Some thoughts on current political issues & events

In the last month or so, something has significantly changed. Warnings about the possible fall of democracy and the rule of law are flooding out now. And the rhetoric from the radical right is becoming more blunt and sometimes actually honest. There are some signs that maybe, just maybe, Biden and the dems are waking up and starting to see the threat. Whether they are able to do anything about it is an open question. The reason -- Joe Machin, Kyrsten Sinema and the Republican Party.

A year or so, this appeared here with some regularity because it got to the point:

A commenter here put it another way yesterday: “America went wrong when it put individuals above the society. When ‘equal rights’ was changed to ‘identical rights’ the die was cast.” 

That seems to be true. Have we screwed the pooch by putting individuals above society? That is what nearly all libertarians and Republicans claim they want.   

An article in Salon, Ted Cruz says GOP will impeach Biden if it retakes Congress — whether it’s “justified or not”, makes the fascist intentions of the GOP clear:

“If we take the House, which I said is overwhelmingly likely, then I think we will see serious investigations of the Biden administration,” Cruz said. He predicted that Republicans may also impeach the president “whether it's justified or not.”

“They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him,” Cruz said, referring to Democrats. “One of the real disadvantages of doing that, and it is something you and I talked about at great length, the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.”

The Republican leadership’s intent cannot be much clearer. How many Republicans in congress really feel that way isn't clear, but if it comes to a vote, they will vote to impeach Biden or lose their jobs.

An interesting article at Common Dreams (solid left bias, high fact accuracy, high credibility) focuses on the filibuster:

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday laid bare his reasoning for vehemently defending the use of the legislative filibuster, ....

Schumer promised to “advance systemic democracy reforms” to end Republicans' attempts to “delegitimize our election process,” which McConnell claimed was a sign of “genuine radicalism.”

“It appears that the majority leader is hell-bent on trying to break the Senate, and the argument is that somehow state legislatures are busily at work trying to make it more difficult for people to vote,” McConnell said, suggesting that legislatures in 19 states have not passed at least 34 restrictive voting laws in the past year, as the Brennan Center for Justice has reported at length. 

[Sean Eldridge, founder and president of a pro-democracy group tweeted:] “If 51 votes is good enough for a lifetime confirmation to the highest court in our land, it should be enough to protect our freedom to vote.”

It seems reasonable to argue that if the Senate filibuster no longer applies to federal court judge nominations, it ought not to apply to legislation either. That would arguably be closer real democracy, but for the fact of the electoral college and the inherent Constitutional power advantage that favors small population rural states.  

Obviously, the consequences could be severe the next time Republicans gain full control of the White House and congress. Senate Republicans could easily get rid of the filibuster then, freeing them to do whatever they wanted to the extent they thought they could get away with it. That could be pretty far if elections have been subverted making it impossible for Dems to ever get back in power. So, we’re in a rock and hard place situation. The Dems might as well try to get completely or partly get rid of the filibuster, because if they don't do it now, the Republicans probably will when they are back in power. 

Don’t forget McConnell’s mendacity about Supreme Court justices in an election year being bad. It was bad only when the president was a Democrat, but good when a Republican was president. McConnell’s whining now about preserving the filibuster isn't worth spit. The Senate is broken now and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

The UK-based Economist (least biased, high fact accuracy, high credibility) comments on the mess in the US, citing the 1/6 coup attempt as just one reason for serious concern:

Americans are anxious about the stability of their democracy. Roughly 40% of the politically active say that members of the other tribe are evil; 60% believe they are a threat to the country. More than 80% think the system needs “major changes” or “complete reform”. Jeremiads from pundits about the decay of political life no longer seem to match the gravity of the threat. Some scholars have gone so far as to warn of the risk of civil war.

Extreme partisanship and the Republican refusal to accept the results of the election are indeed a dangerous combination. Yet easily lost in the daily diet of outrage is a fundamental truth about two-party politics: Democrats and Republicans need each other for the system to function. Renewal therefore must flow through the Republican Party. That will be hard—but not as hard as the catastrophists say.  

The threats to the system are real. The greatest is that in several key states the administration of voting has been dragged into the partisan arena. .... The mid-term elections in November and the general election of 2024 will take place under this shadow. Republicans are poised to win control of one or both chambers of Congress. Mr Trump could legitimately retake the White House in 2024. .... If Democrats win, Republicans could well exploit the election machinery now infected by partisanship to try to block them from taking office. If Republicans win, Democrats could believe that disputed races have been stolen. Many would conclude that voter suppression had tipped the balance, and also note how often victors in the popular vote fail to win office. The loser’s concession, central to the transfer of power, might be withheld for a second time. Contempt for electoral legitimacy would become a bipartisan, and disastrous, conviction.  

Crucially, this person [Trump] will be in charge of a party that still contains a large number of decent, patriotic voters who have been manipulated by a cynical group of leaders and propagandists into believing that, in saying the election was stolen, they are defending democracy. To presume that these people can be permanently treated as dupes would be a mistake.

The Economist argues that as long as Trump is a presence, “renewal is impossible,” but since that means just one person is the problem, once that person is gone, the Republican Party can move back toward democracy. That is one possibility.

The Economist’s argument cites Republican election rigging as a cause for concern. That is its key weakness. Maybe the duped people won't stay duped permanently. But if they stay duped long enough for Trump and the GOP to make it impossible for the Democrats to ever get back in power, their wokeness might not make any significant difference.