Where We Are

Jon Chait points out where the Republican Party is, as filtered through the WSJ op-ed page.

Basically, the Republican Party's position is: Everything is partisan.  If you don't like Trump - as many people in the FBI don't - then you are an enemy of the Republicans.  In effect, the 60%+ of the American people who don't like Trump are "enemies of the state."

This is where we are. 

No, I Didn't Watch It

If I want theater, I'll go to Broadway.  I never watched Obama or Bush's either.

But - from what I'm reading - Trump was applauding himself?  I mean aside from using grieving parents as a prop and rending the social fabric of our nation...he was applauding himself?

What the everloving hell?

It's Getting Worse

Trump's assault on the rule of law has accelerated.  The ouster of deputy FBI chief Andrew McCabe is a terrifying moment in the slow degradation of the independence of our criminal justice system.  If that wasn't bad enough, we have the House GOP about to release an inflammatory and I'm going to guess erroneous "memo" that seeks to actively attack the integrity of the FBI and the Justice Department.  The intended audience of this memo is all the Fox News drones, including the Fox News Consumer In Chief. 

The memo is likely to be a steaming hot pile of nothing, but it will muddy the waters and give license for Trump to fire people at the FBI and the DOJ.  When he does, count on some very serious hand wringing and brow furrowing from the "principled moderates" in the Republican Party.  And then they will do nothing. 

Will Ferrell returned to SNL last weekend to remind people that George Dubya Bush's presidency was a disaster.  This makes two disastrous presidencies in a row from the Republican Party.  At some point, we have to take away their keys.  I mean ALL the keys.  Right now, the GOP is the only group that supports Trump, and that includes almost every legislator running for office this coming November.

This isn't just about Trump.

Putin's Russia/Trump's America

The Times of London has a brief vignette of life in rural Russia.  It is unimaginably grim.  Corruption and poor economic conditions have left large swaths of Russia as economic wastelands.  They make Erie, PA look like Greenwich, CT. 

And yet, the people in these blasted, blighted areas will trundle to the polls in a few weeks and vote for Vladimir Putin.  He's their Big Dog.  He appeals to their xenophobia and prejudices about the threat from modernity.  He stigmatizes gays and leftists and liberals and European democratic socialism.  And he will win 60% of the vote despite being an objectively poor leader on economics.

Russia is Trump's America.  That's why they work together like hand in glove.  It naturally lines up that way.

Meanwhile, in the 21st century....

Stop Worrying About North Korea

Start worrying about the Turkish-Syrian border.  The game that Erdogan is playing is very dangerous, but it's one that he probably has no other option but to play.  He's squeezed between domestic political necessities to clamp down on the Kurds, plus his increasingly close relationship to Moscow.  Moscow is actively exploiting this.  It seems obviously tied to Michael Flynn's work with both Russia and Turket.  As Erdogan drifts further and further from the basic tenets of European democracy and closer to the "Autocratic East," he's going to come in increasing conflict with the US.

The Kurds are really the only consistent friends America has in the Middle East, and that includes Israel at the moment.  But the Kurds are the sworn enemies of the Turks. 

Luckily, America has a steady, wise hand in the White House working hand-in-glove with our experienced Secretary of State. 

What could go wrong?

The Permission Effect

Donald Trump has introduced a rot into the heart of our national morality.  What's striking about this is how sadly predictable it is.  Partisanship - or rather partisan loyalty - is so high that Republicans rush to embrace whatever Trump's latest verbal emetic might be.  Republicans say that Trump is a good moral role model.  Let that sink in.

Whatever Trump winds up doing - firing Bob Mueller, enacting nakedly racist policies, shooting a person in the face on Fifth Avenue - that will become the default position of the GOP.  For all the people saying that "This isn't conservatism," my counterargument is: prove it.  Prove that the modern GOP is not simply a vehicle to support Trump, because right now, I can't see it.

It strikes me that two things are increasingly defining the GOP: racial and cultural anxiety and authoritarianism.  The two are linked, in that racial panic is leading aggrieved whites to rally around a Strong Man personality.  Fear soaked trembling before the idea that you have to press 1 for English leads to genuflecting on the altar of The Donald. 

I don't see how the GOP fully divests itself of this part of its identity. Democrats have always been a fractious, squabbling lot.  They spend more time attacking each other than the Republicans.  But the GOP works, the GOP wins elections, because they are so unified. 

Our only hope as a country is that the GOP splits between the ethno-nationalist authoritarianism and the classical libertarianism of a small government party.  Our only hope is that people stop being "Republicans" because being a "Republican" means being a Trump supporter and a supporter of all Trump stands for.  That people become Libertarians or Conservatives or what the hell ever.

Our political system cannot survive if one of tha parties has lost its freaking mind.

The Art Of The Deal

Trump's White House has issued an immigration bill that is only partly horrible.  It does right by the DREAMers (not just DACA kids either).  It has a tolerably wasteful amount of money for the stupid wall.

But it also largely ends legal immigration from "shithole countries" by ending family migration and the diversity lottery.

The first question for Republicans is will Trump sign the bill he says he supports.  The bigger question is what happens if Democrats are able to strip out the ending of family migration (which should be their priority).  If that happens, can the bill pass and would Trump sign it?

I think Democrats are largely reconciling themselves to paying for something on the stupid wall.  They won't throw DREAMers to the wolves over the wall, but the other issues are really problematic.  And it seems unlikely the Freedumb Caucus will accept allowing the DREAMers to stay.

I fear we will blunder into some unwitting tragedy.

Show Me

The Trump White House has released an immigration bill, which is not a bill and hasn't been released.  Rather it's the promise of a bill that will make everyone happy.  As with so many things coming from Trumpistan, it is probably best to assume this is a lie.

The outline of the issues addressed are friendly to Trump's priorities: funding for the border wall, ending the diversity lottery and curtailing family migration preferences (chain migration).  In return there will be a DACA fix of some kind.  Trump gets three things, Democrats and whatever counts as a moderate Republican gets one.  Maybe.

Because we don't know what the DACA fix will look like.  Maybe it allows DREAMers to stay, but only under very tight conditions that suck.  That's the Goodlatte plan in the House.  If it was what the Senate was looking at, maybe you could justify beginning negotiations on the other three items.  But if they start out with a maximalist position on all four issues - Goodlatte's DACA "fix", Trump three items - you're basically negotiating in bad faith.

Plus, who knows what Trump will agree to from any given moment to the next?

Damage

I recommend Charlie Pierce's blistering piece on the Larry Nasser horror show.  I really recommend you read to the bottom for Aly Raisman's statement.

Goalposts

I was highly vexed by my understanding of the deal to re-open the government, until I found out that CHIP funding was included.  That was the necessary "win" for Democrats.  However, there is a great deal of anger at Chuck Schumer for "allowing" the government to re-open.  I suppose the thinking is that Democrats always cave, and they caved without getting what they wanted: a DACA fix.  They kicked the can three weeks down the road.

Some of this is simply the instant gratification culture at work.  Some of this is the legitimate worry that the closer we get to March 5th, the closer we get to actual deportations. 

Going into the next round, the question is fundamentally this: Is a DACA fix worth funding the Wall?  Where is the moral imperative here?  Is it protecting 700,000 DREAMers?  Or is it opposing Trump's signature issue?  The Wall is a fundamentally stupid idea from a stupid person that appeals to other stupid people.  But it's become more than that.  Opposing or supporting the Wall is a litmus test, a shibboleth that identifies your place in the Resistence. 

The problem is that Democrats will almost certainly have to concede some Wall funding in return for getting a DACA fix.  Some, like Luis Gutierrez, say that it's perfectly acceptable to waste money on the Wall in order to protect the DREAMers.  Others feel it's a capitulation to Trump and his racist impulses about Hispanics.

Wherever you fall on this issue, the fact is that it probably behooves the Left in general to figure out whether opposing the Wall is more important than protecting the DREAMers.  Because that's the only deal out there, and you will need to know where the goalposts are before you try and calculate whether you won or lost.

Look Like They Got Rolled

If Democrats did not get CHIP funding in this CR, they got rolled.  You can't get nothing, and right now, they got nothing.  Maybe they did get CHIP funding, and that has been obscured in the reporting, but I doubt it.

They caved.

Here's what happens next: The Senate takes up some form of DACA fix.  Maybe they pass something, maybe not.  Whatever is able to pass the Senate dies in the House.

Democrats will have to decide all over again whether to shutdown the government in early February - that much closer to the end of DACA.

Once again, the essential cowardice and lack of conviction on the part of Congressional Democrats is sickening.

One reason why was the naked embrace of many Republican talking points by mainstream media outlets, but that is neither here nor there.

The Democrats took a stand and the very second it became a little hot, they folded like a cheap lawn chair.

UPDATE: Errrrr, never mind.  They got CHIP funding.  The comparison of 8,000,000 CHIP children being held hostage for 800,000 DREAMers was a bad optic.

Deeply Awful People

Here is an examination of the House "fix" on DACA.  It is - in a word - absurd.  The idea of any fix to this issue would basically allow DREAMers to stay here and expedite their way to citizenship.  How they do that can be negotiated, but that's the only acceptable fix. 

Lindsey Graham is beefing with the White House over Stephen Miller's role in this debate.  Graham called Miller an outlier on the issue, which earned a toddler's response from the White House of "no, you're the outlier!"  Graham is right that within the context of American politics, Miller is the outlier.  The White House is right that within the context of right wing politics, Graham is the outlier.

It is telling that the White House defines what is acceptable exclusively within the Alt Reich echo chamber. 

This is why it's so hard to see a reasonable conclusion to this issue.  Perhaps they come up with a CR for two weeks.  What fundamentally changes from now to then?  And if I'm Senate Democrats, why would I put it off for another two weeks?  If I'm voting for a CR, I want something.  CHIP funding for six years, for starters.  Take CHIP off the table as a bargain...er..chip before the next round of Dancing With Racists comes around on February 8th.  You have to start whittling down the number of child hostages that these lunatics can keep threatening.

How It Erodes

Trump has proposed ending the Senate as we know it.  He wants to get rid of the 60 vote rule for legislation.  McConnell opposes this, and I think McConnell realizes he is unlikely to be majority leader past 2020 (if not 2018) and wants to preserve his options as future minority leader.

Most Senators also disagree with this, but over time Trump could rile up his Deplorables who will pressure their Senators.  Still, my guess if that you never get Collins, McCain and even Graham to sink the filibuster.  Still, this is how Trump erodes institutions.

Was This On The Syllabus?

So, we've managed for the first time in our history, to shutdown the government when one party controls the White House, House and Senate.  The GOP - and to a lesser degree the NY Times - would like you to believe that this is the Democrats' fault.  (This is a concept called Murc's Law: Only Democrats have any agency, and therefore every bad thing is their fault.)

The reality is that this is an unbelievably telling crisis in how Republicans "govern."  That it happens on the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration is kind of hilariously apt.  The basic issue is that we have three separate issues:

- The government must be funded, and it will need Democratic votes in the Senate to be funded.
- The GOP Congress failed to extend funding for CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program), despite the funding lapsing back in the Fall.
- Trump rescinded DACA protections for DREAMers, setting up a showdown between "immigration hardliners" and people who aren't racist towards teenagers.

Democrats obviously have little leverage in Washington these days.  This is pretty much it.  It's worth noting that the Senate didn't even get to 50 votes, much less 60.  In order to get the Kick America In The Nuts Act passed back in December, McConnell promised a lot to Collins and Flake.  Now, they are asking to collect on those promises.  So there is a bipartisan fix in the Senate for this.  The House?  Who knows?  But, if the Senate passes a continuing resolution with a DACA-fix and CHIP extension...would Paul Ryan invoke the Hastert Rule (named after the GOP Speaker of the House who molested children) to prevent a compromise CR from passing with a bipartisan vote?

It seems obvious that this is just a great example of how the modern GOP is like a really, really bad student.  They haven't read the syllabus.  They haven't done the homework.  They aren't prepared for class.  And now there's a major paper due, and they're trying to throw all this crap together at the last minute.

These three issues are not a "crisis" that arose out of nowhere.  This could have been solved weeks or months ago.  The GOP leadership could've done some basic second grade arithmetic and realized that they would need Democratic votes for this and not waited until the last second so that Lord Smallgloves couldn't go on Twitter and kill any chance of a last-minute compromise.

We are governed by profoundly small people.

Concern Trolling

The Washington Post has two excellent examples of concern trolling on it's Op-Ed page.  Two Republicans express their I'm-sure-is-legit concern that Democrats will get tarred by the government shutdown.  The idea that the minority party will be blamed for a failure of governance assumes a level of civic engagement that simply doesn't exist. 

Americans know that Republicans control the Congress and the White House.  One of Mitch McConnell's insights was the fact that probably 95% of Americans are ignorant of the way legislation works its way through Congress.  They are unfamiliar with cloture and holds and the idea that 60 votes are required to pass anything in the Senate these days.  The even less informed simply blame the White House for everything.

Democrats are holding out for a popular and reasonable demand: protection for DREAMers.  That's it.  You want a bipartisan deal?  There it is.  If Republicans won't pass it, they will get the blame for the shutdown.  Shutdowns are already "on-brand" for the GOP, too, so that will help cement blame.

Of course, if we know anything about Democrats, it is that they will cave under pressure from the Bipartisan Fairy.  Like Charlie Brown, they will continue to run up to the football that Lucy holds out there so tantalizingly.  Maybe they've learned. 

We will see tonight.