Robert Kagan is back already Robert Kagan’s doomsaying article about a Trump dictatorship and The Atlantic‘s“If Trump Wins” series sounded loud alarms. And then some. I cautioned Monday that overdoing the shock treatment can backfire. Along with the warnings people need hope and plans for action. Kagan got that message from his readers and is back today with an attempt at offering some, reluctantly. His heart isn’t in it. It’s not that we didn’t know what to do, Kagan begins. It’s that we didn’t do it when chances were better for stopping Trump. He offers “several things people could do to save the country but almost certainly won’t do, because they selfishly refuse to put their own ambitions at risk to save our democracy.” Feeling hopey yet? For one, Never-Trump forces could throw all their support behind Nikki Haley as the least odious Republican presidential candidate. Probably won’t work, but go for it, Kagan suggests. A majority of the GOP are committed cultists. A smaller faction wants Trump as their best chance of beating Joe Biden.
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I watched that stupid also-ran debate last night and honestly, I have nothing much to say about it. They’re calling Haley the “front-runner” which she isn’t and praising Chris Christie for defending her but that’s about it. And everyone acknowledges that DeSantis is weird and Ramaswamy is a complete asshole. A few highlights: And DeSantis is obsessed with “child mutilation” words he used over and over again during the debate I think that about covers it. These debates are pathetic. And yet CNN just announced that they are hosting two more of them in January. No, Trump won’t show up for them either. By the way, according to Morning Joe, the ratings for the Newsom DeSantis debate were higher than for the Trump town hall with Hannity this week. I would guess it’s because a buch of Democrats tuned for the former but Trump has to be pissed anyway.
The following statement isn’t from Vivek Ramaswamy or Alex Jones. It’s the NRSC, the most establishment GOP institution imaginable: The National Republican Senatorial Committee on Wednesday took a swing at Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., following Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announcing he’ll be leaving Congress. “A lot of people are starting to wonder if Matt Rosendale is a plant from the Democrats,” NRSC Communications Director Mike Berg said in a statement responding to McCarthy’s retirement. “He is benefitting from millions of dollars in television ads from a Chuck Schumer-aligned super PAC and has been a great ally to Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi in their efforts to take back the House.” Rosendale was one of eight House Republicans who joined with Democrats to oust McCarthy as Speaker in October. His departure will now leave Republicans with just a two seat majority in the House. Rosendale is gearing up for a potential Senate run in Montana, which would pit him in a rematch against Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., after his Senate campaign failed in 2018.
Forcing women to carry fetuses with fatal chromosomal disorders to term is a grotesque violation of human rights Kate Cox, the mother of two whose request for an abortion was granted by a Texas judge, speaks out to NBC News after the ruling. “We’re going through the loss of a child,” Cox says of her grief. We have coverage of the landmark case on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” By the way, here’s a look at what the anti-abortion zealots want Trump to do if he’s elected by Elaine Godfrey from the “If Trump Wins” issue of The Atlantic. Do you think that he wouldn’t do it once he’s back in the White House, burning with vengeance? A federal ban, which would require 60 votes in the Senate, is unlikely. But some activists believe there’s a simpler way: the enforcement by a Trump Justice Department of a 150-year-old obscenity law.
Forests and trees Why do left-leaning independents in North Carolina’s bluest precincts turn out less than Democrats in their neighborhoods when independents statewide (including the Trumpiest counties) turn out more? Perhaps because Democrats are policy liberals and campaign conservatives. Taking chances? Not when every damned election is “the most important of our lifetimes.” Throwing the long ball? They are more inclined to fall on it. “Leave it all on the field” remains aspirational. What we’re getting at here is Democrats’ targeting of independents for turnout is too conservative. As Michah L. Sifry (The Connector) in July observed, “The Experience of Grassroots Leaders Working with the Democracy Party” report is sobering. Among the complaints (emphasis mine): Most volunteer leaders see their state Democratic party’s efforts to organize outreach as “too little, too late.” One in four call their party unresponsive. A majority of respondents said the party does a terrible job targeting voters, saying that its lists are far too narrow. That is what I find as well: This is my focus right now.
According to Axios, JD Vance is on the Trump short list for Vice President. For real: According to Fox News, Vance is accusing Kagan of inciting “open rebellion” against the United States, for suggesting in his article, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” that Democratic-controlled states might resist federal power under a second Trump term should he move to enact his controversial plans to reshape the federal government to do his bidding. “Resistance could come from the governors of predominantly Democratic states such as California and New York through a form of nullification,” wrote Kagan. “States with Democratic governors and statehouses could refuse to recognize the authority of a tyrannical federal government. That is always an option in our federal system,” he added that this sort of standoff is also possible from Republican-controlled states under a second Biden term. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Vance claimed that this amounts to inciting insurrection.
The courts are going to decide that question. And it could come too late. The January 6th case Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a ruling stating that Donald Trump is not immune from the rule of law because he was president. She famously wrote: Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens … A former President’s exposure to federal criminal liability is essential to fulfilling our constitutional promise of equal justice under the law This may seem obvious to all of us. If a president is immune from criminal liability when he is out of office he is a defacto dictator during his term and theoretically could use that status to ensure his term is endless. But according to the legal beagles, this is a n issue that will need to be decided by the appeals courts and probably the Supremes. Trump is undoubtedly hoping they decide to stay Chutkan’s ruling and leave the whole thing until after the election — at which point Trump would have legitimate presidential immunity if he wins.
Trump Plus Nothing, The Sequel Donald J. Trump and his MAGA horde attempted the murder of the United States of America on January 6, 2021. Give them a second chance and they may succeed. The media have finally caught on. The claxon sounding over at The Atlantic is itself news. (There are new articles there today.) The Constitution is not a suicide pact, it’s said. Trump has announced his plans to make the 2024 election one for the country. His collaborators are mixing up the Flavor Aid now. Prepare for Trump Plus Nothing, The Sequel. Call it mass insanity or something else, Trump’s followers are indeed ready once again to make their obeisance. During the COVID pandemic, many eschewed masks and vaccines and gave their lives for him. As former Trump fixer Michael Cohen explained, he talks like a mob boss. He doesn’t give explicit orders. The Boss lets underlings know what he wants and they go do it, even to their graves.
What the public doesn’t know Many readers may have first come across Elizabeth Warren (as I did) in an online lecture: “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net.” The then-Harvard Law professor lectured in the glow of her 2003 book, “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke.” Warren described how since the Reagan administration the rich got richer and the rest got screwed. (She put it more delicately.) The America Prospect this morning argues that Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis should in the public interest publish data it surely has that would make Warren’s case without her (or you) having to do the research. “Last year, America’s current-dollar GDP grew 6.6 percent to over $26,000,000,000—one quarter of the entire world’s total output, produced by just 6 percent of the world’s population,” explains Richard Parker. Yes, but who benefited?