A reminder that Christian nationalist ideology opposes secular education

MSNBC reports that as part of her testing for higher level power in the FRP (fascist Republican Party), maybe a run for president in 2024, radical right Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is trying to raise her national visibility and score points with the Republican base. Noem is trying to advance her career by taking a deep dive into radical fundamentalist Christian nationalist (CN) dogma and rhetoric.

She spoke in Iowa last July and told conservatives that she doesn't recognize the United States anymore. “When I grew up, people were proud to have a job. They weren’t confused on the difference between boys and girls. We prayed in schools – which by the way, in South Dakota, I’m putting prayer back in our schools.”

At the conservative outlet Real America’s Voice, Noem argued that Americans should look at government actions to insure that they “line up with the word of God [to] see if they're Biblical.” That the United States is a democracy, and not a theocracy, does not faze Noem. The CN Supreme Court now sees prayer as protected free speech. In that same interview, Noem went further. Right Wing Watch posted this excerpt:

“We’ve seen our society, our culture, degrade as we've removed God out of our lives.... When I was growing up, we spent every Sunday, every night, every Wednesday night in church. Our church family was a part of our life. We read the Bible every day, as a family, together.... I don’t know if families do that as much anymore, and those Biblical values are learned in the family, and they're learned in church.... We in South Dakota have decided to take action to really stand for Biblical principles.... I have legislation I’ll be proposing this year that will allow us to pray in schools again.”

Apparently, the governor is indifferent or hostile to a separation of church and state. Noem wants to apply “Biblical principles” to help “re-center” children in schools.

As discussed here before, it is core CN ideology is to get rid of all secular public education and replace it with a religious fundamentalist “education” based on CN dogma. CNs are dead serious about getting and using power to impose their radical fundamentalist vision of America on government and society, whether people want it or not.

Questions: Is it clear what Biblical principles Noem wants to teach American children, e.g., do not lie or do not steal? Can those values by taught by families in the home, even families that are not religious (Noem referred to religious learning in the home and at church, not in public schools)?

American debt default is on the horizon

The Washington Post writes:

Democrats have set up a similar type of strategy that, if successful, will force Republicans to accept their fair share of the national debt that now tops $28 trillion. If this strategy fails, the federal government could run out of funding authority and enter another congressionally forced shutdown — the fourth in less than a decade — and create a debt crisis that could rattle global financial markets.

McConnell has declared that Senate Republicans will not vote to increase the Treasury’s authority to continue borrowing, which is the same as voting to allow a default. As he has done before, McConnell has essentially created a new rule out of whole cloth to justify his actions.

“Let me make it perfectly clear. The country must never default. The debt ceiling will need to be raised. But who does that depends on who the American people elect,” McConnell told Punchbowl News on Tuesday, acknowledging he will vote for a policy outcome he says he doesn’t want to occur.

The WaPo article points out that since Dems control the White House and Congress, McConnell is arguing that Dems alone are responsible for the government’s creditworthiness and preventing a potential economic calamity. There never has been any rule or political norm like that. In the past the when debt ceiling was increased, it usually was bipartisan and done under regular Senate order that requires at least 60 votes to end debate on the legislation.

As usual, McConnell and other congressional Republicans conveniently ignore the fact that the purely Republican 2017 tax cut for rich people and corporations adds nearly $1 trillion in federal debt each year. There was no Republican concern for federal debt. McConnell's move is pure partisan politics. The GOP is willing to blow everything up to block domestic spending. The GOP is willing to go deep into federal debt for military and rich people and corporation spending, but on spending for the rest of us.

In the past, both parties played politics with the debt limit, each blaming the other, but neither was willing to actually allow a default. These days, the GOP arrears to be willing to default to get what they really want, Democrats out of power. Once back in power, they will be OK with debt increases as long as it isn't for domestic spending. 

In 2019, McConnell vote to suspend the debt limit for two years, arguing that failure to do so would "be a disaster and, quote, put our full faith and credit at risk." That is still true.  

Rich people, corporations and the military get service and money. Most of the rest of us get screwed. 

Maybe Democrats can back down by dropping both infrastructure bills, but that alone won't be enough. There is still accumulating debt from current spending. It may be the case that congressional Republicans will not back down and that would force us into a default, but right now that feels unlikely. Attitudes since the 2020 election have hardened and further polarized, not gotten better. 

It will be exciting to see how this stink bomb plays out. If it ends with serious default, the pain most Americans will feel starting within a few weeks after a default will be serious to catastrophic, especially in these times of the Republican COVID pandemic ripping through the economy. Then the political finger-pointing will commence. We have until late October, maybe a bit longer before the default happens.

Questions: 

1. Since the American people voted Dems into power in 2020, is the onus on the Dems to back down to avoid default as McConnell now argues, or on the fascists to back down and with until they get back in power?

2. Who is most at fault here, (i) the Dems, (ii) the fascists, (iii) the American people, or (iv) voters, or is the blame spread about equally among all those groups?

How can one spot a partisan ideologue?

Context

One of the complicated aspects of the human mind is its ability to unconsciously distort inconvenient or unpleasant reality and truths into a false perception of something much less inconvenient or unpleasant. The human capacity to create false but reassuring perceptions is prodigious. It happens fast, almost in real time, effortlessly[1] and unconsciously. We even delude ourselves into a false belief that what happened was done consciously and under our rational control. One observer called that time and reality distorting aspect of mind The User Illusion.  

One of the things that happens is that reality and truth is unconsciously processed through various innate human and personal factors such as biases, mental heuristics (rules of thumb), life experiences, social situations, culture (including race), sex, psychological factors, education, knowledge or ignorance of a particular subject, level of tolerance of ambiguity, cognitive strengths and weaknesses, self-image, self-esteem, moral values, political, economic and religious ideology, time orientation[2], etc. Those things can act as filters or lenses that can increase or decrease distortion of reality, truths and facts, and resulting beliefs and behaviors. The final output in a given situation, beliefs and behaviors, depend on personal and social traits and circumstances and the reality, truths and facts the mind is working on. Multiple filters are probably simultaneously at play most or all of the time for most issues in politics.

In at least one political context, judges deciding legal disputes, it is critically important to be able to recognize personal bias and thinking flaws associated with various factors, including personal political, religious and economic ideology. Blindness to personal ideology, tends to lead to flawed decisions based on partisan motivated reasoning. The question is how can one spot an ideologue and if so, how can one convince and ideologue that they are unreasonably biased when that is in fact the case?

Is Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas a biased, closed-minded ideologue?

The topic I wrote about and posted yesterday focused on a speech that Thomas gave in defense of the current Supreme Court. he like things the way they are because, in my opinion, he is a rigid radical ideologue and the court is packed with like minded Republican radical ideologues. Of course he does not want to see the court changed in any way that would dilute his ability to ram through his heavily biased, radical Christian nationalist, laissez-faire capitalism vision of reality, morality, society and government. In my opinion, Thomas is a raging ideologue and that is a significant part of what has made him, among other undesirable things in a judge, closed minded and intolerant.

This post focuses on just one point, evidence or lack thereof of ideological presence and influence on how Supreme Court judges say they see themselves and on what basis they decide cases. From the same Washington Post article I referenced yesterday:

In recent weeks, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, during a book tour, has emphasized that he and his colleagues are not “junior league” politicians. Last week, the court’s newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, told a crowd in Kentucky that justices are not a “bunch of partisan hacks” and that their divisions are based on competing judicial philosophies, not partisanship.

Thomas was also asked whether the legal questions he confronts on the bench ever conflict with his Catholic faith. Without giving examples, Thomas said, “There are some things that conflict very strongly with my personal opinion, my policy preferences, and those were very, very hard, particularly early on.”

“I don’t do a lot of hand wringing in my opinions and tell people, ‘oh, I’m really sad.’ That’s not the role of a judge. You do your job and you go cry alone.”

Clearly, some Supreme Court justices do not see themselves as politicians in black robes. Most all federal judges would probably say the same thing. But is that true? I doubt it at least for Republican judges. They have to pass ideological litmus tests to be nominated, e.g., anti-abortion, anti-government, etc. That is part of a radical ideological package called Christian nationalism.

More importantly in terms of evidence of ideological bias is in statements Thomas made in his speech. First, he explicitly said he has policy preferences and some of his decisions that contradicted his preferences, i.e., his ideology, “were very, very hard.” Second, he said about the bad decisions, “you go cry alone.”

If that is not evidence of ideological bias and emotional reaction, what is it? Instead of going home and crying alone, he should be proud to do the job of deciding on the basis of the law, not his wounded ideology and feelings.

People will differ in what they believe his comments mean. Some will say, of course judges have their ideology and sometimes dislike decisions the law forces them to make. A rebuttal to that is that if they have a strong ideology going in, and must pass rigid mandatory ideological litmus tests to even be nominated, that makes them biased politicians because they are human. Just because these people are unaware of what they are and deny their humanity does not make it true. Most everybody claims to be unbiased, fact-based and rational, especially judges. Science evidence on this point is overwhelming and not disputed among experts: Most everybody is self-deluded.

Another sleight of hand that justices like to use to cover the unpleasant reality is resort to the argument that they are not political, but instead merely express different “judicial philosophies.” What is the difference between a judicial philosophy and a political, religious and/or economic ideology? Judicial philosophy reflects ideology, so it is a distinction without much of a difference at least for Thomas. And, Thomas appears to sometimes apply a philosophy, if that’s what it is, called originalism. Presumably that is his judicial philosophy, but the onus is on him to tell us what basis he decides on.  

He is arguably inconsistent about his originalism. Some observers analyze his collective decisions as more conservative outcome oriented than reliably originalist. That smells a lot like more like politics than principled legal reasoning.

One last point that is important here, the Supreme Court intentionally operates in what is convincingly argued to be more opacity than is needed. Why excess secrecy? To hide bad things like the influence of politics, bias and flawed reasoning on decisions. Two critics of court and government secrecy wrote in 1973 (my blog post on this is here):

Our thesis may be simply stated: basic democratic theory requires that there be knowledge not only of who governs but of how policy decisions are made. .... We maintain that the secrecy which pervades Congress, the executive branch and courts is itself the enemy. .... For all we know, the justices engage in some sort of latter-day intellectual haruspication[3], followed by the assignment of someone to write an opinion to explain, justify or rationalize the decision so reached. .... That the opinion(s) cannot be fully persuasive, or at times even partially so, is a matter of common knowledge among those who make their living following Court proclamations. (emphasis added)

Thus, the onus is on the two-party system, including federal judges, to show that judges are not a “bunch of partisan hacks” as the radical right judge Barrett nicely put it. Why the litmus tests? Why resort to crackpot legal theories such as originalism (assuming originalism means anything coherent at all, other than a means of getting desired ideological results)? Why the unjustifiable secrecy?

I leave the questions of whether it is even possible to pick less biased and political judges, and how to do that for another time.

Questions: It is fair and reasonable to accuse Thomas of being a rabid, radical Christian nationalist and laissez-faire capitalist extremist who judges cases on that conglomeration of ideology whenever he can get away with it, or is there no good way to assess the role of either ideological bias or judicial philosophy in a judge?

Footnotes:

1. Of course there is biological effort in unconscious thinking , which is in essence input data processing. Calories are burned. But the effort is unconscious and we are unaware of it. That is unlike conscious thinking which is easily tired, distracted and bamboozled. We are generally at least somewhat aware of that aspect of our minds. We are mostly or completely unaware of the working of our unconscious minds. For the most part,** we only know this about ourselves by learning from science, not by directly experiencing it.

** Maybe some people trained in deep meditation and self-awareness have been able to teach themselves to somehow sense or become aware of some of the contours of how the unconscious mind works. That's something I am unfamiliar with and thus cannot express an informed opinion about.

2. Regarding time orientation: From a 2017 research paper: 

Time orientation is an unconscious yet fundamental cognitive process that provides a framework for organizing personal experiences [and perceptions of reality] in temporal categories of past, present and future, reflecting the relative emphasis given to these categories. Culture lies central to individuals’ time orientation, leading to cultural variations in time orientation. For example, people from future-oriented cultures tend to emphasize the future and store information relevant for the future more than those from present- or past-oriented cultures.

From another 2017 research paper:

This article investigates the relationship between an individual’s political ideology and risk perception of climate change, and particularly whether this relationship is affected by one’s time orientation and knowledge. We confirm that individuals with a higher ideological agreement with liberalism perceive a higher risk of climate change. This positive effect, however, is further augmented by individuals’ future time orientation, and lessened by their knowledge of climate change. Our findings suggest that it requires a more tailored strategy in climate communication in order to improve policy making and implementation.  

Among the behavioral biases, how individuals deal with the present and future is an important one. According to the construal level theory of Trope and Liberman (2010), as the temporal distance increases, risks in the future are mentally construed at a more abstract level compared to those in the present. This bias, however, may be mitigated when individuals possess a strong future time orientation. In other words, differences in individuals’ time orientation may influence the magnitude on which political ideology affects climate risk perception. 

3. Haruspication: the act or practice of divination from the entrails (guts) of animals slain in sacrifice, mainly sheep and poultry livers; haruspicy had its heyday as a religion in ancient Rome. I call this governance by chicken guts.

How a powerful Christian nationalist sees the Supreme Court? From the CN point of view of course

About 15 years ago, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, a virulent Christian nationalist (CN), gave a speech at the Manhattan Institute, a bastion of radical right, laissez-faire capitalist plutocrat ideology. In that speech, he commented on how he saw the role of legal precedent (stare decisis in legal jargon) in deciding cases. Simply put, he was for precedent except when he wasn’t. Precedents he liked, he would adhere to, but “wrongly decided” precedents he would vote to overturn. The audience was literally in some sort of trance. They were grateful to be in the same room, breathing the same air. Literally.

Recently, Thomas gave another speech. This time he commented on the danger of destroying institutions. This is standard radical right propaganda. The radical right, including Thomas himself, have been successfully gnawing away at the independence and robustness of democracy and democratic institutions and norms for decades. That toxic hatchet job is pretty close to being done. But what on Earth prompted Thomas into this fit of radical right deep hypocrisy? The Washington Post writes:

Justice Clarence Thomas defended the independence of the Supreme Court on Thursday and warned against “destroying our institutions because they don't give us what we want, when we want it.”

Thomas, the longest serving justice, acknowledged that the high court has its flaws, comparing it to a “car with three wheels” that somehow still works. But he said the justices are not ruling based on “personal preferences” and suggested that the nation’s leaders should not “allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcome that we like.”

He also alluded several times to the political polarization in the United States. “We’ve gotten to the point where we’re really good at finding something that separates us,” Thomas told the crowd of more than 800 students and faculty gathered at the school’s performing arts center.

Thomas is the latest justice to add his voice to the mix and publicly come to the court’s defense in the face of growing criticism that the nine justices are merely politicians in robes.

“I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference. So if they think you are antiabortion or something personally, they think that’s the way you always will come out. They think you’re for this or for that. They think you become like a politician,” Thomas said in response to a question about public misconceptions of the court.

“That’s a problem. You’re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.”  

But Thomas twice cautioned [about proposals to expand the court] that “we should be really, really careful” about “destroying our institutions.” He went on to quote his late grandfather as saying, “After you’ve done that, and now what? What’s your next step?”

Say what??? 

How many ways is that blatant hypocrite propaganda 

grounded in partisan motivated reasoning? 

OMG! Let me count the ways

The 1st paragraph: First, we have the “destroying our institutions because they don't give us what we want, when we want it” comment. One can rationally ask, why were you and the other five radical right CN judges put on the bench by the FRP in the first place? To deliver to the demagogic, plutocratic FRP, legal decisions that support its agenda. What agenda? Anti-abortion, anti-business regulation, anti-voting rights, anti-inconvenient truth and science, anti-government, anti-democracy, anti-rule of law, anti-free press, anti-political opposition, anti-secular government, anti-middle and lower class, with its pro-fundamentalist Christianity, pro-rich people, pro-corporations and pro-tons 'o guns 'n ammo agenda. When does the FRP want its agenda served to itself? Right now. Not next year, this year. ASAP!

And, Thomas has been working hard for years to deliver as much as he can, as fast as he can. A week or two ago, he voted with four other CN radicals to let a blatantly unconstitutional Texas abortion law take effect without even a formal lawsuit. In tat case, Thomas directly attacked and subverted the institution he claims to want to defend by killing abortions in Texas using the Supreme Court’s shadow docket tactic. Yup, Thomas is working hard to destroy the Supreme Court for all of us and the rule of law and to rebuild it as a court for demagogues, plutocrats, traitors, crooks, liars, thugs and the like. 

The 2nd paragraph: Next, let’s consider the court is a “car with three wheels” that somehow still works comment.** Well, who broke it? The fascist Republican Party (FRP), that’s who. What party does Thomas belong to? The FRP. But as a CN radical sitting on the court that is packed with five other fellow CN radicals, of course he sees it as still working.** It is working for radical Christian fundamentalist religion, the FRP and their aggressive, poison ideology and agenda (summarized above). The FRP has packed the court by blowing political norms to smithereens. From the CN point of view, everything is just hunky dory and not broken. So why fix it in any meaningful, i.e., anti-CN and pro-rule of law, way?

** A car with three wheels cannot work because it is broken. Thomas isn’t very bright. Dim bulb when it comes to logic and connections to reality.

The 3rd paragraph: Jeez, we’re only at the 3rd paragraph? Sigh, this is gonna be a long blog post. I thought this would be a short one. Foiled again.

Thomas complained that “we’ve gotten to the point where we’re really good at finding something that separates us.” Well, who is the party of ruthless propaganda that intentionally foments polarization, division and distrust? The FRP. What party does Thomas belong to? You guessed it. 

The 4th paragraph: Thomas pushed back in his comment about justices being politicians in robes. But wait! Doesn’t the FRP, and especially the hyper-radical Federalist Society, impose litmus tests to acceptability for FRP federal judges? Damn right there are litmus tests. Every one of the six CN radicals on the bench passed the anti-abortion litmus test and other mandatory FRP tests, e.g., pro-tons 'o guns 'n ammo, anti-regulation, anti-government, anti-inconvenient truth, etc. 

Passing those tests is mandatory, not optional for FRP federal judge picks. Thomas and the other five FRP judges are politicians in black robes whether he believes that or not. Thomas is blowing partisan black smoke at us, or maybe he is just trying to convince himself.

What comes out of his mouth, also comes out of this tailpipe --

it’s toxic, opaque and smells funny, but at least it’s legal 😕

The 5th paragraph: Thomas responded to a question about public misconceptions of the court and judges being politicians. He blames that media. That’s a standard FRP deflection and polarization propaganda tactic. No, the public who criticizes the current court, and how it got installed and how it decides cases has it right. The media has little to do with that other than to report on what is going on.** The judges are chosen to be politicians to advance an agenda. Thomas has gross misconceptions of the court and himself. So, is he self-deluded, a cynical liar, stupid and/or something else? 

** Actually, IMO, the media gets a grade of F for its failure to report on the awesome power and influence of CN in the federal courts and how it got that power and influence. If the professional press had been doling its job properly, the public perception of the Supreme Court and it’s alleged impartiality would be significantly worse.

Sixth and 7th paragraphs: Thomas is concerned about loss of faith in legal institutions? Really? Well, who is mostly responsible for that? The FRP, prominently including the CN radical Thomas himself. Ditto for destruction of institutions. We need to set up a gofundme page to buy a big mirror for Clarence. He really needs one. Or, he is too cynical and/or self-deluded for a mirror to make any difference?

In his speech, Thomas expresses the standard false CN and FRP narrative about the situation and who is mostly responsible for widespread public discontent. Decades of divisive, polarizing FRP propaganda have fomented most of it. Thomas did not mention the role that he and his authoritarian demagogic party have played. He makes it sound as if there is equivalence or that the people who criticize the modern CN court and how it came into existence are the ones living in la-la land and playing a dangerous game.

Question: Is Thomas and the rest of the FRP elites self-deluded, stupid, ice cold cynics hell bent on the FRP and CN agenda, and/or something else?

Regarding the California recall election

I posted some of this in a post about the 1/6 coup attempt, but the recall election is worth focusing on specifically.

In the California recall election, the state’s fascist Republican Party (FRP) failed in its attempt to take the governorship. The governor was not recalled and it was not close. FiveThirtyEight writes:

Our colleagues at the ABC News Decision Desk projected that the recall would fail at 11:37 p.m. Eastern, barely half an hour after polls closed. As of this writing, 67 percent of voters voted against the recall, and 33 percent voted for it. That margin will almost certainly narrow as more votes are counted (the numbers we have right now are mostly mail ballots, which lean very Democratic), but it’s still likely that Newsom will survive by a large margin, perhaps even comparable to his 24-point win in 2018.

But even before the polls closed in California, the lead FRP candidate alleged widespread vote fraud. That candidate, Larry Elder (~43% compared to  ~10% for another leading candidate) is a fascist conspiracy theory crackpot and long-time radical right talk show host in Los Angeles. Elder believes the 2020 election was stolen. He may contest the recall election. As usual for FRP losers, Elder did not produce one shred of credible evidence of vote fraud. All that Elder had was his bare assertion of fraud.

Elder’s alleged evidence of vote fraud was an alleged statistical analysis, Benford’s Law, of the votes used to detect vote fraud. The problem with that is that the statistical analysis cannot be done before an election. The votes have to be analyzed after an election. Despite that idiotic, fatal flaw, Elder was so enthusiastic about his vote fraud lie that he launched an anti-voter fraud website the day before the election, saying at that time that Newsome had won the election.

Clearly, the FRP’s election fraud poison has spread to states where FRP candidates lose. In states where FRP candidates win, there is no reason to allege fraud. The point is winning, not holding honest elections. That is fascism, or at least anti-democratic authoritarianism. 

What does this mean?

Opinions differ. They range from (1) this means little or nothing and it is just politics as usual, to (2) this is more evidence that the ideology and agenda of the Republican Party is authoritarian and focused on undermining elections, democracy and civil liberties. 

Is it evidence that maybe there is a backlash against the fascist Trumpism cult and if so is it confined to California or does it exist more broadly? My take on it is that once it looked like the divisive fascist Larry Elder would be the FRP’s top vote getter, Democratic voters were motivated to vote against a recall to keep him from winning the recall. The counties that voted to recall Newsome were, as expected, mostly rural counties in the Eastern part of the state. That part of California is about as radical right as just about any red state in the country. 

Green mostly rural counties voted for the recall

Red mostly urban counties voted against the recall 

As of now, it is 36.2% for the recall and 63.8% against

What was striking was the vote tally for Elder. He got 47% of the votes compared to 8.6% for Kevin Faulconer, the former Republican San Diego mayor and arguably the choice of the GOP establishment. That seems to indicate that mainstream Republican voters are not loyal to the GOP as an institution. Instead those voters look for colorful but aggressive personalities like the incendiary Elder, an online radical right talk show host. In San Diego, Faulconer governed as a center right pragmatist. In the election, he was forced to adopt to GOP's crackpot rhetoric and fantasies, but that didn't help him. He just was not radical enough for the rank and file. One can reasonably believe that the ex-president was successful in turning most of the rank and file against establishment Republicans.

This indicates that most of the Republican Party rank and file in California has radicalized and looks a lot like the party in red states. Thus, things that the FRP does in red states it controls are things that Republicans in California and probably most all other states would like to do, e.g., attack elections as fraudulent and rigged, attack civil liberties and attack democracy generally.

 

In my opinion, this is not remotely close to politics as usual, at least in my adult lifetime. The FRP has become mostly authoritarian and aggressively anti-democratic in probably all states. Elder openly lied about election fraud and it has no adverse impact on him within the FRP. That is evidence the FRP does not care about opinion outside the party and is willing to govern as a tyranny of a radical authoritarian minority.

On that last point, Elder was crystal clear. He flatly said that if he won the recall election and Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein died, he would appoint a Republican to replace her and to give control of the Senate back to the FRP and Mitch McConnell. Elder expressed no concern about contrary majority public opinion in California.

The FRP complains a lot these days that some of the things the Democrats want to do amounts to a power grab. Like protecting voting rights is a power grab. Wanting infrastructure spending is a power grab. But so what? When given the chance, the FRP does not hesitate a second to grab power by any means that it can get away with. With restraining political and ethics norms now blown to smithereens by the authoritarian FRP and its poisonous ex-president, grabbing power and exercising it regardless of majority public opinion is just what the FRP does when it gets a chance. 

In my opinion, this recall election spoke loudly about what the FRP has degenerated into, namely an authoritarian cult grounded in fantasies and disregard for public opinion. What is not clear is how non-Republican Americans will vote, fail to vote, be prevented form voting, or be subverted from voting in the 2022 and 2024 elections, which the FRP is working hard to rig in its favor. 

In California, (1) Democrats probably voted in a backlash against the divisive radical Elder, and (2) the state FRP could not suppress votes or rig the election to subvert it. That will not be the case in over 17 other states where the FRP has passed laws intended to suppress opposition votes and/or to rig elections in its favor. We still have to wait for 2022 and 2024 before we know whether the American experiment is doomed to fail and end in some form of an aggressive Christian autocratic-plutocratic authoritarianism or will continue to muddle along as a wounded, barely functional representative democracy.

Question: Can the situation in the Republican Party and its voters in California be extrapolated to most or all other states, red, blue or purple? Does it shed light on how the 2022 and 2024 elections will turn out?

Very important… not so important… all depends…

 

Yesterday on this site, there was quite the kerfuffle regarding how important precedent is in American politics.  Our disagreement arose in light of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colonel Mark A. Milley’s, “unusual actions” in the final days of the Trump presidency.  It was, indeed, an unusual time.

Several people, including Milley, Pelosi, and other power-players saw Trump as in an obviously (blatantly) declining and very unstable state-of-mind.  We all know, desperation cuts through everything, and Trump seemed quite desperate to stay in power, by hook or crook.  Many saw Trump as the proverbial “loose cannon” and were afraid he might try to start a nuclear WWIII, so he could then pretend to come back in and “fix it” (since he alone knows how to fix things).  Many suspect that Trump would have seen military action as a way of garnering enough patriotic political support to stay in power, in spite of the newly elected president, Joe Biden.  

Precedents, standards, protocols, chain of command, and in general the way stuff is normally done, seems to be falling by the wayside, in these strange political and tribal days.  So here are some questions to ponder:

-How important is political/legal precedent to you? 

-Where does old precedent end and new (some would say) “enlightened ways” begin?  How do you personally draw that fine line of when "what trumps what?"  What are the pivotal factors to consider?

-Should a society’s legal precedents be sensitive to the populace-at-large’s ever-changing values?  In other words, should precedents change as society changes, making instruments like The Constitution a “living document?”

Give us your thoughts on the concept of precedent.

Thanks for posting and recommending.