republicans used lame-duck legislative sessions to push through a flurry of bills stripping power from incoming Democratic governors. Last year, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a Republican gerrymandering initiative, conservative legislators attempted to impeach the justices. And back in North Carolina, Republican legislators used a surprise vote last week, on Sept. 11, to ram through an override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget veto — while most Democrats had been told no vote would be held. This is classic “constitutional hardball,” behavior that, while technically legal, uses the letter of the law to subvert its spirit....

Democracy requires that parties know how to lose. Politicians who fail to win elections must be willing to accept defeat, go home, and get ready to play again the next day. This norm of gracious losing is essential to a healthy democracy.

But for parties to accept losing, two conditions must hold. First, they must feel secure that losing today will not bring ruinous consequences; and second, they must believe they have a reasonable chance of winning again in the future. When party leaders fear that they cannot win future elections, or that defeat poses an existential threat to themselves or their constituents, the stakes rise. Their time horizons shorten. They throw tomorrow to the wind and seek to win at any cost today. In short, desperation leads politicians to play dirty.

 

Read the full article.

 

The True Lesson of 9/11

 

Remember how united we were after 9/11?

 

And remember how George W. Bush manipulated that unity and weaponized it into an excuse to wage a needless war against Iraq? Remember how we were told that the war would be quick, easy, and pay for itself? And remember how the war killed over 4,400 Americans, wounding almost 32,000 others, costing the treasury almost $2 billion and dragging on for almost two decades? And for what? For stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. Boy, what a bunch of suckers we were. 

 

One president misled us into war. And now, 19 years later, another president misleads us about virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. Why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he lie to us when he saw how gullible we were to march off to war after a predecessor played on and preyed on our sense of nationhood and our desire for justice? Our impulses for patriotism and for righting wrongs, among others, are merely frailties to be twisted for the selfish benefit of those in power. This might be the true legacy and the true lesson of 9/11.

Seth Meyers: ‘Trump Lashes Out over Report That He Insulted Fallen Soldiers’

Amanda Marcotte: ‘Trump has a plan to steal the election — in fact, he has at least 5 of them’

Cartoon by Tom Tomorrow

From Alternet:

[T]he sheer number of [election-stealing] schemes in play is all the more reason to worry, because it shows Trump’s team is flexible and capable of adapting to changing circumstances. Worse yet, it shows they have a number of fallback plans. If one effort fails, then another effort might just work. Attacking our democracy on multiple fronts depletes the resources (time, money, energy) of their opponents, making it likelier that one effort will break through and be successful.

There is good news, however. A combination of Trump’s big mouth, the continued courage of whistleblowers and the fact that Republicans have to conduct a lot of their scheming through the media means that, with two months to go, Trump’s plans to distort, subvert or flat-out steal the election have come into view. Democrats, and anyone else who still believes in democracy, can avoid being caught flat-footed. What’s required is to take all this seriously, instead of hiding behind increasingly foolish hopes that it can’t happen here.

Because folks inevitably object to any proposal that Trump is scheming, on the grounds that he’s too dumb to pull any such thing off, let’s just get this out of the way: Trump doesn’t need to be smart. He just needs to surround himself with smart but immoral people. There’s significant evidence he has done just that.


Read the full article.

Eric Levitz: ‘Many GOP Voters Value America’s Whiteness More Than Its Democracy’

From New York magazine:

In Donald Trump’s America, democracy dies in broad daylight.

Previous presidents have flouted the rule of law and sought to restrict access to the ballot, but none of Trump’s modern predecessors have treated these endeavors like photo ops. Trump has not subverted the independence of federal law enforcement through the quiet appointments of hacks but by openly declaring that he expects the U.S. attorney general to protect him from legal accountability and by warning his allies not to cooperate with FBI investigations. He has not subtly exploited official powers for partisan gain but, rather, has formally strong-armed a foreign government into investigating his chief domestic rival and hosted a Republican National Convention on the White House lawn. He has not evinced a desire to disenfranchise his opposition merely through the orchestration of probes into (nonexistent) voter fraud but by explaining on cable television that he is blocking federal aid to the Postal Service because, if it does not receive such aid, “that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

Trump’s refusal to keep his assaults on democracy constrained within limits (and/or shrouded in pretense) has scandalized a significant minority of Republican elites. But his high crimes and misdemeanors have made little impression on the party faithful. None of the president’s affronts to liberal democracy — not his praise for “very fine” white vigilantes or his proposed postponement of November’s election — have shaken his grip on a little over 40 percent of the electorate.

Read the full article.

Ezra Klein: ‘Can anything change Americans’ minds about Donald Trump?’

From Vox:

If you had told me, a year ago, that a pandemic virus would overrun the country, that 200,000 Americans would die and case numbers would dwarf Europe, that the economy would go into deep freeze and the federal government prove utterly feckless, I would’ve thought that’s the kind of systemic shock that could crack into public opinion. I’m not saying I would’ve predicted Trump[’s approval rating] falling to 20 percent, but I would’ve predicted movement. 

The stability unnerves me because it undermines the basic theory of responsive democracy. If our political divisions cut so deep that even 200,000 deaths and 10.2 percent unemployment and a president musing about bleach injections can’t shake us, then what can? And if the answer is nothing, then that means the crucial form of accountability in American politics has collapsed. Yes, many of us are partisans, with a hard lean one way or the other. But the assumption has long been that beneath that, we are Americans, and we want the country governed with some bare level of competence, that we care more for our safety and our paychecks than our parties.

But how do we know if we’re being governed with a bare level of competence?

Read the full article.