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.