Fight Or Flight Against Fascism In Georgia (And Elsewhere)?

It says a great deal, and none of it good, that a seemingly innocent phrase like "voting reform" has become a mask for behavior that is less about voting, and even less about reform, than it is a last gasp of a political party that has morphed not just into a personality cult, but one that has no greater or even other purpose in life than white male power--and power for its own sake, and not for any greater good.  

Nevertheless, this is where we are today in the U.S..  At the mercy of politicians, and their fellow travellers in white maleness, who have concluded that their only hope to remain relevant is to take away from their opponents the power to govern by way of the ballot box.  The power for which thousands of us, over centuries, have suffered and died for, in order to create a more perfect Union.  Union, and unity, are not what gets them out of bed every morning.  Victory is.  Victory, by any means necessary.

The last time the Republican Party lost control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, they conducted a postmortem that was referred to as an "autopsy," one that lend them, at least on paper, to conclude that they needed to adapt to the reality of a more diverse country, and stop the wink-and-nod form of Ku Klux Klan politics that it had been practicing since 1972.  For a few months, they went through the motions of heeding the postmortem's message.

But, when you've been living for decades on the political equivalent of crack cocaine, it's hard to go cold turkey, especially when something happens to convince you that you don't need rehab after all.  It didn't take long for the Tea Party, and its take-the-country-back anger, and Donald Trump with his "questions" about Barack Obama's birth certificate, to take control of our country's agenda, and lead us down the road that has lead to pandemic, poverty, police violence, and a planet on fire.

And how have they responded to that?  Now that the lethality of their politics has been so exposed to the American people that even voters in Arizona and Georgia gave up on them last year, how do they plan to get on the comeback trail?

Stop people they don't like from voting, that's how.  And do it, or at least try, on a massive scale.  Even as I type this, state legislatures across the county are now considering no fewer than 300 bills designed to restrict, by one means or another, the right of the people to exercise the franchise and have a say in their own governance.

The right of certain people, that is.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Georgia, where the 2020 election outcome gave Democrats control of the Senate, and made Joe Biden the first Democratic Presidential candidate in nearly 30 years to carry the state.  And, like the coward he undoubtedly is, Trump has rhetorically pushed back against this result by pretending (even after three audits of the votes) that this outcome is based on fraud.  These allegations, in fact, are the plutonium that led the Republican state legislature and governor to enact a so-called "reform" of Georgia's laws, to "protect" the right to vote in the state.

No one, absolutely no one, should take Trump's allegations of fraud seriously.  The political supplicants in Georgia who helped enact this sham of a bill are, of course, publicly relying on these allegations, because they come from Trump, who has become the personality at the center of a party that is now, operationally, a personality cult.  But there was no fraud in Georgia's election results.

Have some doubts about that?  Just listen to Georgia's governor, the one who ran for the office while he was Georgia's secretary of state, with the power to manipulate the outcome of the election, a power he didn't hesitate to use.  He's admitted it on tape.

And, if you doubt that Trump is at the root of the whole "fraud" charade, take a look at this.

And the content of the bill?  A hodgepodge of restrictions that range from the merely obvious to the outrageously arbitrary.

Most of the bill's defenders in the right-wing media corner focus on the former.  What's the big deal about making it harder for people to vote?  Stacey Abrams even advocated shortening the period for early voting, as a Georgia state legislator.  And voter ID?  Who doesn't want this?  Why isn't this related to stopping voter fraud.  Shouldn't we all want this?

Abrams' "advocacy" seems to have been governed more by short-term budgetary considerations than any philosophical aversion to limiting the number of days for early voting.  This is one of the problems with advancing the hypocrisy argument against your philosophical opponents; if you are advancing it, you'd better make sure the facts line up with your accusation.  Unless Rich Lowry has some sort of inside information showing that white voters in Georgia primarily vote during early voting--and that Abrams knew this--he would due well to take his flights of op-ed fantasy elsewhere.

In fact, early voting benefits those who have difficulty finding time off from other responsibilities to vote--those who are, disproportionally, women and people of color.  This is beyond dispute, and the so-called "reformers" know it.  Which is why they mix limits on early voting days with limits on the number of polling places, artificially lengthening lines at the polls and making it harder for those whose children or jobs will not allow them to wait.  This is also why they restrict, as the new Georgia bill does, the ability of individuals to provide water to voters waiting in line.  This is not fraud prevention; this is naked harassment.  The same can be said about the bill's restrictions on absentee ballots and drop-boxes.

As for voter ID restrictions, also a feature of the Georgia bill, despite the seeming reasonableness of such restrictions, they have a history of being used for discriminatory purposes, which the ACLU has neatly summed up here.  Perhaps the most important part of this summary, something that could be said about all of these "reforms," is the observation that they are a solution in search of a problem.  Voter fraud is rare.  The only numerous aspect of it is the accusations of it--which almost always seems to come from Republicans.

And the problems with the bill's provisions don't end there.  Its cutbacks on mail voting and dropboxes force a reliance on electronic voting databases which, as we've already seen, are vulnerable to hacking even under the best of circumstances.  And note the fact that the voting period for special elections has bet reduced by more than half.  This is particularly relevant in understanding the basic motivation behind the bill, because the original length of this period was dictated by the desire to make sure that as many white people as possible got to the polls.  The Senate special elections last fall showed them how badly that strategy can backfire on them with a more racially diversified electorate.  The strategy is now being changed, because the underlying racism behind it hasn't changed.  

Ultimately, the best evidence for that proposition is also the single worst feature of the new Georgia law:  the fact that it takes ultimate control of the administration of state elections out of the hands of non-partisan local boards of elections, and gives it to the highly partisan state legislature and governor.  If the current governor and legislature thought that there was any chance, even a microscopic one, that they would be replaced by Democrats at some point, this provision would never see the light of day.  They know, and will nevertheless not tell you, that this is being done because it gives the Republican Party in Georgia not only the power to manipulate election results in any manner that suits them, but the power to conceal that manipulation as well.

This illustrates why, in the hands of Republicans, the word "reform" can only be viewed as Orwellian in nature.  Their "reforms" are not for the purpose of creating a better world for everyone; they exist soley as tools to perpetuate their own power, and solely for the purpose of ensuring that anyone they don't like, for any reason, has absolutely no power at all.  They can talk about so-called "cancel culture" until they are green-eggs-and-ham in the face.  But they are its greatest proponents, and the greatest practitioners of using political power to advance it.

So, what to do in opposition to it?  Fight or flight?  Boycott, or stand our ground?

On a personal level, I have very mixed feelings about boycotts, because they can, if not properly targeted at the people whose actions are being protested, end up creating a lot of collateral damage.  Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, historically speaking, probably conducted the most effective boycotts in no small part because the targets of their boycotts, primarily government officials, were the people they wanted to challenge.  In contrast, the economic boycotts that are currently being urged against Georgia-based corporations, such as Coca-Cola and Delta, have the potential to harm the day-to-day well being of the people whose political interests are supposed to benefit from the boycott in the first place.  Abrams herself, whose activism and organizing was the key to the Democrats' recent success in Georgia, has made it clear that she is no fan of boycotts, and for precisely the reason that I just cited.

On the other hand, these corporations, and others, like Major League Baseball, have consumer bases that are not merely local, but national and international as well, and it's clearly in their capitalistic self-interest to consistently act in ways that reflects the value of consumers.  It's easy to lose sight of the fact that contemporary marketing is not, strictly speaking, a matter of making a lawyerly case for product or service benefits ("So-and-so cleans better than Brand X") as it is about making more personal associations between what is being sold and the people doing the buying.

And large corporations, in part by virtue of their size and global reach, have multiple constituencies to respect and accommodate.  In the case of Major League Baseball, and its decision to move this year's All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver, I suspect that it was motivated as much as anything by a desire to protect its players from constantly being bombarded with questions about whether or not they would participate in a boycott of the game, as well as protecting itself from the scenario where the game itself might be boycotted by both players and sponsors, decisions that they could do little if anything to prevent.  In the end, its decision was made to remove itself from the ongoing debate, as much as it was to reflect the values the sport is supposed to emulate.

What this reinforces is a simple reality about contemporary America, and a harsh one for those who celebrate white supremacy, and white male supremacy in particular, as the basis for the nation's existence and greatness.  Manipulating the machinery of elections, whether by voting restrictions, gerrymandering, unlimited corporate fundraising, or any other means, as a last resort for maintaining the political power of a minority, is a doomed strategy, and will become even more so in the coming years as the minority in question--uneducated white men--continues to shrink in size.

If nothing else, this should serve as a well-earned comeuppance for Mitch McCONnell, whose longtime advocacy of treating corporations and people equally when it comes to allowing unlimited campaign contributions from both sources.  This embodies the pernicious combination of two lies:  that corporations are people, and that money can be considered political speech that merits the First Amendment's protection (whether or not in the form of a bribe).  In response to the relocation of the All-Star Game, and other corporate criticisms of the new Georgia voting law, McCONnell once again illustrated his willingness to speak profusely, if not effectively, out of both sides of his mouth.  In the view of the minority leader of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body, money is speech, but speech is not speech.  Once again, we need Orwell to come back from the dead and say, "Hold my beer."

Someone needs to step in and tell Mitch that it's not working.  Boy, is it not working.  If anything, it looks like it's going to cost his party money.  Which means its going to cost it votes.  Too bad (not really).

In the end, if Georgia Democrats and their political allies can find the right mix of boycotting and direct action via organizing--and they'll need our help with both--the efforts of Republicans in the state and in other states will produce the political outcome that they, and their opponents deserve.  Fight or flight?  It's a false choice.  We need to do both.  And, for those of you who haven't started already, you need to get started right now.

Now We Are Engaged In A Great Civil War

How do you write about the most recent gun violence, without saying the words "again" and "enough"?  You can't, and you shouldn't.

But where do we go from there, with only one political party committed to taking action that would sensibly save lives without infringing on any honest understanding of the Second Amendment, while the other one looks away from the funerals with "thoughts and prayers" while the NRA, a gun-manufacturers' lobbyist group that ironically started life as a gun-safety organization, stuffs campaign cash in its pockets?

The debate we're having now is not about guns generally.  If that was ever a battle, and I don't think it was, it ended a long time ago, and gun-ownership advocates won it handily.  No one objects to the personal defense of one's home or business.  No one (or, at least, almost no one) objects to hunting.  And no one objects to the existence of firing ranges.  I don't object to any of these things.  When it comes to hunting, well, I eat meat, so I would be a hypocrite to object to that.  I shot air rifles in summer camp, and enjoyed it very much.  And, if you live or work in a rough patch, no one's going to object to you taking steps to protect yourself--provided that the steps you take include making sure that any weapons you owned are secured in such a way that someone can't gain access to them in order to misuse them.

Guns are dangerous.  They are weapons.  They are dangerous by design.  This is why they need to be regulated in the first instance.  And the Constitution explicitly fails to blink at this need; it not only recognizes the need to keep arms regulated, but "well-regulated."  Moreover, the Second Amendment provides for regulation even in the context of military use, i.e., the "militia."  Militias are organized.  Militias exist and operate under color of state law.  Militias are not randomly-summoned groups of people who think of firearms as a fashion or party accessory.  Militias are meant to act in response to specific threats against the general public, not members of a particular political party.  

And, when that threat is vanquished, militias are meant to stand down, permit the resumption of civilian life, and be ready for the next threat.  That is why the right to the personal possession of firearms is recognized as a constitutional right in the first place.

Indeed, that is why then-Justice Antonin Scalia struck down, on behalf of the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, a D.C. statute that forbade all private ownership of guns in the district.  That law went too far; under any understanding of the Second Amendment's terms, it could not pass constitutional muster.  As an attorney, I disagree with the reasoning in Heller, primarily because it strove to diminish the import of the clause regarding regulation, and then left the broader question of whether any gun regulation is constitution to dicta that states, outside of the ambit of the Court's legal holding, that there are many reasons why government should be able to regulate guns.  This was based on a cramped philosophy of statutory construction, which somehow treated the "well-regulated" clause as purely introductory, while failing to construe that the right preserved in the Amendment is a right of "the people" and not of individuals.

Heller is worth a law review article all by itself, but that's not my purpose in bringing it up here.  Rather, I want to emphasize that at least some conservative voices, like that of the late Justice Scalia, understand that the right to own guns and the power of the state to regulate them exist in our constitutional structure, as do many other seemingly contradictory provisions, in order to balance each other and to ensure that neither is being misused for purposes other than the formation of a more perfect Union.

In other words, weapons of war fall outside of the protection of the Second Amendment.  There is no Second Amendment right to own explosives.  There is no Second Amendment right to own artillery.  There is no Second Amendment right to own missiles or missile-launchers.  And there is no Second Amendment right to own an H-bomb.

And that's the problem we have.  That's why the lost souls of Atlanta and Boulder join those of far too many other communities across the nation.

They were killed by weapons of war.  Specifically, by assault rifles.  By guns that have no essential, or even practical use in civilian life.   By weapons designed to be lethal on such a massive scale that their regulation is a matter of public safety, not tyranny.  Any individual with deadly intentions or an inability to control their intentions, deadly or otherwise, only needs one such weapon, and one magazine with which to load it, to become a public menace.

That is, to become a menace to the peaceful operation of society.  To become the exceptional moment, not the everyday one.  To become a source of righteous outrage that demands swift, effective action by public officials, regardless of their party affiliation and, above all, regardless of who is paying their bills.

Thoughts and prayers don't cut it.  Thoughts and prayers with a willingness to enable the circumstances that ensure more opportunities for them amount to the worst sort of virtue-signaling.  It doesn't wash the blood off the hands of those doing the signaling, any more than it washes it off the hands of the people who pull the triggers.

Once upon a time, back in the 1990s, a period that was no stranger to partisan culture wars, we managed to muster enough combined outrage and common sense to ban assault weapons.  It worked.  There is absolutely no reason that it can't work again.  It won't stop every mass killing, but it would stop many of them, and it would be a far more fitting memorial to those we've already lost.  It would be absolutely more appreciated by the survivors of those we've already lost than "thoughts and prayers."  And there are additional steps that need to be taken, that would help to ensure fewer lives lost without violating anyone's right to keep and bear arms.

If it were up to me, we would, as a nation, emulate Japan, which has one of the lowest rates of deaths by gun violence in the world.  Take a look at the video here, which outlines in detail the steps that a private individual needs.  Maybe you think it's too restrictive.  Frankly, I don't.  But, that could just be me.  I measure the burden that it imposes on the lives of prospective gun owners in Japan as far smaller than the burdens that the deaths of victims imposes on the victims themselves.  Good news:  they have no need to worry about government forms and tests.  Bad news:  they're dead, and any dreams they had are with them.  This doesn't even begin to get into the burdens imposed on their survivors, and on society when it comes to the costs of caring for the victims and the survivors.

If you have any doubt about the costs on all of us that the Wild West of the current status quo imposes, take a look here.  At the very least, gun manufacturers and gun owners should be required to be insured against the harm that comes from being a paradise for gun-toting.

And the extent of gun-toting that we now have isn't even enough for the gun-toters.  Once upon a time, I used to joke that they wouldn't be satisfied until everyone is required to own one.  Well, the joke is now on me.  But, sadly, now it's on all of us.  And death may be an inevitability, but that doesn't give anyone the right to make it more likely.

Strictly speaking, this should not even be a partisan divide.  The New York Post, whose owner has done more to support Donald Trump than anyone else has, has consistently taken a position in favor of an assault weapons ban.  It recently re-affirmed that position.  But the Post appears to be an isolated case.  The Washington lobbyists masquerading as office-holders, and the investing class that funds their perpetual re-election, prefers to allow the merchants of death to rake in the big bucks, even while proclaiming themselves to be "pro-life."

To borrow from Lincoln, and as the assault on the Capitol demonstrated, we are now engaged in a great civil war.  Between a party that respects the Constitution, including its provisions on guns, and a party that treats the Constitution as a slogan, and views guns as both a means and an end.  Ultimately, the type of society we will have, the type of society your children will grow up in, will depend on which one of those parties wins, and keeps on winning.

That's up to you.  But, if you really want to choose life without upsetting the Constitution, you should know by now which one you need to vote for.  Next year, and after that as well.

Do We Need To Suspend Habeas Corpus?

So much for the image of Democrats in charge as being too bogged down in process arguments, and division in general, that nothing gets done.

Joe Biden, in partnership with congressional Democrats, have been in charge for just slightly over two months.  In that time, he has had nearly all of his Cabinet appointments confirmed, he has signed a series of executive orders to undue much of the Trump administration's policy and regulatory damage, the Senate has completed Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, the nation has exceeded (with weeks to spare) the new Administration's goal of 100 million COVID-19 vaccinations within its first 100 days, and, to top it off, has enacted the largest and perhaps most radical revision of Federal spending in decades, while at the same time providing states and health care providers with the resources needed to turn the page of the Trump pandemic.

This latter accomplishment, the $1.9 trillion-dollar pandemic relief bill, has been the object of many laudatory articles and reports in the MSM and on the Internet.  I have nothing to add to what others have said, but I'd like to take some space here to highlight some aspects of what has been said that I think are significant, especially going forward.

During the past four decades, Republicans have typically tried to frame the Federal spending debate as a clash between Democrats and their wasteful government programs, versus the alleged Republican desire to "put more money in your pocket."  What they never said was that, by "your," they always meant the people who underwrite their campaigns.  The 2017 tax-cutting bill that Paul Ryan masterminded on their behalf, with the help of Trump and Mitch McCONnell, is perhaps the most egregious example of this trend; the goodies provided for in that bill went straight into corporate treasuries and off-shore bank accounts.  This is why the short-term value of the stock market increased, even while the job market showed, at best, negligible pre-pandemic growth compared to the final months of the Obama Administration.  

And then came the pandemic, which Trump largely ignored for the sake of protecting his paper tiger of a recovery.  What happened?  The job market fell off of a cliff, while the billionaire class enjoyed an unexpected, undeserved boom.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 will probably not fix all of the damage that has been done in the past year, but it will go a long way toward leading the nation back to something resembling "normal."  Perhaps even more significantly, it marks a change in Democratic thinking about how to enable economic growth, and how to use the power of the purse to help Americans at the bottom of the pyramid.  Instead of focusing on aid to the investing class, or expanding the size of the national bureaucracy, it focuses on providing direct financial aid to people in need.  It amounts to a progressive rebuttal of the more-money-in-your-pocket argument that Republicans have used to shift wealth from the bottom to the top of the American economic structure.  It is founded on the principle that wealth creation is not a top-down process; if anything, it is a bottom-up process in which work produces goods and services that everyone is able to consume.  As Paul Krugman has stated any number of times:  my spending is your income, and your spending is my income.

Perhaps most significantly, Biden and the Democrats in and outside of Washington seem to be in the process of re-defining what bipartisanship means.  Bipartisanship, the holy grail of inside-the-Beltway punditry, has always had had an inside-the-Beltway focus.  That is, the existence or ability to achieve it is viewed entirely from the perspective of Washington-based actors:  the President, members of Congress, and their various allies inside and outside of government.  When it comes to approving the ARPA, however, the President and Congress did so without a single Republican vote, an achievement that has led to reportage of the bill as a purely partisan achievement.  But that fails, however, to take into account the bill's popularity among Republican voters nationally, as well as Republican governors and mayors whom those voters support. And even in the world of op-eds, one can find conservatives who are, more or less, on board with the Democrats.  This is, in other words, a governing party that has the courage of its convictions, and with good reason.

But that's not to say that all Republican office-holders are on board with the Democrats, and even their own voters.  Far from it.

I have said, prior to last year's election, that the Republican Party was moving in a direction of defining itself solely by various forms of voter suppression--dark money, extreme gerrymandering, and, perhaps worst of all, blatant attempts at voter suppression that aim to target the ability of Democratic constituencies to get to the polls.  Or to be actually able to vote, once they get there.  But, in the wake of last year's Republican losses, the party and its allies in state legislatures have hit the accelerator on their suppression efforts.

In doing so, they have for the most part used the alleged existence of 2020 voting fraud, even though no actual evidence of such fraud has been produced.  However, their anxiety about their political future is such that, every so often, they will--well, like it says here--say that quiet part out loud.

What is the quiet part?

In a word, racism.  As well as its allied "isms":  sexism, ableism, any form of hatred of those who are not white male Christian straight bigots, and the folks who love them.

Moreover, the struggle to suppress the vote has an analog in the current battle within the U.S. Senate over the fate of the filibuster, the rule that currently requires an absolute minimum--with the exception of budget-related bills like the ARPA--of 60 votes to end debate on a bill and proceed to a vote on it.  Historically, up until the beginning of the Obama administration, the filibuster's use was almost entirely in opposition to civil rights legislation.  This is why perhaps, in hindsight, no one should have been surprised to see it used in opposition to everything the first African-American President would want, even on policies and bills that reflect things Republicans allegedly want.  And perhaps it should therefore not be surprising to see some real movement, at last, toward abolishing, or at least modifying, the use of the rule and/or the ways in which it can be used.

And, here again, Republicans are saying the quite part out loud:  if the filibuster rule is at least modified, and the Democrats are enable to enact legislation that would end voter suppression once and for all, it might actually herald the end of the Republican Party as a political force in America.  Let me be as clear as anyone can:  this is not a Democratic prophesy.  It is a Republican one.

Which brings us back, or should bring us back, to thinking about the seditious January 6th assault on the Capitol.  For a very obvious reason.  If a political movement is effectively reduced to a cause that has been repulsed not only by the majority of voters, but by the force of history that produced the Constitution and nearly 250 years of largely peaceful, democratic government--if, in other words, it stands for nothing except bigotry and suppression in the name of bigotry--it has no future in relying on due process of law.

It can only rely on a literal call to arms.  To violence.  And to death for all who stand in its way.

This is why I view the news about the removing of the protective fencing around the Capitol with a strong case of mixed emotions.  As a symbol of returning to the America most of us want to see, it is more than welcome.  Yet I find myself hoping and praying that it is not a premature step.  Trump and the forces he has managed to channel for his personal use are far from disappearing in our collective rear-view mirror.  And this should surprise no one.  These forces have been organizing for decades, at least since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and likely even before then.  They have been gathering strength.  They even have allies withing the halls of Congress.  And at least some of those allies may have had a direct hand in enabling the January 6th attack.  The investigation of that attack by a now truly independent Justice Department has just begun; I would be genuinely surprised if it did not turn up evidence of infiltration from within.

This is not a new subject for me.  Off and on, over the past seven years, I have written more than once in this space about what we now refer to as the Trump voters as tantamount to a fifth column in our midst, a movement that uses the language of patriotism to insidiously subvert and ultimately destroy the nation as we have known it.  Facing up to that reality has not been easy for me, even while seeing the massive amount of evidence that has accumulated in that time in support of this view.  If you love your country, if your family has sacrificed for it (as mine has), well, seeing it torn apart from within is heartbreaking.  Denial can be an attractive remedy, under the circumstances.  But it is no longer an acceptable one.

Consider, for example, the recent shootings of in Atlanta of Asian women working in massage parlors by an allegedly Christian white male shooter, whose alleged justification for his heinous actions was that the women were tempting him to act in a sexually immoral way.  Never mind the fact that his attacks violated the Sixth Commandment, while he was in the process of trying to "uphold" the Seventh one.  But, on top of that, an officer of the law openly accepted the shooter's assessment that his actions stemmed from having "a really bad day."  One cannot help but thinking that his victims had an even worse one.  All the more so, given that the officer's broadcasting of this assessment may very well have damaged the victims' chances of getting justice from an untainted jury.  How is it possible to see this as anything except an official attempt to suppress the racism that screams out from the very focus of the attack?

Consider, focusing on a national level for a moment, the fact that we are just two months or so removed from having a President who was a paid agent of a foreign power--an agent whose agency was acknowledged by a senior member of his own party, and an agent whose agency was well repaid.

If you've made it this far, for which I thank you, and you are wondering what all of this has to do with the title of my post, fear not. I have a very controversial argument to make here, and I did not want to advance it without laying the groundwork to support it.

It involves habeas corpus.  Or rather, the potential need to suspend it.

Simply put, habeas corpus refers to the common-law power, first recognized in British law and codified in Magna Carta, to obtain a writ justifying the lawful imprisonment of one or more individuals.  The U.S. Constitution explicitly permits the suspension of the habeas corpus process (in article I, section 9) "when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."  In fact, during the Civil War, Congress did permit Abraham Lincoln to suspend it, under what constitutional scholars refer to as the Suspension Clause, for the duration of the war.

Obviously, this is not something to be done lightly.  Ideally, we would not be discussing this at all, except perhaps as a purely academic exchange involving constitutional jurisprudence.  And yet, in a very real sense, it's already been put on the table.  And not just by the actions of Trump supporters, but by the words of Trump himself, as well as his allies in Congress.

You have probably by now heard a lot of foolish and dishonest rhetoric from the former President and congressional Republicans about the "Biden border crisis," in which the United States is once again being "invaded" along the Rio Grande by various unsavory elements in Central America determined to rape, pillage, and burn the countryside.  The "invaders" in this case are unaccompanied minors, who are being admitted solely for the purpose of processing asylum claims.

This is deflection, a classic Republican tactic--for that matter, a classic Trump tactic--for dealing with harsh realities that might be embarrassing, politically or otherwise.  It is an inherently dishonest tactic, and, in this case, is designed to conceal the fact that the Biden Administration has inherited an immigration disaster, one in which potential asylees, adults and children, were confined in cages without even the most basic human necessities, and with little or no hope of having their claims processed.  Cleaning up this mess will take time and, in the absence of reliable information to the contrary, Biden's people should be given at least some benefit of the doubt.

But it's also worth remembering that, back in the day, Trump dragged the possible suspension of habeas corpus into the border control debate.  Take a look.

So, no one on the right side of the political spectrum should have any objection to what I'm about to put on the table.

Maybe we need to consider a nation-wide suspension of habeas corpus.

Maybe that's what we need to get a handle of how extensive the fifth column is.  Maybe that's the only way we'll find out how much of it is inside and outside of government.  And Washington, for that matter.  Maybe the web is so tightly and invisibly woven by design that we can only rip it apart in the most invasive way possible.

I'm not a huge fan of this idea.  I'm an attorney.  I'm an artist.  That's two reasons why I am, at heart, a civil libertarian.  I hate the idea of anything that infringes on individual liberty.

But I can think of something I hate as much:  the use of violence to deprive anyone of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or the democracy that millions have sacrificed to preserve.

Do you have an alternative?  Let me know.  It's worth a discussion.  Discussion, after all, is really at the heart of democracy in the first place.  Let's sort this out together.

Let's stop taking shots at each other.  Figuratively, and literally.

While we've still got a country worthy of sacrifices.

When Mother Nature Messes With Texas, As Well As Cancun Ted

Before I say anything else about the Texas disaster, I want to emphasis one point, one that I think gets a little lost in the scores-and-highlights madness into which mainstream media coverage of news descended long ago:  it is first and foremost a human disaster.  No matter who you are for or against politically, no matter where you live in the nation, and even no matter your economic circumstances, people have died and many more people are suffering greatly.  They our more than our fellow Americans; they are our fellow souls.  Many of them are children whose parents are as helpless as they are right now.  So, before you read any further, make a donation to one of the charities listed here.  Or, for that matter, any other you can find by way of personal knowledge or an Internet search.

I'll give you a moment or two.  If the spirit moves you to do so, please use the comments section to let me and readers know, and share information about what all of us can do.

And, with that said, I'll dive into the political fray surrounding the disaster.  There's quite a bit to dive into, unfortunately.

Texas, to make an obvious fine point, has become a very red state in the nearly half-century since Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to carry it in a Presidential election.  It has, for decades, become a magnet for people and companies looking to escape the taxes and cold weather of Northeastern states, it is now a similar magnet for Californians to escape the taxes and overcrowding of that state.  It has openly bragged about how its low taxes, minimal regulation, weak social welfare structure and freewheeling attitudes about firearms has made it an American paradise that all of us should envy.  And anyone who has the temerity to poke into this assessment--say, to note the amount of money the Lone Star State receives annual from Washington--is cut off by the arrogant, vaguely threatening retort, "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!"

Enter Mother Nature from the wings, carrying with her the effects of the climate change.  And the effects of that we've sadly all seen by now.

And how did the state's elected officials step up?  Well, it depends on which ones you're talking about but, in the main, the answer is "hardly at all, really."  Those who couldn't get away from it all blamed a second-term Democratic congresswoman from New York, based on legislation she has sponsored but not yet been able to pass.

And the others?  Well, they tried to get away from it all … or, at least, from the people who depend on them for help.  Based on what we will politely call his track record, it should come as no surprise that Ted Cruz attempted to lead this particular charge.  Only the embarrassment of being outed for his cowardice stopped him from a perfect getaway, and forced him to make the appearance of responding to the bugle call of duty.  And that embarrassment, sadly, did not prevent him from attempting to first blame his daughters and then his wife for the whole fiasco.  But don't think, even for a single minute, that he was the only Texas politician to chose flight over responsibility.  He was not.

And the messaging failures don't end there, by any means.  While former Governor Rick Perry (also the former secretary of the Department of ... "Oops") told freezing-to-death Texans to feel good about this opportunity to show their fiercely independent nature, others were justifiably rethinking the whole concept of secession from the Union.

There's a lot to unpack here, but we need to start with damage control made necessary by the sheer volume of Republican dissembling here.  Two points.

First, this is not a so-called "black swan" or once-in-a-millennium event.  This is a manifestation of climate change, a human-created phenomenon that is accelerating the pace and severity of climate catastrophes.  What used to be rare is now commonplace.  We can no longer afford to play make-believe with it.

Second, we need to invest in making the physical components of our electric grid better able to function in extreme weather.  This not only can be done, it HAS been done elsewhere.  Alternative forms of energy generation work perfectly well in such cold-weather European countries such as Denmark.  Texas, in any case, relies on fossil fuel sources of power for the lion's share of its energy generation.  To make matters worse, Texas has not invested in upgrades needed to protect its electric grid from the effects of extreme weather.  That is a function of Texas' deregulation of energy generation and disconnection from the national grid.  The additional revenue produced by these measures is not passed along to the consumer in the form of badly-needed equipment upgrades, even when a catastrophe allows them to jack up electric rates.  It ends up in the pockets of the owners of the power companies.  And, even as the power goes out and rates go up, the deficient power equipment pumps even more pollution into the air.

Texas, in short, has a lot to learn and a lot to consider, going forward.  Whether it will do so is at best a very debatable proposition.  The truth is that the state's current crisis has lessons for all of us.

First, we need political leaders who are public servants, not extensions of lobbyists.  Neither of our major parties are completely without fault, but the 40-year misdirection of national income predominantly toward the investor class has given its members more than enough money for their own purposes, which allowed them first to purchase existing politicians, and then to groom their own candidates who work exclusively for them.  

Time was that the investor class was content to use lobbyists to influence office holders; now, they are able to directly install the lobbyists in the offices themselves.  Eliminates the proverbial middleperson, thereby achieving cost efficiency at the expense of human lives.  This is precisely how we have ended up with miserable excuses for leaders like Cruz, who is constitutionally unable to be either honest or anything other than self-serving.  There has never, in my lifetime, been a greater need for campaign finance and voting rights reform.  These are issues that, along with the $15-per-hour minimum wages, should be pursued hammer and tong by Democrats in Congress.

Second, we need to stop worshiping the golden calf of privatization.  It is not the answer to all of our problems.  Just as a nation needs two healthy political parties, it needs a strong public sector as well as a strong private one to compete against each other, and to generate answers to which one has the best answer or answers to a given need.  

The truth is that climate change, and the search for cleaner generation of energy, is a big enough problem that we need the resources and unique capacities of both to successfully tackle it.  But we need both of them to treat it as seriously as death.  Right now.  Or it truly will be the death of all of us.

Finally, we need to take Milton Friedman's advice to take advantage of a crisis, and, in the process, take advantage of innovative ideas to solve that which seems insolvable.  He, of course, was talking about innovative "ideas" that in fact were very old or very antidemocratic ideas, repackaged in new rhetoric to appeal to audiences who had notice received a decent education in history.  Conservatives have been heeding Friedman's advice for decades.  

But it is the Democratic Party that is once again the party of good ideas.  Perhaps its best such idea, reviled by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, is in fact the Green New Deal, the basic principle of which is the use of the climate crisis to create new, well-paying jobs to create an economic based on renewable or sustainable resources.  It's high time to give it a chance.  And it's high time Texas more seriously consider not only staying in the Union, but investing more of its energy profits into energy sustainability, so that the people who pay the bills can count on not freezing to death.

And Cruz?  To hell with him.  Literally.  One of these days, he's going to end up in a place a lot hotter than Cancun.

Our By-Standing Days Are Over

"The Guns of Navarone," the 1961 eponymously-named film adaptation of Alistair MacLean's novel, has stuck in my head decades after I first saw it.  Beyond the stars and the special effects, what has stayed with me is the clever way that Carl Foreman, then fresh off the Hollywood blacklist, managed to weave a strong anti-war debate into the dialogue of what was otherwise one of MacLean's by-the-numbers, resolute-men-getting-the-job-done tales.  When the demolition expert in the team, made with rage about having to leave an injured comrade in the care of a Nazi hospital, exposes one of their number as a saboteur, he declares his wish to wash his hands not only of the mission, but the entire war.  He goads the team leader to shoot the saboteur, and almost succeeds in doing so before the saboteur's friend and compatriot shoots her first.  

Afterwards, the leader lambasts the demolition expert for what he considers self-serving grandstanding.  And he does so in no uncertain terms:

You think you've been getting away with it all this time, standing by. Well, son ... your by-standing days are over! You're in it now, up to your neck!

My play-by-play description of this scene really doesn't do it justice.  If you can find a clip of it online, or watch the whole movie, please do so.  It's worth the time and trouble, especially if you're looking for things to do while quarantining in place.  In fact, if you have not seen it, I'd recommend you do so before reading the rest of this post.  It may make it more meaningful for you.

So, with that disclaimer, let me explain why I'm starting with a classic-film reference.

Democrats have just come off of what was, for them and for all of us, a terrific election cycle, their best in 12 years and one of their three best in the past 40 years (including 1992 and 2008).  This gives them one of those increasingly rare and precious opportunities to reshape the character and direction of our politics and the nation.  That opportunity is all the more real and profound in the wake of the four-year dumpster fire from which we have just escaped.  More Americans than ever are hungry, even desperate, for real and substantial change.  The fact that President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID bill is not being swamped by the predictable, and hypocritical, efforts of Republicans to flip-flop on deficit spending, but instead is being supported by poll majorities should be all the evidence anyone needs of this.

I've been hearing a lot in recent days about how Democrats in Washington need to act like they won an election, and use the power that the voters gave them.  I'm all for that.  Yes, compromise is how things get done in a democracy, but compromise is always the end result of a negotiation, and negotiation is in the first instance a question of positioning.  One of Barack Obama's biggest failings is that he tended to negotiate by starting at the 50-yard line and expecting not to have to do anything to move the proverbial ball.  Unfortunately, that tendency fed the appetite of an opposition that lives to demonstrate how much they can grab in plain site.  

So, instead of getting to the end zone, Obama ended up fighting to get into field-zone range and then bragging about his ability to occasionally get 3 points.  That mindset not only cost him two midterm elections, but also may have set the stage for Donald Trump's by-a-nose victory over Hillary Clinton.  Field goals, and even the occasional touchdown like the ACA, don't turn out your fans.  Fighting for every victory even when victory seems hopeless does that.  In hindsight, Trump's victory seems less improbable when you remember that Republicans voters turn out with the relentlessness of the 2000 Baltimore Ravens defense, to extend the metaphor a little bit.

So, yes, Democrats in Washington need, as the cliche goes, to go big or go home.  Happily, they all seem to have gotten that memo, read it, and are heeding its advice.

But what about the rest of us?

Well, there's a bit of a problem there.  To extend the metaphor yet further, while Democrats have had a tendency in the past to start negotiations on the 50-yard line, their voters often refuse to show up unless their team has reached the end zone four times before the referee starts the game clock.

OK, I exaggerate a bit.  But only a bit.

Look at the history of elections in the modern two-party era.  Democrats win with turnout.  Even in the last election, when the Republican candidate received more votes than any prior winning candidate in American presidential history, Biden still beat him by 7 million votes.  And, even in a deep-red state, even after the other U.S. Senate elections had largely been fiascos for Democrats, Democrats flipped not one but two Senate seats and control of the Senate itself, simply by showing up.

Simply by showing up.  If I thought it would make a difference in turnout and elections, I'd type that phase a thousand times, make that alone into a post here, and repeating that post day in and day out for the rest of my days.

Do you want to know why, in the past 40 years, the vast majority of my adult life, Democrats have only controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for four years?  Despite the fact that polls show more support for Democratic positions on most issues than Republican ones?

Simply put, we are frontrunning fans.  We show up on those rare occasions when everything looks absolutely perfect for ensuring victory.  Republicans show up whether victory is possible or not.

In saying this, I am mindful of the realities of Republican games with the voting system.  That's a whole post all by itself.  For now, I'll just say this about that.  The Democratic base of the future is being born every day, while the Republican base of the past is dying every day, all the more so because it refuses to believe in a virus that doesn't care about what it believes in.  This is why the Republican Party no longer has any faith in democracy, if it ever did at all.  This is why it has to rig a system in which its ability to compete is shrinking each day.  

And nothing in that last paragraph changes an important and distressing fact:  Democrats are political perfectionists.  If they don't get exactly what they want, when they want it, they think that they'll get it by holding their breath until the rest of the country turns blue.  Or, to put it in practical terms, not showing up until perfection is guaranteed to us.

Leaving aside the question of the achievability, or even the nature, of perfection (yet another blog post), this mindset has an important defect.  Elected officials can't be elected unless people show up at the polls.  And if certain categories of voters don't show up at the polls, and in fact make a habit of failing to do so, guess what?  Those voters, and the things they care the most about, get forgotten.  And, if those things are in fact things that affect significant numbers, most, or even all of us, those people affected are losers.  As is the nation.  As is the world, in its increasingly interdependent state.

This is why so many elections feel like a choice between a Republican and a Republican.  If you feel that way many times, well, you aren't entirely wrong.  Because that's what happens when Republicans are the majority of the voting pool.  As badly as the system is rigged, there has been, and going forward will be, more real choice when the folks running for office have a choice when it comes to potential voters.

These insight are hardly new ones.  In one form or another, I've used this forum to make basically the same points many times before.  So, why do so again?  Especially in the wake of the turnout success in 2020?

To be frank, the reaction of a lot of Democratic voters to the outcome of the second Trump impeachment trial is what has set me off.

No, Trump was not found guilty.  No, there was no vote on barring him from office.  So, almost immediately, there was a kerfuffle in the press and social media about whether or not Democrats (who, by virtue of their hard-won Senate majority, controlled the trial this time) should have called witnesses.  That angst obviously has it roots in the response to the first Trump trial, when Republicans were in charge and went out of their way, with the help of Chief Justice John Roberts, to bury the mountains of evidence that House Democrats had unearthed.  I get it, up to a point.

And then, I think about the fact that a witness statement from a House Republican was entered into the written and spoken record.  The fact that, instead of a lone vote to convict from Mitt Romney, his vote was one of seven Senate Republicans to convict, on top of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach.  There is the reality that the 43 other Republican Senators, as much victims of the insurrection Trump instigated as anyone, weren't going to be moved by anything short of a written confession Trump was never going to give.  

And, almost unbelievably, there was the speech given by Mitch McCONnell, in which he speciously tried to justify his vote to acquit on procedural grounds (of his creation, no less) and otherwise done what he should have done years ago:  throw Trump under the bus.  That speech could have been given by any one of the House managers at the trial; in one form or another, it essentially was.  Better late than never to the party, I guess.  All the more so, given the fact that his speech will make Lindsey Graham's efforts to derail the confirmation of Merrick Garland as Biden's Attorney General a lot harder.  To say nothing of any efforts Graham might make to derail any investigations and prosecutions Garland may launch in connection with the insurrection.

On top of that, there are the polls, which by decisive majorities support both the fact of the trial and the goal of convicting Trump.  And the multiple investigations against Trump and his cronies in New York, the District of Columbia, and Georgia.  And (yes, there's more) the prospect of using the Fourteenth Amendment to bar Trump from ever again serving in public office.

And there's the whole matter of focusing on an Administration to staff.  A government that Trump turned into his own personal swamp, one that needs to be drained as quickly as possible.  A pandemic to end.  A policing crisis to end.  An economic depression to end.  And a planet on fire.  And, to address all of that, a filibuster rule to repeal, a goal toward which we may have been pushed at least a little bit further by the ranting and raving of Joni Ernst over the Democrat wish to have witnesses at the trial.  If that doesn't due it, perhaps the fact the the Republican Party is now a playground run by delinquents will.

To borrow a phrase, do you get it now?

If you've been spending a lot of time sitting on the sidelines, not wanting to get your hands dirty with compromise, well, you no longer have the luxury of keeping your fingernails clean and polished.  Your by-standing days are over.  All of our by-standing days are over.

And, if it's any consolation, I've got the same message for Democrats in Congress, and Democrats in Washington generally.  Their by-standing days are over, too.

I've got some questions for them.

Do the Democrats in Congress understand that the violence of January 6 happens to people in the United States every day?

In one form or another?  Did it have to become that personal for them to show the kind of toughness and steely-eyed resolve that they should hitherto been showing the Republicans, the American people, and the entire world every day?

Do they even understand what it means to engage in "public service"?  Perhaps the police officer who was killed could have explained it to them.  Perhaps his sacrifice could explain it to them now.

They say that a conservative is a liberal mugged by reality.  Well, we've all been mugged by reality now.  Serving the public isn't about being in the headlines while lining your pockets.  Serving the public is about serving all of us, no matter what it takes.  And, if the worst thing is losing your job, so be it.  I've lost any number of jobs, but I've never been tempted to keep one by selling my soul.  And if you hold a public office, and keeping your job is more important than keeping faith with the American people, you don't deserve to keep your job.  Period.

The trial will be over.  The fight will go on.  What happened on January 6 was not a one-off; for most of the people who attached the Capital, it was a kind of dry run.  Those people are still out there.  If anything, they're multiplying in great numbers.  If you're an elected Democrat official, in Washington and elsewhere, and you don't do everything you can to make sure you and the people you are responsible for are ready, get the hell out of the way and make way for someone who is.   We need more AOC's, and fewer chickenshits like Marjorie Taylor Greene who is at best a publicity hound and a terrorist at worst—but who will never be anyone's idea of a public servant.

Regarding buried soldiers, Trump wanted to know what was in it for them.  What was in it for them was their country.  Trump will never understand that because he stands for nothing but himself.  If our political class is nothing more than a cabal of Trumps, no one  needs to take us prisoners; we're already dead.

Congress needs to do better.  All of us need to do better.  Putting others first usually hurts.  It's always worth it.  For those who care about being a Christian, that shouldn't be hard.  Don't tell me what you believe.  Show me.

Okay.  Both sides have gotten an earful from me.  Or, rather, a screenfull from me.

No more bystanding.  Get out there and stay out there.  I'll be there, no matter what.

Why The Filibuster Rule Must Go, And Why The Trump Impeachment Must Go On

Well, that didn't take terribly long.

No sooner was Joe Biden sworn in as our 46th President, and gave an Inaugural Address in which he committee himself and his Administration to national unity while asking for a reciprocal committee from the rest of us, than obstruction struck.  In the form of now-Senator Minority Leader Mitch McCONnell, who needlessly delayed the reorganization of the Senate under Democratic leadership with a transparently insincere request for a commitment to preserve the filibuster rule, which effectively blocks a majority Senate vote on most legislation.  And also in the form of McCONnell and the majority of his caucus, for shying away from their earlier willingness via the impeachment process to call Donald Trump to account for his seditious organization and promotion of the insurrection against the Capitol on January 6.

As House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's obsequious kneeling to Trump at Mar-a-Lago this past week illustrates, the only thing that is clear is that, almost without exception, the Republicans and their conservative allies are unified--by the personality cult of Trump.  And the Democrats, with the admirable assistance of a slice of Republicans, are unified around progress and democracy.

There's really no other way to look at America right now than with this overarching truth:  the second Civil War in our history is very much on.  In hindsight, January 6 looks very much like its Fort Sumter.

And it will be anything but a Cold War.  The temporary fence that went up around the Capitol now looks like it's going to be a permanent one.  Even at that, it's not going to keep everyone who works safe.  Not with the likes of Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene blithely carrying firearms around metal detectors that have been set up around the House chamber.  Not with young congressional staffers so fearful for their lives that hundreds of them have signed a letter begging Senate Republicans to do the right thing at Trump's impeachment trial.  As if the school shootings with which they have grown up isn't enough trauma to inflict those who represent whatever future this country has.

And not with Nancy Pelosi herself, a proud institutionalist and a pioneer in expanding opportunity within our institutions, agreeing with them 100%.  Indeed, the enemy is not just within the House of Representatives.  It's also in the Senate, where the likes of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have effectively whipped their caucus to back Trump at the trial, come hell, high water, or even enough evidence to choke a horse, in the form of video that recorded the menace that threatened all of their lives--even Cruz and Hawley, who actually whipped the mob itself.  Just ask Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In this context, there is a curious quaintness in talking about the filibuster rule, and perhaps even the impeachment process.  Although only one of the two is actually part of the Constitution, both of them are built on the fundamental assumption that has, for most of our history, made our constitutional order work:  government by consent of the governed.  Yet, if Trump's following is any indication, 46% percent of the American people, and as many as 74 million voters, are now more than prepared to withhold that consent.

And, as McCarthy's willingness to toady to Trump, which has already helped to cost him some of his popularity in his own caucus, and earned him some well-justified mocking from Brian Williams (no stranger to justified mockery himself), that 46%, those 74 million, are by and large hanging together, in the hope (with apologies to Benjamin Franklin) that they can ultimately hang each of us separately.  There's a very simple reason for this.  The modern Republican Party isn't about limited government, personal responsibility, original intent, the value of religious freedom, or whatever bumper-sticker-of-the week they want to scream about.  The modern Republican Party is about power, and about coalescing to a point at which they cannot be opposed. 

I realize I've made that same statement, or some version of it, many times.  But I can't stress it enough.  No one can stress it enough.  And, in the wake of Republican obstinacy about the filibuster rule and the impeachment trial, coming after an event that endangered them every bit as much as it endangered Democrats--remember the "Hang Mike Pence!" chant?--anyone who ignores it for any reason does so at mortal peril to themselves, to their fellow Americans, and to constitutional government itself.  They are not simply willing to die.  They are willing to take the rest of us with them, whether we want to go or not.

Obviously, only Republicans can control how they vote at Trump's trial.  Only they can decide whether America or Trump is worth their lives, their fortunes, and their honor (sacred or otherwise).  But the trial will go forward, and, if it does nothing else, it puts on the historical record forever the stain of January 6, and the responsibility of Trump for making it happen.  Hopefully, there will be 67 votes to convict, and a subsequent majority vote to bar him forever from public office.  If not, the criminal justice system will need to do its work to jail Trump, and as many of his cronies as possible.  Thankfully, in part because of Trump's love of being on TV, he's given the criminal justice system a lot of ammunition to use against him.

But there remains the filibuster rule, which McCONnell intents to use to stop a lot of popular, essential legislation dead in its tracks.  And McCONnell is never so insincere as when he talks, as he had the nerve to do recently, about the need of the filibuster to promote comity and debate in what used to be known as the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.

My question, in response to McCONnell on this point, is straightforward and simple:  what debate, and what comity?  Under his leadership, the filibuster rule has never been used to promote a discussion of legislative alternatives, and certainly not a vote on any such alternatives.  It has been used solely and exclusively to block anything the Democrats, and especially Barack Obama, might have otherwise wanted to do.  Not to discuss alternatives.  Indeed, not to do anything that might address the various crises that we're confronted in the 14 years that McCONnell has lead Senate Republicans.  Just to obstruct.  Or, as McCONnell himself enjoys describing his role, to be the "Grim Reaper."  And, I'll have to concede, he's done that pretty well.  Maybe that's why no one should be surprise by the fact that chaos and death are the result.

And when McCONnell had a chance to defend his view of the filibuster rule by reversing the change that then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made in the rule for federal district and circuit court nominations, to thwart McCONnell's filibuster of them, he didn't reverse it.  He expanded it to include not only Supreme Court nominations, but all appointments to the executive branch requiring Senate confirmation, including Cabinet departments.

In other words, and to perhaps repeat myself, he has consistently used the rule not as a vehicle for building consensus, but to maintain and expand power.  And this he has done, at the expense of the needs of the American people.  To expand on the eloquent summation recently made by a former Republican National Committee chairman (full disclosure:  we're both from Maryland and former state employees), we've all been "punked."  And that's putting it mildly.

And, as it turns out, it's not even helping him to do that.  The new Congress is less than a month old, and already Republican senators, even ones in states where their re-election seems almost a foregone conclusion, are heading for the exit or eyeing it with real longing.  Even the subtle pleasure of spending all of their time saying "no" to Democrats and the American people just isn't enough to keep them in the clutches of their cushy jobs.

And, on the other side of the aisle, what about the Democrats themselves?

At the very least, if McCONnell is genuinely interested in effectively putting the filibuster rule on the table by asking for a guarantee of it in writing, well, why not take him up on it, as Norman Orenstein has suggested here?  Why not ask him for something in return for his unprecedented request, even now that he has allowed the Democrats to organize as a Senate majority?  Why not use this as an opportunity to smoke his hypocrisy out into the open, by putting him and his party on the record as opposing goals that the American people overwhelmingly support?

And, if the Senator from "no" is still the Senator from "no" after that, you have a perfect predicate (as if one didn't exist already) for modifying or even eliminating the rule.  And, if the only people really preventing you from doing that are Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, your two most conservative caucus members, don't just jawbone them.  Poll the voters in West Virginia and Arizona, and see how they feel about having goals they might like thwarted by a rule that requires a supermajority instead of a a simple one.  After all, their new-found roles in the Senate majority just might depend on the outcome.

In fact, that might be true of all 50 members of the Democratic Caucus, to say nothing of President Biden and Vice President Harris.  It may very well be the case that, if the government doesn't really care much about governing, maybe Democratic voters will stay home for the midterms, allowing Republican voters to elect the "entertainment"--and the nightmare--that the Trumped Republican Party now represents, even to itself.

Democrats have good ideas.  Hell, Democrats have better ideas that Republicans have.  Even in a post-filibuster world, where a simple Republican majority in the Senate would have the power to make bad things happen easily, would they do so?  Maybe it's time for the Democrats to bet big on the power of their ideas, rather then spend all of their time watching them disappear into a political graveyard.  A graveyard that might even one day claim the Democrats themselves, if they don't get their act together.

And get it together they must.

Democrats won the election, across the board nationally.  As a wiser man than me recently said, they should start acting like it.  Eliminate the filibuster rule, so that Joe Biden and all of us can build back better.

Fight The Cowards

Happy New Year!

Are you wondering whether we should say that?  Or even can say that?  I don't blame you.  Not after January 6.  Not after decades of speculation about a potential civil war in the United States gave way to a reality I had hoped and prayed we would not have to experience.

But given way it has.  And now we know what we're facing.  Not the "economically dispossessed."  Not victims of a new world order.  Not regular folks who have been "disrespected" by a cultural elite.

We're facing bullies.  Even worse, we're facing bullies whose intolerance is empowered not just by racism, but by religion.

I don't speak in a vacuum about either phenomenon.  Let me take a few lines to explain.  Fair warning:  it will probably be more than a few.  You may want to take a few minutes to go and get a drink, some popcorn or other snacks.  It's fine with me.

Settled in?  OK.  Here goes.

I grew up in Baltimore County, Maryland in the 1960s.  I went to public schools that were dominated by white, middle-class students and faculty whose views on race and religion were decidedly white and Christian.  In the America of that time, this was considered to be completely normal.  Even patriotic.  If you weren't white, if you weren't middle-class or more, if you weren't Christian, well, you weren't part of the majority of the nation.  You weren't American.  Period.

I was brought up to object, to speak out against this, as much as I possibly could.  And I did.  And I paid a price, one that was painful but do not regret for an instant.  I was bullied.  I was beaten up once by a gang that outnumbered me seven-to-one.  I was kicked down from behind by a member of this gang who was upset by the fact that I called him a coward (irony, obviously, was lost on him).  I was extorted for lunch money and chased down when I didn't surrender it (and that happened when I spent a year in California, then as now a more "liberal" state).  I was bullied, physically and verbally, all the way through high school, even by a teacher who objected to my support for George McGovern's presidential campaign.

From that experience, I moved on to college, with self-esteem so low that it could not reach up to touch bottom even if it stood on top of the Empire State Building.  That led me into the world of evangelical Christianity, a world that taught me to dis-enthrone my brain in dealing with day-to-day reality, to embrace belief--but belief as defined by an interpretation of Scripture that could alternate between being narrow and being slippery.  Over a period of more than a decade, and despite denials from my fellow believers, that interpretation marched this country further and further to the right.  I tried to hold on to my faith as long as I could, until reality demanded my brain back.

So, with regard to the present moment, what should you take from this slice of autobiography?

That bullying can break people down, and open them up to blinkered ideology.  And that ideology can become bullying in and of itself.  Until you decide to take charge of your life, internally and externally.  Which I did.  And it turned by life around, completely and positively, in every single way.  Without fear of what might happen if I was willing to make major changes.  Without worrying about how anyone might react.

In sum, I know how bullies work.  I know how ideologies work.  And I know how to fight them both, even when they work hand-in-hand, like the insurrectionists who assaulted our democracy 12 days ago.  And those insurrectionists, first and foremost, are bullies.

Bullies are sneaks.  Bullies rely on overwhelming force.  And bullies, when they've achieved the object of their bullying, pretend that the rancid consequences of their bullying, pretend that their victims are to blame for the actions of the perpetrators.

In a word, bullies, like my attacker-from-the-rear of so very long ago, are cowards.

And bullies armed with ideology are even worse.  By definition, using reason against them is useless.  By definition, they respect no boundaries except the ones they choose to create.  For their purposes.  Not yours.  Not ours.  Theirs.

January 6 exposed white, male, Christian ideologists, and their ideology, as the bullying that poses the clearest and most present danger to our Republic.  They relied on overwhelming numbers and unprovoked violence.  They used intimidation to achieve what they could otherwise only have dreamed of doing.  And their success is defended in public by allies in high places, allies who demand--no softer word suffices--that the bullying be forgiven, or overlooked, or perhaps even justified, all in the name of--I can barely stomach even typing the word--healing.

This much is certain:  nothing that happened on January 6 can be justified in the name of conservatism.  Certainly not as conservatism as it has been redefined over the past four decades.  The assault on the Capitol was certainly not about limited government.  Limited government does not permit a mob organized by one branch of government to launch a full-scale attack on another.  And it was certainly not about personal responsibility.  After all, to borrow a phrase, "If conservatives believe so strongly in 'personal responsibility', why do they constantly blame liberals for all of their problems?"

Classical conservative was defined very differently, as I've noted here more than once.  Classical conservatism was all about reverence for, and learning from, history.  Indeed, when it comes to the need to preserve historic structures and sites, I consider myself to be a conservative.  I mean, good grief, the word conserve is embedded in a minute.  And that illustrates a central and tragic irony about modern American conservatism.  It systemically rewrites, revises, and even destroys history, and the physical fabric of historic sites, because the lessons of history distract from and ultimately defeat from the narcissistic, short-term goals that matter to it, such as personal profit.  Read about the history of Rhodes Tavern if you want to see an example of how this has, and does, work.  And, slowly but surely, over forty years, modern conservatism has burned through a number of narcissistic, short-term goals--profit, military adventure, advancing theocracy--until it only has one left, the one that threads through the entire American experience:  white nationalism.  And this is why physically desecrating one of the most sacred of American buildings, and threatening and even killing those who occupy it, should not at all be shocking, as shocking as it nevertheless is to so many of us.  

White nationalism has always tried to hide behind fundamentalist Christianity; as the Reagan era has collapsed in slow-motion, the evangelicals are the only die-hard Republicans left, their faith and their bigotry representing what Pat Buchanan once celebrated as the triumph of belief over reason.  That triumph, sadly, as I have already described, is something essential that white nationalism shares with fundamentalist Christianity, something that allows those who subscribe to either movement, or both of them, to jump in for the emotional sugar-rush, and stay for the manipulation by the leaders.  And make no mistake:  those leaders are not among the "economically dispossessed"; far from it, as the leadership at the Capitol insurrection illustrates.

And the Commander-in-Chief was the Insurrectionist-in-Chief.  Donald Trump has never been a fundamentalist Christian, but he has always been a white nationalist, and one of his few real talents, as a con artist who knows what a mark looks like, has, throughout his campaign and presidency, understood the overlap between the constituencies and how both of them can be manipulated to assist him in his pursuit of power.  And, as any woman with any experience with Trump can tell you, he is no stranger to the use of violence.

No one should doubt that this was an insurrection, either.  Violent overthrow of the government for the sake of protecting Trump was, without any doubt, the goal of the attackers.  As for Trump's own appraisal of his supporters?  "I love you.  You're very special." 

Nor should anyone doubt the lack of spontaneity for this event.  There is plenty of evidence of planning and coordination.  By dark money interests.  By the wife of a Supreme Court Justice.  By Trump apparatchiks at the Pentagon. By Members of Congress themselves, directed in some cases at other Members.  Even at the Speaker herself.  And this is why the outcry to respond through the impeachment of Trump, and the permanent barring of him from public office, is as bipartisan as it can be, including Tom Nichols and John Podhoretz as well as the New York Times.

Perhaps above all, no one should doubt the naked bigotry that fueled the attack, as well as the equally naked reliance on the police to express said bigotry.  Sadly, this even applies to the Capitol Police, who in the past have been guilty of needlessly heavy-handed treatment of peaceful protestors (for the record, here are Exhibits A and B).  Not so on this occasion:  they not only welcomed the attackers with open arms, but even posed with them for selfies.  After all, like police officers in other events (Exhibits C and D), this is what they were supposed to do.  And, when they didn't, the attackers let the police know their displeasure, both verbally and physically.

Oh, and one more thing:  no one should doubt that the insurrectionists may have placed the national security of this nation, and perhaps the world, at risk in the process.  Their safety, as well as yours, not that they give a damn about the latter.

And even this does not bring an end to the list of those who bear responsibility for the insurrection.  

After all, the attackers were attempting to block a normally routine, but essential process in our democracy:  the certification of the Electoral College votes and the formal declaration of the presidential election winner.  This year, the process was anything but routine:  despite the absence of any voter fraud, and the failure of dozens of court challenges alleging the existence of such fraud, many Republicans in both houses of Congress went into the certification joint session having publicly announced their intention to challenge the certification.  Even more stupefying:  147 of them, even after they and their colleagues were assaulted and threatened, still voted to reject the certification.  None of them should be allowed to remain in Congress, and all of them, at the very least, should be investigated for criminal violations relative to potential participation in the attack and the violence that resulted from it.

And now we come to the truly cowardly part:  the efforts by conservative press commentators to minimize the attack and its consequences by either engaging in "whataboutism"  or blaming the violence of their allies by alleged infiltration by the left (Exhibits E, F, and G).  Regarding the latter, I'm not worried about the likelihood of its success; the video evidence to the contrary, provided by both the perpetrators and brave observers, is more than enough to refute that canard.  As for the former:  well, to an extent, I do blame the Democrats.  Not for fighting too hard, but for not fighting hard enough in the past.  Had they done so, I have to wonder, and I think we all have to wonder:  did that lead their opponents to view them as a soft target?  That is something that they will have to guard against, going forward.  And the rest of us have to help them, while simultaneously holding them to account.

Perhaps the biggest way in which we can help them is by holding the right-wing media, and Rupert Murdoch to account, for marshalling lies, gossip, and other forms of informational malice in the service of their craven ambitions (Exhibits H, I, and J).  And, in the process, the best way we can expose the bullying by the right, and the ideology it tries to advance, is by exposing the cowardice that characterizes the bullying, as well as the cravenness that characterizes the ideology.

What does all of this portend for the future?

Well, we've got an inauguration of a new Administration, and an impeachment trial for the soon-to-be-former President coming up.  And, with Democrats in charge by the thinnest of majorities, forward progress on behalf of the American people (i.e., the work the government is actually supposed to do) will be hard.  Perhaps above all, and for the first time since the Civil War, there's legitimate reason to be concerned about the survival of the American experiment, a subject about which multiple commentators have already opined (Exhibits K and L).

Frankly, I respect their concern.  Indeed, I share it to a certain extent.  But I believe that Americans, and the word, need America to survive.  And, as a survivor of both bullying and ideology, I firmly believe that survival, and better than survival, are possible.  Especially in a case like this one, in which the bullies may be starting to turn in on themselves.

But we have to do so on our feet, not our knees.  And we have to do so with our ideas, and not just our feelings.

Those are the only ways to deal with bullies and ideologues.  And they are the only ways to not only preserve our heritage, but to build upon it as well.

And with those thoughts, and my own commitment to act upon them as though our lives depend upon it, I say once again to all of you:

Happy New Year.

Celebrate a new presidency and, with it, a new hope.