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Political Rants

When Losing starts to mean winning, we lose

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Democracy is always an approximation. The countries we describe as being democratic have systems that exclude some voters, make it hard to participate in one way or the other, and are otherwise imperfect. That’s to be expected. We don’t aspire to imperfection, of course. In many countries, people try to do the best they can with what they’ve got. In France, it’s the fifth republic. In Britain, constitutional monarchy. And right here, we have the U.S. constitution – penned by rich white men, for rich white men.

During the Bush administration, people around the president were fond of saying that the the constitution isn’t a straitjacket. (Of course, they were mouthing those words in defense of torture.) Still, we are kind of locked into certain interpretations of it, and as such remain firmly under minority rule – just as the founding fathers envisioned it. I know others have said this, but apart from 2004, the insurrectionist party (formerly called the Republicans) lost the popular vote in every presidential race since George Herbert Walker Bush was elected in 1988. And yet they “won” 3 out of those seven races. Minority rule.

Narrowing the halls of justice

It goes beyond just the raw numbers of presidential terms served. Republican presidents have had far greater consequence than their Democratic counterparts over this period. Nowhere is this truer than with respect to the Supreme Court. Between Bush Jr.’s two terms and Trump’s term, they have appointed five of the sitting justices – Democrats only three. And we are seeing the results in the form of more and more draconian decisions being handed down by a court majority that is openly contemptuous of the public will.

We are being forced, as a nation, to accept an extremist view of abortion, gun rights, regulatory agencies, and others things. The Supreme Court is like our version of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iran or the old Soviet Politburo. But really, more like the former – they tell us what laws will stand, which will not. They tell us who is a person with full rights and who isn’t. They are aggressively unelected and unconcerned with prevailing sentiments. And there really isn’t much of anything we can do except wait for their next decision. Sure, we can push for court expansion and other reforms, but we have to do so within the constraints their decisions establish, and there are many.

More election drama

With the fall elections approaching, one wonders if the results will be broadly recognized. You can bet that, wherever Republicans do badly, there will be challenges, particularly in states with GOP dominated legislatures and GOP governors. I would like to think that people on the leftward side will take this election seriously and show up in unprecedented numbers, but we shall see. The pro abortion rights vote in Kansas certainly came as a surprise, especially since the ballot measure was designed to be confusing as hell. But even with a massively lopsided majority, Republicans are forcing a recount.

This is what we can expect. We have to be willing to fight back, non-violently (though I understand the need for self defense in oppressed communities). Honestly, we have to get this right. Allowing them to continue to claim victory whether or not they win races is just a recipe for authoritarianism. We know where they want to go – they keep telling us. Viktor Orban is the model they prefer. We need to believe them when they tell us who they are.

Keeping your options open

I would admonish you to vote, but I’ve done that before and look where it’s gotten us. Suffice to say that I am voting, and I encourage you to do the same (and to encourage others to do the same). If only to keep the option to vote open for the years ahead.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Our remaining option: A Million Mutinies Now

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As you well know, the other shoe dropped last week regarding Roe v. Wade, which is now history. The joyless anti-abortion zealots up the street from me must be enjoying the closest thing they know to a celebration. Maybe they’ll take the baby-float mobile out for a ride. (No, seriously: they had a vehicle with a plastic baby on the roof and P.A. speakers through which they would read anti-abortion screeds, inaudible because of their cheap audio gear. We called it the “baby float”.)

I wrote a post on the impending abortion decision a couple of weeks ago entitled “The Right To Be Forced Into Childbirth“. What I didn’t get deeply into then was the degree of fraud Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court committed during their confirmation hearings. That was, of course, their way not only of protecting themselves but of offering their supporters cover by gaslighting everyone who had paid any attention to their careers up to that point.

Perjury and Prevarication

Let’s take Gorsuch, son of Anne Gorsuch Buford, Reagan’s EPA administrator who tried to dismantle the agency, partly through sheer incompetence. (Looks like her son is going to get another shot at it via their upcoming ruling.) During his confirmation hearings, Gorsuch acknowledged the power of precedence with regard to Roe, and affirmed that a “good judge” should take it as seriously as in any other case. Then came last Friday.

How about Kavanaugh, lover of beer, bro of Squee, best bud of P.J.? Kavanaugh referred to Roe as “settled law” and an “important precedent …. reaffirmed many times.” Sure, he suggested that he might be persuaded to overturn it, but who reads the fine print? He made comforting cooing sounds, and the senators nodded contentedly.

I’m not sure what Justice Barrett could possibly have said to counteract her part in publishing a full-page anti abortion ad in the New York Times. She bleated some gas about following the rules of stare decisis, and like her reactionary brethren, hid the ball in plain sight so that the politicians in the audience could pretend they did not see it.

The bastards Bush

It’s easy to blame Trump, of course, because he’s so damn blame-able. But the worst justice on the damn court is Clarence Thomas, and he was appointed by George H. W. Bush, or Bush the First as no one calls him. Bush is now roundly praised by centrists as a man of integrity, etc. Justice Thomas is convincing evidence to the contrary. No other recent Republican president has appointed a more reactionary judge to lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court.

And then there’s Sam Alito, the no- so-smart as Scalia clone of Scalia. George W. Bush appointed him, so to those of you whose hearts are warmed by the sight of W. and Michelle Obama goofing about, all I can say to you is …. Iraq. And Alito. And Afghanistan. And …. Suffice to say, if it weren’t for these two losers (W. and H.W.), Roe would still stand.

All is not lost

Fortunately, there are things we can do. One of them is what so many thousands of people did over this past weekend – make your voices heard. Another is to push our Congress members to support legislation by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives that would support the right to abortion services through the establishment of federal clinics in red states, expansion of access to medication, and so on.

The other thing is, well, a million mutinies now. Vote for the most progressive members of Congress you can find. Encourage everyone around you to do the same thing. We need a progressive tidal wave this fall, and it’s going to take everyone doing that simple thing – voting. With a strong majority in Congress, we can pass and expanded Roe in to law, build a better healthcare system, expand the Supreme Court, impeach Kavanaugh, amend the constitution. All we need is the votes.

Impossible? I think not. If people mobilize, we can take over the works within the confines of the current system. With the right numbers, nothing could stop us. We just have to commit to doing it.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The right to be forced into childbirth

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Let me put this right on the table. I am a cisgender white male, born into considerable privilege (though not rich) and raised in a rock-rib Republican town that is also home to Congresswoman Claudia Tenney. Unlike Claudia (who is currently warning on Twitter of yet another election-year migrant “caravan” coming north from the brown countries), I am pro-abortion rights, 100%. And if I were against abortion, no one should listen to me …. because I am a cisgender white male who will never need the procedure, and should shut the fuck up.

In light of the leaked Alito draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, I feel as though I should map out my reasons for supporting women’s bodily sovereignty. None of my thoughts on this are unique or particularly original, but this is a time when people should voice their opposition to the Taliban-like edicts of our robed overlords on the Supreme Court, in hopes of mobilizing even broader opposition. Aside from organizing, volunteering and donating, it’s all we’ve got left at this point.

Thus far and no farther

First point: I have long felt that our bodies are our own personal nation, and that we are the sovereigns of that nation. Sure, we can’t control everything that happens within our borders, so to speak, but we should have the final word on any interventions from the skin inward. That seems pretty minimal to me in the way of human rights. Men insist on this, and rightly so – no forced vasectomies, thank you very much. And I intend on keeping my gall bladder, so there!

Okay, so when a woman is pregnant – and guys, I hope you’re reading this carefully – the pregnancy happens inside of her. That small province of internal space should be totally within her control. You’ve heard the old saying about politics stopping at the waters’ edge? Well, the law should stop at the skin. If a woman wants to bring the pregnancy to term, that’s her right. If she wants to end it, prevent it, whatever, that’s her fundamental right as well. It’s a question of sovereignty, you see.

Freedom from religion

Last time I looked at the First Amendment, it appeared to say something like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

This is our guarantee not only of freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. Now, when you hear right-wingnuts and religious zealots talking about when life begins, it’s important to remember that they are expressing a religious belief. The idea that “life” begins at conception has no basis in science. If they are passing laws that force us to comply with this warped take on human biology, by any reasonable standard that amounts to compelling us to live according to the strictures of their religion.

This is indefensible on first amendment grounds. Unless, of course, our hyper partisan Supreme Court decides otherwise.

Card-carrying justices

Let us face it, the Supreme Court is an overtly political institution. Regardless of what they say at their confirmation hearings, conservative justices are only going to vote on way, regardless of the facts or the law. As Elie Mystal has pointed out many times, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett were bred to overturn Roe v. Wade – no amount of argumentation will convince them otherwise.

If the Court decides to overturn Roe, people like me have to stand up. We all know multiple women who have relied on this constitutional right at one point or another. We need to ally with women, support them, and fight for justice. That’s the only way forward.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Such a quiet boy, a bright boy

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I’m not fond of doing blog posts about mass shootings. Part of the reason for this is the fact that they happen all the time, and it’s manifestly obvious that none of our political leaders are willing to do anything substantive to prevent them. Still, this shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo is particularly heinous. Yes, this is about guns, but it’s about more than guns. It’s about assholes, too.

No, I’m not referring to the shooter, though he is clearly an asshole. The primary responsibility for this atrocity belongs to more powerful people. This kid didn’t pluck racist “great replacement” theory garbage out of thin air. This crap is being circulated by politicians, pundits, and other well-paid voices eager to draw some attention to themselves. Young people like the shooter are susceptible to the toxic logic behind these crackpot theories. Those who propagate it know this, and they have blood on their hands.

Legally obtainable

According to press reports, the shooter legally obtained his Bushmaster assault rifle. (Apparently he had his man card checked.) This in spite of the fact that he had made threats against his high school – threats serious enough for the school to report it to the NY State Police. And yet, with all that, he was able to buy the gun. Was that a grievous mistake? An unfortunate clerical error? Or the soft terrorism of flaccid gun laws?

I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter. Even in a state like New York, our gun laws are weak. Worse, the Supreme Court is closing in on a decision on NY State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which involves a challenge to the NY State law requiring gun-toters to show probable cause before getting their concealed carry permit. It seems likely that this law will be overturned, which may mean more white nationalists will be packing heat in a supermarket near you.

Twitter gate crashers

Then there’s the Swanson fortune heir. You know – the one on T.V. that occasionally cackles like Felix the Cat. Now, I’m certain that his pathetic little junior Nazi producers funnel dark web conspiracy theories up the the boss on a regular basis. That replacement theory BS, though – that’s old as fuck. That shit likely rode into Tucker’s mouth on the same silver spoon that delivered his pablum. He’s heir to more than frozen dinner money, you know. Pater and Mater left him a handsome legacy of country club racism as well.

Of course, he likes to have his audience pretend that he’s not a member of the elite – that it’s those people on the left telling you what to think and lording it over you. He’s talked about the “gatekeepeers” on Twitter who get “hysterical” when he talks about the great replacement. Not sure how anyone on Twitter can be a “gatekeeper” for a guy with the top rated show on cable news. Right wingers are super sensitive little butterflies, aren’t they?

I’m just using Carlson as an example. There’s plenty of prominent reinforcement for bad ideas like replacement theory. He could disappear tomorrow and it would still be a problem.

What now?

The answer to hate is better organizing. I don’t see any other way. We need to help people understand that their problems are not being caused by other workers who happen to look, talk, love differently.

What to do about the Court’s broad interpretation of the second amendment? Well, I believe Congress can pass legislation that’s outside the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Here’s the relevant passage, from Article III, Section 2:

…the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

“With such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make”? That’s not nothing.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The best way to make your vote count

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I know this is not a week when people want to hear about lost elections, but somebody has to say it. This is such an elementary point, I don’t understand why there’s so much resistance to it, but elections have consequences. I feel the urge to tell my leftist friends that (a) I’m further left than they are, (b) the revolution is not just around the corner, and (c) voting strategically doesn’t take anything away from organizing.

This week the Supreme Court gave us their best reason yet to use voting as a political strategy. We are looking at a 5-4 reversal of Roe v. Wade, a decision that will cause enormous hardship for millions of working class and poor women across the country. That five-vote majority could not be arrived at without the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh to the court. If a Democratic president had filled even just two of those seats, it’s doubtful that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health would have even made it to the court in the first place.

Not our first rodeo

The sad fact is, because of flaccid support for flaccid Democratic candidates over the past twenty years, we have missed multiple opportunities to flip the Supreme Court over to the centrist-liberal side. There were several points at which a Democratic senate majority and/or Democratic president could have taken advantage of serendipitous vacancies, but alas, they simply were not there. The Republicans have managed to be in the right place at the right time in each instance.

It happened in the Reagan years, but without delving back into the stone age, the first instance I’m thinking of is 2005, right after Bush’s reelection, when Chief Justice Rehnquist died of thyroid cancer. If Kerry had won in 2004, Rehnquist would not have been replaced with Roberts. Neither would Sandra Day O’Connor have been replaced with Alito that same year. Then, of course, there was 2016, when Scalia dropped dead. Much as I couldn’t stand Clinton, she would not have appointed Gorsuch to replace him. And if we had held the Senate in 2014, confirmation of Obama’s nominee would have been assured.

Harm reduction 101

There are plenty of fair complaints on the left regarding how Biden has handled things, how the Democratic House and Senate have used their majorities, etc. But the principle obstacle to better policy is the lack of a firm majority in the Senate. That’s the reason why the Child Tax Credit was not renewed, even though it had cut child poverty in half. That was a wildly successful program that missed renewal by a whisker – really just one vote short in the Senate.

How do you fix that problem? Elect more progressive Democrats. Failing that, elect more Democrats who will at least support core policies, like reducing or ending child poverty, protecting a woman’s bodily sovereignty, and so on. It’s one of those necessary but not sufficient measures. Voting for Democrats will not solve our most serious problems by itself. It will keep things from turning into the dumpster fire we’re seeing now.

Do it for the downtrodden

Hey, I know … it sucks to have to support a lousy candidate. You work like hell in the primaries to get somebody decent on the ballot, and then end up with some watery moderate like Biden. Bad enough, but you know what’s worse? Republicans. And it may not affect you directly, if you’re well situated economically, but for working class and poor people, there is a significant difference between the parties.

So mark your ballot, then march. You can spend the whole year doing the latter. The former will just take you a few minutes.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Making half of us second class citizens

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I heard a few moments of oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health while they were underway. I didn’t, however, get the chance to dig into it until about a week later, when Michael Moore ran the full audio feed on his podcast, Rumble. You can also read the transcript posted on the Supreme Court’s web site, if you prefer.

Either way you access it, it’s pretty ugly, but that’s not surprising. The fact is, we’ve been seeing this slow-motion train wreck coming for decades, and many, many of us chose to do nothing to stop it. But before I get into that familiar diatribe, I want to comment briefly on some of what was said during these oral arguments – specifically, a few reactionary hot takes as analyzed by someone who is not a Con Law expert.

Being neutral on a speeding train

If you listen to the entire proceedings, you will hear Justice Kavanaugh dive into a discussion of precedent. Kavanaugh cited cases like Brown v. Board of Education as fodder for his argument that sometimes it’s appropriate to overturn decisions that are wrongly decided. Legal experts have pointed out that most if not all of his examples were cases that expanded rights, whereas overturning Roe would take rights away from Americans. But he also contended that the court should be “scrupulously neutral” on the question of abortion because, he claims, the Constitution is neutral on abortion.

Kavanaugh affects to consider Plessy v. Furguson as wrongly decided – fair enough. But wasn’t Plessy effectively the court’s way of saying that they were neutral on “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws? After all, the majority wasn’t forcing all states to adopt these laws. If a state wanted to do so, it was up to them. In light of that, what was Plessy, then, if not “scrupulous neutralism”? How can he describe this kind of neutralism as being a positive thing?

Fetishizing enumerated rights

Both Justice Thomas and Justice Kavanaugh appeared to agree with Mississippi’s Solicitor General that abortion was not a right explicitly laid out in our 18th Century constitution. If they mean the word does not appear in the text, they are correct. However, it seems more than unreasonable to expect that the only human rights we should honor must be spelled out in our founding documents.

For instance, is there anything in the Constitution about a right to breathe? How about walking across the street – is that buried somewhere in Article II? Reactionary Supreme Court Justices play this little game all the time. Now, I’m not even just an old country lawyer, but I’ll say this much. It seems to me that what happens under your skin should be your own damn business. That strikes me as the closest thing to a natural right as anything I’ve ever heard.

Ladies choice, please

I have a suggestion for the Justices. Your honors, take this as you will. If you are considering a decision that will relegate women to second-class citizenship, it seems only fair that the decision should be made by those amongst you who are best situated to understand the full ramifications. I’m speaking of the women currently seated on the Court. Let’s let them decide how to move forward on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. You boys just wait in the cloak room until they work it out.

Hey – if you don’t have a uterus, you should have a say in this. Simple as that.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Making them pay.

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Mitch McConnell and the people he represents (i.e. not so much his Kentucky constituents as mega-donors across the nation) realized their decades-long dream this week – the seating of a sixth hyper-conservative Supreme Court justice who will very likely play an important role in rolling back labor rights, voting rights, the regulatory power of federal agencies, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and much more in the decades to come. Stick a fork in it: the Supreme Court is now locked down by reactionaries for the foreseeable future, thanks to the determination and ruthlessness of the Republicans and the lack of focus and passion on the part of Democrats. We had three major electoral opportunities to regain control of the Court since 2000, and we blew every one of them, and now we’ll have to deal with the consequences.

Readers of this blog and listeners to my podcast, Strange Sound, will know that I grew up in a white, suburban, solidly Republican town in upstate New York, and it will surprise no one to hear that many of my former high school classmates had cause to celebrate the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett this week. I have to say, though, what I saw instead was a shocking amount of whining on the part of my old Republican friends. Instead of high-fiving each other over the awesome news that any future progressive legislation will be knocked back by judicial fiat until kingdom come, they were screaming about the possibility that a new Democratic administration would “pack the courts”, do away with the filibuster, ruin the Senate as a “deliberative” body, etc. Seriously? These folks need to take a day off once in a while.

Of course, that is the source of their strength, in a certain respect. This is a movement fueled by aggrievement. The Republicans have never, ever forgiven the Democrats for failing to confirm Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork back in 1987, when they held the majority. They held a similar grudge over the hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas back in 1991. (Mind you, in both of these cases, the ultimate result was the seating of a tremendously conservative justice on the Supreme Court.) They fumed over George H.W. Bush’s loss in 1992, and subjected Clinton to eight solid years of investigation because of their resentment. This anger is part of what animates them, and I think we need to borrow some of this for our own movement. The Republicans must be made to pay a political price for this, not just in this election, but into perpetuity. We must turn the Garland nomination obstructionism and the Barrett confirmation into our equivalent of the right’s Bork obsession – painful losses that galvanize us to fight all the harder. Our politicians must remind the voters of these wrongs over and over and over.

Anger can be useful, if it’s channeled in the right way. After what happened this past week, I would think we on the left would be more than ready to turn up the heat under these fuckers, and make them pay. We shall see.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Handmaid’s tale.

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Probably the most amazing thing about the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation process is the degree to which she and all of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee insist that there’s no underlying agenda behind her nomination, even though that agenda has been the most consistently central motivating force in GOP politics for the last four decades. That’s no exaggeration – this has been their core mission since the dawn of the Regan era. It’s been a relentless push over the course of forty years on the part of conservative politicians, political action groups, and the obscenely rich funders who back them, quietly and not so quietly. And yet they all sit in that Senate committee room and attempt to gaslight the American public, making stirring speeches about the roles of the coordinate branches of government and the crucial distinction between politics and civics, assuring us that they’re only interested in applying constitutional principles in a fair and measured way.

If you believe that, then you might be interested in this nice bridge I have for sale. Make no mistake: Barrett is an extremist, and a relatively young one at that – if she is confirmed, which seems more than likely, she will probably serve on that court for forty years or more. That means bloodcurdlingly reactionary decisions on a range of issues, from reproductive rights to same-sex marriage to the constitutionality of the ACA to the outcome of elections. Judge Barrett could not even acknowledge long settled statutory prohibitions on voter intimidation, nor her thoughts on the peaceful transfer of power following a national election. There are issues that she does have an opinion on; she has made that very clear in the form of open letters in publications, speeches, and other means. But we’re expected to believe that those opinions will not play a role in her jurisprudence. My. Smoking. Ass.

We’ve been here before, folks, right? Republican nominees being tight lipped about the very things that put them in front of that committee in the first place. We know that she was chosen by the Federalist Society and others, who pushed her forward for Trump, and our insane clown president of course signed off on the appointment. She has the votes … I’m certain that’s partly why Mitch McConnell is moving forward with this now. So why the hell not just say what you think, expound on the depredations of available abortion services (and birth control), and then flip everyone off? She should then do a little dance out of the room – when McConnell calls the vote, it will be all over. Sure, other things can happen …. but will they? The GOP has the power, and they will use it. It’s to the point where we’re placing a Taliban-like religious extremist on the court – one whose secret society group, People of Praise, had her referring to herself as a handmaid. Seriously, people? We can’t do better than this?

We’re facing a 6-3 Supreme Court, and we have to encourage leaders on the center-left to do the right things to counteract their antidemocratic powers. I’ll talk about some specifics on Strange Sound, so be sure to tune in.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Old faithful.

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You know what’s really hilarious about American politics? It’s when news people, commentators, and even politicians themselves expect someone like Mitt Romney to act like someone who totally isn’t Mitt Romney – that is, someone who has an ounce of integrity or any impulse beyond self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. That was the spectacle this week, in the wake of Justice Ginsburg’s not-wholly-unanticipated passing. Almost immediately the speculation started bubbling up through cable television and the internet …. what will Romney do? Will he stand up to Trump and McConnell? Will he insist on fairness and a single standard that applies to both major political parties? I mean, it’s a regular laugh riot. Sure … Mitt Romney is going to stand between the GOP and the fulfillment of one of its most cherished goals: a radical transformation of the judiciary from top to bottom. Really, people?

As someone who has spent a good deal of time online doing bad imitations of Romney, I have to say that he has done his best to conform with my distorted caricature of him as a cluelessly greedy maladroit who spouts almost as much nonsense as his president. Today Romney described America as a “center-right” country. I suppose from his perspective it is, as the tiny number of people who own and run America probably fit that description, and those are the only people he interacts with. A little harder to grasp was his claim that his liberal “friends” had grown used to the idea of having a liberal Supreme Court, but that that is “not in the stars.” Not sure what he’s getting at – the Court has been majority conservative for almost fifty years, since the Nixon era. No one on the left who’s under the age of seventy has ever had the opportunity to get used to the idea of a liberal SC. I’m starting to wonder if maybe Mitt doesn’t allow himself a little pull off of a snifter once in a long while.

A couple of days later, Romney put himself back into relatively good graces with the never-Trump squad by tweeting his disapproval of Trump’s comments about not committing to a peaceful transfer of power. Pretty low hanging fruit, that – Hey, everybody! Romney’s nominally against a coup d’etat, at least on Twitter! Give him a freaking medal!

Okay, well … now that I’ve ripped him a new asshole (no charge, Mitt – now you can shit over your help twice as much ), I should get to the larger point that I wanted to make. Simply, don’t watch Republicans for signs of integrity or commitment to institutional norms, etc. Let me see if I can put this simply for the credulous media that incessantly speculate about these things: Republicans only care about winning. That’s it. The country can go straight to hell – and right now, it most certainly is. They don’t give a flying fuck. If the price of continuing a Republican presidency is democracy itself, then apparently that’s fine with them. They are a death cult, yes, but just as bad, they are comfortable with the notion of authoritarianism and an end to any pretense of electoral accountability. Just the fact that the Trump campaign has spoken with GOP state legislators about subverting the will of the voters should be enough to convince anyone of that.

Make your plans, people. This could be the fight of our lives.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The unitary peril.

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Happy Independence Day, everyone … and welcome to the next phase of our slide towards authoritarianism. It’s a track we’ve been on for decades, frankly, and our pace has accelerated with the dubious election of Donald Trump (a.k.a. Drumpf) as our president. Trump is taking the concept of the unitary executive, popularized under Bush II, to a whole new level, testing institutional constraints on presidential power, many of which apparently boil down to voluntarily-observed norms of behavior, ethical standards, etc., but very little in the way of black-letter law. Even in the case of explicit legal constraints, this president is demonstrating that there is very little in the way of available recourse to a chief executive that ignores or even violates the law. Who holds the president accountable, particularly if the Senate is a perennial no-show?

Now, as Trump prepares for his big, honking, tank-infested fourth of July show in D.C., his administration is contemplating an executive order that would violate a Supreme Court decision regarding exclusion of the citizenship question on the U.S. Census. If they move forward with this, welcome to the dictatorship. When our institutions cannot compel a president to comply with a duly-rendered opinion handed down by the highest court, that amounts to a constitutional crisis far beyond anything we have seen up to this point. What higher authority is there to compel a change of behavior on the part of the administration? There’s no inspector general, no ombudsman overseeing the presidency – just Congress … and honestly, if Congress finally gets up on its hind legs and tells Trump “enough!”, what happens if he ignores them?

Trying to keep the mad king happy.

We have a long tradition of republican rule in the United States, obviously attenuated by a foundational regime of racial, ethnic and gender-based exclusion that has kept whole classes of people from participating in the political process (and continues to do so). But that long, troubled history does not immunize us against dictatorship. Military rule in Chile was once thought impossible in a country with longstanding civilian rule, then came their September 11th (1973) and the Pinochet dictatorship. The fact is, it not only can happen here, it almost certainly will happen here if we don’t stand up and resist.  It is cliche to say that democracy is not a gift – that it must be fought for. Let’s remove that notion from the context of pointless wars. We need to fight for our freedom right here, right now.

How? Stand up. Call, visit, petition your representatives to hold the president accountable. March, protest, and participate in strikes when tactically appropriate. Make your voice heard. We have to turn this thing around and put authoritarianism back in the box … before some slightly more competent “Great Leader” comes along and takes up the reins from our current clown-president.

luv u,

jp