They Aren't ALL Nihilists

 Josh Marshall notes that the Freedumb Caucus has preemptively surrendered on the debt ceiling deal. He posits that it's at least a little curious how that happened.

I think an understated reason why a deal got done is because - for all the extreme rhetoric - most Republicans are not nihilists. They're grifters, hypocrites and charlatans, but they aren't nihilists. They embrace the language and métier of Trumpism because it gets them access to the direct mail lists and fundraising. 

Tanking the global economy does not fundamentally help them. Does it help lunatics like Boebert and Gaetz? Sure. They are lunatics. But most of them just want this cushy job that strokes their ego and provides them with a steady access to money and the trappings of power. Defaulting on the US's sovereign debt and plunging the globe into economic chaos doesn't do that. Ranting about drag queens and banning Toni Morrison does.

The critical mass of DC Republicans are dangerously cynical, but not THAT dangerously cynical.

Just The Worst People

 I've said that it's crazy that not only did we elect the worst American president in 2016, we may have elected the worst American. Period.

And then folks like Boebert, Traitor Greene and Gaetz slithered onto the scene. But if you want my vote for one of the very worst of the worst in a crew of truly awful people, I have to nominate Paul Gosar.

Hall Of Fame Stuff

 Yglesias with an absolute classic of bothsides. Yes, there are mistaken impressions about climate change. Totally the same as denying the facts about the 2020 election. Mistaken beliefs from an incomplete understanding of the evidence is simply not the same as QAnon or Birtherism or Election Denialism. 

Jesus wept.

Impressive

 How big a flatulating asshat do you have to be to be a Republican who gets impeached in Texas?  As Campos notes, if your only prominent defenders are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, I think it's pretty safe to say you are in fact a massive flatulating asshat.

A Chapter Closes

 Today, our youngest son graduated from high school. In a few months, he will be off to college halfway across the country. We are proud and bereft all at once. After 21 years of having at least one boy under our roof, we will no longer here a constant stream of slammed doors, poorly sung shower songs or ribald invective.

Having worked at his school, it has afforded us a combination of unique stress and special pride. And now we move on to the next thing.

Step Up, Billionaires

 Reading about the fines a doctor has to pay for ending the pregnancy of a 10 year old rape victim, I sure hope that all those folks with lots of money and a deep concern for women's reproductive rights are stepping up and paying those fines. If you can't spare some pocket change, why should we believe that billionaires should exist?

Do We Have A Deal?

 There might be a debt ceiling deal. Josh Marshall tries to figure out how it happened. 

The most basic explanation is the one he outlines. McCarthy never had the votes of the Freedumb Caucus. At some point he knew that. He did need some concessions in order to get "normal" Republicans to agree. There was no deal without Democratic votes. While McCarthy is simultaneously weak, marginally stupid and an ideologue, he is also beholden to the business community. Default is simply not an option. So Gaetz can froth at the mouth about 'shooting the hostage' McCarthy was never really going to let that happen. 

Biden knew all this and knew the contours of this "negotiation." I agree with Marshall that I wish he had never agreed to it, but I think Biden knew that he could not not negotiate. He had to "look reasonable" as the Republicans continue to shift terms and make terrible demands. 

In short, Biden gave Republicans enough rope to hang themselves.

Of course, the deal still isn't done. If McCarthy brings the deal to the floor and it passes with a bipartisan majority, the Chaos Caucus could void his speakership, so it wouldn't surprise me if Biden promised McCarthy enough Democratic votes to keep the gavel. This time.

Again, though, this demonstrates that there is only one party in this country willing or capable of governing.

A Mouse That Thinks It's A House

 A few days ago, I noted that only a handful of godbothering racist cranks were responsible for challenging most of the books in Florida and Texas' public schools. Now we have this as the chef's kiss.

Do you remember that extraordinary young woman, Amanda Gorman, who delivered a poem at Biden's inauguration? This twisted fuck wants to ban that poem. While the local paper tells the story above, more intrepid journalists discovered that the godbothering racist crank is in fact a godbothering racist crank.

If you are using social media to support the Proud Boys your opinion on school books should be safely ignored.

Some Good News

 Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in January 6th, specifically under the charge of seditious conspiracy. Josh Marshall went back and looked at their coverage of Rhodes and his ties to the Tea Party and other Right Wing groups, from Birthers to 9/11 Truthers to the venerable John Birch lunacy.

It's an obvious correlation of the mainstream emergence of absolute lunacy on the Right with the election of Barack Obama. Was it simply that he was a Democrat? The Right Wing Nut Jobs blew up the Murrah Building when Clinton was president. Even a Good Ol' Boy from Arkansas wasn't insulation against crackpot lunacy from the Right. Vince Foster. Whitewater. It's like they assumed Reagan's counterrevolution to the '60s was permanent and when Democrats actually win power, it must be fraud. 

So, while Obama obviously did drive a certain segment of the Right insane because he was presidenting while Black, it also happened with Clinton and 1/6 happened because we elected an old White, Catholic Granddad. 

I have no idea what will bleed off this poison. Sending people like Rhodes to prison for a long time is a start.

Undemocratic Backstop

 This is remarkable, even by the debauched standards of the current Supreme Court.  Samuel Alito and four other "textualists" basically rewrote the Clean Water Act, because they could. Hell, even beer soaked rage monkey Brett Kavanaugh felt it was ridiculous. This is also a clear case of obit dicter, where the courts had a simple decision before them and decided to run with it beyond the bounds of the case at hand and fuck things up. 

History's most famous example was Dred Scott, and this one is just as flimsy. Hell, it's more flimsy. Scott was, like it or not, enslaved. The Court probably thought they could resolve the issue of slavery in the West once and for all. In fact, they accelerated the coming of the Civil War and slavery's eradication. 

The fate of wetlands is unlikely to lead to civil war. The slow motion and yet rapid evisceration of the regulatory state is a pet project of "Even the Moderate" John Roberts. While Roberts might be uncomfortable with stripping away civil rights, he's absolutely motivated and on board with gutting the ability of the government to regulate economic activity.

The Dred Scott ruling was a powerful moment in delegitimizing the idea of compromising with the slave holding South. After Scott, people like Lincoln realized there was no "both sides" compromise with a rabid caste of slavers. 

Dobbs is obviously much more important in delegitimizing the Courts than Sackett will be. Again, wetlands aren't as viscerally significant as stripping women of bodily autonomy. However, at some point there will have to be a reckoning about a Court that is literally lawless enough to supersede the actual written text to make up whatever the fuck they want.

More Blinders

 Josh Marshall looks at DeSantis' hilariously bad campaign launch. Similar to what I've been saying, DeSantis has crawled so far up his own ass, no one "normal" would understand what he's talking about.

There is the perfect synchronization of Musk and DeSantis' innate weirdness, the relitigating Twitter bans and Covid shit that simply isn't going to move the needles in terms of winning an election.

Biden is not a super genius, but he's a pretty good retail politician. In his own way, Trump is, too. DeSantis? Not so much.

Blinders

 The degree to which "conservatives" can delude themselves is impressive. They can believe that Ron DeSantis is a capable politician. They can believe that virtually total bans on abortion are popular.

To a degree, this represents two phenomenon. First, Republicans benefit from natural and partisan gerrymanders that distort their democratic viability. Second, they tend to believe whatever they're told to believe by the Right Wing Wurlitzer.

As I said last night, there has to be a complete and total repudiation of the Republican party's war on rights and democracy. But because facts cannot penetrate the Wurlitzer, you can be absolutely certain that a large part of Republican voters will vote for whomever the GOP coughs up. We are seeing that "persuadable voters" still exist, and we need to make sure that 100% of those persuadable voters are persuaded.

Weaponized Stupid; Weaponized Hate

 This piece from the Post and PEN is really striking. There have been over 1,000 challenges to books in school libraries for having LGBTQ themes or characters that were analyzed by the Post. 

The majority were filed by 11 people. The Moms for Liberty group was behind almost all of it.

What's become apparent is that Talibangelicals have created an echo chamber that makes them think that their positions are really popular. They think they have God on their side, so they and their co-conspirators do things like enact bans on books and abortions.

There is only one way to deal with these god-bothering fascists. They have to be defeated and repudiated in every aspect of American life.

WTF, Putin?

 This is a profoundly weird story. The G7 placed more sanctions on Russia, targeting their energy sector and industrial supply chains. So far, pretty normal.

Russia responded by sanctioning Trump's enemies who have nothing to do with foreign policy. 

Russia likes to screw with people's heads, get in their headspace by sewing confusion and ambiguity. I suppose they think that making a naked political play to help Trump will sew confusion in America. The idea that Trump would help Russia out in Ukraine is already pretty well established. I suppose they think this will help cement ties between the GOP and Russia, but that doesn't seem to understand the dynamic within the GOP. Sure, the Trumpists love Russia, but most Americans don't. Nakedly allying themselves with the GOP should be pretty toxic.

It could be simply that the Russians are being stupid again. It has been a consistent thread of their actions since the war began.

Something's Happening

 Seems like Ukraine has started the early stages of their offensive. They are striking Russian positions with artillery and generally "shaping the battlespace."

It also seems like they might be withdrawing from Bakhmut with an eye towards encircling it and trapping Russian forces inside. Given how nimble their planning has been so far, that would be unsurprising and hilarious.

They have also launched a raid into Russia territory in Belgograd. That's a bit of a risk, frankly, though I could see it as a trial balloon for retaking other "Russian" territory in Crimea.

The Freedumb Agenda

 Jamelle Bouie writes an evocative piece about the Republican agenda. He compares FDR's Four Freedoms to the Four "Freedoms" of the GOP. Rather than summarize, I'll just quote:

Franklin Roosevelt said there was “nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy” and that he, along with the nation, looked forward to “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” Famously, those freedoms were the “freedom of speech and expression,” the “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way,” the “freedom from want” and the “freedom from fear.” Those freedoms were the guiding lights of his New Deal, and they remained the guiding lights of his administration through the trials of World War II.

There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program.

There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.

There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.

There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.

And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.

Roosevelt’s four freedoms were the building blocks of a humane society — a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one, in which you can either dominate or be dominated.

I had an actual exchange with Blog favorite Josh Marshall about Dobbs after Marshall made the point that Democrats have outperformed in every election by about 5-6 percentage points. I noted that it wasn't just Dobbs, but the confluence of Dobbs and January 6th that took the "Republicans are authoritarian theologist/fascists" from MSNBC hyperventilating clickbait to something the average "normie" voter can agree with. Most people don't follow politics that closely (and aren't they lucky) but you can no longer escape the nature of the current GOP.

Republicans are acting as if the 6-3 Court and their gerrymandered maps are a bulwark against democratic accountability. But gerrymanders work by creating small margins for your party and concentrated large margins for your opponent. If Democrats overperform by 6%, that could sweep away the Republican gerrymanders in places like Wisconsin, Texas and North Carolina.

The GOP is the American Taliban. That's starting to sink it where it matters.

Gaming This Out

 Josh Marshall - and to a much lesser degree me - was upset that Biden was "negotiating with terrorists" when it came to the debt ceiling. However, what occurred to me - and Marshall is now open to this possibility - is that McCarthy was not the real "target" of the negotiations. Nor is it the DC press corpse.

The target is a handful of Republicans who are sick of the Chaos Caucus and don't want to blow up the global economy. Theoretically, Biden engages with McCarthy and comes to some sort of "deal" but that deal is blown up by the gibbering lunatics of the Freedumb Caucus. This gives cover to the handful of Republicans needed to pass an actual debt ceiling increase - even if it's just 30 abstentions - without having to concede everything Democrats worked for.

This would especially work with a short term increase - say through December - which could get wrapped up in an actual budget negotiation. That would be bad, but better than default. 

Has Biden given McCarthy an "out" that allows him to oppose the very deal he put forward, but also allows a handful of Republicans to so their freaking jobs?

Howler Monkey

 I'm so old, I can remember when Kevin McCarthy acquiesced to the idea that Marjorie Traitor Greene should be denied committee assignments because of her embrace of QAnon.

Now, she might be setting the agenda for the House, including impeaching the Secretary of Homeland Security.

I'm torn. On the one hand, she's shown more political intelligence than I would have assumed in being the power broker for McCarthy's Speakership. On the other, how hard is it to outsmart McCarthy?

Yglesias Comes Close to the Point

 This piece is a bit of a mess. It starts off talking about Elon Musk calling George Soros Magneto, weaves together strands of Jewish internationalism and nationalism, takes a side trip to Metropolis to check in with Superman then comes close to making an important point.

Here's the point that's REALLY important, the set-up is this:

But the debate is real. Joe Biden likes to say that America is an idea, and National Review editor Rich Lowry likes to disagree with that and go to National Conservatism conferences to explain that actually we’re a nation just like Hungary or anywhere else they have natcons.

So, political scientists define a nation as a group of people bound by a shared political identity. Usually, this correlates to an ethnic identity. You're "German" because you're ethnically German. The question that raises is what to make of the millions of immigrants living in Germany as citizens. Previously, this hasn't been much of an issue, as nations in Europe typically did not admit high numbers of immigrants. The United States consists mostly of ethnic groups that came to America from somewhere else - within the bounds of recorded history.

There's an argument that America is not a nation-state, but a state-nation that consists of multiple ethnic groups who are bound - not by identity but by adherence to the state. That's what Biden means by "America is an idea." 

The Yglesias does that Yglesias thing where he hand waves a bunch of important points away:

Obviously we can, to an extent, use words however we want. America isn’t just an idea, and you can call whatever it is that we are a “nation” if you want to. But I do think it’s important and true that the United States does not primarily conceive of itself as a nation in the sense that 19th-century nationalists intended — there’s no common volk, there’s no special connection to a special plot of land. There is an abstract set of principles you’re supposed to subscribe to, and there’s a kind of alarming-to-some arrogance about American exceptionalism. America is an idea, and it’s an idea that most Americans believe is correct.

There’s a critique from the right holding that really the greatness of America is embodied in a specific subset of its people, with the rest just a bunch of pious myth-making. 

This is actually the whole ballgame. First, Matt, we can't "use words however we want." We define words so that we can be precise in our meaning. People who wish to say that words mean whatever we want them to mean are trying to hide something or elide a truth.

So, we know what a "nation" is and we know that America struggles to meet that definition.

However, we can also say with increasing certainty that the American Right does in fact see America has having a nation, it's just that you filthy Democrats aren't part of it. It has deep roots in the early and mid-20th century: the "new" Klan of the 1920s, the John Birch Society, but Reagan Conservatism largely ignored this as an issue, giving rise to the myth that the GOP wasn't riddled with these people. Pat Buchanan showed how prevalent "blood and soil" nationalism was within the GOP. 

The trauma of 9/11 supercharged American xenophobia, and so you had Sarah Palin's "Real Americans" who did not live in the place where, in fact, most Americans live. "Real Americans" are White people who live close to the land. They are Christian in their identity (if imperfectly in their practice), and they stand opposed to the multicultural, pluralistic idea of America that Biden was referring to.

Trump is the warlord of this blood and soil nationalism. He is their - yes, I'm going full Godwin's Law here - Hitler. The charismatic-for-some-but-not-for-others who enrages his followers with appeals to a lost volkish Golden Age subverted by parasites who leech off Real Germans Americans.

It does not matter one fucking iota that Trump opposes Paul Ryan's plans for entitlement programs. That's not why a plurality of Republicans will follow this man anywhere. He took the idea that there are Real Americans and then the "American Carnage" of our cities, weaponized it and - briefly - won power with it.

That's it.

That's the story of American from 2016 until now.

Canaries

 When I see baffling actions like Tricia Coffman switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party specifically to institute a 12 week abortion ban that she expressly ran against in the first place, I have to wonder precisely what political calculus is going on here.  Jacksonville just elected a Democratic mayor and Colorado Springs just elected someone who isn't a Republican. Every special election, every post-Dobbs metric shows a great deal of public anger over that decision. Meanwhile, so many prominent Republicans are doubling down on restrictive policies.

The canaries are dying left and right, and Republicans are wandering further into the coal mine. I suppose they believe that their gerrymandering and undemocratic control of the Courts insulates them from consequences, but I've found that consequences have a way of asserting themselves in the end.

If this is a smash-and-grab I think there will be repercussions in 2024, but if they have some secret knowledge, maybe we're all fucking doomed to living under Talibangelical rule.

Public Opinion Turns Like An Aircraft Carrier

 His Majesty, Paul Krugman, First of His Name, wonders why Americans feel so down about the economy. His explanations are good, up to a point. He notes that Republicans think the country is on fire, which is a combination of partisanship and the unhinged, alternate reality that is Faux News. Similarly, we are getting a steady stream of negative press reports and a weird doomerism among economists. All of those are right, but incomplete.

In my experience, when you look at economic crises, you often see a tail of negativity that exists beyond the return to good economic conditions. For instance, Clinton and Democrats got hammered in 1994 and Obama similarly in 2010 because the "economy was still bad." We know, looking backwards, that the recovery was underway, but the psychic shock of hard times does not recede until a few months later. 

What this means for Biden and Democrats in 2024 is that - if we avoid plunging the world into economic calamity in June - then we should be riding the crest of a generally healthy economy. I suppose the Fed could screw things up by going overboard in fighting inflation, but post-inflationary recoveries are usually quick and robust. 

It's not surprising to me that people generally feel like their economic status is pretty good, but they feel pessimistic about the economy as a whole. That's pretty normal at this stage in a recovery.

What's Going To Happen?

 Sadly, Biden does not appear ready to go Dark Brandon on the debt ceiling. He's negotiating, and I really wish he wasn't. I would have liked an executive order a few weeks ago saying that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional and see if the courts would expedite a ruling. I would have had consol bonds as a back-p plan. Negotiating on this was a bad move, but that's where we are with Manchinema still able to call the shots in the Senate.

Still, there does look to be a few areas where Biden could hand McCarthy a "win" that extricates him from the Freedumb Caucus. Permitting reform, some spending caps and getting back some unspent pandemic funds should give a fig leaf to those Republicans who might need some form of extortionary payoff.

The debt ceiling is a terrible, stupid, no-good, anachronistic idea. It should be killed with fire. The GOP's behavior on this appalling, and the dumb assed media isn't helping.

If America loses its status as global reserve currency because Kevin McCarthy has to kowtow to Matt Fucking Gaetz...

Do Better, Republicans

 I know there are Republicans and journalists who refuse to label the GOP an authoritarian, White supremacist movement. I realize that offends certain sensibilities, and I don't think painting with a wide brush is fair. Of course, Republicans do it all the time, so "all's fair in love and war."

If the GOP does not want to be called the GQP, if it does not want to be labeled a fascist movement, then maybe it shouldn't have so many fascists among their ranks. Paul Gosar is a wretched human being whose own siblings cut a campaign ad against him. 

So of course it's no surprise that Gosar employs actual Nazis.

Deplorable...

You Can Never Go Home Again

 I returned to the small town my family came from for the first time in a few years, since we sold my father's farm. Very disorienting. We found a new bakery/coffee shop. Sat down to do some work.

I think maybe Christian Rock is why MAGAts are so angry all the time. It's just execrable. 

Again, The Audience Was The Problem

 Except CNN may have made it worse. Apparently they primed the audience to not boo Trump. If I'm right (first time for everything) and the real issue was that the audience made Trump seem more acceptable, then we have a real issue of CNN tilting the playing field towards Trump. I bet it comes out that they manipulated the audience's applause and laughter to amplify it.

Someone (Josh Marshall?) said that CNN has gone from a mandate to report the news to making the news. Their odious CEO said that the town hall "made news." 

Yeah, that ain't your job.

Oppo Research

 Last night, my wife had the CNN townhall with Trump on briefly in the other room. Then she switched to MSNBC, which still played clips from the Trumpfest. I suppose the question is: Was this journalistic malpractice by CNN? Especially stacking the room with Trump supporters? Did we learn nothing from 2016?

Look, CNN is... pretty bad. But I wonder if the dynamic isn't different this time around, and if Trump's own impulsive doubling down on his problems won't help Democrats. In 2016, Trump was a novelty. Covering him extensively, beaming his rallies non-stop into people's homes, "normalized" Trump. That's a fair criticism of the complicity the media had in elevating Trump to the presidency.

However, Trump was - like it or now - president for four years. There's no "normalizing" to be done anymore. What's more, Democrats have two big problems going into 2024. Biden's job approval with independents is soft and there are legitimate questions about his age. Trump saying the outrageous shit he said last night is a bigger vote-getter for Biden than any imagined policy victory could be.

When you have Trump on air saying misogynistic things, lauding Dobbs, and calling January 6th "a beautiful day" you've basically handled two problems: Can you motivate Democrats to vote and can you sway independents?

Just hearing that bloviating scrotum from the next room was exhausting. The fact that the GOP audience was laughing at his crude misogyny and cheering his promise to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists merely shows how off-the-rails the GOP a has become. There is the problem of normalizing THAT. Trump remains unalterably Trump, but if "being a Republican" means cheering on sedition...yeah, that's a huge problem.

For most Americans, you might have your doubts about Biden's age or whether he's equal to everything the job might throw at him. I'm not. I think he's doing fine, considering he has to deal with a bunch of lunatics in the House. 

However, if your choice is Biden vs. Trump, I have to think that "worried about his age" takes a back seat to "worried about the future of American democracy."

Yeah, It Won't Matter

 Of course Trump is guilty. He's literally on a hot mic boasting of sexual assault. His video deposition did more to sway the jury against him than anything Carroll's lawyers did. Being Trump, he was incapable of doubling down on "If you're a celebrity they let you do it."

Unless the institutional GOP finds some way to ban him from the primary ballot, he will be the nominee. People have to stop thinking that the old rules apply to the GOP polity. Look, I hope they do find a way to bar him from the ballot. He will then start a vanity third party campaign that will guarantee Biden another four years. Which is why they won't do that.

The institutional GOP is locked in an abusive relationship with Trump, sure, but more so Trump voters. We knew Trump was a sexual predator in 2016 and it didn't matter then. Why should it matter now?

Republicans Are Trying To Kill You

 This is a striking graphic.

A lot of this is the murder rate being higher in the South, but...damn. It's almost like GOP governance is actively bad for your health.

Donald Trump Is Actually Good At "Politics"

 My main support for Joe Biden comes from the fact that Biden is good at politics. He's a natural people person, he has good instincts honed over a lifetime of public service and he's generally governing like a bog standard Democrat. My favorite Biden thing is when he's before a crowd and always seems surprised to see people and delighted, especially, that children are there. America's Goofy Grampa.

But I think we have to understand that Donald Trump is also good at his particular form of politics. It's a deeply weird form of politics, but the GOP is a deeply weird political party. 

This recent tidbit is instructive. 

Trump understands that the GOP's current abortion politics is deeply toxic. The assumption about "the Base" is that they will only turn out for True Believers. But Trump understands that's simply not true. Trump isn't a True Believer. He's a combination of echo chamber and amplifier. He has a salesman's good instinct for telling the customer/mark what they want to hear. He also amplifies those things that the Base feels aren't allowed to be said in public.

The caterwauling over "Cancel Culture" isn't about any particular act or speech. It's about the fact that you can't say the N-word or make Dumb Blonde jokes or call someone a f**. The rest is details. Trump understood that the Base wanted a champion who would shatter the norms around speech. The details never mattered. 

Trump has - I can say with 99.9% certainty - paid for abortions in his life. Of course he has. The fact that this doesn't matter to the "pro-life" movement is very telling. The irony, of course, is that Trump gave the anti-abortion zealots their consequence-proof majority on the Supreme Court. All the negative backlash the GOP is getting is because Trump pushed through Amy Comey Barrett. (If it was a 5-4 Court, Roberts likely preserves some form of Casey and Roe.) 

Still, Trump is a "winner" in their eyes. He gave them the judges. He also understood that cuts to Medicare and Social Security - as proposed by the Paul Ryan wing of the party - were toxic. In ways that are perhaps surprising from a malignant narcissist, Trump actually does understand certain things about his Base. They don't want their entitlements cut. They want to feel like it's still a White, Straight America. He plays to that. I don't think it plays beyond the Base anymore, but I felt that way in 2016 and we all know how that played out.

More On Clarence Thomas's Awfulness

 Paul Campos found an old speech by Clarence Thomas that explains a great deal. In it, Thomas attacks his own sister as being a "welfare queen" who is instilling in her children a culture of dependency.

Needless to say, it was all bullshit. His sister and her children were working their asses off for not enough pay, the way the poor do everywhere. The venomous attack on his own family for the crime of being Black and poor is what set Thomas to ascend in the Republican firmament during the Reagan years. It is an article of faith among Reaganites that keeping the poor from suffering will lead them to be lazy. Thomas channeled through his own race and got a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court that he otherwise did not earn through legal scholarship - nor has he advanced any great arguments from the bench.

Thomas being an awful person - especially to other Black people - is precisely why he's on the Court.

Yes, Hispanics Can Be Nazis

 We have had a spate of mass shootings in Texas where the shooters have Hispanic surnames. Needless to say, if you're an odious piece of shit like Marjorie Traitor Green, you ascribe this to the mass flood of "illegals" flooding our borders.

The Mall Shooter (as opposed to the Backyard Shooter) was apparently both Hispanic AND a Nazi Curious type. This has confused some people who apparently forgot Nick Fuentes exists.

There are a number of reasons that you can have Hispanic White Supremacists that have to do with the complications of ethnic identity in Latin America and the weird dynamic of race in America itself. A quick glance at history books will let you know that quite a few Latin American countries welcomed fleeing Nazis after World War II, and the record of fascism in Latin America is...not good. Military dictatorship were very common and remain "the good old day" for many. The term "death squad" originated in Central America, for crying out loud.

The racial caste system of Latin America was much more nuanced than Americans realize, as our caste system tended towards "White" and "Non-White". But there are Latin Americans who see themselves as "White" and superior to more mestizo-type populations within their borders. 

When this idea is translated to America, you have people who are drawn to solidarity with the dominant racial caste - in this case, White America. They were the dominant caste at home and they want to be allied with the dominant caste here. What's more, the natural psychology of fascism is bullying and bullies look towards other, stronger bullies. If you're already drawn towards that psychology it's a short walk. 

Even more importantly, Hispanics sit in a racial no-man's land in America. They aren't Black and - in the eyes of most White Americans - they aren't exactly White. Hell, even if they are indigenous Americans, they aren't seen as "Native Americans" but rather "Latin". For those who were part of a dominant caste system at home, this dislocation is disorienting, so you rush towards the movement that seeks to shut out people who look like you and claim allegiance to them, in the same way an abused person seeks the approval of their abuser.

All of this is a long way of saying something that is undeniably true. There is no Hispanic or Latine Polity in America. There are multiple identifiers and ethnic differences that tend to get ignored when White people lump all these disparate groups into "Hispanic" or "Latinx". 

Oh, and it's the fucking guns. Never forget it's also about the fucking guns.

A Day Later In America's Courts

 Oh. Look. More allegations of rank corruption in the Thomas family.

The idea of a "lawless court" needs to be a focal point of Democratic framing. Yes, yes, institutions blah blah blah. But this Court is quite literally lawless. Thomas is unusually corrupt, but most of the conservative bloc of justices share Thomas' sense of entitlement and grievance.

The Court is also about to strike down Chevron, which allows for the regulatory state to function. There will be additional horrible decisions. I'm not a fan of delegitimizing our institutions, but this Court is not legitimate. They are making shit up and they are corrupt as hell.

Today In America's Court

 Good news! Four members of the Proud Boys are guilty of sedition! Not only do these individuals deserve their coming jail sentences, but this also means that a court has ruled that January 6th constitutes sedition. That means everyone else involved in planning it  <cough Trump cough> is now part of a seditious conspiracy. 

Good news! The bullshit suit against Ed Sheeran has been thrown out. Who cares, it's Ed Sheeran? Well, the premise of this case was that ANY lifting of ANY chord progression constitutes copyright infringement.

Bad news! Clarence Thomas is corrupt as shit! Now, we know that Thomas is corrupt as shit. He is a shit human being from top to bottom. 

As Josh Marshall points out, the two previous examples of Harlan Crow lavishing unreported gifts on Thomas could possibly be explained away. The travel was a small additional expense, presuming Crow was going on the private jet/yacht/etcetera already...adding Thomas as a "dear friend" can possibly be waived away. The purchase of Thomas's childhood home can possibly be explained away as a real estate investment by Crow. Huge stretch, but stretchable. 

This latest is just flat out unreported gifts, aka bribery. Unlike the travel, the window for amending the reporting has passed. Thomas was the legal guardian of the kid for whom Crow paid tuition. That means that this was a direct gift to Thomas. He didn't report it.

This sure as hell seems like a straightforward "violation of the law" (aka crime).

The bad news? Thomas isn't going anywhere.

Pucker Factor

 Josh Marshall has - as usual - been insightful about how Democrats have changed in their attitudes about the debt ceiling since 2011 and how the DC press have not understood this change. Marshall has also been reporting that it sure looks like Biden is preparing to ignore the debt ceiling.

The reasoning is pretty straightforward. This is not a question of negotiating a deal with House leadership and enough sane Republicans to get a clean increase. House leadership is now - de facto - Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Traitor-Green. What's more, you don't negotiate with hostage takers, because it rewards hostage taking.

So, according to Marshall, they are considering their options. Those options are

1) Mint a trillion dollar coin. Marshall thinks this is exceedingly unlikely to happen.
2) Pay some accounts and not others, like a shutdown. This also seems unlikely. Plus, it equates debt default with a shutdown, which are different things.
3) Use the XIVth Amendment. Basically, when the debt ceiling is breached, point out that the debt ceiling is and always has been unconstitutional under the terms of the Mighty 14th. That amendment explicitly states that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, as authorized by law...shall not be questioned."
4) Issue something called "consol bonds" which can exist forever without being redeemed. Marshall explains:
In short, the Treasury can issue bonds that have no “face value” but pay interest forever. That piece of paper has a lot of actual value since it’s a guarantee of payment forever. Thus people will pay a lot for it. But it has no “face value.” Thus it doesn’t add to the national debt. The debt limit doesn’t cover it. It increases the the government’s obligations but it’s not debt.

Again, 1&2 seem unlikely or unmanageable. Ideally, you could use 3 to end this farce forever. The use of 4 basically relies on some precedent as its been done before and enough people buying those bonds to float more "debt that isn't debt."

No one asked me, but I would pursue 3&4 simultaneously. Option 3 ultimately relies on the Supreme Court and anyone who thinks they can predict that ruling is insane. The text of the Amendment is clear, and the consequences of default are so extreme, that the Court might acquiesce to this move by a Democratic president. Or maybe not! Exciting!

But if you also issued consol bonds, you could cover your bases while the Court dithers.

The best outcome, of course, is that we rid the country of this nonsense forever (option 3) while covering our butts (option 4).

At the very least, it's encouraging to hear that there is proactive planning in the White House for dealing with the fundamental insanity of the House GOP.

I'm OK, So Everything Is Normal

 I enjoy when Yglesias pushes back against conventional wisdom in some instances. I think it's helpful to read contrarian voices to challenge what you believe. However, he can be almost willfully blind to the actual realities of the contemporary GOP, and this is not unique to him. Most pundits are pretty comfortable financially and socially. They live in major cities, with all the issues and privileges that accrue to that, and they probably aren't worried about things like abortion rights.

Anyway, Yglesias makes the case for why Ron DeSantis "seems to have stalled". It's kind of willfully obtuse. His argument is that DeSantis was briefly popular because he was very Covid skeptical and that aligned with the GOP base, and now that Covid is gone, he's not as popular.

What a load of horseshit. 

DeSantis had his little moment because Trump tried to overthrow the elected government of the United States. He tried desperately to mimic Trump's movements and political instincts - attack, attack, attack - but lacked authenticity and charisma. DeSantis is Scott Walker 2.0. He is a fairly repellent human being with the charm of wet laundry.

What Yglesias consistently does is apply his lens to GOP voters. He fancies himself a rational, objective guy (he is, in fact, a walking bundle of his prior convictions) and therefore assumes that GOP voters are as well. There is a frame in economics and political science of the Rational Actor that presumes that everyone acts in their perceived reasoned self-interest. The behavior of GOP voters who seem to vote against their self-interest puzzles them, but they just assume it's a glitch.

To assume that GOP voters are choosing candidates based on a reasoned evaluation of competing policies is to ignore that political devolution of the Republican Party this century. The fact that the GOP did not have a party platform in 2020 is sense a quirk and not a feature of GOP politics. Trump is an aberration and not - as he truly is - the natural endpoint of a party that has become a creature of Fox News Grievance.

DeSantis' boomlet was caused by his anti-Covid Safety politics. Yglesias is puzzled why Covid amelioration measures became a partisan issue, which gives away the game. Anyone to the left of Trump felt that it was in our personal and national interest to save as many lives as possible by using NPIs and vaccines to fight the virus. Precisely because people on the left took the stance of masking, distancing and vaccinating,  the right opposed it. It's that simple and that stupid. Even as Republicans began dying in disproportionate numbers because of their refusal to take countermeasures to Covid, they clung to harmful beliefs that flew in the face of all evidence.

Trump has been mildly hurt by boasting about his vaccination record, which was arguably the one good thing he did as president. Even Trump himself cannot escape Cleek's Law.

So, if we understand that the base GOP voter is simply reacting against the cultural and political Left, then policy doesn't really matter. The obvious craving for a dictatorial strong man by vast portions of the Right is about vanquishing their enemies rather than any real concrete goal. If a policy helps "pwn the libtards" then it is good, even if it hurts them, too.

DeSantis spiked by attacking the current bugaboos of the Right - teaching actual American history, letting LGBT people exist, Disney, education as a public good - not because he had any real hold on their loyalties.

As quite a few people have noted, Trump's legal troubles have helped him with the GOP base. He's committed multiple crimes (ok, allegedly, but he's plead guilty to others).  He is manifestly unsuited by temperament, ability or experience to be president. That does not matter! In fact, the more he's placed in legal jeopardy, the more his poll numbers rise with the GOP base.

To embrace Cleek's Law is to abandon the bothsides frame of a certain class of punditry. After Trump was elected, the NY Times went on numerous Cleetus Safaris to Ohio Diners to try and understand the average Trump voters' position on capital gains tax cuts.

They haven't learned a goddamned thing.

Today In Democratic Decline

 The Dobbs decision has focused attention on the tremendous unaccountability of our Courts. What's more, we have incidents like Neil Gorsuch selling a property to a prominent law firm shortly after being elevated to the Supreme Court. We have the entirety of Clarence Thomas' ethics scandals. We have Matthew Kacsmaryk essentially falsifying his record on writing a law review during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Nothing quite as obvious as a quid pro quo, but there certainly seems to be a lot of overlap with shady-assed actions and the more conservative members of America's courts.

What's really frustrating is that there isn't anything we can do about it.

The 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court was created by a political party that has won the popular vote once since 1988. The courts cannot be plausibly said to represent anything like the will of the American people, whether it's on abortion and reproductive rights, gun control or anti-regulatory zeal. 

And there's nothing we can do about it, because the assumption has always been that judges sit above the law in some sort of monastic neutrality. That was never true, but it's been especially galling now that we have courts that are perfectly willing to rewrite 75 years of jurisprudence because they know that there is no way to hold them accountable. 

Fox's Other Crime

 Faux News is taking a beating the past couple of weeks. I think their greatest crimes might be unpunished - because we can't punish them for it. Faux is an accessory to murder.

The nightly stew of fearmongering about urban crime has left those who imbibe Rightist media terrified of the world outside their doors. So, when a Black kid shows up on their doorstep or an unknown car pulls into their driveway, they empty a clip against the threatening hordes. Their quaking fear of the world is stoked and manipulated by Faux, which leads to these incidents, which make the news, which make other people afraid, which accelerates the descent into more fear and more guns.

So, the solution is that it's the guns. It's always been the guns. Get rid of 75% of the guns and keep them out of lunatics' hands and that helps bleed the tension out of American society. The First Amendment is (and should be) stronger than the Second when it comes to regulating behavior.

Faux has blood on their hands, but they honestly don't give a shit.