QOTD -- Nothing Is Fine

 

"...We are worried about this baseline assumption that everything is fine until someone alerts us that nothing is fine, that of course our system will hold because it always has. We worry that we are exceptionally good at telling ourselves that shocking things won’t happen, and then when they do happen, we don’t know what to do. We worry that every time we say 'the system held' it implies that “holding” equals 'winning' as opposed to barely scraping by. We worry that while Trump has armies of surrogates out there arguing that Trump is an all-powerful God proxy, the rule of law has no surrogates out there arguing for anything because nobody ever came to a rally for a Rule 11 motion. The Biden administration has largely taken the position that the felony conviction is irrelevant because it’s proof that the status quo isn’t in danger. But the reality is that Republicans are openly campaigning against judges, juries, and prosecutors. Overt declarations of blowing up our checks and balances and following the blueprints to autocracy set by Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, meanwhile, are treated with shrugs by mainstream journalists and commentators. What’s more, Republicans in Congress have shown a willingness to kowtow to every Trump demand. The signals are flashing red that our fundamental system is in danger.

“'The system is holding'” is not a plan for a knowable future. It never was." -- Dahlia Lithwick and Norman Ornstein in Slate, on the "normalcy bias" in the horse race media and in the general public that leads to the belief that something out there -- "the system" -- will keep us from truly bad things, like the convicted felon Malignant Loser's fascist, existential threat to our democracy.  Contrary to the authors, we believe the Biden-Harris Administration and campaign are focusing on the danger in starker and starker language.  But, time is short and (to coin a cliche) more needs to be done.  By them and by all of us, in our own ways.

 

Monday Reading

 

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

President Biden's coronavirus response is receiving high marks:

President Joe Biden retains broad support for his coronavirus response, though the country appears to be wary of aggressively loosening restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

On the cusp of scoring his first major legislative achievement, more than two-thirds of Americans (68%) approve of Biden's approach to the pandemic -- a consistent result since he took office in January. At a moment of deep political polarization, his steady approval is also reinforced by positive marks from 35% of Republicans, 67% of independents and an overwhelming 98% of Democrats in the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel.

As is his overall performance:

A solid majority of Americans say they approve of President Joe Biden’s early job performance, according to a new survey, with even more respondents giving him positive marks for his management of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Friday reports that 60 percent of U.S. adults surveyed approve of Biden’s handling of his job, including 94 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of Republicans.

Benefits that will accrue from passage of the "big fucking deal" American Rescue Plan Act will build over the course of the year, as America slowly begins to recover.  Continuing competent leadership along with Democrats sticking together and acting boldly will hopefully addict them to the great feeling that comes with winning.  (Speaking of which, let's stay bold on raising the minimum wage effort -- push the "Raise the Wage Act," H.R. 603, that was stripped out of the American Rescue Plan Act!)

On the coronavirus front, vaccinations are saving the lives of the most vulnerable:

The number of COVID-19 cases and deaths at America's nursing homes has dropped significantly since December as millions of vaccine doses have been shot into the arms of residents and staff.

The weekly rate of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes plummeted 89% from early December through the second week of February. By comparison, the nationwide case rate dropped 58% and remains higher than figures reported before late October.

Nursing home cases are at the lowest level since May, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began requiring the nation’s more than 15,500 facilities to report cases each week. The 3,505 new cases reported the second week of February are nearly half as many recorded the week before and just one-tenth as many counted in one December week, the highest of the pandemic.

Here's Will Bunch on the Republicans' strategy now that they blew their chance to help the working and middle classes:

This week showed us both what the GOP is incapable of doing — aiding the middle class — but also its fundamental three-prong strategy for the elections of 2022 and 2024. First, burn a lot of empty political calories on cultural outrage such as the supposed banning (not really) of Dr. Seuss and (also not really) Mr. Potato Head, with the subliminal messages that what leftists really want to cancel is their white supremacy. Second, muddy the waters on the pandemic with “free-dumb” policies like Texas and Mississippi ending mask mandates and other restrictions just as new variants appear. Third — and this is really the centerpiece — is to fall back on Trump’s 2020 Big Lie to pass a slew of voting restrictions targeting Black voters, Latinos, or the young, to win in 2022 not on the best ideas but by picking the voters.

The fact that the current Republican Party is so quick to fall back on racism, xenophobia and misogyny makes me happy that its leaders seem to have also flunked Poly-Sci 101. The opportunity for the GOP to become a true majority national party as a foil to the increasingly diploma-wrapped image of the Democrats — in a nation where just 37% of adults currently hold four-year college degrees — was right there, if the party had been willing to put its money where its mouth was, on Cruz and his phony-baloney rhetoric about cabdrivers and the wait staff.

Instead, the 2022 election will turn on Republicans’ success as an anti-democratic (with a small “d”) party trying to keep as many legitimate voters away from the ballot box as possible. For Democrats, the ultimate lesson of this weekend may prove less about economics and more about courage in using just 51 votes to make the tough calls for saving America. Giving aid to the working class was a good first step for the Democrats, but whether it matters at the polls in 20 months depends on their bravery in abolishing the filibuster and passing laws to make sure that the working class can still vote.

Picking up on that last point, Norman Ornstein has a few suggestions for how Democrats can finesse opposition to the filibuster (especially to pass the essential H.R. 1, "For the People Act") (paywall):

Instead of naming and shaming them, Democrats might consider looking at what Manchin and Sinema like about the filibuster. Sinema recently said, “Retaining the legislative filibuster is not meant to impede the things we want to get done. Rather, it’s meant to protect what the Senate was designed to be. I believe the Senate has a responsibility to put politics aside and fully consider, debate, and reach compromise on legislative issues that will affect all Americans.” Last year, Manchin said, “The minority should have input — that’s the whole purpose for the Senate. If you basically do away with the filibuster altogether for legislation, you won’t have the Senate. You’re a glorified House. And I will not do that.”

If you take their views at face value, the goal is to preserve some rights for the Senate minority, with the aim of fostering compromise. The key, then, is to find ways not to eliminate the filibuster on legislation but to reform it to fit that vision.  Here are some options:

Make the minority do the work... One way to restore the filibuster’s original intent would be requiring at least two-fifths of the full Senate, or 40 senators, to keep debating instead requiring 60 to end debate. The burden would fall to the minority, who’d have to be prepared for several votes, potentially over several days and nights, including weekends and all-night sessions, and if only once they couldn’t muster 40 — the equivalent of cloture — debate would end, making way for a vote on final passage of the bill in question.

Go back to the “present and voting” standard. A shift to three-fifths of the Senate “present and voting” would similarly require the minority to keep most of its members around the Senate when in session.  [snip]

Narrow the supermajority requirement. Another option would be to follow in the direction of the 1975 reform, which reduced two-thirds (67 out of a full 100) to three-fifths (60 out of 100), and further reduce the threshold to 55 senators — still a supermajority requirement, but a slimmer one...

With one of the two Democrats on record as opposing ending the filibuster, West Virginia conservaDem Sen. Joe Manchin, on the Sunday talk shows demonstrating he's not unalterably opposed to reforming the filibuster, this is looking more like a problem that can be solved -- especially since Democrats get to write the rules.  Manchin seemed to embrace the "make the minority do the work" option above, so that's a great starting point.

We end with our usual entreaty to head over to Infidel 753's link round-up for the best and most comprehensive selection of links to posts from around the Internet (which is where we found the story on nursing home vaccinations, above).  But, don't just stop there. He writes some thought- provoking posts every week that, whether you always agree with him or not, are always worth your time to read.

"He's Only Going To Get More Dangerous"

Anyone watching the unhinged, threat- filled performance by narcissistic sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump at his "press conference" yesterday was witnessing Rump in his threatened/ empowered mode:  empowered by a more Trumpian Senate majority, and threatened by the new Democratic majority in the House.  Within a few hours after being asked directly whether he had plans to fire Attorney General and evil elf spokesperson Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and responding with an evasion, Rump finally fired Beauregard in order to install a dangerous flunky whose loyalty was to Rump and not the Constitution and the rule of law.

Adam Serwer provides an overview of the threatened- yet- empowered mindset of the catastrophe occupying the Oval Office:

Trump’s losses in the midterms will not make him more cautious; they will only make him more dangerous. Trump’s only true ideological commitment is to his racially exclusive vision of American citizenship. His authoritarianism is more instinctive than ideological, closely tied to his desire to enrich himself and his allies without facing legal consequences. If the only way the president can save his own skin or that of others implicated in his corruption is to violate the rule of law, then he has no compunctions about doing so...  [snip]

... Trump believes that he and his friends and allies are above the law. There is no act they could commit that would warrant prosecution or sanction. At the same time, there is no act committed by his critics or rivals that could not be subject to prosecution, should he so choose. It is not simply that the president does not believe in the rule of law. It is that he believes the law is a shield that protects him, and a sword that can be used to impale his enemies. Nothing has made this clearer than his constant demands for prosecution of his critics, and his decision to issue federal pardons to men like Dinesh D’Souza and Joe Arpaio, whose violations of the law he regards as trivial because they are pro-Trump sycophants.

Rump rightly sees the existential threat on the horizon approaching fast, hence the firing of Sessions within hours of the polls closing. But that act, of itself, will surely be seen as yet another count of obstruction of justice by the Special Counsel. (Rump, of course, believes there's been no obstruction of justice;  he's only been "protecting himself"!) But attorney and former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa notes some obstacles still in the way of Rump and his flunky obstructing or shutting down the Mueller probe, including provisions in the special counsel regulations for documenting and justifying any actions taken to deny a request or recommendation by Mueller.  With Democratic control of the House starting January 3, the flunky would be called to testify under oath about any such actions, exposing him to obstruction of justice charges himself should he provide false or flimsy excuses.

None of this is to minimize what we believe Rump would do to protect himself:  anything. He's a mortal danger to American democratic institutions now more than ever.  The majority of Americans did what they could to erect a firewall on November 6, so at least now there'll be one part of government that's not going to shelter him and can maybe see to it that the truth about this ugly, unfit, un- American monster comes out.

BONUS:

It cannot be said too often: A 71-year-old narcissistic autocratic sociopath cannot and will not change. Put him in a stressful situation and it is dangerous for all of us

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) November 7, 2018

Quote Of The Day - Trumpism

... Both Trump and a broader phenomenon—call it Trumpism—are stronger and deeper than most veteran political analysts realized or were willing to acknowledge. They are neither immediate nor transitory phenomena. The disdain for the status quo, for authority figures of both parties and other institutions, and the anger at inexorable changes in society, are real, enduring, and especially deep on the Republican side. Ideology forms a significant part of that anger, but it transcends much of the predictable divide between liberals conservatives. And even if neither Trump nor Cruz—who also channels much of the Trumpist message and approach—win a presidential nomination, it will persist, and contend for primacy in the GOP, well beyond 2016. -- Norman Ornstein, in an interesting look at who he considers the people and institutions that led to the rise of neo- fascist fartbag Donald "Rump" Trump and the broader phenomenon of "Trumpism" (practiced by his mini- imitators in the Republican nomination race).

Horserace Reporting

American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein has an article in The Atlantic that explores a theme that we've touched on:  the pass that's been given to extremist Republican candidates by the political press, in particular the formerly great Washington Post Bezos Bugle and the New York Times.  Ornstein believes that it's because to expose their radical views -- which are in part borrowed from the John Birch Society -- would run counter to the "narrative" that the press has established for this election cycle.  The narrative, in brief, is that "establishment" Republicans have re-captured their Party from the "kooks," represented in the past by such luminaries as Christine "Not A Witch" O'Donnell and Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin.

With campaign journalists locked into "The Narrative," any evidence to the contrary is avoided, and focus is placed instead on gaffes and miscues from the opponents. As Ornstein concluded:

"For horserace reporting, the broader narrative is a good one to frame and organize stories and coverage. But it’s not a very good way for readers to figure out how the people they vote for might actually behave in the Senate. And that’s not very good news for voters or the political process."

BONUS:  Charles P. Pierce has more evidence -- if that's even necessary at this point -- of silly, blinkered, horserace reporting at the expense of, you know, real journalism.