Tag: Politics
Explaining Bill Barr
One of the most famous quotes of the Vietnam War was published in an AP story by Peter Arnett on February 7, 1968. Describing an operation at the village of Ben Tre, an unnamed American army major said, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
It was a sentence that seemed to capture the insanity of American policy with respect to the whole Vietnam War. It also explains the insanity of Bill Barr’s support of Donald Trump for president.
Bill Barr is prepared to destroy the country to save it from progressive policies.
He knows that Trump is a danger to democracy. He accused him of “abuse of power,” called his claims of voter fraud that denied him victory as “bullshit” and compared a second Trump term to the country playing “Russian roulette.” Yet, he has declared that he will vote for Trump because the “progressive agenda” is even more dangerous.
One wonders what progressive policies are so threatening to America? Student loan forgiveness? Infrastructure spending? Child development subsidies? Reproductive healthcare for women? (Yeah, that’s probably it).
In a way, his position on the presidential race is a huge compliment to Joe Biden. He said, “I think it’s my duty to pick the person I think would do the least harm to the country.” He’s betting that Trump’s incompetence will save us…again. While that may have saved us in his first term, the team around Trump this time will be fully prepared to impose authoritarian rule in the second term. While Trump is busy nursing and massaging his many grievances, his army of wannabe-be fascists will be relentlessly dismantling the “administrative state.”
What Barr really fears more than Biden’s ideology is his effectiveness. Biden gets shit done!
That’s why Barr is willing to debase himself before Trump. Trump has rewarded Barr for his endorsement with ruthless ridicule. Here’s Trump’s thank you note:
“Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me for President despite the fact that I called him ‘Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy’ (New York Post!),” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I am removing the word ‘Lethargic’ from my statement. Thank you Bill.”
Fortunately, nobody really cares what Bill Barr thinks about the presidential race. The rest of us just have to make damn sure that Biden wins.
Democrats Win in a Landslide. A Realigning Election
OK, I’m dreamcasting (new word I’ve just learned). But I really think it’s a possibility, albeit remote. I write it just to see it in print. And as a response to all the talking heads that are forecasting how this election is going to turn out.
I’m tired of hearing how close it’s going to be. Or what this or that state is going to do. Or how this or that development will have a minimal impact on the outcome. All of these analyses assume that the political situation is largely fixed and that we will only see movement by the electorate on the margins. What all this commentary does is normalize a political situation that is simply not normal.
I like reading the Hopium Chronicles by Simon Rosenberg. He is both optimistic and realistic. But his main case is that nothing will happen to Trump between now and the election that will help him politically. Trump has a high floor but a low ceiling. He’s never been above 50%. And the more visible he is, the less the voters like him. Things could happen to Biden that will help him politically, like a health issue or an international crisis. But Trump, for himself, is facing nothing but bad news, day after day, week after week, month after month. Combine that with the utter clown show that the Republicans are running in the House of Representatives, and it could be a perfect storm. Maybe political gravity will reassert itself.
It makes my head explode to see that the polls are tied now. The fact that half the country wants Trump back in the White House again is beyond stunning. It validates a good description of America passed on by my friend Luke as the United States of Morons. I just have to believe that the steady diet of information about Trump’s loathsomeness will take its toll. And, by the time November rolls around, the voters will come to their senses and reject Trump, MAGA and the whole Republican Party. I can dream, can’t I?
If not, i guess i will have the benefit of having lived to witness the decline and fall of a once great country.
This I Believe
I believe the Russians tipped the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump. I didn’t, at first. But the more we know about the massive intervention they conducted through social media and the Wikileaks dump, the more obvious it is that it was sufficient to turn 80,000 votes spread over three states to give Trump the electoral college win. I also believe the Comey letter tipped the election to Donald Trump. And I believe that the fact that the Democrats nominated the quintessential establishment candidate in an anti-establishment election tipped the election. And, yes, I believe the Clinton campaign strategy, which neglected Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin in the closing days of the election, gave it to Trump.
It is possible to believe all these things at the same time. Flip any one of those variables and the Democrats win. In a close election, everything matters. However, only one of those variables has consequences for the future, the Russians intervention. Frankly, I suspect that the Russians did not set out to elect Donald Trump, but rather to simply disrupt American democracy and weaken President Hillary Clinton. They may have been as surprised as the rest of us the day after the election. There were reports of celebrations in Moscow, but events since then may have tempered their euphoria. Some in the Kremlin may wonder whether they overshot. It’s nice to have a puppet, but maybe an incompetent puppet is more trouble than he’s worth.
But here’s the thing. Whether the Russian ultimately conclude they overshot in their election meddling is up to us. Will we, as a nation, respond in a way that will deny the Russians what, at this point, seems like the greatest intelligence triumph in human history, actually electing the President of the United States? The answer to that question is in the hands of Special Counsel Bob Mueller and the Republican leadership of the Congress. Mueller needs to build a rock-solid case that denies the Republicans the ability to rationalize away the reality of the Trump collusion in the Russian meddling. And the Republicans will need to stop protecting Trump and take affirmative steps to impose accountability into the system.
So far, Mueller is doing his part. The Republicans? Not so much.
Obamacare Rises from the Politically Deadly
I’ve been thinking, and occasionally saying, that Obamacare will be a net benefit for Democrats in the midterm election. There is a growing chorus of speculation among the chattering class about this and they are saying it better than I could.
I particularly like Greg Sargent’s view in the context of the Arkansas race pitting Senator Mark Pryor against Rep. Tom Cotton.
And by the way, Cotton isn’t the only high profile GOP Senate candidate pulling a homina homina homina on his state’s Medicaid expansion. So is Scott Brown. And Thom Tillis’ gyrations on Obamacare repeal are similarly absurd. So clearly, this isn’t the uniform slam dunk issue Republicans claim it is. The scrutiny is entirely on how Democrats are handling Obamacare. But some attention should be paid to how Republicans handle the pitfalls of repeal going forward. Time to take another look at the conventional wisdom here.
Things could get very interesting in the Fall.
The Passing of an Era
Speaker Tom Foley
Former House Minority Leader, Bob Michel, had a very touching remembrance of former Speaker Tom Foley in today’s Washington Post. He starts the piece with this incident:
Try as he might, Speaker Tom Foley could not gavel the House to order. It was Nov. 29, 1994, the last day of the 103rd Congress. I had just offered a resolution honoring him, and the speaker was being given a standing ovation for his 30 years of service. Our fellow members would not sit or quiet down.
It was a fitting tribute to a great public servant who assumed the mantle of leadership in the House at a difficult time.
Tom had just been defeated for reelection, and I was retiring. In an unprecedented gesture of goodwill and comity, Tom invited me to assume the chair on the speaker’s podium while he gave his farewell address. For the first time in 40 years, a Republican presided over the House, if only for a few minutes.
I was there. I was chief of staff to Rep. Steny Hoyer, then Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, and I was on the House floor to witness it. I remember it vividly, particular the gesture of Foley inviting Michel to hold the gavel and sit in the Speaker’s chair. Michel was clearly stunned. There wasn’t a dry eye in the House. He sat on the edge of the seat like a kid who knows he’s not supposed to be sitting in a grownup’s chair. It was enormously touching. Continue Reading
