Monday Reading

 

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

Beware the Ides of March!  Also --

 

Communitarianism. pic.twitter.com/jV2Vb3wDJV

— Jacob T. Levy (@jtlevy) March 15, 2021

Teri Kanefield explains why Republicans are masters at making up enemies to hide their "sadopolulism":

In a nutshell: Republicans are very good at inventing enemies. Made-up enemies are safest. That's why, to paraphrase George Orwell, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Republicans responded to Biden's bill — which is popular with most Americans — by fueling a massive conservative backlash to what they have termed "cancel culture." Fox News spent days decrying the decision of Dr. Seuss Enterprises (a private company) to stop publishing a few lesser-known Dr. Seuss books, which the estate deemed outdated and racist. This fake controversy, and its perceived threat to the American way of life, is a made-up enemy. Yet Republicans and their media spokespersons spun this as a culture war waged by radical leftists on "Green Eggs and Ham" (a book unaffected by the decision of Dr. Seuss Enterprises). Dangerous to American free speech? Hardly. Excellent distraction from the GOP's Covid-19 obstruction? Absolutely. [snip]

According to Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, Republican leaders' motives are likely deeply cynical. Snyder proposes a concept called "sadopopulism," which refers to politicians who purposefully govern in a way that makes life worse for the bulk their supporters. Snyder presents the strategy in a few easy steps:

• Identify an "enemy."
• Enact policies that create pain in your own constituents.
• Blame the ensuing pain on the "enemies."
• Present yourself as the strongman who can fight the enemies.

In a nutshell, you can't have a white grievance party if your constituents aren't grieving. Policy that keeps the rank and file in pain keeps them angry, and perversely that can help you at the ballot box by directing their anger at "made-up enemies" who — so the story goes — are powered by Democrats who are out to ruin (cancel) American culture. The formula creates a brutal political incentive to embrace policies that hurt their own constituents.

Snyder explains that this formula is commonly used by modern-day oligarchs and would-be oligarchs. If you're a would-be oligarch — if you want both wealth and power — you have no incentive to give more real power to the people but every incentive to make it look like you are fighting for them publicly.  (our emphasis)

Dylan Matthews demonstrates why Republicans are so anxious to change the subject from the enormous impact the COVID relief and stimulus bill (the "American Rescue Plan Act") will have on poverty in America, similar to LBJ's war on poverty programs:

With Congress’s passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, another Democratic president with a reputation as a moderate (and who came through the Senate and the vice presidency) is putting his stamp on American policy. The Covid-19 relief bill, which passed the US House on Wednesday afternoon and was signed into law by President Biden on Thursday, is the most far-reaching anti-poverty legislation in more than 50 years.

The American Rescue Plan sends $1,400 checks to adults and child dependents and extends bonus federal unemployment benefits through September (continuing the work done in 2020’s stimulus bills). It also increases the child tax credit for 2021, offers subsidies to help low-income people in states that didn’t expand Medicaid purchase health insurance on the ACA marketplaces, provides housing vouchers for people at risk of homelessness, and boosts the earned income tax credit (EITC) for adults without kids.

Johnson’s war on poverty has gotten a raw deal in historical memory. Ronald Reagan’s quip that “poverty won the war” remains the dominant assessment of Johnson’s efforts. (It certainly didn’t help matters that Johnson escalated US involvement in a real, catastrophic war around the same time.)

But poverty didn’t win the war. When two economists tried to construct a more accurate measure of American poverty between 1960 and 2010, they found that Johnson presided over a massive decline in poverty. In 1960, the rate of consumption poverty in the US was 30.8 percent. By 1972, it had declined to 16.4 percent. Johnson’s efforts appeared to be the main lever cutting the poverty rate nearly in half.

The effects of the American Rescue Plan won’t be quite as massive, but they’ll be in a similar ballpark. By one estimate, overall poverty will fall by a third, and child poverty by over half. Whether Biden ends up matching LBJ’s achievement depends on what he and the Democratic-controlled Congress do in the months ahead.

Some Republican weasels are already trying to take credit for something they all voted against. They know how popular the legislation is and will continue to be.  So, Democrats can't let up now.  Let's bet on "Making peoples' lives better" wins elections.

Sahil Kapur writes about a "tremendous sea change" in Dems' attitudes toward the filibuster, and one particular change that might garner the support needed to succeed in breaking this tyranny of the minority in the Senate:

Under current rules established in 1975, the onus is on the majority to find 60 votes to proceed on legislation. If 41 or more senators vote against it, the bill stalls and there's nothing the majority can do. [Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff] Merkley calls it "a no show, no effort, silent, invisible" blockade.

A talking filibuster would flip that onus, requiring a group of 41 senators to hold the floor and take turns talking incessantly — to air their grievances with the legislation being considered.

Eventually, Merkley explained, one of two things will happen: The majority party will lose its nerve and pull the bill, or the number of senators present will fall under 41 and enable the majority to advance the bill with a three-fifths majority.

There can be no illusion that, somehow, the filibuster must be ended in its present form in order for major Democratic initiatives to pass, including the "For the People Act," H.R. 1, which will counter Republican voter suppression efforts in multiple states.  We shouldn't have to deal with a reactionary rule that has operated as an obstacle to progress and a defender of white supremacy for most of its life. Getting H.R. 1 through the Senate is imperative if we're going to have a fair playing field in our elections from now on.

We conclude in our normal fashion, by recommending a visit over to Infidel 753's blog round- up for a comprehensive array of links to interesting posts from around the Internet.  From a colorful squid, to virtual walks through foreign cities (ed.: wow!), to why conflicts over the minimum wage mustn't divide us, Infidel has curated some amazing links once again.

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!