The Carpentariat

Trumpian "normality": Staff extortion and First Lady revenge

From Bloomberg News, hilarity:

"It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she" — the deputy national security adviser, Mira Ricardel — "no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House," said Melania Trump’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham.

"[Ricardel] drew the first lady’s wrath," reports Bloomberg, "after threatening to withhold National Security Council resources during Melania Trump’s trip to Africa last month unless Ricardel was included in her entourage."

It was once common to read of First Ladies Mary Lincoln or Eleanor Roosevelt or Nancy Reagan or Hillary Clinton opposing the presence of some presidential appointee or cabinet member. But to issue a press release calling for the appointee's dismissal? Only in Trumpworld — that seething, bubbling turf of paranoid psychosis — would a First Lady come right out and demand it.

This administration is less a reflection of American politics than a fascinating study in abnormal psychology.

 

A graph every Trumpeteer should see (but never will)

This graph shows at a glance the reality of Republicans' presumed capital-investment tax cut of $1.5 trillion:

Nearly the entire sum instead devolved into corporate-stock buybacks, shareholder dividends and "small," one-time employee bonuses (roughly $225 on average).

Otherwise it has resulted in a loss of corporate jobs; a slower rate of wage growth than last year's; a drop in GDP highs from President Obama's of 4.7%, 4.9% and 5.1%; and a 145% increase in the federal deficit this year.

And that, in sum, is a Republican economy.

It also confirms the one thing that Donald Trump actually got right, in 2004 — telling CNN, "I’ve been around for a long time and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans."

 

The Republican bind that kills

Jennifer Rubin offers what at first might seem like reasonable advice:

"[Colorado's Sen. Cory] Gardner and fellow Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine (where a Democratic governor was elected), Thom Tillis of North Carolina (where Democrats picked up both House and state legislative seats), Joni Ernst of Iowa (where Democrats flipped House seats) and even John Cornyn of Texas (where Beto O’Rourke came within three points of winning and multiple House seats flipped) might want to keep a few things in mind if they want to hang onto their seats….

"First, don’t go along with, parrot or condone Trump’s anti-democratic, hateful, untrue and destructive comments"; "don't agonize] over a vote, only to vote with the president"; "[and] Third, they are not the administration’s defense counsel at hearings."

Rubin offers this advice because, as she argues, voting blocs are realigning: "women, college-educated, young and suburban voters have woken up and screamed 'Enough!'" Hence Republican pols had "better stop acting like Trump lap dogs."

As noted, Rubin's might seem like sound advice. It is not.

In a sane party, it would be. Republicans would be running from the president's lying, hateful, unAmerican remarks and behavior. But in the party of Trumpism, insanity reigns sovereign, thus Rubin's advice merely underscores why Republican incumbents can't smartly break from the evil little man in the White House.

They'd get clobbered in the next primary if they did.

They know that women, the college-educated, the young and suburban voters have turned against the bigoted, misogynistic, anti-intellectual GOP. But what's an intelligent Republican pol to do if he or she wishes to stay in office? Well, first up, he or she must win his or her party's nomination. And that means coddling the party's prehensile mouth-breathers. GOP pols have no choice; the party's racist, rights-denying, nonfrontal-lobed primates are setting the rules of the game — and the rules demand coddling them. Simple as that.

So, what Rubin's column actually does is underscore the Republican Party's fate — which ranges from the bleak to the existentially annihilated.

 

Another cabinet member to be canned

The Washington Post:

"Trump has berated her during Cabinet meetings, belittled her to other White House staff and tagged her months ago as a 'Bushie,' a reference to her previous service under President George W. Bush and meant to cast suspicion on her loyalty."

The "her" is Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. But as the Post reports, her moniker will soon be former secretary of homeland security. Why? Because she respects "the laws and regulations that prevent the government from drastically curtailing immigration or closing the border with Mexico, as Trump has suggested." Thus "the president has grown impatient and frustrated."

Would-be authoritarians don't like being told about laws and regulations that cause wet-dream-interruptus.

Although the timing of Nielsen's firing has not been set, the Post adds that she "has been reluctant to leave the administration before reaching the one-year mark as secretary on Dec. 6."

But having learned far more than we ever wanted to know about her vindictive boss, we can assume he'll sack her on Dec. 5.

 

Nancy Pelosi and the beauty of default

None of us is indispensable, but some of us are just better at our jobs than others.

Thus spoke Nancy Pelosi to CNN's Dana Bash. She proved her premise by adding, "I have a broad base of support in the country, financially, politically, and otherwise, which is valuable to our caucus."

She appears set to be House speaker again because of another valid premise, spoken by Maryland's Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin: "You can’t beat somebody with nobody." And that's precisely what the anti-Pelosi faction has: nobody.

Reports Politico: "The House Democratic rebels trying to keep Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker have a big problem: They can't seem to find someone to run against her."

The mostly purple-district Dems in the seemingly futile search for a somebody will have an even bigger problem in 2020, when they're skewered by Republican opponents for "failing" to live up to their implied vow of a non-Pelosi House. The fact that these Dems had no option won't trouble their Trumpian opponents at all, for they live in a fantasy, counterfactual world of nothing but attack.

For now, though, let us let Congressman Ed Perlmutter amuse us with some anti-Pelosi anti-logic, as he takes on Ruskin's maxim: "The idea that you can’t beat somebody with nobody isn’t true when you have a minimum threshold to meet." That's true as far as it goes. But it ignores that Democrats will have to have a speaker.

What is Perlmutter's answer to this? "We have a lot of great, diverse candidates from all across the caucus who would be fantastic as our next speaker. They just need the opportunity to rise up and step forward."

Therein lies the amusement; the ironic punchline being that every House Dem does have the opportunity to rise up and step forward. The "big problem" for House rebels, as Politico puts it — or rather the point — is that none is doing so.

So it looks as though Pelosi will regain the speakership by default. For as Politico further reports, there are not — as the matter stands, anyway — enough rebellious votes to doom her.

 

Sherrod Brown may join the pack

"Sen. Sherrod Brown is weighing a run for president," reports Cleveland's Plain Dealer, saying "he's heard from an 'overwhelming' number of people" who've encouraged him to run.

His campaign theme? The "worker empowerment that he espoused in this year's re-election should be a blueprint for the national Democrats to win back the White House in 2020."

Said the newly elected senator: "For a progressive to win a state Donald Trump carried by almost double digits by a pretty big margin tells me you can be a progressive, you can stand up for women's rights, gay rights and civil rights, and not compromise on these core values and still win in a state that Trump won decisively."

I'm delighted that Sen. Brown stands up for women's rights, gay rights and civil rights. It's his position on trade that disturbs. In a 2017 Senate debate, Brown repeated that "These trade agreements clearly have sold out the middle class. Ten years ago, we had a $1 billion trade deficit with China on auto parts. Today it's $10 billion."

Again with the trade-deficit figures, which is a favorite Trump ploy. In fact they can mean rather little when it comes to gauging a nation's economic health. And the verdict has long been in: America's trade agreements have benefited the middle class more than they have hurt. Indeed the Democratic Party's bluest districts rely on exports, which have made those districts among the highest paid in the country.

Brown has been politically successful in Ohio because of the state's traditional industrial and manufacturing base. But if he tries to sell his anti-trade theme elsewhere, he'll only be throwing a wrench in his own works.

 

Florida, and Trump - a Big Lying born loser

The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018

Trump's evidence that "many" of Florida's ballots are "missing or forged." that they're "massively infected"? None, not a whit. His allegation is just another Big Lie.

"Florida officials conducted recounts in three statewide races amid accusations of fraud by Republicans," reports the Washington Post, "but no evidence of criminal conduct, according to the  Florida secretary of state’s office, which is led by a Scott appointee." What's more, "The recounts are happening in accordance with Florida law."

Yesterday, on NPR's "All Things Considered," I heard one reporter exclaim (my paraphrase from memory, but close): "It's as though Trump has never seen an election before." The reporter went on to note, as does the Post, that huge numbers of overseas and military ballots have yet to be counted.

With almost equal demagogic ease, Gov. Rick Scott joined Trump in propagating the Big Lie, accusing incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson of "fraud, to try to win this election." Later, Scott added that Nelson is "just here to steal this election."

On Trump's part, what's in play is nothing more than a preemptive strike at his upcoming loss in 2020. He pulled the same stunt in 2016 when it looked certain that he would lose; he claimed that his opponent's victory would be possible only through voter fraud. Pace quite a few pundits proclaiming that the president's chance of a 2020 victory is more likely than not, Trump again understands, deep inside, that he's a born loser. So he needs an excuse.

His recent remarks about Florida's elections are merely a preview.

 

And, what a surprise!

An inevitable, above-the-fold report, from the NY Times:

"North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Trump claims to have neutralized the North’s nuclear threat….

"The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception…. [And] the existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Mr. Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of [North Korea's] nuclear and missile program."

In simpler, more direct, and the most honest words: What a dunce.

 

Say two strategists, Get ready for Hillary 4.0

Mark Penn, senior adviser to the Clintons, and Andrew Stein, president of the New York City Council, have written a Wall Street Journal op-ed that is certain to rattle both Democratic leaders and the rank and file. I have distilled the Penn-Stein piece to its essence.

Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0….

[In 2008] Clinton held fast to centrist positions that would have assured her victory in the general election. But progressive leaders and donors abandoned [Hillary 2.0, with 1.0 having been a progressive] for the antiwar Mr. Obama…. It was during [her time as secretary of state] that the more liberal Hillary 3.0 emerged…. She entered the 2016 primary as a progressive ... [and then went further left, with Bernie Sanders bearing down]…. But Mrs. Clinton’s transformation during the primaries, especially on social and cultural issues, cost her an easy win against Donald Trump….

She has had two years to go over what she did wrong and how to take him on again…. She will … [run] on the #MeToo movement, universal health care and gun control….

The generation of Democrats who have been waiting to take over the party from the Clintons will be fuming that she is back and stealing their show. But they revealed themselves to be bungling amateurs in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination fight, with their laughable Spartacus moments. She will trounce them … [and] Joe Biden will never be able to take her on.

Unstated is why Biden will be unable to take her on. But more important, perhaps, is the last word of this Penn and Stein passage: "Clinton will "mobiliz[e] the army of professional women behind her, leveraging her social networks, and raking in donations."

The big money has witnessed two Clinton losses and we're looking at three decades of Clinton fatigue. Will it risk a third loss in yet another, tiring round of ever-changing Clintonism? Plus, competing against farther-left Hillary for progressive cash will be that rowdy horde of "rising Democratic stars," as Penn-Stein concede.

The bigger money, it would seem, will invest in center-leftism. It just dominated the midterm elections and thus would appear set to again dominate in the 2020 campaigns. Biden, then — if he gets serious enough early enough; and that, admittedly, is a big if — would be the natural repository for greater center-left cash.

Hillary 4.0 is but another twist, another turn in her almost fanatical pursuit of the White House. And it's at least one twist too many.

 

A misleading headline, confirming a political "myth" about women

Rarely have I read a more bogus headline than that of the NY Times' "gender editor," Susan Chira's, titled "There’s No Nice Lady Caucus in Congress: With 100-plus women heading to the House, let’s examine some myths." She states her thesis upfront:

"The 116th Congress will have a record number of women. So that means more women will bring their vaunted ability to compromise and work across the aisle. Right? No, as it turns out, women are no more immune to the forces intensifying partisanship than men. That’s what political scientists have found."

Yet "intensifying partisanship" can differ vastly from women's "ability to compromise and work across the aisle" — the former is chiefly characterized by the author as merely the "co-sponsor[ship of] bills with members of the opposite party" — which Chira herself rather proudly, it would seem, highlights later in her column. What she relates is a startling contradiction of her own thesis:

"Of 83 women interviewed by the political scientist Kelly Dittmar and her co-authors for a recent book on women in Congress, 'A Seat at the Table,' many said that they focused on getting things done — and that building personal ties can help them try to find some aspect of policy they can collaborate on. So even if the overall number of bipartisan bills isn’t different for women than for men [i.e., the aforementioned 'intensifying partisanship'}, they do feel as though collaboration matters."

So women, it turns out, are more focused than men on "getting things done" through "compromise" and "building personal ties," because for them, "collaboration matters." That assessment is likely the most salient of "myths" about women legislators — their keener ability to work together, versus men's more aggressive, independent style — that Chira purportedly set out to disprove, but then turned around and featured the mass illusion as substantially unmythical; indeed, as a sign of women's superiority in legislative affairs.

I steadfastly agree with one of Chira's political scientists, one who supposedly was to have helped invalidate the silly, "gendered" humbug about women's supremacy. Said the University of Virginia's Jennifer Lawless, "We’re still partisan — just better."

 

Europe is "praying that Trump is a one-term president"

Presidential ignorance abounds.

"[Trump's] seeming indifference to European sensibilities was reinforced by a report in Le Monde," writes the Washington Post, "that in a meeting with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania earlier this year, Mr. Trump confused the Baltic states for Balkan states and blamed them for the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s."

Our embarrassment also abounds.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made it, as did French President Emmanuel Macron. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., also made it yesterday to the ceremony honoring the thousands of Americans, buried at the Aisne Marne American Cemetery, who lost their lives in defense of France at the Battle of Belleau Wood.

But Trump, blaming the weather, didn't make it.

"I helped plan all of President Obama’s trips for 8 years," tweeted former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. "There is always a rain option. Always," he added. Kelly Magsamen, who served in the National Security Council, the Defense and State Departments under Trump's two predecessors, tweeted: "Real low energy, @realDonaldTrump to not bother to honor the sacrifice of American soldiers in WWI due to some rain. Somehow everyone else was able to do so today. Obama never had this problem."

Also joining the Trump-anguished tweet party was Winston Churchill's grandson, Nicholas Soames, a Conservative MP: "They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen."

The embarrassing, offensive ignorance of Donald J. Trump could not come at a worse time. On this 100th anniversary of the First World War's armistice, Europe is unraveling under pressures similarly faced by its prewar governments: rising nationalism and the scourge of ethnic hostilities. "The fringes are radicalizing," notes the Times. Extremist Trumpian populists are in charge in Hungary, Poland, and Italy — and even in Germany, "the far right has become the main voice of opposition in Parliament, mocking the mainstream media as 'Lügenpresse,' or lying press — a term that was first used by the Nazis in the 1920s before their ascent to power." (Leave it to the Germans to make a one-word noun out of "fake news.")

After the Second World War — an extension of the First, it is now generally acknowledged — much of the ravaged continent came together to form the European Union; a single market and, in time, a single currency, intended to forever suppress the twin evils of nationalism and ethnic divisions. A spiritual leader behind Europe's integration was NATO's first commander, Dwight Eisenhower, who in 1951 called for "the formation of the United States of Western Continental Europe." With this essentially completed over the next few decades, every U.S. president throughout — excepting the bad times of the Iraq war and George W. Bush — was Europe's best friend.

And now comes Donald Trump. In just two short years he has managed to wreck America's reputation for global leadership and turn Europe into an economic foe and otherwise resolute adversary. Said former Obama advisor Charles Kupchan to the Times: "Trump might be able to retain decent working relationships with populist governments in Italy, Poland, and Hungary. But the rest of Europe is resigned to running out the clock, hoping and praying that Trump is a one-term president."

Europe isn't alone. He's our embarrassment; he's our ignorant, would-be Viktor Orbán; he's a disrespectful bully toward those who once respected and loved the United States. And as far as we're concerned, Trump as even a one-(full)-term president is too much.

 

They just don't learn 'em like this no more

Below is my daughter, Ellie, in a women's restroom at her university's English Department. Please don't ask what possessed a friend to take a photo in such a place, because I haven't the vaguest idea.

Yet, the photo is instructive. You may be able to see, faintly, the letters "u-m-p" over her left shoulder — which, my daughter informed me, complete the brilliant epithet, "Fuck Trump." I remind you, these splendidly imaginative words were composed by some thoughtful student at the English department.

Couldn't we at least have gotten a limerick? Maybe ...

There was a young lady named Stumpf,
who was downcast for she had fucked Trump:
"If only I had then knowed,
"that he was such a limp toad,
"because now I will never again hump."

Well, not much better, I guess.

 

Mr. Trump, it is indeed "very sad"

In a piece of logic that is as comical as it is incomprehensible, an administration official told the Washington Post that "The White House did not thoroughly vet [Matthew] Whitaker before Trump appointed him acting attorney general, because he was 'already chief of staff.'"

This same official added that Whitaker is probably safe as the "acting" A.G. — in every sense of the air-quote word — "unless more comes out." The White House, it seems, is rather comfortable with Whitaker's record, as is.

Let's review. During his 2014 campaign for the U.S. Senate — which offers "advice and consent" on presidential judicial appointments — he opined that judges mustn't be "secular" in their legal thinking; that they should instead possess a "biblical view"; that the founders meant the judiciary to be the "inferior branch" among nonetheless coequals; and that Marbury v. Madison, which established the indispensable concept of judicial review, was a flawed Supreme Court decision.

Mr. Whitaker also served as a board member for a fraudulent, Miami-based patent-marketing firm; threatened scammed customers with law suits, to shut them up; and ignored a Federal Trade Commission 2017 subpoena, which "[sought] his records related to the company."

Furthermore, as a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, he brought what amounted to political charges against an "openly gay Democratic state senator." The jury acquitted the defendant with due haste. And, of course, as acting attorney general, Whitaker will oversee the Mueller investigation, which he has already denounced as "crazy." (Really crazy is Whitaker's opinion that "The left is trying to sow this theory that essentially Russians interfered with the U.S. election, which has been proven false. They did not have any impact in the election," he said in contradistinction to the entire U.S. intelligence community.)

Still, the White House insists that Whitaker is safe in his job, "unless something more comes out," which reveals Trump's spectacular tolerance levels for legal mush, criminal behavior, and homophobia as a political platform. But, the White House has an excuse, however chronologically peculiar it may be: There was no need to vet Whitaker for his present job, since he was "already chief of staff."

Meanwhile, the president of the United States can't seem to decide if he even knows Mr. Whitaker. Speaking on "Fox & Friends" in October, Trump said "I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker." Yesterday? "I don’t know Matt Whitaker." The latter remark is especially odd, since one White House official "laughed Friday at Trump’s suggestion that he did not know Whitaker." Why the jocularity? Well, "Trump and Whitaker have met in the Oval Office several times."

Nevertheless, Trump is handling this puzzler of a situation with his customary grace, aplomb, vicious racism and misogyny. When asked yesterday by a black, female CNN reporter if he hired Whitaker to constraint the Mueller investigation, Trump answered, "What a stupid question. I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions." When asked another discomfiting question by April Ryan, a black reporter for American Urban Radio Networks, Trump responded that she's a "loser" who "doesn’t know what the hell she is doing."

Makes ya kinda proud, doesn't it?

Or, perhaps Trump himself said it better, before leaving yesterday to insult Parisians: "It’s very sad, I have to say."

 

Joe Biden, and John Lennons's "Imagine"

From Andrew Sullivan's latest:

"Most presidents are interested in governing and sometimes take their eye off the ball politically. Trump is all politics and all salesmanship all the time. And it works. If he can demonstrate this in the midterms, imagine what his reelection campaign will be like."

I'd rather not imagine what Trump's reelection campaign will be like. Come to think of it, the essence of his reelection campaign requires no imagination. What we'll get is merely more rhetorical rot from what Sullivan accurately describes as "an unfit, delusional, mendacious, malevolent, incompetent authoritarian as president."

I'd prefer to imagine the relentless poundings that — I hope — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (a recent CNN poll of Democrats acknowledged his lead "among 16 possible candidates") delivers squarely on Trump's already tattered reputation.

Yes, his age is a factor. It's a plus. Because of his age Biden uniquely possesses the experience and mature judgment necessary to vividly contrast Trump's amateurish, adolescent personality. Biden's humble roots and avuncular parables will also appeal to Middle America — where the often undecided, persuadable, marginal votes are.

In the coming months, I shall make my preference for the Democratic nominee stentorianly clear — which means I'll likely lose a substantial portion of my readership. Internet partisans will increasingly confine themselves to sites that agree with their preferences; this has happened in every presidential election season throughout my online existence.

But what the hell. The joy of imagining the former vice president verbally disemboweling that tasteless gangster in FDR's, LBJ's and BHO's White House is just too inviting to worry about the assorted downsides of readership fluctuations.

 

Matthew Whitaker: crook or crackpot? You decide.

In "Matthew Whitaker has experience advising con artists. Will he help more under Trump?," columnist Catherine Rampell goes to some length, as the title suggests, in exposing the illegally appointed (some dispute this) acting attorney general as a swindler.

Like his new boss and his "university" scheme, Whitaker scammed countless customers of a Miami patent-marketing firm out of thousands of dollars and "threw others deeply into debt," observes Rampell. "Trump clearly loves to surround himself with fellow hucksters, snake-oil salesmen and others accused of questionable business behavior," she continues, which is confirmed by a glance at Trump's crooked cabinet members. Whitaker is merely joining a rather exclusive club of common grifters, chiselers, and thieves — some of whom, such as Whitaker himself, exhibit truly peculiar behavior.

Rampell's colleague, Ruth Marcus, is far more economical in her titled estimation of the acting attorney general: "Matthew Whitaker is a crackpot."

The title suffices in describing Whitaker, although Marcus goes on because of contractual obligations to the Washington Post. A lawyer herself (Harvard Law, 1984), she notes with astonishment that Whitaker believes Marbury v. Madison was an ill-conceived Supreme Court decision. Says Marcus, this "is like a physicist denouncing the laws of gravity."

Just as crackpotted is Whitaker's view of proper judicial philosophy. Said he in 2014, "I’d like to see things like their worldview, what informs them. Are they people of faith? Do they have a biblical view of justice? — which I think is very important." If the founders had thought it "very important," they would have said so while writing the Constitution.

But not to worry, Mr. Trump. If Matthew Whitaker fails to last as even your acting attorney general, there are plenty of other commentating crackpots on Fox News from which you can draw.

 

The Impeachment Question

Tom Steyer, the television impeachment guy, argues that

this blue wave should have been even bigger. Democrats’ inability to run the table on a Republican Party that depended on lying, race-baiting and suppressing the vote is a sign that the American people do not know what the Democratic Party stands for....

As President Trump continues to accelerate his lawlessness, the new Democratic House majority must initiate impeachment proceedings against him as soon as it takes office in January…. Yet the current Democratic leadership has insisted that no one so much as mention the word “impeachment"….

For too long, Democratic leaders have convinced their fellow elected officials that bland, nonconfrontational and incremental centrism is the way to win elections and make progress. In truth, it’s just the easiest way to protect the balance of power in Washington. But by trying to meet a corrupt Republican Party halfway, instead of taking clear stands for what’s right, they have failed to define the party and failed to protect their constituents.

There is much truth in what Stayer writes. There is also much that's misleading.

Tuesday's blue wave, if an authentic wave it was, not only could have been but "should have been even bigger." Democratic voters were there to run the table, but so was the Democratic tradition of appreciable indifference. And of course it's true that the Republican Party depends on lying, race-baiting and vote-suppression; that Trump's lawlessness is accelerating; that Democratic leaders are inclined to blandness; and that the Democratic Party has indeed had its troubles defining itself. All true.

But among those who bothered to vote, did they really not know what they were voting for? In this election, were they clueless as to what the Democratic Party stood for? Since Trump took office, the political talk has been all about installing an institutional check on the president. Two years later, that would have been hard to miss.

Second, incremental centrism is the way to win elections — and this election proved the rule. Many a progressive aspirant was eliminated in the primaries, and that alone accounted for much of the bluish wave that was. That's just a fact that Steyer chooses to overlook.

Last, of what value would an ill-fated impeachment be? One can certainly make an ethical argument for impeachment; Nixon's crimes are beginning to pale next to Trump's, and any legislative body that valued unmitigated integrity over lurid politics would doubtless initiate parliamentary regicide against the royally thuggish Trump. One cannot, however, make much of a valid political argument for impeachment.

Former Bill Clinton aide Paul Begala told NPR's Mara Liasson yesterday that "he takes [pro-impeachment polls] with a big grain of salt." Indeed the veteran impeachment warrior is "not even sure people understand that impeaching a president does not mean removing him from office." Lisasson adds that Nancy Pelosi "views impeachment like kryptonite." Said the probable future speaker: "it would have to be bipartisan, and the evidence would have to be so conclusive." In a sane political environment, the former would be contingent on the latter, but any conclusiveness against Trump is an unthinkable concept to today's Republicans.

Hence the only objective of a Democratic dead-end impeachment would be to mollify the more activist base — which the vast middle would readily tire of, to Democrats' 2020 detriment.

In short, Tom Steyer's intentions are good, but his politics are misguided.

 

All's Well That Ends Well

I found this tale by Harvard professor of history Tiya Miles so sublimely touching, I wanted to share it:

In Bozeman, [Mont.,] where my daughter was enrolled in an intensive dance workshop that culminates in a performance at the annual Sweet Pea Festival, I worried about leaving her alone with strangers. An African-American and Gros Ventre/Assiniboine teenager, she wins no "identity politics" points in a state where bloody battles were fought by the United States military to drive American Indians onto reservations, where racial divides between whites and Native Americans are still keenly felt through geography and inequality, and where the black population is minuscule.

When my daughter and I arrived at the dance studio set against the backdrop of rugged peaks, we were not surprised to find that she was the only black girl and one of two visibly identifiable girls of color. We were huddled together, taking stock, when a neatly styled middle-aged white woman started toward us in a determined gait. A man dressed in jeans, a western belt, a plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat accompanied her. I steeled myself, planning how I would defend my daughter against an anticipated racial slight.

"I noticed you two aren’t from around here. Neither are we," the woman said. They had driven over from Glendive, a town five hours east near the North Dakota border — rural, insular, and white. Bozeman is no diversity hub, but compared to Glendive, it could be California. I watched the husband, bracing for his reaction to his wife’s overture and was stunned when he reached out a hand, introduced himself, and smiled all the way to his eyes. "If our daughters could meet," the woman suggested, "maybe they won’t feel alone."

This couple from a rural Republican state saw that our families had something in common, that we stood in this uncertain space together and might join purposes. This was something to reach for, to take solace in, the notion that there could be a "we."

Would that similar tales were told everywhere in the nation.

They will be, someday, when the Donald Trumps and Steve Kings of this world are long gone.

 

Don't boo - unify!

Contra Philip Lacovara's WaPo op-ed, former asst. U.S. attorney Randall Eliason writes that Sessions' firing and Whitaker's hiring has "set off a full-blown freakout among those who see this as the first step in a Nixonian plot to shut down special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation." Says Eliason, "there’s no need to panic — at least not yet."

It's difficult to narrow, to one major point, Eliason's reasons for calm. He notes that Whitaker "can’t just 'disappear' the special counsel’s investigation"; that we can "take heart in the Justice Department’s demonstrated ability to maintain its independence when it comes to political investigations"; that "we shouldn’t just assume [Whitaker] will simply ignore the Justice Department’s traditions and policies and roll over for Trump" [I find these last two reasons naïve]; and that "any new permanent attorney general will have to be confirmed by the Senate, where even some Republican senators are likely to demand assurances about the protection of the special counsel."

Still, Eliason's chief argument appears to be that "The justice system is bigger than any one person," in that "This investigative train is already far down the tracks…. Mueller is not a Washington naif; he likely has been preparing for this possibility for some time. He has already farmed out collateral areas of his inquiry to other federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York."

As a former U.S. attorney it's peculiar that Eliason fails to note that Whitaker as U.S. attorney general could shut down any farmed-out, federal-district investigation. Nevertheless, Eliason does add inarguably that "Additional indictments or reports might be largely completed, and that work will not simply vanish." How the distribution of that work could be accomplished after another Weekend Night Massacre is the disquieting part. Would Boy Scout and Dudley Do-Right Bob Mueller smuggle his completed investigations into Adam Schiff's House office? That's hard to imagine. Yet if he did, what, exactly, could the House do with it? Impeach Trump? — only to watch its Senate referral be pissed on by Trump-loyal Republicans?

I agree with Eliason that panic and full-blown internet freakouts are, at this time, rather immature responses to Trump's firing of Jeff Sessions. Trump's threat to punish an investigating House with a counter-investigating Senate was just silly, and equally immature. (What, would the House counter-counter-investigate the Senate?) And — again, at this time — speculation as to what might occur, such as Locavara's and mine earlier this morning — is just that: mere speculation.

More productive activity on the left and in the broad center would be, I'd suggest, getting the Democratic presidential nomination process underway — immediately, and loudly. I'd prefer that every potential candidate bow to Joe Biden — now — since Democrats could then speak with one voice, that voice being the most genuine (and warmly publicly acknowledged) in its anti-Trump protestations. That, of course, won't happen. But Democrats very much need to launch a unified, rebellious, sustained denunciation of all things Trump, with blazing speed.

They must get the country behind them, forthwith and powerfully enough that even 2020 Senate Republicans tremble — and think twice, or thrice, before defending Trump to the hilt. Such activity would be far more effective than panicking and sobbing and freaking out.

 

From the left, an odd complaint

On Wednesday, Michael Tomasky remarked in a NYT op-ed that "On Tuesday, according to The Times, Democratic Senate candidates garnered 45 million votes, and Republicans just 33 million (57 percent to 42 percent). Yet, the Republicans will gain perhaps three seats. That is not democracy."

No, it is not. But we don't have a democracy. We have a republic.

I groan having to agree with David Rutz, the managing editor of the Washington Free Beacon, of all things, when he observes "a particularly dumb take … circling the Internet: Republicans lost the 'popular vote' in Senate races and still picked up seats!… That's unfair!" — and that "it is unbelievable that anyone would have to explain to folks interested in American politics what a useless metric the 'Senate popular vote' is. But I'll do my best."

He didn't, though — or maybe he did? That I don't know. What I do know is that he failed to clearly articulate the preeminent reason for Tuesday's lopsided popular-vote/seats-won result: The U.S. Constitution — whose wisdom progressives have taken to heralding even more than conservatives — was written precisely to evade democracy (which the founders regarded as mobocracy) and to protect smaller, less populated states from the "tyranny of the majority." (Instead, Rutz went on a somewhat lengthy rant, rather puzzlingly, about which party won what states under varying political conditions.)

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the issue of states' representation in Congress befuddled and outraged the delegates for weeks. Some argued, under the Virginia Plan, which was far more inhabited than, say, Delaware, that representation should be based only on population. Other proposals abounded, but it was the modified Connecticut Plan that prevailed and gave us the bicameral structure — the lower chamber's representation would be based on population; the upper chamber's, two senators from each state — that we have today.

One can argue reasonably that a Constitutional Amendment is much needed to make Congress more representative, but it's unreasonable to complain that Tuesday's Senate spread was unfair in the sense that it's undemocratic. Of course it's undemocratic. The founders wanted it that way.

 

Mere prayers cost another 13 lives

It appears all those Republican prayers last time didn't work.

Ventura County, Calif., Sheriff Geoff Dean: "It’s a horrific scene in there, there is blood everywhere and the suspect is part of that."

CNN: "The suspected gunman in the fatal Thousand Oaks bar shooting [13 dead, according to the Washington Post] has not been identified yet.... The suspect was dead when police arrived on the scene."

Still, perhaps this time prayers will work, even though, reports ABC15, Arizona: "According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 293 mass shooting incidents have occurred as of October 27," 2018, and 346 in 2017.