Today In American Authoritarianism

 Last night's development that Steve Scalise has dropped out of the Speaker race was only surprising as a matter of timing. It was going to happen eventually, it's just surprising it happened without a floor vote. As Josh Marshall notes, this is part and parcel of the Republican Party's abandonment of basic democratic principles, especially among the Chaos Caucus and Trumpenproletariat. If you lose an election - like Jim Jordan did - then you concede and congratulation your opponent and everyone agrees to abide by the result. As Marshall says, that's pretty much the definition of a caucus. Put another way, there are almost certainly a dozen or more Democrats who think they'd be a better leader than Hakeem Jeffries; politicians are ambitious animals with no shortage of ego. If we ever have another Speaker vote, however, every Democrat will vote for Jeffries, because he won the caucus vote.

The Chaos Caucus is simply an extension of Trump's petulant tantrums as a form of politics. The lesson the GOP learned from Trump's "inside straight" in 2016 was that what were once considered career-ending transgressions are not just clickbait and fund raising opportunities. (Think Trump raising money off his fucking mug shot.) The reason most GOP House members are furious at Gaetz and the rest of the wrecking crew is that they know exactly why Gaetz is doing this (notoriety, money, clicks), because they would likely do the same in different circumstances.

If I had to make a prediction, I'd say the most likely Republican to become Speaker is Elise Stefanik. She's embraced enough of the crazy and attached her lips most assiduously to Trump's ass, but she's also got enough cred with the mainstream. Having said that, if we go another week or two - and we very much could - then I could see a cohort of about ten to fifteen Republicans voting "present" and letting Jeffries slip into office at least for a spell to pass a CR and perhaps aid to Israel and Ukraine.

The fact that tens of millions of Americans will vote for this dysfunctional party is appalling. 

There Won't Be A Speaker Anytime Soon

 The news that Steve Scalise won the internal ballot within the GOP caucus has made him a sort of front runner to be the next Speaker. The margin over Jim Jordan was pretty small and there's no margin for error. Scalise did not try for a vote yesterday because he knows he does not have the votes.

There are clearly a number of irreconcilables on both sides. Since the next Speaker can only afford to lose 3-4 votes, there's simply no way to elect a Speaker between Scalise and Jordan. My money remains on Elise Stefanik being a compromise candidate after a days of fruitless and failed efforts for one of these two awful people to become the leader of the larger group of awful people.

Meanwhile, Democrats can rail against the fact that we can't appropriate aid to Israel and Ukraine while the GOP cannibalizes itself. 

A For Attention

 Nancy Mace is a fascinating case study in the degradation of the Republican Party. She basically represent her own ego rather than her constituents. Her career in Congress is about getting in front of cameras. As an conventionally attractive woman who seemed to appalled by Trump's coup attempt, she was branded as a possible post-Trump standard bearer for the Republican Party. In fact, her criticism of Trump (she did not go so far as to vote to impeach) led to a primary challenge that must've threatened her ability to get on TV. So, she's now engaged in nonsense media stunts and voting like a MAGAt, even going so far as to join with the Chaos Caucus to oust McCarthy.  McCarthy helped her hold on to her seat when Trump endorsed her primary challenger. She also thinks Jim Jordan is a "man of his word."

Look, are there attention mongers in the Democratic caucus? Sure. But ultimately if you're a Democrat, the expectation is that you've come to Washington DC to do work. Will you have to "be a politician"? Of course, but if you aren't actually legislating, your support is going to be pretty shallow. I can't think of any Republicans who are taking the lead on legislating. They exist, but they are in the shadows while vile creatures like Nancy Mace trample widows that stand between them and a camera.

Also, whoever came up with that Scarlett Letter stunt never read the book.  Or maybe that was the point, to make a mockery of the idea of actually reading books.

Appropriate Bothsides

 (ed note: sorry for late posting, if you care. weird day)

Jon Chait like to bothsides a lot of issues even while saying that the Right is worse. "Both Trumpists and leftists want to ban certain books, but - yeah - Trumpists are worse." That sort of thing.

He does hit on a good example of really egregious conduct and speech on both the far left and right with regards to Gaza. Leftists - by that I mean those who see Bernie Sanders as a sell-out - have rallied around Hamas and given them cover behind the very real list of Palestinian grievances. They are a small but very vocal number. On the right, you basically have calls for genocide in Gaza. 

As Chait notes, both positions deny one side's humanity. For Palestinian sympathizers, Israelis aren't people, they are oppressors. For a certain faction of Israeli sympathizers, every Palestinian in Gaza is culpable and if they die, they die.

Not to be too on the nose, but this mindset is precisely why the Palestinian question has not and likely will not be resolved. No one really wants the Palestinians to have Israel except maybe Iran and Syria. Egypt won't open its borders to Gaza anymore than Israel will. Palestinians are also not especially eager to live anywhere else except what they see as their homeland. Israel can point to this weekend and note that there really is no negotiated settlement possible with Palestinians.

At no point is there any incentive to see the warring sides as human beings. If you live in Gaza and see the daily misery there, how can Israelis be anything but inhuman monsters? If you see the atrocities and crimes against nature were perpetrated by Hamas, how can Palestinians be anything but inhuman monsters?

This is how the cycle of violence replicates over generations. Israel is wrong. The Palestinians are wrong. Israel is right. The Palestinians are right.

Needless to say that sort of paradox and nuance is not the currency of online aggrievement and outrage. 

Terrorism Is A Means, Not An End

 Martin Longman takes a brief biographical detour before making some good points about this weekend's terrorist attack in Israel. Here's his main point:

Of course, the end game is the first thing people should think about before they start shooting. One thing almost everyone seems to agree about is that Hamas was motivated by a desire to derail any deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations. I think they’ll be successful in that because I can’t imagine a response from Israel that won’t outrage the Muslim world and make it impossible for the Saudis to continue negotiations.

Still, much like America after 9/11, the main thing Israel has in their favor right now is sympathy from much of the world, including many erstwhile critics. America foolishly squandered that good will, and Israel should be mindful not to senselessly repeat the mistake. I know they will want to deter a repeat attack of this nature, and they think a disproportionate response is the only way to accomplish that. I also know that concessions in the near term are both politically difficult and run counter to deterrence. But cool heads are needed.

Terrorism is the tactic of the weaker side. It uses the vulnerability of its opponents - usually some form of open society - to inflict horrific deaths intended to prompt a response. It doesn't seem like most people remember what the actual point of 9/11 was. It was to drag America into a series of wars in the Middle East that would make the US and the West more generally toxic to the Muslim world. Americans killing Muslims was designed to recreate the strict piety that Bin Laden aspired to for the Muslim world. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were exactly what Bin Laden wanted.

And it failed. Certainly America's actions in Iraq were inexcusable, but the massive blowback against America and the West didn't exactly happen. Certainly Al Qaeda's heirs in ISIS were unable to establish the Wahhabist caliphate that was supposed to be the "endgame" for the atrocity of 9/11.

The growing consensus is that Hamas is trying to derail the normalization of relations between Israel and the Persian Gulf states. They commit atrocities and we know that Israel does not allow terror attacks to go unpunished. Thousands are going to die in Gaza before all this is over and it will be impossible for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. 

What Hamas must have realized is that Palestinians have lost the attention of the rest of the Arab world. In choosing between the suffering of Gaza and the economic and security benefits of relations with Israel, the latter wins. Here was their last opportunity to maintain the allegiance of other Arab groups in the Middle East.

It seems clear that Iran (and I'm guessing Syria) had a hand in planning the attacks. Both Iran and Syria have the same interest in derailing the normalization process. 

(Let's take a moment to reflect on who was NOT a part of Hamas or Iran's plans: the United States. Not everything is about us. For everyone on the Right and Left pointing a finger at Biden or Raytheon or what the fuck ever, shut up. It's not about us. It's not about "weakness"; it's not about "colonialism". Stop it.)

Hamas will likely get the response it wants. Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are going to die. That's what they want. Let's be really clear about that: Hamas wants and needs dead Palestinians. Israel is so outraged that they will get that response. What the experience with 9/11 suggests is that Hamas is not guaranteed the second part of their plan. They might exhaust the goodwill Israel has at the moment, by luring them into the crowded streets of Gaza and creating a free fire zone that will leave thousands dead. The central calculus of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States won't really change, though. They might not be able to normalize relations in 2024, but memories will fade and the incentives will remains the same.

As for Israel, it will be interesting, I guess, to see if Netanyahu survives this. His corrupt hold on power was predicated on national security. He failed. In a sane world, he would be finished, but violence first destroys logic before even the dead have been buried. 

I spoke to a friend in Tel Aviv to see if he was alright. He was but he said, "Much ugliness to follow."

That is Hamas' goal. They want the ugly.

Just The Worst People

 I generally hold a position about the past that everything that happened led us to whatever moment we are in and wanting it to be different is pointless. You don't get emancipation without the tragedy of the Civil War; you don't get Pax Americana and the state of Israel without the horrors of the Holocaust. When Trump won, I thought, "If we can survive him, then we might see then American people turn on the unpopular GOP positions."

While I still hold out hope that Trumpism is repudiated next November and he winds up in jail, I'm afraid the damage he has done to our politics could last decades. In particular, the lying viciousness that typifies his every utterance has become the media strategy for the entire GOP.

Yesterday's horrific attacks in Israel should have been a moment when Americans rallied together against terrorism and for our long time ally, Israel. Instead, we have gotten a non-stop lying campaign about the Iranian money in Doha having funded the attacks. Biden is "responsible" for the attacks because he negotiated a deal to bring back Americans in return for unfreezing Iranian funds held by South Korea for humanitarian reasons. Or maybe just because he's "weak" in the tough guy performative way that GOP goons think of power. 

The farrago of lies coming from just about every Republican mouthpiece is sickening. I think I saw one "normal" response, from Steve Scalise, that mimics a pre-Trump type response. "We stand with our friends in Israel in condemnation blah blah blah."

The lessons from Trump to his cohorts in the GOP is this:
A) There is no penalty for lying.
B) There is no penalty for being awful and cruel.

I don't know how long it will take to, as Hillary Clinton put it, "deprogram" the GOP, but it won't happen without a long period of them wandering in the wilderness.

UPDATE: I just saw a clip of Ronna McDaniel calling the events in southern Israel "a great opportunity for our candidates". Fuck these people.

Stunning Failure

 For decades, Israel's intelligence service and military were undeniably the most powerful in the Middle East. From being a marginal state beset by enemies, Israel is now incredibly stronger than its neighbors. 

Today, the reputation of the intelligence services was shattered. The ability of Hamas to carry out such a wide ranging terrorist attack without Mossad knowing has already been compared to the intelligence failure of the Yom Kippur War.

The difference between this and the Yom Kippur War is that the IDF isn't really challenged by this action. They retain all their capabilities and those capabilities dwarf whatever Hamas has. This was textbook terrorism, but every outrage visited upon Israelis will be repaid twice against Palestinians. As awful as today was, the coming weeks promise to be worse. 

What was Hamas thinking? Generally, terrorist attack like these are done to provoke a response. The response from Israel is likely to be massive and Palestinians in Gaza are going to suffer for it. Unless they have some super secret plan, the IDF is going to roll over them like a steamroller.

Of course, we have to examine the political implications of this action. I saw a poll that had Trump leading Biden on foreign policy which is absurd, but this likely won't help, if it drags on. Trump and the GOP are staunch allies of Netanyahu and Likud, and they are going to hit Biden on the cash payments to Iran whether or not there is a link between Hamas and Iran or not.

More immediately, the future of the Netanyahu government is at question. Some opposition leaders have called for a unity government to prosecute what Netanyahu is calling a "war". At some point, however, the accountability moment might occur. I say "might" because we saw what happened after 9/11. The Bush Administration oversaw the greatest intelligence failure since at least Pearl Harbor...and his approval ratings shot up. 

The endless "wag the dog" conspiracies are already percolating: that Netanyahu let the attack happen to shore up his government. On the other side, they argue that Netanyahu's desperate clinging to power has created a shadow Mossad made up of hard right ideologues that can't do their job properly. I can't claim to know enough about Israeli politics to speak to that. Hell, I've seen a claim that Putin was behind it to distract the West, but that seems very unlikely.

This is not an existential threat to Israel the way that the Yom Kippur War was, but it might be for Gaza. I could see Netanyahu giving the green light to some pretty horrific reprisals to placate the far right of his coalition. This is going to get rough, and sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza is going to be in short supply.

Trump Isn't Magic

 The latest revelation of Trump's brazen lawlessness and contempt for rules is that he shared vital national security secrets with some rando Australian. The usual take on this is "Why don't the normal rules apply to Trump? Anyone else would be in jail right now for this bullshit."

No, Trump is not magic. He benefits entirely from the latent misogyny that sank Hillary Clinton by just enough votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to become a minority president. This shocking development made all the Republican establishment who couldn't believe that they were saddled with this boorish oaf into true believers. As Marshall has said, "The GOP is a failed state and Trump is its warlord."

Because Trump has the unwavering loyalty of Cult 45 and that terrifies GOP politicians, any attempt to hold him accountable runs into exactly the sort of nonsense we are seeing in the House and among rightist media.

The walls, however, are getting closer. He can't bullshit his way out of every prosecution coming his way.

A Fool And His Money

 I remember telling my students back in 2021 that crypto was a scam and Elon Musk was not actually that smart. I think the crypto prediction proved pretty ironclad. Now, it looks like Musk might finally get some comeuppance. Either his bankers are going to repossess Twitter (and not a moment too soon, he's trashed the place) or the SEC is going to put him through some things.

Maybe that's why he's lurched to the right, despite owning a business that requires the goodwill of left of center customers. If he's a right wing troll, when the SEC comes for him he can yell "witch-hunt!" 

So hopefully his bankers repo Twitter and give it to people who know what the fuck they are doing. For all its many faults it's not been replicated.

Do They Realize Reality?

 This analysis by Josh Marshall gibes with the general reporting: the GOP caucus is so fractured and dysfunctional after McCarthy's ouster that there is no one who can win the Speaker's gavel under terms that makes the Speaker anything but a puppet for the Gaetz-led insurgents.

Of course, the solution is readily apparent: coalitional governance. After several weeks of floundering about with failed votes to elect a Speaker, will there be enough Republican "moderates" (I think you'd want 7-8 to be sure) to elect someone who will run the House as a coalition? Have a few continuing resolutions, pass a compromise budget, aid to Ukraine, etc. I could give a fuck about the Biden impeachment, it's stupid and will just make Republicans look stupid.

Basically are there around 10 Republicans who would be willing to "betray" their chaotic caucus to keep government functioning at the most basic levels?

Think about what that question means for the state of American democracy when one of the two major parties is that big a mess. 

Jon Chait notes that this pattern of Republican cannibalism has its roots in the rise of the Goldwater conservative movement that eventually elevated Reagan to the White House. This interpretation holds that the conservative movement lost its way by ceding the policy ground to the New Deal and later the Great Society. The problem was that the Republican party was not conservative (nihilistic) enough. If they only conservatived harder, they would get the most conservative conservatism that ever conservatived. 

None of this is "conservative" by the way, it's deeply reactionary. The Goldwater and later Gingrich insurgents wanted to roll back large aspects of the post-1933 state. Their issue that people don't actually want that. (Trump at least sorta gets this by not harping on cutting Social Security or Medicare.) 

The insurgents live in this fantasy land where they just need to be "purer" and they will get the magical pony they always wanted. Are there enough Republicans who realize this will never happen? That they have a government to run?

Interesting Take

 This TPM reader makes a case for Democrats propping up McCarthy's Speakership. Like Marshall, I'm not sure I agree with it, because McCarthy had basically shown himself to be a liar when it came to deals he made with Democrats. The argument that it would put Democrats in the driver's seat is an interesting one, though. If Democrats had saved McCarthy, would that mean McCarthy would do things like pass a reasonable budget or fund Ukrainian aid? I suppose it's possible, but that seems very unlikely. 

It is reasonable to wonder what comes next, though. Conceivably a new Speaker (who isn't a Freedumb Caucus troll) could be elevated by Democratic votes and attain the same result. McCarthy was just the worst reed for anyone to lean on - a weak man void of principles.

The general idea that Democrats are responsible for cleaning up the GOP's mess is absurd though. If this causes some pain, perhaps that it the lesson that Americans need about a year from yet another Most Important Election Ever.

Martin Longman makes the case against this argument. Mainly, his argument is that there IS a functional and functioning majority in the House, but it consists of mostly Democrats. McCarthy seemed to think he could shit on that and survive. He could not. Is there a Speaker who could win 5-10 Republican votes? I think a Speaker Liz Cheney would be freaking hilarious.

All of this brings to mind the superiority in so many ways of a parliamentary system. If we were in a parliamentary system, we would be having elections to fix this bullshit. We don't so we aren't. We are stuck with this clown car for another 15 months.

Dying Of Poverty

 The WaPo has a fascinating dive into the impact of chronic disease on American health. Interestingly, over the past 40 years life expectancy has increased in urban America and collapsed in rural America. I have to wonder if Trump's bullshit "American carnage" is based on the fact that rural communities are seeing early deaths and dysfunction and project that on American cities. Given the population disparity there are always more "stories" from cities, but the statistics tell us that living in small town America is now more dangerous than living in a city. Not because of violence, but because of obesity, heart disease and cancer. In fact, the Post story posits that these deaths outstrip the "deaths of despair" that have been written about at great length.

As Paul Campos notes, the very people who came up with the term "deaths of despair" have a new study out showing that an American with a college degree who turned 25 in 2019 could expect to live to be 84; those without a college degree could only expect to live to 75. That number has actually declined since 1992. Declining numbers...not good. Campos notes that college degrees have become a proxy for class, even if income isn't necessarily all that different.

Back to the Post's story, here's a critical quote:

“The big-ticket items are cardiovascular diseases and cancers,” said Arline T. Geronimus, a University of Michigan professor who studies population health equity. “But people always instead go to homicide, opioid addiction, HIV.”

We naturally are drawn to stories of dramatic death like shootings or overdoses. Those are understandably tragic. The slow motion death caused by poor health is just less narratively compelling. (It's worth noting that Campos himself often pushes back on the idea that obesity causes poor health, which I find odd.)

One theme that emerges in the Post piece is that health and medicine aren't the same thing. America does great things with medicine - if you can pay for it - but we struggle with healthy living. Our food is unhealthy, unless you can take the time and effort to make it healthy - something people working double shifts to make ends meet can't do. There's the lingering impact of smoking, which I have to imagine is much higher among those without college degrees. If I'm being honest, seeing someone smoking under 50 automatically lowers my estimation of the person's critical thinking ability. 

The Post story points to policy, not just obesity and cancer:

Instead, experts studying the mortality crisis say any plan to restore American vigor will have to look not merely at the specific things that kill people, but at the causes of the causes of illness and death, including social factors. Poor life expectancy, in this view, is the predictable result of the society we have created and tolerated: one riddled with lethal elements, such as inadequate insurance, minimal preventive care, bad diets and a weak economic safety net.

The Affordable Care Act increased the ability of some to get insurance and made it generally more affordable, but having access to medicine is not the same as being healthy. When I saw my doctor a year or two ago, he noted that my weight might not be ideal, but I've large framed and muscular, and my blood work and vitals were good. He seemed genuinely happy that I was "taking care of myself" in a way that made it clear that this was not typical of his patients. I see him once a year; I see my dentist twice a year; I access physical therapy when I need it. That's having the monetary means to do so with solid insurance, but it's also a mindset about health.

Meanwhile, Red America (rural) thinks vaccines are bad. That's a mindset, too.

There's one obvious solution to this "hidden" mortality: universal health care. That would help a great deal, but that will also need to be combined with things like more primary care doctors and physician assistants to allow people to actually access care. How you get people to stop smoking and super-sizing their meals is another issue. 

At any rate, read the piece. It's why good journalism still matters.

When Your Enemy Is Drowning, Stick a Hose In Their Mouth

 There is an unspoken rule in political coverage in most media outlets: Republicans will come into power and fuck things up and then Democrats will have to clean up their mess. This is true of budget deficits or foreign wars or just basic governance. 

Right now, it looks like Matt Gaetz will find enough votes to possibly, maybe force Kevin McCarthy out of the Speaker's chair. If so, the real drama begins, as there is no real candidate to replace him. As we saw in January, McCarthy doesn't have the support of his entire caucus. It seems almost inevitable that Democratic votes will be necessary to create a new Speaker. This has led many media outlets to suggest that Democrats provide the votes necessary to preserve McCarthy's speakership. 

As Josh Marshall and others have noted, there is no reason for Democrats to believe any deals that McCarthy makes with them absent the lever of the Motion to Vacate. Let the Republicans deal with their own mess.

What's more, the election next year will be fought over the votes of Independents, which I think include a lot more former Republicans than pollsters know about. A constant series of chaotic events in Congress will help deliver the House to Democrats and could help preserve the Senate majority.

Let them burn.

Everyone Hates Matt Gaetz

 If his bid to unseat McCarthy falls apart, it will likely be because he's such an insufferable dickwad.

What The Hell Was THAT?

 The GOP collapse on a Continuing Resolution is pretty damned funny. Basically, they punt this issue further down the road, closer to the holidays and closer to the election. It may have come at the expense of aid to Ukraine, but there are some whispers that there will be a straight up-or-down vote in a defense bill that includes aid to Ukraine later this week. We shall see. 

Regardless, Matt Gaetz is going to file a motion to vacate if he can. More whispers are that Pelosi is urging Democrats not to save McCarthy. Let the dysfunction of the Chaos Caucus play out over a few weeks. Remind everyone that the GOP is currently not a governing party. They are active insurgents against the 21st century.

I've been dismayed at the rank mendacity that has characterized almost everything the GOP says. 

"We have evidence that Joe Biden is incredibly corrupt." No, you don't.

"Trump is the victim of a witch hunt." No, he isn't.

"Nothing bad happened on January 6th." Bullshit.

"We don't really want to deny women the right to choose." No, you do.

What is fascinating is that there are real "no bullshit" moments left in American civic life. You can lie your ass off on Fox News all the live long day, but when it comes time to appear in Court or vote on a bill, the bullshit won't cut it.

Trump is finding that out in court. Repeatedly. The House GOP is finding out that the gun they thought they had loaded at the Biden Administration is actually pointed at them.

In a sane country, Democrats would win 70% of the vote.