Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell

Republicans

McConnell’s management style: “He lets the cards play out until he plays his cards …”

Mitch McConnell hasn’t yet decided whether or not he will vote to convict Donald Trump at the Senate impeachment trial. He announced yesterday, “…while the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate.”

This is in keeping with McConnell’s approach to sticky political issues, as described in The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell, the Alec MacGillis book about the senator, which portrays McConnell as a highly skilled negotiator, who often swoops in after lying low as controversies rage and other political actors skirmish.

MacGillis — describing one of the shutdown episodes generated by “archconservatives” aka “self-aggrandizing extremists” in the Republican caucus — quotes former Senator Judd Greg (a McConnell ally) on the Kentucky senator’s approach in that crisis and in other controversies:

“It’s Mitch’s management style–he lets the cards play out until he plays his cards and then he wins.”

The Republican Party, after Trump’s failed insurrection and the two Georgia defeats, is at war with itself. Lots of stuff is going to happen between now and January 20 — and in the following weeks.

McConnell will decide on another day how to vote on impeachment. The stakes are high and McConnell doesn’t always win.

So, the wily senator is watching and waiting as the cards play out. He hopes to have a better read of the hand he holds in a few weeks than he does today.

Or — maybe not. Perhaps McConnell knows how he’ll vote, but he’s psyching out other players at the table. Or misdirecting the media as they offer a play by play. Or grasping for some advantage that may or may not become clear to us for a while.

This much is clear: It is not likely that “the legal arguments” will sway Mitch McConnell nearly as much as political calculations.

Bet on it.

(Poker face? Image from CNBC.)

Short & Sweet ... Short & Sour

Four quick takes on Republicans

● Seven Republican House members released a joint statement explaining why they would not oppose counting the electoral votes as presented to Congress by any of the states. Among the most significant reasons they offered, as Jim Newell noted (“Trump is Breaking Congressional Republicans on His Way Out”), is one that will “give Republicans a chance to keep winning presidential elections against the wishes of a majority of the country’s voters“:

From a purely partisan perspective, Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32 years. They have therefore depended on the electoral college for nearly all presidential victories in the last generation. If we perpetuate the notion that Congress may disregard certified electoral votes—based solely on its own assessment that one or more states mishandled the presidential election—we will be delegitimizing the very system that led Donald Trump to victory in 2016, and that could provide the only path to victory in 2024.

● Kevin Drum on the role of Fox News Channel: “As long as Fox News exists in its current form, American politics is going to be broken. But what’s the answer to that?“

I agree and I have no answer.

● “There’s been no serious talk of a challenge to his leadership position, and the legislative filibuster will grant McConnell plenty of clout even if Republicans lose both Senate races in Georgia and, with them, their majority. (Democrats are unlikely to be able to gut the filibuster with so narrow an advantage.) But either way, he’ll have to manage a conference divided between Republicans inclined to work with Biden on bipartisan deals (such as Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah) and a dozen or more conservatives who won’t even acknowledge the Democrat’s legitimacy as president.” — Russell Berman, “Mitch McConnell’s Slipping Grip on the Republican Party”

Yes, but while Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are perhaps the most plausible candidates who might be cast as “Republicans inclined to work with Biden on bipartisan deals” — if Mitch McConnell remains majority leader after Tuesday, it will be surprising to see much meaningful bipartisan cooperation. Max Baucus, for all his efforts, couldn’t find one or two Republicans to cast a vote for the ACA. And if significant Biden initiatives gain support across the aisle, it will likely extend more deeply into the Republican caucus than these three senators.

● From The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell by Alec MacGillis (which I’ve just finished), pp. 74-75:

Even as his position on spending limits or PACs or soft money shifted, McConnell had spoken in favor of public disclosure of political giving and spending. It had become his ultimate mantra: stop trying to limit the inevitable flow of money into campaigns, but just make sure it’s all out in the open. “Disclosure is the best disinfectant, and I think the maximum amount of disclosure is exactly what we need,” he said on a Sunday morning show in 1996. …

Even that last plank fell away. In 2010 Senate Democrats introduced the Disclose Act, legislation that would have forced outside  groups spending more than $10,000  on campaign-related expenditures to disclose contributors who had donated more than $10,000. It was, say Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, the “last best hope for doing anything to ameliorate Citizens United.” McConnell held together his caucus—even John McCain—for a successful filibuster of the bill. McConnell explained his reversal on disclosure by arguing that the bill favored unions and that the increasingly toxic political atmosphere put a new premium on protecting the privacy of major donors against what he called “liberal thugs.” . . . 

As with his previous shifts, though, this maneuver could also be explained by changing circumstances in the partisan landscape.

Perhaps the most prominent recurring theme in the book is summed up in that last sentence. McConnell ingratiated himself among Republican senators by taking on McCain, Feingold, and other reformers on campaign finance reform. He found principled reasons — in the First Amendment — for his views. But the wily Kentuckian shifted his specific positions time and again (in response to specific legislative proposals or Supreme Court decisions), always embracing some principle or another for for doing so — but invariably his newfound position offered a political advantage for Republicans.

In 1997, when McConnell shifted from favoring a soft money ban (when he was convinced that soft money benefited Democrats) to opposing the ban (when Republicans had gained the advantage), he is reported to have told his colleagues: “If we stop this thing, we can control the institution for the next twenty years.” (p. 66)

(Photo: CNBC.)

Democracy

COVID-19, the economic consequences, and the role of the federal government

Nurses and doctors across the country are exhausted by the ordeal they are confronting day after day.

“We are physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted,” Dr. Kate Grossman, a pulmonary and critical care physician in Columbia, Missouri, wrote in a message shared on Twitter.

“I have seen so many emergent intubations. I’ve seen people more sick than I’ve ever seen in my life,” Lacie Gooch, an intensive care unit nurse at Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, said in a video that Nebraska Medicine shared on Twitter this week.

And they are exasperated that people in their communities refuse to take the simple steps to prevent the airborne virus from continuing to spread.

“We’re tired. We’re understaffed. We’re taking care of very, very sick patients and our patient load just keeps going up. We’re exhausted and frustrated that people aren’t listening to us,” said Gooch, who said she has patients who don’t believe in COVID-19 even as they are hospitalized for it. “It kind of blows my mind and it’s frustrating.”

Medical care providers are risking their lives to help others and doing so at a time, nearly eight months into the pandemic, when PPE shortages persist.

NPR reported on this exchange today with NRP’s Will Stone and two nurses, Rachel Heintz of Bismark, North Dakota and Mary Turner of St. Paul, Minnesota:

HEINTZ: There are times when you feel like, I should be in four different places at once. People’s lives are hanging on, and I can’t even check if their oxygen level is OK or check if their airway is OK. Like, just the basic make sure that they’re still alive.

STONE: Not everywhere is quite as bad as North Dakota, but many places are starting to look that way. More than a thousand hospitals are critically short on staff, and the fears among health care workers are familiar – not enough people and not enough personal protective equipment.

HEINTZ: We are still worrying N95s for the entirety of our shift, whether that’s 12 hours – or the other day, I worked a 16-hour shift.

STONE: Before the pandemic, that would be unheard of. These N95 masks shield against tiny airborne droplets. And they’re only supposed to be used once. But now Heintz considers herself somewhat lucky. She even gets one per shift. Mary Turner, who works in a COVID ICU, is president of the Minnesota Nurses Association.

MARY TURNER: I have nurses in Minnesota that still wear their masks eight to 10 shifts.

Amanda Mull decries the illogic in the rules governors, mayors, and other authorities have put into place to contain the virus. That — plus the lack of a national plan and misinformation from the federal government — has confused the public, including Mull’s friend Josh, who had been dining indoors in restaurants.

Josh was irritated . . . If indoor dining couldn’t be made safe, he wondered, why were people being encouraged to do it? Why were temperature checks being required if they actually weren’t useful? Why make rules that don’t keep people safe?

Across America, this type of honest confusion abounds. While a misinformation-gorged segment of the population rejects the expert consensus on virus safety outright, so many other people, like Josh, are trying to do everything right, but run afoul of science without realizing it. Often, safety protocols, of all things, are what’s misleading them. In the country’s new devastating wave of infections, a perilous gap exists between the realities of transmission and the rules implemented to prevent it.

The problem isn’t, as Mull puts it, that leaders are moved to placate “centers of power” in their communities, it’s that the effects of closures reach far beyond the powerful: devastating businesses and putting employees out of work. State and city leaders are attempting a delicate balancing act — and failing.

It isn’t safe to dine indoors with folks who aren’t part of your household. And after many months it has become clear that safely opening schools, while keeping bars open isn’t likely to be a successful approach. Drinking, talking, laughing, and flirting in crowded indoor settings are inconsistent with reducing the infection rate, which makes for safer schools and families.

And in failing to keep us safe, our political leadership has also failed to sustain the economy. Many professionals, especially men (whose wives devote a disproportionate amount of time to tending to children) have thrived during the pandemic (often while shedding commuting time). Less advantaged workers, often people of color, have fared far less well.

Last week, Jerome Powell urged Congress (which hasn’t passed a comprehensive coronavirus bill since March) to step in.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday made a fresh appeal to Congress to pass another coronavirus relief package to help troubled businesses and out-of-work Americans.

In a talk to a business group in San Francisco, Powell said Congress’ tax and spending powers can directly target income support for groups that really need it, in a way that the central bank cannot.

“There hasn’t been a bigger need for it in a long time,” Powell said.

Getting us through this should be job number one for the White House and Congress. This is why we have a federal government. The failure of the Trump administration to do this, or even to try, is a huge reason we’re in the midst of a transition now.

The President, watching TV, tweeting, golfing, and whining that his loss was due to (imagined) fraud, hasn’t shown a scintilla of interest in curbing the virus. Or in assisting working Americans who have struggled financially. What about Congress? Which means, what about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell?

Joy Reid noted the severe impact of COVID-19 on families in Kentucky (with one-third of Kentuckians struggling to pay for food, heat, or rent, and experiencing 162,838 cases of the virus) and reviewed federal assistance programs expiring by year’s end, noting that the Senator McConnell has sent the Senate home on vacation. She suggests that the Majority Leader is indifferent to this suffering. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy responded:

Let me just underscore that level of desperation. I literally just came from Hamden, Connecticut from a food distribution event for the holiday weekend. And the organizers were panicking a little bit, because they had enough food for 300 people and they had what looked like about 300 cars lined up prior to the beginning of the event. And they were scrambling to figure out what they were going to say to all of these families who were now faced with perhaps going hungry over the holiday weekend.

People are at the end of their rope. And, you’re right, Mitch McConnell is refusing to do anything.

What we need for Mitch McConnell to do is just enter the negotiating room. He has refused to negotiate with anybody. With Nancy Pelosi, with Chuck Schumer. Again, because he is afraid of splitting his caucus. Right now about half of the Republicans want to do nothing. They think that this should just be all up to the states or that Joe Biden should be saddled with the entirety of the problem.

And so Mitch McConnell is sort of putting the unity of his caucus ahead of the survival of the nation, because there are 20 Republicans that would vote with 47 Democrats in order to pass a pretty substantial coronavirus relief bill. But he doesn’t want to split up the Republicans, again, heading into Georgia, heading into the new Congress.

You know, that’s kind of par for the course for Mitch McConnell, unfortunately.

Let’s stipulate: it’s not unheard of, or even objectionable, for the party leader of his caucus to have an eye on the next election. So long as s/he has one eye out for the American public.

With McConnell the next election is an interest that invariably overrides the national interest or the welfare of Americans. For eight months (since passage of the CARES Act) McConnell had his eyes on the November 3 election. Now he has his eyes on the January 5 election in Georgia. And after that?

Recall McConnell’s affirmation during the first term of the most recent Democratic president: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

On January 6, whether or not Republicans prevail in Georgia, the single most important thing McConnell will want to achieve will be to limit the Democrats to one term in the White House.

There have been questions about whether Joe Biden, who has reached out to the other side, seeking to unify the country, can coax the Kentuckian’s cooperation in defeating the coronavirus and putting the economy back on track. At this stage, McConnell hasn’t even acknowledged Biden as the president-elect.

Mike DeBonis puts the issue this way: “McConnell’s ongoing silence, even as the Trump administration moves to allow Biden to start his transition, leaves a question mark over what could be the most important Washington relationship of the next two years – between an incoming president who promised to tackle the nation’s most pressing concerns and the win-at-all-costs Capitol Hill operator who may well serve as his legislative gatekeeper.”

I’ll grant this reported assessment of McConnell as likely: “…GOP aides say he is unlikely to orchestrate a complete blockade.” Not a complete blockade.

That’s a very low bar.

I suggest keeping our expectations for bipartisan cooperation very low. I’m pretty sure we can count on Mitch McConnell’s eyes to be focused on November 8, 2022, no matter how many Americans die or struggle financially throughout 2021 and 2022 — while he aims to duck accountability for whatever bad stuff happens.

(Image: Nebraska Medicine Twitter via GMA/ABC News.)

2020 General Election, Democracy, Republicans

The happiest man in America today may be Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Assuming (at 11:00 a.m. PT) that when the votes are all counted Joe Biden is elected president and the Republican Senate majority is secure, what could be a better outcome for the senior senator from Kentucky?

The erratic, irrational, self-destructive leader of his party is about to be sidelined and there will be a clear, unambiguous villain in the White House. Republicans, and Fox News Channel, can give voice to lies and slander that will be more strategically calculated than the prodigious liar in the White House ever managed. And it’ll be easier for Republicans to keep the racial antagonism and xenophobia at a lower pitch than Trump has done. This won’t be a setback for any essential Republican policy objectives or campaign strategies.

McConnell, who has no interest in legislating, can go back to what he does best: obstruction. There will be no hurry to approve any Biden executive branch appointments. And, since the courts are packed full, perhaps we can have a pause for a couple of years.

Meanwhile, Republicans can let go of foreign policies that undermine our allies and give succor to Putin and other bad actors who wish ill of the U.S. Biden can be counted on to restore some normalcy to American foreign policy, which most Republicans — no matter what the lies and the party-line — will welcome, though not acknowledge. There will still be relentless attacks and investigations.

On Sunday I wrote, “Mitch McConnell (and the GOP caucuses in both the Senate and the House) often strategically opt for dysfunction, gridlock, and paralysis rather than cutting a deal, if they think they can shun accountability and win the next election — or the cycle or two after that.” His gamble paid off. The Senate ignored the pandemic and the economic crisis and McConnell didn’t even lose a cycle. And, if all goes well, Senate Republicans may be better positioned in the next off-year elections to increase their majority (which would be unlikely if Trump were in his second term).

This is not the country I thought (before November 2016) I was living in. Nor the one I thought (after November 2018) I was living in.

With November 2020 comes another reality check — and a discordant clash with nearly half the country. Even with a pandemic — with more than 200,000 dead and, by year’s end, perhaps 200,000 more — the Republican base voted heavily to return Trump to office along with red state senators. Fox News Channel, negative polarization, and fiercely partisan identities have profoundly shaped the reality that the Republican base perceives.

Yep. Mitch McConnell is sitting pretty.

(Image: Mitch McConnell 2016 official photo via wikipedia.)

2020 General Election, Democracy, Donald Trump

Plan B surfaces in Philadelphia for a free and fair election — and no red mirage — in 2020

Last month, election expert Richard Hasen assured us that “there is still time to keep the presidential election fair.” Of course time is not the limiting factor. Noting Donald Trump’s attacks on the integrity of voting and unsupported GOP claims of voting fraud, including a “particularly ludicrous” scenario that Bill Barr has raised repeatedly, Hasen offers several steps to ensure a free and fair election.

For Congress: offer funding for the states to cover the additional costs of running an election during a raging pandemic. “This should not be a partisan issue,” he writes, though of course it is. Congress could also provide oversight of the Postmaster General to ensure that no measures impair mail delivery prior to the election. But if Mitch McConnell is opposed, Congress will be stymied.

For the states:  implement procedural reforms to ensure a timely and transparent process. Again, a sticking point will be among Republicans in key states in position to block any procedural changes. Nonetheless, Democrats are in charge in some states, while in others, Republican officials are on board with free and fair elections.

For voters: request mail-in ballots soon and vote early.

For the media: educate the public that counting all ballots will take many days, that this is not evidence of fraud, and that no candidate can credibly declare victory before enough votes have been counted to determine a winner.

The media has begun to communicate this message. That’s good news and so are steps that several states have begun to take to streamline the process of voting and tabulating votes.

The bad news is that Congressional funding (and effective oversight of the post office) aren’t on the horizon. And, in some states, there will be few checks on Republicans who are willing to engage in mischief.

In a previous post, I suggested that the fiasco in Florida in 2000 could well be a less ugly version of election larceny headed our way in 2020. Thus, Democrats’ Plan A for voting — encouraging voters to vote by mail — was too vulnerable to the possibility of Republicans stealing another election.

Pennsylvania is a key battleground with a history of voting breakdowns, as Politico reports:

With concerns about an Election Day debacle rising in this critical swing state, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf privately convened a group of Philadelphia Democrats recently to underscore the consequences of another vote-counting fiasco like the one that took place in the June primary.

The city took more than two weeks to count all of its votes due to a massive surge in mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic — and a repeat performance might make it unclear who won the presidential election in the key battleground state long past Nov. 3.

The fear: if an Electoral College victory hinges on Pennsylvania, and there are hundreds of thousands of ballots yet to be counted, Donald Trump could cry fraud and claim victory. We’ve seen this coming for months. Trump has sought to delegitimize vote by mail, making it more likely that his supporters will vote in person on election day, while Democrats — taking heed of the raging coronavirus — have urged their voters to cast ballots by mail. This raises the possibility that Trump could be ahead in the count in the early morning hours of November 4, while Biden’s winning votes have yet to be totaled. That’s the red mirage [see definition at Chidi’s Corner], which we could see in a number of states across the country.

Even if Trump is behind, he and Fox News Channel will be free to raise a ruckus if votes are being tallied many days later. And of course even if Biden wins and takes office, the outrage and chaos manufactured by Trump and company could be a Trumpian GOP theme throughout the Democratic president’s tenure in the White House.

Hasen has endorsed legislative changes to streamline voting and counting votes. And called on Congress to help fund such efforts. Republicans, who control the Pennsylvania General Assembly, have resisted Democratic Governor Tom Wolf’s proposals to do so. Nor has Congress acted.

Fortunately, a first step of Plan B — free of Republican obstruction — has surfaced in Philadelphia. The nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life has awarded the city a $10 million grant

to help fund upgraded equipment, satellite offices, personal protective equipment and other materials. Wolf has also raised more than $5 million to help municipalities implement mail-in voting and educate voters about their options, said Jeff Sheridan, his political adviser.

City election officials said the additional money puts them in a vastly better position than they were in June. They expect to open at least 800 polling places in Philadelphia in November, compared to fewer than 200 during the primary. Most of the $10 million in nonprofit funding is going toward costly equipment that will enable them to print, sort and scan ballots more quickly, according to the city’s grant agreement.

That’s good news. Here’s hoping funding for free and fair elections surfaces in other states across the country.

(Image from Center for Tech and Civic Life award letter.)

The Way the World Goes 'Round

Round and round: The president, the governor, voting rights, and the Grim Reaper

1.  Speech acts

In 1974, John Searle made an observation in a classroom about this sentence: ‘This room would look good in blue.’ He noted that the import of the sentence could differ from speaker to speaker. So, for instance, the words constituted a simple declarative sentence when spoken by a casual observer to a friend, while the same sentence could function as an imperative – Paint it blue – if spoken by the homeowner to a contractor.

I was reminded of this lecture when reading Bonnie Honig’s comments about an exchange on Fox News (which I quoted yesterday):

Jesse Watters: The President’s spitballing and he’s asking questions. ‘Would it be possible to maybe target the virus through a cure using certain ingredients and using sunlight?‘ You didn’t believe the President was putting anyone in danger, did you?

Dr. Deborah Birx: No. He gets new information. He likes to talk that through out loud. And really have that dialogue. And so that’s what dialogue he was having. I think he just saw the information at the time, immediately before the press conference. And he was still digesting that information.

It was easy enough to take the good doctor’s suggestion – that Trump was just digesting the information when he commented on bleach and light – at face value. But, Honig illustrates why this is wrong.

Trump isn’t just riffing aloud. He is demanding public praise for his intelligence from a distinguished authority whose job depends on Trump’s goodwill. Honig (“Spitballing in a pandemic”) [emphasis added]:

Dr. Birx … tried to explain it all away on Fox News, and what she said rings true: “When he gets new information he likes to talk that through out loud and really have that dialogue and so that’s what dialogue he’s having.” The issue, she implies, is not the musing: that is his process. The issue is that it happened in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But Trump knew that. He mused publicly because he hoped to give us all a peek behind the scenes. He has ideas and his people take them seriously! See? And who knows? He himself might come up with the cure! 

. . .

What we saw on Thursday in the briefing room is what is going on behind the scenes: his advisors indulge Trump’s bright ideas and take them seriously. “I just had a thought. Look into it.” He did not say it like it was an order. On Thursday, his tone was inveigling, whispery. He was impersonating what he imagines it looks like to have an idea. Buttressed by power and smothered in noblesse oblige, however, his “thought” was really a command: act like it’s a good idea. — Yessir, we will.

2.  That’s bracing

In California, declaration of an emergency results in an extraordinarily broad expansion of a governor’s power, in this case, Gavin Newsom’s:

States are afforded broad authority under constitutional law, which grants them “police power” to improve the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the population. Under California’s Emergency Services Act, the governor’s powers are virtually unlimited — he can suspend any law or regulation during a state of emergency.

3. Voting rights

On April 12, I referenced election expert Richard Hasen’s fear that Republican-controlled state legislatures, in purple states (or red ones that could flip to Biden), could cancel the November 3 election and allocate the state’s electoral votes to Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court noted in Bush v. Gore that state legislatures possess this authority under the Constitution.

Last week, in a review of Joe Biden’s warning that Trump could try to cancel the election, Ed Kilgore noted that in fact the Florida legislature – in 2000 (when Bush v. Gore was before SCOTUS) – filed a brief asserting the authority to throw out the election results and direct all of the state’s electoral votes to Bush. The five Republican men who comprised the Court’s 5-4 majority in the case rendered this move unnecessary to give the election to George W. Bush.

In the aftermath of the Court’s unsigned 5-4 ruling overturning a lower court’s extension of time to count ballots in Wisconsin’s recent election in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Nina Totenberg commented that “in a voting case, Chief Justice Roberts assuredly would have played a pivotal role.” Roberts has been deeply involved in voting rights cases dating to 1982, when as a staffer to Ronald Reagan, he worked (unsuccessfully) to narrow the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Later, as Chief Justice, he succeeded in gutting provisions of the law. Regarding the Wisconsin case, she observed:

So, it was no surprise when the conservative majority refused to make even a modest accommodation to the pandemic. What was surprising was the tone of the opinion. Critics of the opinion, including some Roberts defenders, called the language “callous,” “cynical” and “unfortunate.”

4. The Grim Reaper aka the Majority Leader of the United States Senate

Mitch McConnell was on conservative talk radio last week. He made news by suggesting that he thought, rather than provide funding for states facing unprecedented financial burdens fighting the coronavirus, that he would prefer to see the states declare bankruptcy.

I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route. It saves some cities. And there’s no good reason for it not to be available. My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don’t have to do that. That’s not something I’m going to be in favor of.

And:

“I said yesterday we’re going to push the pause button here, because I think this whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments needs to be thoroughly evaluated. You raised yourself the important issue of what states have done, many of them have done to themselves with their pension programs. There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations.” 

In a press release, McConnell highlighted his comments about state bankruptcy with the heading, “On Stopping Blue State Bailouts.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo responded:

Let me go back to my self-proclaimed Grim Reaper, Senator McConnell for another second. He represents the State of Kentucky, okay? When it comes to fairness, New York State puts much more money into the federal pot than it takes out, okay. At the end of the year, we put in $116 billion more than we take out, okay? His state, the State of Kentucky, takes out 148 billion more than they put in, okay.

… Senator McConnell, who is getting bailed out here? It’s your state that is living on the money that we generate. Your state is getting bailed out, not my state.

Cuomo also took McConnell to task for the rawest kind of partisanship.

Don’t help New York State because it is a Democratic state. How ugly a thought. I mean just think of – just think of what he’s saying. People died: 15,000 people died in New York. But they were predominantly Democrats, so why should we help them? I mean, for crying out loud, if there was ever a time for you to put aside, for you to put aside your pettiness and your partisanship and this political lens that you see the world through — Democrat or Republican, and we help Republicans but we don’t help Democrats — that’s not who we are. That’s just now who we are as a people. I mean, if there’s ever a time for humanity and decency, now is the time.

As I have observed repeatedly in this blog, Mitch McConnell’s M.O. is to exacerbate partisanship at every opportunity. Humanity? Decency? Not among McConnell’s priorities.

I learned from David Frum that Republican proposals to encourage state bankruptcies date back more than a decade. The idea, which Frum sketches, is this: rich blue states impose higher taxes, and spend more on social programs (including, incidentally, generous public employee pensions), than Republicans like. Yet many wealthy Republicans – the GOP donor class – live in blue states. Moreover, Mitch McConnell’s biggest donors are not from Kentucky: they too live, work, and pay taxes in blue states. If Congress (when Republicans are in charge), and the federal courts (which are being stacked with right wing ideologues), could impose a bankruptcy process on the blue states, then those rich Republicans living in California, New York, and other wealth-generating states where Democrats reliably get elected, could see their taxes go down.

And if that meant that public employee pensions could be gutted, then Republicans would be smiting the most well-organized Democratic constituency – public employee unions – in the country.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s comments (characterizing McConnell’s suggestion as “one of the saddest, really dumb ideas of all time”), asserted that state bankruptcies would wreak havoc on markets worldwide, wrecking the economy. Actually not (as Frum explains): Republican proposals to permit state bankruptcies would ensure that big money interests get paid; it’s the labor unions that would lose. And Democrats.

Frum observes:

A federal bankruptcy process for state finances could thus enable wealthy individuals and interest groups in rich states to leverage their clout in the anti-majoritarian federal system to reverse political defeats in the more majoritarian political systems of big, rich states like California, New York, and Illinois.

In other words, in a country where more than half the population only elects 18 of 100 Senators; where the Electoral College reflects this disparity; and where boundaries for Congressional Districts (because of demographics related to cities and state of the art gerrymandering) make Democratic votes less potent than Republican votes, Democratic majorities may still rule within the states. But If Republicans in Washington could change federal law (and shape federal court rulings) as proposed, then a national minority could crush majorities within the big blue states. California, New York, Illinois, and others would cease to enjoy majority rule.

Yet another Republican plan for extinguishing responsive democratic government. Here’s hoping Mitch McConnell is deposed as Majority Leader after November 3.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Donald Trump & his Republican Party have failed to protect the country

The Executive Branch of the government of the United States is uniquely empowered to plan, implement, and coordinate measures to ensure the nation’s public health. The Trump administration has failed miserably to do so.

I agree with Senator Tom Cotton (circa February 28), “The single most consequential and valuable thing done to stop this virus from already spreading throughout the United States was when President Trump decided to shut down travel to China last month.”

Unfortunately, that action— taken January 31 — was hardly sufficient to keep the virus from spreading throughout the country. It would be bad enough if all Trump did in the intervening weeks (until his abrupt shift on March 16) was sit on his hands. Instead, for weeks in his every public utterance, he lied about the state of affairs in the country and diminished the increasing threat.

“We have it totally under control. One person from China and it’s going to be just fine.” (January 22) “We pretty much shut it down — coming in from China.” (February 2)

“You know, in April supposedly it dies with the hotter weather.” (February 10) “When it gets warm, historically, it’s been able to kill the virus.” (February 14)

“People are getting better. They’re all getting better.” (February 25)

“And the 15 — within a couple of days, it’s going to be down close to zero.” (February 26) “It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle: it will disappear.” (February 27) “And you’ll be fine.” (February 28)

“They’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon.” (March 2) “Not only the vaccines, but also the therapies. Therapies are sort of another word for cure.” (March 3)

“We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.” (March 4) “Our numbers are lower than just about anybody’s.” (March 6)

“It’s really working out. And lotta good things are gonna happen.” (March 10)

“And we are responding with great speed and professionalism.” (March 11)

“It’s gonna go away.” (March 12)

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.” (March 13)

“They’ll all be great. We’re going to be so good.” (March 15)

“This came up — it came up so suddenly.” (March 16)

And Fox News Channel, the loudest, most influential voice of the Republican Party (next to Trump himself), reinforced the President’s message every step of the way:

News reports of the coronavirus, in the view of Fox News’ personalities week after week, was a hoax manufactured by Democrats to attack the President, an illness no more worrisome than the flu, an overblown brouhaha of scant significance. Dismiss, distract, diminish, disparage. Unfortunately, there is much evidence that the President of the United States often takes his cues from his favorite TV network.

This charade has been incredibly effective at convincing the Republican base. The rest of us, not so much. A recent Axios/Survey Monkey poll, which asked whom Americans trusted to protect them from the coronavirus, found high confidence in prominent health agencies:

Centers for Disease Control — 75%; National Institutes for Health — 68%; their state’s health department — 68%; their local office of emergency management — 67%; and the World Health Organization — 60%.

Trust in President Trump registered at 84% among Republicans, but only 20% among independents, 9% among Democrats, and 42% overall.

The President changed his tune (and his tone) on March 16, as he acknowledged for the first time the severity of the health crisis and issued strict new guidelines for Americans to avoid infection, though when asked, “Was there a change in tone?”, he dissembled:

“I didn’t feel different. I’ve always known that this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. I think it’s not in 120 countries all over the world. No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious. It was no different yesterday than days before.”

Much too late, facing an imminent disaster, the White House has advanced beyond denials and wishful thinking.

This awakening might have happened more quickly if Congressional Republicans had pushed back against the nonsense coming from their leader. Instead, they spread nonsense of their own (Devin Nunes); or whispered their concerns to VIPs, while reassuring the public and selling stocks ahead of the market disaster (Richard Burr); and then, when the consequences started raining down, tried to slink away to let others clean up the mess (Mitch McConnell). They unleashed the President when they (with the lone exception of Mitt Romney) acquitted him in the Senate — still focused on the next election cycle.

No one in the Republican Party wants to buck the President. They’ve allowed partisanship, tax cuts for their richest donors, and federal court appointments to trump the security of the nation. For more than three years, that reckless bet has paid off handsomely.

As we head toward November 2020, it may pay off once again. But the steep cost to the nation — to our health and economic well-being — of Trump’s misrule is harder to hide now, no matter what diversions the President, Congressional Republicans, and Fox News Channel cook up.

(Image from Los Angeles Times website on March 18, 2020.)

Democracy, Republicans, Tribalism

Never forget why Mitch McConnell decries partisanship, polarization and factionalism

The Senate Majority Leader, responding to impeachment this morning, decried partisanship, polarization, and (appropriating language from the Federalist Papers) factionalism:

If the Senate blesses this, if the nation accepts this, presidential impeachments may cease being a once in a generation event and become a constant part, a constant  part of the political background noise. This extraordinary tool of last resort may become just another part of the arms race of polarization.

Real statesmen would have recognized, no matter what their view of this president, that trying to remove him on this thin and partisan basis could unsettle the foundations of our republic. Real statesmen would have recognized, no matter how much partisan animosity might be coursing through their veins, that cheapening the impeachment process was not the answer.

Historians will regard this as a great irony of our era: that so many who profess such concern for our norms and traditions themselves proved willing to trample our constitutional order to get their way.

. . .

It is clear what this moment requires. It requires the Senate to fulfill our founding purpose. The framers built the Senate to provide stability. To take the long view of our republic. To safeguard institutions from the momentary hysteria that sometimes consumes our politics. To keep partisan passions from literally boiling over. The Senate exists for moments like this.

That’s why this body has the ultimate say in impeachment. The framers knew the House would be too vulnerable to transient passions and violent factionalism. They needed a body that would consider legal questions about what has been proven and political questions about what the common good of our nation require.

Hamilton said explicitly in Federalist 55 that impeachment involves not just legal questions but inherently political judgments about what outcome best serves the nation. The House can’t do both. The courts can’t do both. This is as grave an assignment as the Constitution gives to any branch of government. And the framers knew only the Senate could handle it.

Well, the moment the framers feared, has arrived. A political faction in the lower chamber have succumbed to partisan rage. A political faction in the House of Representatives has succumbed to a partisan rage. They have fulfilled Hamilton’s philosophy that impeachment will, quote “connect itself with the pre-existing factions … enlist all their animosities … and … there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by a comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstration of innocence or guilt.” Alexander Hamilton.

The key element in McConnell’s communication strategy is to increase and intensify partisanship, polarization, and factionalism.

This is a principle, masterfully executed, from McConnell’s well-worn playbook. He understands that bipartisanship benefits Democrats and disadvantages Republicans. He knows that dysfunction and lack of trust in government benefits Republicans. He is well-versed at creating at once narratives for both Fox News (and company) and the mainstream press. FNC will trumpet his words as self-evident truths, while the mainstream story will be more squabbling between the parties.

This principle – which seeks to divide the country ever more firmly into warring camps – underscores everything McConnell does and says when he laments the state of our politics.

Democracy, Donald Trump

Congressional leaders differ on Constitutional responsibility and the conduct of the President

“I think this President is a coward when it comes to helping kids who are afraid of gun violence. I think he is cruel when he doesn’t deal with helping our Dreamers, of which we are very proud. I think he is in denial about the climate crisis. However, that’s about the election. This is about the election. Take it up in the election.

This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the President’s violation of his oath of office. And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love and always pray for the President. And I still pray for the President. I pray for the President all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.” – Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

“We’ll listen to the opening arguments by the House prosecutors. We’ll listen to the President’s lawyers’ response. And then we’ll have to make a decision about the way forward. And everything I do during this I’m coordinating with White House counsel. There will be no difference between the President’s position and our position as to how to handle this – to the extent that we can. We don’t have the kind of ball control on this that a typical issue, for example, comes over from the House, if I don’t like it, we don’t take it up.

We have no choice but to take it up, but we’ll be working through this process, hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with the White House counsel’s office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate.” – Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader

Democracy, Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans

As Trump amps up abuses of power, most Republican Senators shelter in place

October 7, 2019 update: Cable news anchors can’t get Repubicans to come on the air to defend Trump.

Michael Calderone of Politico on Twitter.

But when the NBA makes the wrong geopolitical call, watch out.

“The idea of China interfering in the sanctity of the NBA is somehow incredibly offensive to them, whereas the same standard for American elections results in the sound of crickets.” — Jake Tapper in an interview with Politico

Original post:

“This president doesn’t appear to know or care much about the Constitution, especially the limits it puts on his power.

. . .

Trump took an oath to defend the Constitution. Instead, he’s attacking it — by inflating and abusing his powers, ignoring laws he swore to protect and demanding unconstitutional reprisals against anyone who opposes him.” — Doyle McManus, in Sunday morning’s Los Angeles Times

The headline and sub head in Sunday’s print edition conveys the gist of the column — “A constitutional blind eye: Trump neither knows nor respects how our basic law limits his power” — which contrasts the President’s view of his power under Article II with the view of the founders.

McManus doesn’t mention checks and balances — which are referenced throughout the Federalist Papers (including Madison’s No. 51, “The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments“). It turns out that among the most important checks on a president is the Congress, established in Article I of the Constitution.

An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. (Madison, Federalist No. 48.)

As Trump approaches 1,000 days in office (on October 17, 10 days from now), a recurring question has been, When will Congress step up and check the President? An Iowan put the question to Senator Joni Ernst last weekend:

“Where is the line? When are you guys going to say, ‘Enough,’ and stand up and say, ‘You know what? I’m not backing any of this.’ ”

That’s a question for every Republican in the U.S. Senate, almost all of whom — while Mitch McConnell campaigns on a promise not to hold Trump accountable — have responded (as Mara Liasson reported) by “sheltering in place.”

Charlie Cook (who also used the expression, shelter in place) had an answer in July:

“Those who can’t understand why elected Republicans and party officials don’t stand up to Trump seem to miss a point. The survival instinct in humans is a powerful one. In anticipating human behavior, it should always be kept in mind. The track record of what happened to those who did is pretty clear. They lost primaries or chose retirement. Instead, for many pre-tea-party Republicans, the strategy has been to shelter in place. The thinking goes that there is nothing that can be done to stop Hurricane Donald. The key is to survive the storm and be in a position to put the pieces back together and rebuild the party after it has passed. They know that the final edition of Profiles in Courage has already gone to the printer.

Cook references pre-tea-party Republicans, those who (mostly in silence) still embrace conservative principles (who hope to put the pieces back together and rebuild the party post-Trump). That’s not everyone in the Senate, of course:

Ron Johnson exasperated Chuck Todd with his conspiracy-propaganda defense that has found support only in the conservative media bubble and Trump’s tweets. (“Senator Johnson–Senator Johnson, please! Can we please answer the question I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you are not criticizing him?!”)

And of course Lindsey Graham is determined not to be outdone on any given day by anyone else in the caucus. “If the whistleblower’s allegations are turned into an impeachment article, it’s imperative that the whistleblower be interviewed in public, under oath and cross-examined.”

Most Senate Republicans, however, are in a bunker, because when allies back up Trump, he often pulls the rug out from under them. As Robert Costa and Philip Rucker report, “…few Republican lawmakers have been willing to fully parrot White House talking points because they believe they lack credibility or fret they could be contradicted by new discoveries.”

“Everyone is getting a little shaky at this point,” said Brendan Buck, who was counselor to former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). “Members have gotten out on a limb with this president many times only to have it be cut off by the president. They know he’s erratic, and this is a completely unsteady and developing situation.”

The few who might harbor thoughts of opposing Trump are even less likely to speak out. As former Senator Jeff Flake put it, “There is a concern that he’ll get through it and he’ll exact revenge on those who didn’t stand with him.”

The founders didn’t expect Profiles in Courage. They anticipated men acting badly, but believed that institutional checks would hold. Personal ambition and rival interests, both good motives and bad, were all part of the equation:

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public.“

They expected personal ambition, “opposite and rival interests,” and perhaps even institutional pride (or, in less positive terms, institutional jealousy) to be incentive enough to check an errant president.

But when Trump holds sway over Republican primary voters, and is ready to exact revenge for disloyalty, personal ambition requires sheltering in place.

Marco Rubio was ambitious. (“And two weeks from tonight, right here in Florida, we are going to send a message loud and clear.  We are going to send a message that the party of Lincoln and Reagan and the presidency of the United States will never be held by a con artist.” Trump beat Rubio by 18 points in the Florida primary.

“Lil’ Marco” is now pretending that Trump’s soliciting foreign help in an American election is just a joke, “just needling the press.”

Ted Cruz, (initially) declined to endorse Donald Trump in 2016 remarking, “History isn’t kind to the man who holds Mussolini’s jacket,” but has come back into the fold of Trump’s Republican Party.

Given this environment, could Republicans break from Trump?

“Nobody wants to be the zebra that strays from the pack and gets gobbled up by the lion,” a former senior administration official said in assessing the current consensus among Senate Republicans. “They have to hold hands and jump simultaneously … Then Trump is immediately no longer president and the power he can exert over them and the punishment he can inflict is, in the snap of a finger, almost completely erased.”

Expecting Republican Senators to “hold hands and jump simultaneously,” between now and November 3, 2020, even as we learn more about Trump’s extortion of Ukraine, is far fetched.

If the story metastasizes far beyond where we are now, might 3 or 4 Republican Senators vote for impeachment? I would regard that as a victory.

Meanwhile, Republican Senators can be expected to fall into 3 camps. From the first camp, we’ll see an avalanche of lies, diversions, attacks on Democrats and the media, and a bottomless narrative of grievance.

From the second camp, we’ll hear tut-tutting and murmurs of disapproval, but the conduct will not rise to the level of impeachment.

And, a third possibility, 1 or 2 or 3 (or …?) Republican Senators will acknowledge that Trump’s misconduct is undeniable and renders him unfit to serve. At least we can hope that this category is not a null set by the time the Senate votes on impeachment.

(Image: the Capitol via wikipedia.)