Global warming update; Political parties as a religious group; Trump court documents release

The carbon energy sector apparently has a version of something akin to Project 2025: Trump has vowed to gut climate rules. Oil lobbyists have a plan ready. 

As companies fall short on methane emission reductions, a top trade group has crafted a road map for dismantling key Biden administration rules. An influential oil and gas industry group whose members were aggressively pursued for campaign cash by Donald Trump has drafted detailed plans for dismantling landmark Biden administration climate rules after the presidential election, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post. 

The plans were drawn up by the American Exploration and Production Council, or AXPC, a group of 30 mostly independent oil and gas producers, including several major oil companies. They reveal a comprehensive industry effort to reverse climate initiatives advanced during nearly four years of Democratic leadership. At the same time, the documents contain confidential data showing that industry’s voluntary initiatives to cut emissions have fallen short.

That is not surprising. Trump and the GOP have been openly hostile to environmental regulations and the concept of human-cause global warming for a long time. The carbon sector will probably get a good opportunity to vindicate its policy preferences if Trump is elected next month. 

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An NYT opinion (not paywalled) about the persistent near-even split in American politics posits an explanation that I believe significantly explains the divide:

I think the reason for all this is that political parties no longer serve the function they used to. In days gone by, parties were political organizations designed to win elections and gain power. Party leaders would expand their coalitions toward that end. Today, on the other hand, in an increasingly secular age, political parties are better seen as religious organizations that exist to provide believers with meaning, membership and moral sanctification. If that’s your purpose, of course you have to stick to the existing gospel. You have to focus your attention on affirming the creed of the current true believers. You get so buried within the walls of your own catechism, you can’t even imagine what it would be like to think outside it.

When parties were primarily political organizations, they were led by elected officials and party bosses. Now that parties are more like quasi-religions, power lies with priesthood — the dispersed array of media figures, podcast hosts and activists who run the conversation, define party orthodoxy and determine the boundaries of acceptable belief.

A lot of social science evidence supports the idea that the two parties significantly act as religions. In my opinion (and in Perplexity's evidence-based opinion), that is more true for the GOP than the Dem Party. Other major factors are (i) two fundamentally different perceptions of reality that the two sides of the divide appears to be mostly grounded in, and (ii) two fundamentally different mental types or mindsets divided over perceptions of democracy. Both sides claim a pro-democracy stance, but one is arguably a lot less pro-democracy than the other. However, since "democracy" is an essentially contested concept, those differences of opinion are unresolvable and politically dealt with by compromise or force.

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The federal judge in Trump's election interference case has released over 1,500 pages of filings, with some (many?) of the pages redacted. Trump argued that the release constituted election interference. The judge rejected that argument. Some of the judges comments regarding rejecting Trump's complaints and explaining her reasoning:

Defendant’s request does not engage with the six relevant factors for sealing. Instead, he argues that keeping the Appendix under seal for another month will serve other interests. Ultimately, none of those arguments are persuasive.

Setting aside the oxymoronic proposition that the public’s understanding of this case will be enhanced by withholding information about it, any public debate about the issues in this case has no bearing on the court’s resolution of those issues.

Finally, and relatedly, Defendant claims that the “asymmetric release of charged allegations and related documents during early voting creates a concerning appearance of election interference.” Motion at 5. There is undoubtedly a public interest in courts not inserting themselves into elections, or appearing to do so. See id. at 6. But litigation’s incidental effects on politics are not the same as a court’s intentional interference with them. As a result, it is in fact Defendant’s requested relief that risks undermining that public interest: If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute—or appear to be— election interference. The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests. Any argument about “what needs to happen before or shouldn’t happen before the election is not relevant here.” Tr. of Arraignment and Status Conference at 29, ECF No. 232. 

Rather, his objection is to the Appendix’s release “during a highly contested political campaign.” Motion at 4. But a President’s “capacity . . . as a candidate for office” is “unofficial” and does not implicate the concerns animating his official immunity. Id. at 2340; see id. at 2332. Accordingly, the court has repeatedly stressed that “Defendant’s concern with the political consequences of these proceedings does not bear on the pretrial schedule.” Op. & Order at 3, ECF No. 243. (emphases added)

This exemplifies the constant cat and mouse game that Trump plays with the courts. Here the judge argued that (1) releasing the documents is incidental to normal litigation practice, which is true, and (2) not releasing the documents constitutes election interference by Trump himself. That is a fascinating argument. 

Despite cat and mouse, Trump won smashingly and possibly (probably?) decisively when the supreme court held a few months ago that Trump is immune from criminal prosecution associated with crimes committed in the course of undefined "official acts" by the president. Sometimes the mouse wins, sometimes the cat. Sometimes democracy loses.

The following comments reflect how I see the truly frightening situation the federal courts are now locked into:

Peanut gallery denizen: This is a reasonable, just, and well thought out response by the judge. What scares me is that there are judges, I’m looking at you Texas and Florida, that are so deep into the cult that they’d do just the opposite.

Peanut 2: Which is ultimately why Donald’s first presidency was so damaging. I think it’s possible his first presidency ended the Union and we’re just waiting for the right Supreme Court case. His second one, if it occurred, would finish the job. 

Peanut 3: She put into words something which SHOULDN’T need to be said. But she had too, nonetheless, because of the numerous motions incorporating requests to withhold information from this case otherwise available in a normal case. Sealing prosecution and/or defendant arguments is the exception, not the norm.