Actually, No

 I take some issue with this piece in the WaPo.

Democrats should NOT want Trump "on the ballot" if it means him running for office in 2024. There are two reasons for this. First, under no circumstances can this country afford another 2016 election, whereby Trump draws to an inside straight in the electoral college. Second, Trump HAS shown he can mobilize a certain segment of voters who usually don't vote. They need to stay home.

Of course, as usual, most of the problems with this piece is the shitty, click-baity headline. The actual article argues that Dems want to run against Trumpism, which is largely true. However, running against Trumpism means running against the GOP, as the two are now inseparable. 

So, yes, Democrats are running against the modern GOP, because that is literally their job.

A Season Of Woe And Tribulation

 It's the NFL season again, which means my destiny is to spend the next 18 weeks suffering through the misery of being a Falcons' fan.

Thank Dog, my son made me a Chelsea fan. At least one of my "football" clubs is decent.

No, It's Not Tyranny

 Sadly, I went to Facebook last night and saw someone I care about say that Biden's vaccine mandate is a form of tyranny.

Ugh.

No.

It's not.

Vaccine mandates are obviously legal. If you want to go to school? You have to have a bunch of vaccines. Want to join the military? You have to have a bunch of vaccines.

In 1904, the Supreme Court ruled in Jacobsen v Massachusetts that vaccine mandates with a clear public health purpose were not infringements on personal freedom. This ruling was upheld in 1922 by Zucht v King. Even Amy Coney Barrett upheld a vaccine requirement issues by the University of Indiana. While it's tempting fate to call anything "settled law" under the increasingly ideological Court, I guarantee four Justices will uphold Jacobsen and Zucht, and I feel pretty good about it being 7-2 or 8-1.

Now, the argument that the GOP Death Cult will embrace is that Jacobsen referred only to state mandates and MUH FEDERALSIM! However, the Court's opinion - written by one of my favorite justices, John Marshall Harlan - does not seem to distinguish between state and federal mandates. As Harlan wrote:

There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy.

That is a broad argument for common purpose regardless of which level of government institutes it.

The sticking point could be that Biden has used an unusual workaround: OSHA. By making this a workplace safety issue rather than trying to pass a law through our wretched Senate, he could conceivably open the door for some Federalist Society hack to invalidate it. However, I could also see those same hacks slow roll their opposition for months on end in order to actually let the increase in vaccination rates get us out of the pandemic.

Working against this, though, is that this really isn't a vaccine mandate. First off, it's restricted to firms of over 100 employees. While that covers school districts and major corporations, it leave off almost all small businesses. Secondly, if you refuse to get a vaccine, you have to be tested weekly. Frankly, I think bi-weekly would be sounder policy, but whatever. 

This "unprecedented power grab" is basically: If you work for a sufficiently large company, you either have to get the vaccine or by tested weekly. This is the clear recommendation from public health experts. Probably most important is guaranteeing sick days off if the vaccine knocks you on your ass for a day or two. Millions of Americans worried about this, now they don't have to.

Over 60% of Americans support this. We want our lives back and most of us realize that this comes from controlling the pandemic's spread. Vaccines and masks - combined with the millions of Americans who have already had it - is the way forward.

You know, I remember conservative voices a year ago confidently predicting that if Biden got elected, concerns from "Socialist Leftists" over the coronavirus would disappear. That it was all just a big plot to discredit Trump. Funny. I don't hear that now.

Will It Work?

Biden's new tougher requirements for employers to stop the spread of Covid is clearly warranted on the medical end. Delta requires that we get more and more people vaccinated. Vaccine mandates work.

There's a second question of: what will the political impact be?

The usual mediots will rush to the nearest Ohio diner to interview guys in MAGA hats as to what they think about Biden's plan. Ignore them.

Covid is THE issue for 2022. Afghanistan will have faded into the background by then, unless the Taliban decide to attack us, which they won't, because they aren't idiots. No, the issue will be the recovery, both medical and economic from the pandemic. 

 Basically, Biden is counting on the 75% of adults and the larger percentage of suburban, college educated voters - the sort of people who vote in midterms - to support this policy. That's not a terrible gamble.

We are exhausted, and as Biden says, we've lost our patience with Spreadnecks.

Leveraging The Tools They Have

 Biden's decision to use OSHA to enforce mandate or testing requirements is low-key brilliant. It's a worker safety issue, like wearing a hard hat or controlling lead dust. Today's decision by the DOJ to sue Texas is a little more straightforward, but also welcome news.

There are, of course, the manic whiners of the "Do Something" faction that will either say it took too long or take credit for it finally happening. Biden and Garland both took the time to find a way that might actually work. Rather than spasm about in paroxysms of sputtering rage, they went through their options before lighting on the best ones.

I swear to Dog, the internet has broken our capacity for patience and perspective.

Veto Gates

 There is a term in political science called a "veto gate."  Basically, as opposed to the public act of vetoing legislation by the president, a veto gate is something legislation or regulation must pass through before even getting to the president's desk.

The US has WAAAAAAAY too many veto gates. Having a Senate and House means that both houses must pass legislation that is exactly the same. 

Adding the filibuster makes it much, much worse. 

The filibuster should be abolished so that the government can work.

Meeting The GOP Halfway

 I'm not a huge proponent of the idea that if a thing is bipartisan, that makes it good. I also think 98% of the Republican caterwauling about electoral fraud is a bad faith effort to suppress the votes of those they don't want <cough> black people <cough> voting.

But there is one complaint by rank and file Republicans that does have a certain logic to it. You have to show ID for a bunch of reasons, why not voting?

Now, obviously, there are circumstances where you have to have an ID for legitimate reasons like proving you're of legal age or that you are actually who your say you are at the bank or doctor's office. You also have to show ID to fly in an airplane. 

None of these are fundamental rights. Voting is.

Still, "why should I have to show my ID to board a plane, but not when voting" is a superficially plausible argument. The Brennan Center points out that millions of Americans don't have government issued IDs, and those numbers are especially high amongst minority groups. It's unclear if the people without IDs are, in fact, voters. Tens of millions of Americans are not. It's also unclear if those numbers have moved any since they were accumulated prior to 2010.

But, OK. Voters should have photo IDs in order to vote, even if in-person voter fraud isn't a thing.

So, let's give everyone a government issued photo ID. 

- For everyone who registers to vote, they get a voter ID card.
- For everyone who's already registered to vote, every effort will be made - including a mobile ID van - to get them a photo ID.

I realize engaging with bad faith arguments is a bad idea. The argument about photo ID is only partly in bad faith. There's a logic to it, even if it's unnecessary. 

Remove the argument by getting everyone who's registered to vote a photo ID. Not only will it allow them to vote, they can also use it at banks, airports and wherever.

Marry the legislation with providing everyone with a photo ID to something else, like guaranteed in-person, no-questions-asked absentee voting. Or increased funding for secure voting machines (since it's likely to be Trumpists fucking with then security of the machines these days).

You aren't passing the John Lewis Act until you get over 55 Democratic Senators and a Democratic House. Find some common ground and pass SOMETHING to insure ballot access.

Even if it means engaging with shitty, cynical bullshit.

God Won't Save You

 I've recently been visiting the website sorryantivaxxer.com. I don't do it out of morbid glee, and I take no pleasure over the deaths of people from Covid. It sucks, can confirm.

The reason I read it is to get a picture of why these people refused to get a free vaccine. We've all heard of the people who embrace bizarre conspiracy theories, like Bill Gates put a microchip in it or it makes men sterile (actually, that's Ivermectin).

No, what strikes me about so many of these people who are dying of Covid is that they have an understanding of "god" that is just bonkers. God does not cure Covid. OK. God does not improve your bank account. God does not "do things" to make things better for you. You want to know how I know that? Because childhood cancers exist. God - if they exist - may be a presence you can find psychological or emotional comfort in, but that's mostly you finding grace. It's not God saying, "Well, Suzy is having a bad day, I'd best go sit with her awhile."

Sorry, you aren't that important. 

If God does exist, the argument is that they inspired doctors and scientists to invent vaccines. Or steroids. Or Remdesivir. The fact that you won't access the tools given you while waiting for Jesus to heal you suggests, as if we needed more evidence, that Christian fundamentalism is the greatest threat to American self-government. You cannot run a government based on enlightenment principles if a critical mass of citizens reject those principles.

Happy Stanislov Petrov Day

 In 1983, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were as strained as they had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The USSR, in fact, was convinced that the US was planning a first strike nuclear attack. On September 1st, 1983, the USSR shot down a Korean Air Lines flight that strayed into Soviet airspace, thinking it might be part of a sneak attack by the US.

On September 26th, 1983, Stanislov Petrov was the colonel in charge of monitoring the Soviet nuclear early warning system. Suddenly, the satellites warned of a single nuclear missile launched by the US against the USSR. Petrov knew that Soviet doctrine would trigger a massive retaliatory strike if ANY nuclear missile was launched by the US.  He determined that the satellite system, which had been glitchy, was malfunctioning. No missile arrived. Minutes later, the system detected four more missiles incoming. Again, Petrov refused to report the incident, determining on his own that the system was malfunctioning.

On September 26, 1983, Stanislov Petrov's discretion, judgment and bravery prevented the entire world from being engulfed in a nuclear holocaust. Because his actions proved the inferiority of Soviet satellite technology, he was never acknowledged or rewarded by the Soviet Union, though after the collapse of the USSR he was acknowledged and rewarded by international organizations including the United Nations.

You are alive today because Stanislov Petrov used his judgment, critical thinking and discretion not to report a false missile attack. He died in 2017, but maybe spare a thought for the man today, on what would have been his 81st birthday.

The "Do Something" Caucus

 After Texas implemented (and the Courts refused to stop) it's bounty hunter anti-abortion bill, there were the usual cries of "Why won't Democrats do something? There's just as bad as Republicans." This is, of course, bullshit. 

Among the criticisms I saw on social media was that AG Merrick Garland might well be Bill Barr for all he's done to prosecute Trump or protect women's rights.

Leaving aside that if you are going to prosecute a former president, you'd better have EVERYTHING perfect, prosecutions take time to build under the best circumstances. Cases take years to drag through the courts, even as "Q Shaman" has been sentenced to several years in prison. More will come.

On the Texas issue, the DOJ came out today saying they would use the FACE Act to stop implementation of the law. This is...stretching the law, which was created to protect reproductive clinics from violent threats and attacks. Here's the Wikipedia entry:

(1) the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person who is obtaining reproductive health services or providing reproductive health services (this portion of the law typically refers to abortion clinics), (2) the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person who is exercising or trying to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship, (3) the intentional damage or destruction of a reproductive health care facility or a place of worship.

So, it's hard to see how this is "physical obstruction" or "force." The law does say you can't prevent someone from entering a clinic and you can't stalk clinic workers. That would seem to give them enough cover to stop some aspects of the law.

The nature of politics today is so very, very broken by social media's rush to judgment and immediate need for gratification that it's impossible to govern properly.

I enjoy Twitter and I like connecting with old friends on Facebook, but honest to Dog, if they disappeared tomorrow, the world would be a better place.

Florida Looks To Be Screwing With Their Numbers

 Look, this isn't solely a Red/Blue thing. Noted sexual creep Andrew Cuomo screwed around with the Covid deaths in nursing homes in the early days of the pandemic.

What Florida is doing is more overt. They are updating their death totals every week rather than daily. This has managed a bit to hide the impact of the epidemic. All the other states in the Covid Hot Zone publish their deaths daily. Their chart looks like an upward slope, Florida's looks like steps: flat for a week then a huge jump, then flat for a week.

Given what a mendacious shitbag Ron DeathSantis is, it's really hard not to think that he's screwing around with those death numbers. If you want an unhealthy dose of schadenfreude, check out the website that keeps track of the deaths of anti-vaxxers. LOTS of Florida on there.

Pandemics and Employment

 The Post runs through the uneven nature of return to employment in these - hopefully - late stages of the pandemic.

Some sectors are basically back to normal, but others are struggled to hire. Certain places in the country are struggled more than others, as people wonder whether to risk returning to a shitty job when you might get Covid or bring it home to infect your 4 year old.

This isn't a new phenomenon. Most famously, the Black Death killed so many peasants that it upended feudalism as it shifted the negotiating power between serf and landowner. This event isn't nearly as calamitous, but it does raise questions about the nature of work. I know we lost several faculty members to retirement that had to be accelerated by the pandemic. 

America has largely been gripped by the idea that workers should be grateful to have a job at all. That's...well...bullshit, but it is a prevalent idea. As many Americans work their way up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, they tend to reject the idea that they should risk their lives or the lives of their children to make $12 and hour asking someone if they want fries with that.

Time will tell if we are seeing a fundamental change in the American workforce, but some changes would hardly be unwelcome.

How Democrats Govern Matters

 I've seen so many takes similar to Paul Waldman's that I guess it deserves a response (again).

Yes, Republicans are naked and cynical in their use and abuse of power. There are no better examples of this than Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett having lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court, despite the flagrant power play to NOT confirm Merrick Garland and RUSHING to confirm Barrett.

The problem is that the logical end point of Republican nihilism is Trumpism. If Democrats becomes similarly abusive of precedent and norms, America will collapse into civil disorder. Someone described American politics in the 21st century this way, "We elect a bunch of arsonists, who burn everything down. So we elect fire marshals and construction guys to rebuild the house, only we get impatient with the process so we re-elect the arsonists."

Now, I have my doubts about whether we will return the arsonists to power in 2022, at least in the House. My feeling is that 

A) The Republicans have squeezed every seat out of gerrymandering, and they will struggle to gain an additional advantage from the process.

B) Continued Republican anti-democratic practices - including the Texas abortion ban and their support of Trumpism and January 6th - will keep Democratic voters motivated for midterms in ways that typically aren't true for the incumbent party.

C) Trump will not be on the ballot and his cultists will struggle to summon the motivation to vote for people like Devin Nunes.

but most importantly

D) The suburbs - full of college educated voters - are switching to Democratic voting blocs. College educated voters are more likely to vote in midterms (see 2022, or even 2014), and their presence in suburbs will further complicate gerrymandering, which has taken GOP dominance of the suburbs for granted. 

The reason D is most important is that if the Democrats violate norms, they will lose their advantage in those suburbs among those college educated voters. That was the folly of "Defund the Police," it eroded the inroads among a population that wants the police to be better, not "gone." Defunding the police sounds like eliminating the police, no matter what its advocates say, and that is a fundamental violation of American norms and practices. It's within spitting distance of anarchy.

There are certainly things I would like to see Democrats do that are more "hardball" than they are wont to. Frankly, I would like to see a mild gerrymander of New York and Illinois. I hate gerrymandering, because it's fundamentally undemocratic, but I don't believe in universal disarmament.

Having more "show votes" would help define Republican intransigence, especially over abortion, unemployment benefits or even Afghanistan. Have a vote resolving that America should stay in Afghanistan for 20 more years.  Schedule it. See how it fares. Get Stephen Breyer to retire, the way Anthony Kennedy did. 

The Senate - and Joe Fucking Manchin and Krysten Look At Me Sinema - remains a huge hurdle. If Democrats had only won Maine and North Carolina's Senate races, we wouldn't be in this mess. The Senate map is a bit friendlier in 2022, but it will be largely irrelevant if Dems don't hold the House.

There ARE ways Democrats can improve their political positions in the run-up to 2022. Being more like Republicans is a terrible way to do that.

The Roberts Mutiny

 Chief Justice John Roberts has tried to preserve the Supreme Court's legitimacy by trying to find middle ground. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - and, yes, her decision not to retire when Obama could have replaced her - gave Trump the opportunity to remove Roberts from the fulcrum of Supreme Court decisions, as he was when reviewing the ACA. His efforts to try and resolve the Texas abortion law foundered.

If - as anticipated - the Court jettisons Roe in some way, except a major crisis of legitimacy for an institution that has at least two justices - Gorsuch and Barnett - who really should not be on it, except for a minority president and a minority Senate "majority."

Something will break.

Is This It For Roe?

 Texas law SB8 effectively bans almost all abortions in Texas in the most Republican way ever. The state doesn't do anything, but private citizens can take a provider to court and get $10,000 if they can prove that a provider performed an abortion after 6 freaking weeks - a term before most women know they are pregnant.

Because the Supreme Court elected not to issue an injunction stopping the law, which is in direct contradiction to Roe v Wade and almost 50 years of settled president. As someone said, maybe we shouldn't let twice impeached, serial bankruptcy guy who lost the popular vote by 3 million voters get to appoint a third of our unelected philosopher kings. 

Martin Longman makes a case that I think we will see more of. Generally speaking, significant majorities prefer that Roe be let alone. As we know, women have been trending towards the Democratic Party for decades, and Trump accelerated and solidified those gains. What happens, if this Texas bullshit moves about 400,000 of the Lone Star electorate of 11,000,000 away from the GOP? That puts Texas in play, a wet dream of Democratic strategists for 25 years. Without Texas, the GOP ceases to be a viable national party, especially if we operate under the assumption that Trump has a certain unique magnetic draw over a demographic of irregular voters. 

The metaphor of the GQP being "the dog that caught the car" has a certain logic. Abortion is not a key issue for me personally. It is something I support as part of the Democratic coalition, but it's also something I largely take for granted. That is no longer true. If I was wondering about whether I really needed to vote in 2022 (I mean, I don't, but...) then something like this will be a huge motivator. Texas is gaining two House seats with redistricting, and the assumption is that those will be two GOP seats. But the districts around Houston, Dallas and Austin are already pretty heavily gerrymandered. There are four Democratic House members for the Houston area. Three of them win over 70% of the vote. For Dallas and Austin there are five Democrats and four of them win over 64% of the vote. It becomes hard to gerrymander more than that, even with the boost from geographic sorting. TX-10 was won by a Republican with 52.5%; TX-6 with 52.8%; TX-23 with 50.6%; TX-31 with 53.4%; TX-22 with 51.5%. Those become swing districts with enough angry women voting against the party that refuses to protect their children in schools, while demanding that women give birth to unwanted babies.

As my late father drifted into the GOP, as so many White Southern Democrats did, he was uninterested in the cultural wars, except as a cudgel against Democrats. He wanted to beat up Dems with gender stuff, but not have to defend anti-abortion zealots. The GOP can longer dance that dance. They know own the repeal of Roe in our second largest state.

Will Roe end or will this be the destruction of the GOP? My guess is that the Republican Supreme Court will be following that development more close than the idea of stare decsis.