Gender and religion – the People’s House takes a couple of strides toward better representing Americans


After the overwhelming Democratic victory for the control of the House of Representatives – Democrats won by nearly 10 million votes nationally, which was the greatest popular vote margin in U.S. history – a highly diverse Congress convened yesterday. It doesn’t look quite like America – but it’s closer than ever before.

A woman became Speaker of the House for only the second time; Nancy Pelosi, who made history the first time, made history again. More women – 102 – will serve in the 116th Congress than in any previous House. (And consider this contrast: in 1989 there were 16 Democratic women and 13 Republican women in Congress. In 2019, there are 89 Democratic women and 13 Republican women in Congress.)

Two Native American women will serve in this Congress. And, heralding greater religious diversity, two Muslim women (a Somali-American and a Palestinian) will serve.

A PEW survey notes that even with the new members, Congress still doesn’t accurately represent Americans’ religious preferences and ‘by far the largest difference between the U.S. public and Congress is in the share who are unaffiliated with a religious group. In the general public, 23% say they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” In Congress, just one person – Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who was recently elected to the Senate after three terms in the House – says she is religiously unaffiliated, making the share of “nones” in Congress 0.2%.’

Ed Kilgore notes that the two parties present a stark contrast regarding religious diversity: “With the exception of the two Jewish Republicans in the House, all of Congress’s non-Christians and religiously unspecified members are Democrats. Professed Christians are over-represented in both parties’ congressional ranks…”

Meanwhile, evangelical Christians continue to be the most devoted, unwavering supporters of one Donald J. Trump, a man (in Michael Gerson’s words) “prone to cruelty, bigotry, vanity, adultery and serial deception.” Gerson, who embraces a never-Trump conservatism, notes in an op-ed in this morning’s newspaper – borrowing a phrase from Ronald Brownstein – the “hardening loyalty” of evangelicals to Trump.

Gerson suggests that something other than fidelity to the Gospel lies behind this support:

Trump has understood something about evangelical Christians that many are unable to articulate themselves. White, theologically conservative Protestants were once — not that long ago — a culturally predominant force. Many of their convictions — on matters such as sexuality and public religiosity — were also the default settings of the broader society. But that changed in a series of cultural tidal waves — the Darwinist account of human origins, the application of higher criticism to the text of the Bible, the sexual revolution — which swept away old certainties.

Americans, in an increasingly diverse country, have reason to celebrate more diverse representation at the national level. Democrats are at the forefront of the changes taking place. Make no mistake: Trump and Republicans, 89% of whom approve of the job he is doing in the latest Gallup Poll (December 17-22), view diversity as a threat. Identity politics, tribalism, and cultural anxiety have swamped faith, hope, and charity in this group.

(Photograph is MSNBC screengrab of Kyrsten Sinema, a departing member of the House just elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona, taking the oath of office with her hand on a law book, which contained the Constitution of the United States, rather than a religious text.)

Secretary of State Jim Mattis resigns in December 20, 2018 letter to President Trump

More recent update: The Times has changed the story. Instead of, “although Mr. Trump had already seen the resignation letter,” the report now reads, “But Mr. Trump had not read the letter. “

December 23 update: “President Trump said on Sunday that he would remove Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who issued a stinging rebuke of the president when he announced his resignation last week, from his post by Jan. 1, two months before he had planned to depart. . . .

When Mr. Trump first announced that Mr. Mattis was leaving, effective Feb. 28, he praised the defense secretary on Twitter, saying he was retiring “with distinction.” One aide said that although Mr. Trump had already seen the resignation letter when he praised Mr. Mattis, the president did not understand just how forceful a rejection of his strategy Mr. Mattis had issued.” – Helene Cooper, New York Times

Initial post:

Every time I see ‘America First’ in a headline describing Trump’s actions regarding foreign affairs, I cringe and think: America alone.   

The man is isolating our country; abandoning allies, partners, and alliances that have ensured our security since the end of World War II; and he has strengthened adversaries that threaten to reshape the global order to serve their interests, not ours. America alone weakens the United States and democratic countries worldwide.

Whether through ignorance, vanity, greed, or malign foreign influence – Trump’s actions serve the enemies of our country and the West.

Secretary Mattis’ letter:

Dear Mr President:

I have been privileged to serve as our country’s 26th Secretary of Defense which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the Department in defense of our citizens and our ideals.

I am proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our National Defense Strategy: putting the Department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces, and reforming the Department’s business practices for greater performance. Our troops continue to provide the capabilities needed to prevail in conflict and sustain strong US global influence.

One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies. Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world. Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances. 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack on America. The Defeat-ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof.

Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.

My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.

Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position. The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department’s interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February. Further, that a full transition to a new Secretary of Defense occurs well in advance of the transition of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September in order to ensure stability within the Department.

I pledge my full effort to a smooth transition that ensures the needs and interests of the 2.15 million Service Members and 732,079 civilians receive undistracted attention of the Department at all times so that they can fulfill their critical, round-the-clock mission to protect the American people.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform.

Jim N Mattis

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis meets with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense ministers for a Defense Ministerial in Brussels, Belgium on June 7, 2018)

A presidency off the rails: retweets of jailed political foes, 32 joint defense agreements, and dangling pardons for criminals

Yesterday in the news:

  1. The President of the United States retweeted a meme of his political foes behind bars.
  2. The President of the United States has had joint defense agreements with at least 32 other people under investigation.
  3. The President of the United States in an Oval Office interview said, of a possible pardon for Paul Manafort, “It was never discussed, but I wouldn’t take it off the table. Why would I take it off the table?”

None of this is normal. The Nixon presidency comes to mind, but we’ve never before seen anything like this.

Should the Democratic Party give a fig for all those white people who voted for Trump?

I am not in sync with much of what Joan C. Williams has to say in her December 2018 piece in the Atlantic, “The Democrats’ White-People Problem,” but we agree that it would be a mistake for the Democrats to write off the white working class as a bunch of racists:

As of this writing, the results of the midterm elections are unknown, but one thing is clear: Democrats have banked a lot on the prospect that their voters’ anger can outmatch the anger of the voters who propelled Trump to office. Whether or not this strategy wins a given election, writing off an ocean of rural and Rust Belt red is a terrible strategy in the long term.

First (though I held my breath as I waited for the outcome on election night), I thought the Democrats’ midterm strategy was smart and sound. It gave voters in districts across the country plenty of reasons – including a robust defense of affordable, accessible healthcare and an embrace of civility – to vote Democratic. I’d hardly characterize the message as fueled primarily by anger. (Of course activists were angry. But – as one of those activists – I was motivated to make calls, send texts, and canvas neighborhoods to flip one of those now-blue Orange Country Congressional districts more by fear, than by anger; more because my conscience moved me to do something to set things right, than because I was mad at Trump.)

Second, while I agree that writing off rural and Rust Belt regions would be “a terrible strategy,” that’s not the half of it. It would represent a colossal failure of vision and principle. Williams observes that increasing income inequality, chronic economic insecurity, and a middle-class (including blue-collar white folks) that’s falling further and further behind, has convinced many Americans that we have a rigged economy:

Broader measures of income inequality show why many Americans feel so insecure. The economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard have documented a sharp decrease in social mobility in recent decades: Virtually all Americans born in the 1940s outearned their parents; only about half of those born in the 1980s will. Simultaneously, the share of national income earned by Americans in the middle of the income distribution is declining.

This dismal picture represents a glaring problem and it cries out for a public policy response. That makes it political. So Williams’ focus on campaign strategy is understandable. And a new report from the Brookings Institution –  “Countering the geography of discontent: Strategies for left-behind places” – begins with a nod toward the midterm results: “The 2016 election revealed a dramatic gap between two Americas—one based in large, diverse, thriving metropolitan regions; the other found in more homogeneous small towns and rural areas struggling under the weight of economic stagnation and social decline.” The report outlines this “epidemic of divergence”:

Big, techy metros like San Francisco, Boston, and New York with populations over 1 million have flourished, accounting for 72 percent of the nation’s employment growth since the financial crisis. By contrast, many of the nation’s smaller cities, small towns, and rural areas have languished. Smaller metropolitan areas (those with populations between 50,000 and 250,000) have contributed less than 6 percent of the nation’s employment growth since 2010 while employment remains below pre-recession levels in many ‘micro’ towns and rural communities (those with populations less than 50,000).

As a result, few can now deny that the geography of America’s current economic order has brought economic and social cleavages that have spawned frightening externalities: entrenched poverty, “deaths of despair,” and deepening small-town resentment of coastal cosmopolitan elites. It is baleful realities like these that caught many politicians, academics, and journalists off guard in 2016 as they poured through post-election red-blue maps. In a very real way, the 2016 election of Donald Trump represented the revenge of the places left behind in a changing economy.

Greg Sargent and John Harwood each highlight the Brookings’ findings as an explanation of why Donald Trump’s campaign of fear-mongering and immigrant-bashing fell short. Harwood quotes Brookings researcher Mark Muro, “The Democratic Party and Republican Party, at this point, really do occupy different economic worlds and represent different economic worlds.” The Trump message doesn’t resonate in the blue world, where a diverse population contributes to a thriving economy. Trump’s words directly contradict Americans’ experience in the most prosperous areas of the country.

Sargent pivots from an explanation of why Democrats did well in the midterms to the reality of an expanding economic divergence: “The broader point here is that big Democratic gains in areas dominated by the new economy also showcase the need to address the problems in areas outside of them.” He then quotes a research fellow at the Roosevelt Institute:

“The economic dislocation outside growing metropolitan areas creates legitimate economic grievance,” Marshall Steinbaum of the Roosevelt Institute, which has studied the impact of economic concentration on these left-behind areas, tells me. “Rising regional inequality bespeaks the need for a broader policy agenda,” one that will “ensure broadly shared prosperity.”

We’re all in this together. It’s a big country. Trump has governed as a factional president, not a national leader. We can’t let that stand.

Areas far beyond our flourishing cities need help: help requiring a federal commitment and resources. There is no way that Republicans – committed above all to lower taxes for the rich – are prepared to enact a meaningful policy agenda to make this happen. Substantial public investments in education, research, and infrastructure (without drastic cuts to the social safety net)? Not likely. Not without a struggle. It’s on Democrats to step up.

Blue wave brings reassurance: Elections matter; Trump’s base isn’t growing; Democrats turned out to vote in the midterms

The 2018 midterm elections ended one-party rule in Washington. A Democratic majority in the House of Representatives will restore Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch and the checks and balances the Founders envisioned.

Democrats and activists opposed to Trump have been energized since before his 2017 inauguration. By election day – following the battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination and the president’s deceitful campaign of fear-mongering and violent political rhetoric – the Trump base was also revved up. The result: 49.2 percent turnout (as of November 11), the highest rate in a midterm election in the past 100 years.

As of today (as votes are still being counted in undecided races) Democrats have picked up 31 seats in the House, which will welcome record numbers of women, including the first Native American and Muslim women. With a highly unfavorable Senate map – 10 Democrats were running in states Trump won – the Republican majority will increase by no more than two (Florida is still counting ballots and Mississippi will have a December runoff). Democrats flipped more than 300 legislative seats, made a net gain of 7 governorships, and will have 27 (of 51) attorneys general in place in January 2019.

What’s most significant in this picture is the return of checks and balances. No president has shown more contempt for the political and governing norms that sustain our republic. At a time of extraordinary prosperity and relative peace, Americans chose to rebuke the President and the Congressional majority that has been complicit in Trump’s assault on democratic institutions.

In their book, How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblat write:

Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Constitutions must be defended—by political parties and organized citizens, but also by democratic norms. Without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be. Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and “weaponizing” the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents.

Flipping Congress from red to blue was not a certainty. Trump’s election generated intense grassroots push-back from left-of-center groups and aroused citizens. The Women’s March protests across the country (and the world) on January 21, 2017 set the stage. The outpouring of volunteers and huge number of campaign contributions lead the way to the November 6, 2018 general election.

Electoral rules and practices in a number of states tilted the playing field through stratagems reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. The proceedings in some cases did not constitute free and fair elections: too many institutional norms were shattered to suppress the vote. But the elections were free and fair enough to bring about change. That’s worth celebrating.

November 21, 2018 update:

 

“Politicians … don’t give specific directions. They don’t have to. They simply set the tone. In the end, someone else does the dirty work…”

Four prominent villains appear in Trump’s closing ad – titled, “Donald Trump’s Argument for America,” released just before the November 2016 election: Three are Jewish; the fourth is the 2016 Democratic nominee for president:

George Soros, favorite Trump punching bag – “The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. For those who control the levers of power in Washington …”

Janet Yellen, then Chair of the Federal Reserve – “… and for the global special interests.”

Hillary Clinton“They partner with these people who don’t have your good in mind.”

Lloyd Blankfein, then CEO of Goldman Sachs – “It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.”

Josh Marshall, who posted this ad on November 5, 2016, commented at the time:

“These are standard anti-Semitic themes and storylines, using established anti-Semitic vocabulary lined up with high profile Jews as the only Americans other than Clinton who are apparently relevant to the story….

This is an anti-Semitic ad every bit as much as the infamous Jesse Helms ‘white hands’ ad or the Willie Horton ad were anti-African-American racist ads. Which is to say, really anti-Semitic…. This is an ad intended to appeal to anti-Semites and spread anti-Semitic ideas….

This is intentional and by design.”

Fast forward to today, in the aftermath of what is “likely the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.” Julia Ioffe raises the question, “How much responsibility does Trump bear for the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh?” and observes: “Culpability is a tricky thing, and politicians, especially of the demagogic variety, know this very well. Unless they go as far as organized, documented, state-implemented slaughter, they don’t give specific directions. They don’t have to. They simply set the tone. In the end, someone else does the dirty work, and they never have to lift a finger — let alone stain it with blood.”

She writes of Trump’s campaign:

Trump had so much to say about the Jews that his Jewish son-in-law has had to publicly defend him as “not an anti-Semite.”

But the anti-Semites have not been convinced. A month after he had ordered his trolls to attack me, white supremacist Andrew Anglin told the HuffPost what he thought of Trump’s refusal to denounce them. “We interpret that as an endorsement,” he said. To his readers, he wrote, “Glorious Leader Donald Trump Refuses to Denounce Stormer Troll Army.” When Trump blamed “both sides” for Charlottesville, his supporters heard him loud and clear: “I knew Trump was eventually going to be like, meh, whatever,” Anglin said. “Trump only disavowed us at the point of a Jewish weapon. So I’m not disavowing him.” Many others in the alt-right praised Trump’s statement as moral equivocation on Charlottesville. To them, this, rather than the forced, obligatory condemnation, was the important signal. (According to the Anti-Defamation League, the incidence of anti-Semitic hate crimes jumped nearly 60 percent in 2017, the biggest increase since it started keeping track in 1979. What made 2017 so different? It was Trump’s first year in office.)

Image of July 2016 Trump tweet (subsequently deleted) featuring Star of David.

“Violating norms” = deliberately undermining institutional practices that protect and preserve our democracy

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, who have devoted scholarly careers to the study of the first branch of the federal government – Congress, established in Article I of the Constitution – have drawn attention to increasing violations of political and governing norms; this assault has diminished legislative effectiveness and eroded public trust.  In their first book, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track, they lamented the decline of Congress as an institution fit for the Founders’ vision – and (while reviewing Democratic transgressions before the party relinquished its majority in 1994) they pointed to the Republican Party as chiefly responsible for crippling the capacity of the House of Representatives to do its job.

Meanwhile, what began in the House has spread to the U.S. Senate (and throughout state governments across the country) and additional observers – political scientists, journalists, and others – have explored the erosion of democratic norms and acknowledged (often reluctantly) the key role of the Republican Party in these developments (as “both sides do it” has become abundantly less tenable for reporters and scholars alike).

The Republican Party has aggressively and relentlessly trashed norms (traditional civility, respect for ones opponents and for institutional safeguards, embrace of rules and practices that had heretofore been accepted by both sides) in order to attain political advantage over Democrats. That – and more careful discussion of these issues, including the consequences for representative government – will be the subject of future posts. For now, I will simply point to a number of areas where we can see that things have gone off track, where we can say, “That’s not normal,” or at least: That is something that was, until the recent demolition of democratic norms, just not done in our country.

In just the past week, numerous violations of democratic norms (which were respected and embraced by elected officials across the political spectrum, until Republicans jettisoned them) have been in the news. The list illustrates the nature and extent of the problem.

1. Falsehoods, concoctions, and whoppers.

Donald Trump has a prodigious capacity for lying. That’s not exactly news, but the fabrications have come in greater numbers than ever before, as the leader of the Grand Old Party has rallied his followers in advance of the midterm election.

“Donald Trump is waging one of the most inflammatory closing arguments of any modern campaign, lacing his midterm rhetoric with easily disprovable claims that are building on the fact-challenged foundation of his presidency. With just two weeks to go before the midterm election, the President is doing what he does best, seizing national attention with a flood of outrageous and improbable lies that drown out rivals, leverage his brawling personality and rip at fault lines of race, identity and patriotism.”

“With less than two weeks before the highly contested midterm elections, Donald Trump has been amplifying the Republican message on key campaign issues from immigration to trade at rallies across the country. But many of the president’s statements are ringing false, as fact checkers find that he made as many as 170 false claims during the second week of October, according to The Star Online.”

“Calling the president of the United States a liar used to be no small thing, but Trump’s record for lies, falsehoods and general untruths is genuinely impressive. Still, even the folks who fact-check Trump for a living have been surprised at just how bald-faced his recent lies have been.”

The two previous links illustrate falsehoods about healthcare policy – that Republicans will protect Medicare and guarantee insurance coverage for preexisting conditions, while Democrats will deny coveragewhich are belied by Republican campaign promises and legislative activity going back eight years, executive actions taken since Trump’s inauguration, and numerous court battles (which are ongoing). These lies, as outlandish and insupportable as they are, have been embraced not just by the President, but by many Republicans on the November ballot.

Jonathan Cohn characterizes this as peak absurdity. The spectacle of Republican ads presenting topsy turvy Alice in Wonderland revisionism on this signature issue prompts incredulous laughter from former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (in the video clip in Cohn’s post).

2. Democrats are the enemy.

Set aside the mammoth servings of untruths and whoppers, which have been catalogued by a number of observers. While this is unprecedented for a president, there is something more darkly disturbing – and damaging to our democratic institutions: demonizing the opposition party (which is embraced by half the country).

“It’s not just the whoppers or the particular outrage riffs … It’s the hate, and the sense of actual menace that the President is trying to convey to his supporters. Democrats aren’t just wrong in the manner of traditional partisan differences; they are scary, bad, evil, radical, dangerous. Trump and Trump alone stands between his audiences and disaster.” – Susan Glaser, after binge watching the first six Trump rallies of October.

Eli Stokols and Noah Bierman describe the President’s dystopian vision, which he lays at the feet of Democrats, who – he says – are embracing “mob rule” and rioting in California. They quote an evangelical Christian who served three previous Republican presidents: “Most of what Mr. Trump says these days is literally made up,” Peter Wehner, a veteran of both Bush administrations, wrote in a tweet following Trump’s Houston rally. “He’s trying to construct a world of make believe and fairy tales, of myth and fiction, of illusion and hallucination. It’s a world increasingly detached from reality. The rest of us must refuse to live within the lie.”

Invoking violence at the hands of Democrats is a theme Trump sounded earlier this summer:

I think we’re real popular, but there’s a real question as to whether people are going to vote if I’m not on the ballot. And I’m not on the ballot. A lot of people I don’t like Congress. People say I’m not voting because the President doesn’t like Congress. It’s not a question of like or dislike, it’s a question that they will overturn everything that we’ve done andthey will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence. When you look at Antifa — these are violent people. You have tremendous power. You were saying in this room, you have people who preach to almost 200 million people. Depending on which Sunday we’re talking about.

Hate and hostility directed at political opponents – and false ascriptions of violence to those who voice opposition – have become White House talking points.

3. Hostility to national unity, even in the face of domestic terrorism.

After incendiary devices were mailed to nearly a dozen prominent Democrats (including two former presidents) and Trump critics, the President veered from his rally-the-base persona briefly to read a prepared statement from his teleprompter: “In these times we have to unify. We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.

On previous occasions when called upon to offer consolation or reassurance to the nation (as previous president’s have done), President Trump only grudgingly articulated a unifying message – and not very convincingly. On this occasion, his conviction didn’t last even 24 hours. He quickly returned to attacking the media:

The President is not simply indifferent to the traditional role of presidents to unite the country at times of national peril: he deliberately seeks to divide us. His chief partisan strategy in rallying his base (against all comers) is an imperative that conflicts with bringing the nation together.

4. In the aftermath of the brutal murder, beheading, and dismemberment of a journalist at the Washington Post by a foreign government – Saudi Arabia – inside their consulate in Turkey, the President adopted the Saudi talking points.

On a day when foreign policy experts worldwide were almost uniformly accusing Saudi Arabia’s government of murdering a prominent dissident, President Donald Trump spoke to the Saudi king and then offered an alternative theory: “Rogue killers” may be to blame.

Trump’s suggestion drew widespread scorn and ridicule, including charges that he could be complicit in a Saudi cover-up.

The episode brought “into clear relief President Trump’s double standard on the proof he demands on political issues.”

It also called to mind Trump’s deference to Vladimir Putin, whose word he accepted over his own Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats,  at Helsinki:

“My people came to me — Dan Coats came to me and some others — they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.

I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be …”

5. Republican leaders in the Senate discard generations-long practices that served to ensure a modicum of bipartisanship in selecting judges.

“Prior to the Trump administration, there was plenty of tit for tat in the escalating partisan wars over judicial nominations. But the tactics were aimed at blocking nominees. Since President Trump was sworn in, however, the GOP Senate leadership has moved aggressively to speed confirmation of new judges, in the process ignoring or tossing aside rules that have long existed to ensure that there is some consensus in picking judges. Gone for all practical purposes is the rule that prevented action on a judicial nominee who was not approved by his or her home state senator. Gone is the practice of not holding a confirmation hearing until the American Bar Association has completed its professional evaluation of the nominee. Gone is the general practice of not piling up nominees in one hearing. And now, for the first time, the Judiciary Committee is holding confirmation hearings during a Senate recess over the objections of the minority party.” – Nina Totenberg

She counts four normative rules that Senate Republicans have discarded. A word about ‘blue slips‘ (the first rule mentioned), which have represented an institutional norm in the Senate going back generations. David Hawkings offers a good explanation of the practice – and Republicans’ shredding of the practice – in the Senate.

Essentially, there was a consensus that presidents (who were elected to represent all Americans) would have wide discretion in selecting judges, but not carte blanche; that the judiciary was more or less set apart from the political branches of government, so presidents would confer with senators when making nominations to ensure general agreement (as opposed to blunt partisanship); and that a blue slip would signify that the home state senators of a nominee were on board with the president’s selection. Conversely, without the blue slip, the nomination would not go forward.

Long story short: the most recent Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, respected this process, while the current Republican Chairman, Chuck Grassley, has discarded it. This institutional norm, which held sway for decades as presidents and Senate majorities shifted from party to party, stands in the way of the Republican goal of filling the federal bench with ideological partisans.

One morning during the Kavanaugh hearings, when Senator Leahy objected to the norms – including blue slips – being rejected, among the first words out of Senator Grassley’s mouth in response were “Judge Bork.” This exchange provides a lesson in partisan rationalization and hypocrisy. If Democrats abused the process (and institutional norms of the Senate) during the Bork nomination, then every instance of trashing institutional norms by Senate Republicans going forward can be justified by reference to Ronald Reagan’s 1987 nomination of Bork to the Supreme Court (which was voted down when Democrats ruled the Senate). That was 31 years ago. On Senator Leahy’s watch, blue slips were still in place during the 113th Congress – not yet 4 years ago – when Democrats were in the majority.

The deliberate, ongoing repudiation of institutional norms is not tit for tat. If it were, one of many previous Republican tits would have evened the scales for the initial Democratic tat. The injury would have been repaid. (When one country expels diplomats and another country responds in kind, even if the number of expulsions on each side is not identical, an equilibrium is reached. The incident does not come into play three decades later when another diplomatic dispute arises. It is history. Fresher tits and tats come into play.) But such offenses are never repaid in the GOP ledger. Senate Republicans have retaliated against the Democrats many times over for whatever injury they believe they suffered when Robert Bork was rejected by the Senate. But – forevermore – Republicans will use the rejection as a pretext for throwing out another rule or practice that heretofore enjoyed bipartisan agreement.

In no area of political life is the assault on institutional norms more evident than in the selection of federal judges and justices of the Supreme Court. Virtually none of the items listed as consensus views four paragraphs above is still in play. Republicans are ready and willing to use scorched earth means to achieve their end – domination of the judiciary by right-wing ideologues.

I’ll skip rules 2 and 3, which are clear enough, and comment on the 4th rule Nina Totenberg lists: the Judiciary Committee is holding hearings while the Senate is in recess:

“No other Senate committee has been holding hearings during the recess. But for judicial nominees, the Senate confirmation train keeps on running even though – and likely because – Senate Democrats are defending a near record number of seats in the election and have to be out on the hustings. Indeed, just two Republican senators – Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is retiring, and Mike Crapo of Idaho – showed up at yesterday’s hearing for two appeals court nominees, a hearing that lasted just 19 minutes and featured one controversial nominee talking for several minutes about his wife, parents, children, even his cat.”

Note: there are 21 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When Totenberg asks Senator Hatch (who did not hold hearings during Senate recesses when he chaired the committee) why he was doing so now, he responded: “Well, I don’t know why. All I can say is that, you know, we have to move ahead. And if they’re not cooperating, you just go ahead and move ahead. And so far, we haven’t had a lot of cooperation.”

6. Voter suppression (the rule during the Jim Crow era, which stretched from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 into the 1960s), while it did not entirely disappear after passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, was supplanted by robust voting rights. This – the right to vote – was the norm in most of the country during the past half century. Many of us who watched Congress enact civil rights legislation in the 1960s, thought that this right – especially for black Americans in the South, but for everyone, no matter what color, creed, or ethnicity – was securely in place. We were wrong.

Republicans have waged furious battles in state after state to disenfranchise voters who are generally supportive of Democrats. Richard Hasen, an expert in campaign and election law, reports on ongoing legal conflicts:

There’s North Dakota, which changed its voter identification law after the razor-thin election of Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in 2012 to make it harder for Native American voters living on reservations and lacking a residential street address to be able to vote. There’s Georgia, where Secretary of State (and current gubernatorial candidate) Brian Kemp has been holding for administrative review up to 53,000 voter registration cards for failing to have an exact match (like a missing hyphen) between the official record of a person’s name and the name appearing on the registration card. And there’s Dodge City, Kansas, a Latino-majority city with only a single polling place for 27,000 people—a polling place that was recently moved out of town and a mile from public transportation for the 2018 midterm elections.”

In Georgia, county election officials have been eyeballing signatures on mail-in ballots. If an employee in the county clerk’s office decides that the ‘match’ isn’t near enough to the signature on a voting registration card, the ballots have been thrown out. A federal judge has ruled that this process for determining eligibility is flawed and that voters – who have cast their votes and returned their ballots – should have a chance to verify that the ballots are theirs.

Yes, it has come to this. If Republicans can’t win elections if everyone votes, they have no compunction about enacting laws that restrict the number of folks allowed to cast ballots. This stratagem, while perhaps no more cynical than the rejection of other governing norms, is especially offensive. Nothing is more central to democratic government and the principle of majority rule than the right to cast a ballot. I will return to this issue in future posts.

That is James Madison’s portrait at the top of this post.

 

The President of the United States creates a laugh riot at a rally by celebrating a physical attack on a reporter who asked a question

During a week when the world’s attention (“This one has caught the imagination of the world, unfortunately.”) is focused on the apparent murder, beheading, and dismemberment of a journalist by Saudi Arabia, the President of the United States (who has been bending over backwards to excuse the Saudis), is revving up a crowd of his supporters with a gleeful account of Congressman Greg Gianforte who (as a candidate) assaulted a reporter for asking questions.

https://twitter.com/BCAppelbaum/status/1053110947580203009?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1053096082069164032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

“And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.” — Brett Kavanaugh

“This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy.

Since my nomination in July, there’s been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation. Shortly after I was nominated, the Democratic Senate leader said he would, quote, “oppose me with everything he’s got.” A Democratic senator on this committee publicly — publicly referred to me as evil — evil. Think about that word. It’s said that those who supported me were, quote, “complicit in evil.” Another Democratic senator on this committee said, quote, “Judge Kavanaugh is your worst nightmare.” A former head of the Democratic National Committee said, quote, “Judge Kavanaugh will threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come.”

I understand the passions of the moment, but I would say to those senators, your words have meaning. Millions of Americans listen carefully to you. Given comments like those, is it any surprise that people have been willing to do anything to make any physical threat against my family, to send any violent e-mail to my wife, to make any kind of allegation against me and against my friends. To blow me up and take me down.

You sowed the wind for decades to come. I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind.

The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. But at least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at Borking.

Those efforts didn’t work. When I did at least OK enough at the hearings that it looked like I might actually get confirmed, a new tactic was needed.

Some of you were lying in wait and had it ready. This first allegation was held in secret for weeks by a Democratic member of this committee, and by staff. It would be needed only if you couldn’t take me out on the merits.

When it was needed, this allegation was unleashed and publicly deployed over Dr. Ford’s wishes. And then — and then as no doubt was expected — if not planned — came a long series of false last-minute smears designed to scare me and drive me out of the process before any hearing occurred.

Crazy stuff. Gangs, illegitimate children, fights on boats in Rhode Island. All nonsense, reported breathlessly and often uncritically by the media.

This has destroyed my family and my good name. A good name built up through decades of very hard work and public service at the highest levels of the American government.

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.

This is a circus. The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades. This grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions, from serving our country.

And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.”

Brett Kavanaugh, speaking before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.

Rancorous, aggrieved, conspiratorial. Brett Kavanaugh’s tribal embrace of Republican Party talking points and his manic rage toward Democrats, Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee, “the left,” “left-wing opposition groups,” and the Clintons couldn’t be clearer.

Until 2006, when he was placed on the appellate court by George W. Bush, Kavanaugh was a partisan political operative. His appointment was a reward for his loyal partisanship. Kavanaugh’s career highlights up to that point: “He worked for independent counsel Kenneth Starr and laid out the grounds in 1998 for impeaching President Bill Clinton; he acted on behalf of Bush in the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential race; he promoted conservative judicial nominees as Bush’s associate counsel; and as Bush’s staff secretary, he helped shape presidential policies.” Oh, and he was also “pro bono counsel in the Elián González affair.”

Clarence Thomas – who also faced credible charges of sexual misconduct at the time of his nomination and the only member of the majority in Bush v. Gore still on the court – and Samuel Alioto – who mouthed “Not true” during President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union – may harbor partisan grievances toward Democrats and almost certainly identify with the Republican Party as newly installed Justice Kavanaugh does. They may be, as is sometimes said of members of the court, ‘politicians in robes.’ But neither of them, nor any other SCOTUS nominee in our history, has directed such bitter acrimony towards the opposition political party at a confirmation hearing – or any other public setting.

In his written testimony, Kavanaugh crossed a line that has never before been crossed by a Justice of the Supreme Court. No list of Republican grievances – even stretching back more than three decades to the Senate’s rejection of Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987; no complaints about process, or timing, or the presumption of innocence; no excuses that critics have “destroyed” his family; no claims of a grand Democratic conspiracy; no appeals to Kavanaugh’s conduct on the appellate court; no nod to his judicial qualifications – no whataboutism of any kind can change the simple, evident fact that Kavanaugh’s words and deportment were unprecedented.

At a time of extraordinary political polarization, on the plain meaning of his words and straightforward observation of his demeanor, Kavanaugh harbors deep animosity toward the opposition political party. With his confirmation by the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, he brings illegitimacy to the nation’s highest court.

Count this as another institutional and governing norm that Republicans have deliberately trashed for (what is often short-term political advantage, but in this case is long-term – perhaps several generations’ long) political advantage.

Image is a screen grab from the C-SPAN video of Kavanaugh’s testimony.

Senate Judiciary Committee Kavanaugh hearing as job interview: Lindsey Graham seeks soon-to-be-vacant position of Attorney General

Well, actually I don’t know what happened to Senator Graham. He has transitioned abruptly from Trump critic to Trump sycophant since his buddy John McCain left Washington in deteriorating health before his passing last month in Arizona.

As CNN reported on August 24:

For those waiting for a profile in courage to emerge from Republicans in Congress after President Donald Trump was implicated by his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts, stop holding your breath. Sen. Lindsey Graham, formerly one of Trump’s harshest critics, just paved the way for the post-midterm election fate of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, telling reporters on Capitol Hill that Trump is “entitled to an attorney general he has faith in.”

The report noted: ‘As recently as last summer, Graham said there would be “holy hell to pay” if Trump fired Sessions.’

Whatever the motivation for the about-face, he put on a bravura performance at the Kavanaugh hearing yesterday. “White House officials such as Kellyanne Conway and press secretary Sarah Sanders praised Graham’s comments.”

Update: Now it’s clear what happened to the Senator: he was looking ahead to the 2020 Republican primary.