Institutional ramparts and simple joys It remains to be seen whether or not reports of this country’s demise are greatly exaggerated. On the demise side, a majority of Americans on Tuesday chose to end this nation’s 250-year experiment in self-government. Not that they know it yet. This week, argues Brian Beutler, they handed “unchecked power to a narcissistic criminal demagogue because the price of bacon increased.” They may also, in fact, have surrendered their sovereignty without firing a shot. (What will the more militant do with the guns and ammo they’ve stocked for the coming civil war about which they’ve fantasized?) On the greatly exaggerated side are people like Beutler in England, who, being shielded from Trumpism by the Atlantic Ocean, have perspective lacked by those of us staring down its barrel.
Uncategorized
The takesabout this election, hot and otherwise, are already coming fast and furious and I expect they will continue with tedious regularity for some time to come. I’m guilty of it myself jabbering away on podcasts and radio shows yesterday on no sleep and too much adrenaline. I’ll share some of those thoughts here as I get my head straight over the next little while. But I have been reading a lot of instant reaction pieces and I must say that more than anything I persuaded by the anti-incumbency analysis which I posted about yesterday. Here’s another argument laying that out from Derek Thompson in the Atlantic: A better, more comprehensive way to explain the outcome is to conceptualize 2024 as the second pandemic election. Trump’s victory is a reverberation of trends set in motion in 2020. In politics, as in nature, the largest tsunami generated by an earthquake is often not the first wave but the next one. The pandemic was a health emergency, followed by an economic emergency. Both trends were global. But only the former was widely seen as international and directly caused by the pandemic.
What’s the point of continuing? CNN reported: “Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy,” Trump said when asked by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would “pardon yourself” or “fire Jack Smith” if reelected. “I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said. The discussions between Smith and DOJ leadership are expected to last several days. Justice Department officials are looking at options for how to wind down the two criminal cases while also complying with a 2020 memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel about indictments or prosecutions of sitting presidents. Marcy Wheeler: They’re not mentioning a fairly obvious detail. According to governing regulations, when a Special Counsel finishes his work, he must write a report to the Attorney General. Closing documentation. At the conclusion of the Special Counsel’s work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel. So if Smith is totally done, he has to write a report.
You’d think at least a few of the wingnuts would wonder about this: In the months leading up to the election, Donald Trump and his Republican allies warned relentlessly of widespread voter fraud. Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal the election by cheating, and he repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the election results unless he won. On Election Day, Trump further amplified those claims and suggested that there was voter fraud in Philadelphia and Detroit, two major cities in battleground states. Elon Musk’s “Election Integrity Community” discussion page on X was also rife with conspiracy theories about Democrats cheating. Yet on election night, as the results looked to be in Trump’s favor, the claims tapered off. Instead of dark warnings about election fraud, posts on X’s “election integrity” page grew self-congratulatory and “the urgency to investigate wrongdoing subsided,” The Washington Post reported. Far-right channels on the Telegram platform, where voter fraud claims were widespread in recent days, suddenly grew quiet as well, according to The New York Times.
But don’t worry they say they aren’t preparing any concentration camps. Yet. Donald Trump’s allies and some in the private sector have been quietly preparing to detain and deport migrants residing in the United States on a large scale, according to four sources familiar with the discussions. Immigration was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and while he repeatedly touted promises of mass deportation on the trail – putting increased emphasis on interior enforcement compared to his 2016 fixation on the border wall – members of his orbit and some in the private sector discussed what that plan would look like, according to the sources. Trump’s day one priority is to reinstate his former administration’s border policies and reverse those of President Joe Biden, senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told CNN. Early discussions among Trump’s team have focused on removing undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, a source familiar with the team’s preliminary plans told CNN.
Jason Stanley offered this explanation for what’s happening to us and it’s been around for a couple of millenia: For 2,300 years, at least since Plato’s Republic, philosophers have known how demagogues and aspiring tyrants win democratic elections. The process is straightforward, and we have now just watched it play out. In a democracy, anyone is free to run for office, including people who are thoroughly unsuitable to lead or preside over the institutions of government. One telltale sign of unsuitability is a willingness to lie with abandon, specifically by representing oneself as a defender against the people’s perceived enemies, both external and internal. Plato regarded ordinary people as being easily controlled by their emotions, and thus susceptible to such messaging – an argument that forms the true foundation of democratic political philosophy (as I have argued in previous work).
To stay up to date on my writings, head over (and subscribe!) to my Substack.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by George Clinton (@yolikegeorge) That’s George Clinton people!!!! Funkin’ for Kamala.! But back to waiting and hoping. Here’s a little list provided by Axios of the key races the campaigns are going to be looking at tonight. In case you need something else to wring your hands over: Strategists in both parties told Axios they will be watching key swing races in Eastern and Midwestern states that tend to report most of their votes on Election Day. Virginia: Polls close here at 7pm ET and the lion’s share of votes should be counted by the end of the night, according to the New York Times and FiveThirtyEight. Republicans believe a good result in Virginia’s 7th District, where Democrats are trying to hang onto the seat vacated by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who is running for governor, will portend a good night for their party. Ditto for Democrats in the state’s 2nd District, where Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) is locked in a competitive race but is still seen as a slight favorite to win reelection.