Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

We linked to Dave Roberts' article in Vox earlier this week, about how President- elect Biden should run a blitz in the face of intransigent Republican opposition; here's an excerpt:

Biden’s best chance is to try to overwhelm the system the way Trump did, by doing so much that it’s impossible to make any one thing into a lasting story. He should launch so many simultaneous reforms that there’s no time for right-wing media to make up lies about all of them or for the Supreme Court to hear them all. He should ignore bad-faith attacks and stay relentlessly on message about what’s gotten done and what’s getting done next. He should, at every juncture, get caught trying to make government work better for ordinary people.

To succeed, all this must happen alongside Democratic Party efforts to improve messaging and media, get persistent party infrastructure on the ground in communities the party has neglected, and innovate on voter outreach and persuasion. (Aaron Strauss has some good ideas on that front.)

But Biden has something the rest of the party at the federal level does not have: the power to improve Americans’ lives in a visible way. More than anything else, cynicism about government’s ability to do that is corroding US politics. The best thing Biden can do, morally and politically, is act, as much and as fast as possible, and then talk about it, and do more of it, and talk about it more. (And he should be clear about exactly who stands in the way of bigger, better changes, and why his name is Mitch McConnell.)

We hope that's what the Biden team has in mind. He got an electoral mandate and he needs to use it. Also this:

 

A new Gallup poll finds that President-elect Joe Biden has a 55% favorable rating and a 41% unfavorable rating.

Joe Biden's already more popular than Trump's ever been. https://t.co/3Qse62vVrH

— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) December 6, 2020

Geoffrey Kabaservice writes about the other side of the political equation, the permanent revolution of the perpetually aggrieved:

Trump’s permanent revolution has no fixed principles other than smashing a nebulous “deep state,” forcing all institutions of society to bend to its will, and waging never-ending war against Democrats, independents and non-Trump Republicans. It has become a perpetual grievance machine unwilling (and unable) to address those grievances through governance or the legislative process. And in refusing to accept Trump’s defeat, the conservative movement increasingly insists that the rule of law, truth and democracy are what the revolution says they are.

More than 70 million Americans voted for Trump. He and his supporters will indulge in an orgy of fantasies about a stolen election for years to come. Any Republicans who hope to succeed him as president will have to parrot his claims that he won in a landslide, that American democracy is corrupt and that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.

When all is said and done, though, Trump lost reelection despite the political advantages that accrue to an incumbent president. That strongly suggests that he did not somehow repeal every law of political gravity. At some point, a party has to deliver more than grievance-mongering. The GOP’s donors will want something to show for their investments. The party’s constituents — especially the non-college-educated, working-class citizens who make up much of the Republican base — need the government’s help with their problems. And the party’s long-term viability may be in doubt if a strategy of mindless, implacable obstruction endangers the stability and prosperity of the country, causing too many voters to consider it an existential threat. Cynical political realism, if nothing else, suggests that the Republican Party can’t carry on forever as a permanent revolution.

There's no "meeting in the middle" with these nihilistic fantasists.  And they're determined more than ever to disenfranchise Democratic voters, just as they're determined to portray Biden as a somehow illegitimate president:

The shifts that led to this year’s surge in voting, in particular the broad expansion of voting options and the prolonged period for casting ballots, could forever alter elections and political campaigns in America, providing a glimpse into the electoral future.

A backlash from the right could prevent that, however. In many ways, the increase in voting is what Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are now openly campaigning against in their floundering bid to overturn his clear loss to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. — whose popular vote lead grew to seven million on Friday. Republicans have portrayed the burgeoning voting ranks as nefarious and the expanded access to voting options as ripe for fraud — despite the fact that the record turnout provided them numerous victories down ballot.

Though Mr. Trump and the party have not managed to prove a single claim of fraud in the courts — where they and their allies have lost or withdrawn dozens of cases — Republicans at the state level are vowing to enact a new round of voting restrictions to prevent what they claim — without evidence — is widespread fraud.

It's just a reminder that we need to continue to be aggressively pushing back on these un- democratic, un- American efforts, and that when we do, we win elections!

Finally, if it hasn't already become a habit to check out Infidel 753's link round- up, you should go over there right now for the best compendium of topics written about in the past week.  Then bookmark him so you don't have to be reminded by us every week!  You're welcome!