MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

Yes, it was like five weeks ago, but I’ve been busy. And anyway, it feels like everyone moved on from it pretty quickly – which may either be a comment on how blasé we’ve become about shootings in America (happens every day, and anyway only one person was killed and it wasn’t Trump), or the fact that the news media got distracted by the drama over whether Biden would or wouldn’t drop out.

Also, maybe it’s because I’m unplugged from the 24/7 media circus, but I’ve heard very little about how the investigation is going in terms of just what motivated Thomas Matthew Crooks. Politics? Instagram likes? Impressing Jodie Foster?

Any of these are possible, but in the interim, a lot of people have been filling that vacuum with all kinds of movie-plot conspiracy theories around. Is Thomas Matthew Crooks the new Lee Harvey Oswald? Did Trump do a Bob Roberts? I don’t know, and neither do you. Maybe we will someday.

Anyway, blog:

1. To get the obvious out of the way, I’m glad it failed – partly because I do think murder is wrong, and partly because I shudder to think what the MAGA cult would do in response to honour their glorious martyr.

2. A lot has been said about Trump’s fist-pump – it “proves” the shooting was staged by Trump, it shows that Trump is made of tougher stuff than you thought yada yada.

Well, (1) no, and (2) to me, it looked more like Trump’s media-savvy instinct kicking in. He may not have even been aware he was doing it. Either way, it’s obviously made for great optics that feeds perfectly into the authoritarian strongman image Trump is basically running on. It also inevitably contrasted with Biden’s debate fumble and alleged “frail” age issues, although – like the debate – it didn’t seem move the needle much poll-wise, and of course now it’s a non-issue with Biden out of the picture, much to Trump’s obvious disappointment.

3. The other interesting detail is the minor yet important fact that we don’t really know for sure whether Trump was hit by a bullet or debris created by the bullet’s impact on something. Obviously something hit him, but as Josh Marshall at TPM pointed out, we’ve never seen an official medical report stating what caused his injury (Ronny Jackson arguably doesn’t count), and his now-unbandaged ear looks pretty good for something that was hit with an AR-15 round.

As Marshall has said, the questions surrounding this do not undermine the seriousness of the fact that someone tried to kill Trump, but they do matter in the sense that Trump is going around telling everyone he took a bullet for democracy – which, again, is designed to feed his strongman schtick – when it’s possible he actually didn’t.

4. The GOP were clearly hoping to milk this for all its worth and use it as gasoline to throw on their trash-fire narrative that Biden and the Democrats are murderous criminal thugs out to take over America. Which is kind of ironic given that SCOTUS just ruled that a President could order his rival assassinated and never go to jail for it. But hey ho.

Anyway, that line doesn't seem to have made much difference outside of the cult. Moreover, as far as I’m concerned, the GOP’s claims that Biden incited Crooks by calling Trump a fascist hold no water with me. I will not be lectured on the dangers of inflammatory political rhetoric by a party that has increasingly thrived on it since the mid-90s. And anyway, the stuff Biden and the Demos have said about Trump is mild compared to things Trump and the MAGA cult say daily. (See: North Carolina Lt Gov Mark Robinson saying in a church that “some people need killing” – he says he meant WW2 Nazis and “evil people”, but he was also pretty clear that he includes liberals in that group.)

Hit and miss,

This is dF

Not to bang on about the Great Biden-Trump Debate Freakout, but one thing I noticed in my Twitter feed during the debate was that a lot of people complained that even Trump’s more blatant lies went unchallenged by both Biden and the moderators.

Fair point, though I’ll add that I think this is probably due to a couple of things:

(1) I suspect part of that is because we’ve normalized the idea that politicians lie or exaggerate about most stuff anyway, so moderators figire there’s no point in fact-checking them live – let ‘em talk and do the fact checks later.

(2) As someone who has moderated panel discussions (albeit not political ones), I would note that from a pure moderation standpoint, it’s actually hard to fact-check people to their face in real time during a live debate, not least because of the dangers of falling down enough rabbit holes that it ends up throwing the entire event off track. This is especially a problem with people like Trump who seem incapable of saying anything remotely true, potentially creating infinite rabbit holes.

(Apparently there’s an actual rhetorical strategy called the “Gish gallop” that is essentially a form of gaslighting by overwhelming your debate opponent with a firehose of nonsense so that they are unable to respond – though it’s also likely that this isn’t a deliberate strategy on Trump’s part so much as him just doing what comes naturally, but the result is similar.)

Anyway, given Trump’s general tendency to spout whatever pops into his head and the general deluge of disinformation swamping social media, it’s probably time for broadcast media and moderators to figure out a way to plausibly fact-check politicians in real time.

People like Daniel Dale do a pretty good job of this on Twitter, but that’s a separate medium that viewers have to actively check. Post-game fact-checks are fine, but also arguably too little too late for a lot of people. For viewers who are only seeing the debate coverage on TV, it would be good to figure out how to integrate that capability onscreen – like a fact-check ticker or something.

That said, the other challenge is the trustworthiness of the fact-checkers – I imagine the “facts” offered by, say, Newsmax and Fox would be quite different from those offered by CNN, etc. And then you’ll get into the whole thing where everyone says that “this media network is biased because they fact-checked my candidate more than the other one”.

So it’s not so simple, is what I’m saying.

Who checks the fact-checkers,

This is dF

Well, it doesn’t get more bloggable than this, so …

1. To get the obvious out of the way, of course we don’t know how airtight Bragg’s case is, and it is entirely possible that even Trump’s legal team could find a way to dismantle it enough to get an acquittal, a mistrial or whatever. Some have said it’s the weakest case of the four that have been brewing the last few years. We’ll just have to wait and see. I will say that Trump's tactic of publicly attacking the judge and his family probably isn't going to go the way he thinks.

2. However it plays out, I will be very surprised if it ends with Trump doing time. Billionaires rarely go to jail. At most he may be slapped with hefty fines (which, true to his character, he probably won’t pay). 

3. If we’ve learned anything from this so far, it’s that the GOP is very much Trump’s party. We knew this already, of course, but there was the usual buzz that the GOP has wanted to drop him like 3^rd Period French for awhile now, especially because of his looming legal problems, and an indictment would be the perfect political excuse to finally wash their hands of him.

Turns out, ha ha, no. Just about everyone apart from the handful of dedicated Never-Trumpers (your Romneys and Liz Cheneys and whatnot) has firmly defended Trump as the totally innocent victim of a vicious gay liberal witch hunt/conspiracy to steal the 2020 election and jail/punish all opposition to the resulting Biden Dynasty. Or words to that effect.

4. One big reason for this, of course, is that they’re afraid of the MAGA base, who has made it clear in no uncertain terms that Trump is the second coming of Jesus and that anyone who says otherwise will be dealt with accordingly. Of course, the GOP is largely responsible for enabling that base, so, you know, hey ho.

Which is also why the usual metric the GOP uses for this sort of thing – “Will this cost us the White House in the next election?” – isn’t that reliable. There’s no law preventing Trump from running for office even if he goes to jail, and the MAGA base is very likely to vote for him regardless. So the risk of a split vote is very real. If they can’t convince the base that, say, Ron DeSantis is an acceptable Trump substitute, I think the GOP will have no choice but to rally behind Trump and take their chances.

5. One silver lining, I suppose, is that the MAGA base has not been inclined to take to the streets en masse and rip shit up, despite being urged to do so by Trump himself, as well as the usual lackeys like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But the potential for political violence is the highest it’s been since the 1960s, so I’m expecting to see more isolated incidents as the trial goes on.

6. The GOP has also been offering a predictable litany of defenses, my favorite of which is “We don’t arrest former Presidents / current POTUS candidates in this country!”

… Well, you know, maybe we should?

Seriously, though, it’s worth unpacking that statement, because it basically implies that we don’t arrest former Presidents / current POTUS candidates because it’s not allowed, or it’s an unwritten rule or something.

In the first place, POTUS (and other) candidates have been arrested before, so it’s not unprecedented. Also, one reason former POTUSes haven’t been arrested before is because only a few have ever faced possible criminal charges. Of those, Warren Harding died in office and Richard Nixon was pre-emptively pardoned by his loyal sideman Gerald Ford. As for Bill Clinton, he was successfully sued by Paula Jones while in office, and while he did face possible criminal charges for perjury and obstructing justice, he did what a lot of rich and powerful people do – he avoided indictment by cutting a deal, which in his case resulted in a $25,000 fine and suspension of his law license for five years.

Trump, incidentally, probably could have done something similar to avoid indictment, but that would mean admitting wrongdoing (as Clinton had to do as part of his deal), which he is constitutionally incapable of doing.

7. In any case, I for one refuse to be lectured by the party of “LOCK HER UP!” about the inappropriateness of indicting POTUS candidates and former Presidents.

8. I do think the “We don’t arrest former Presidents” meme raises the question of accountability and to what extent we think Presidents (current or former) should be above the law. Impeachment is supposed to be the preferred remedy of high crimes and misdemeanors in the White House, but it’s a political solution, not a judicial one. And the politics makes it risky, lest we get into an endless cycle of political revenge (as various Repubs are now threatening to do).

The dilemma is: If it’s politically too dangerous to impeach or arrest a POTUS, what incentive remains for a POTUS to follow the law – especially a POTUS who turns out to be a pathological liar with no regard for the law and a willingness to burn the country to the ground if it means staying out of jail?

9. The other big question of course is: what does this mean for his re-election chances? It’s not clear yet, although we’ve already established that (1) you can still legally run for (and win) the Presidency from a jail cell, and (2) the MAGA base will vote for Trump no matter what. And it’s a given that Trump will milk this for everything it’s worth, so I think he’s still just as likely to at least win the nomination. He might not win the general election, but that may have been true before the indictment.

10. The one thing we can be sure of is that the political climate in the US is going to get a lot worse. The indictment will feed the MAGA crowd’s persecution complex and fuel the GOP’s apparent commitment to embrace fascism and turn America into Hungary to save it from the Soros-Backed Woke Trans Antifa Drag Queen Biden Army.

However, in my opinion, that’s no reason not to indict Trump. The fact that he’s been indicted at all speaks volumes – I think few DAs, and no grand jury, would bring a case like this if there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the expense and the extraordinary sociopolitical consequences. And again, this is only one of several cases brewing – Trump has pushed the limits of what the “norms” of not arresting Presidents will accept.

Trump has basically forced the nation to reckon with a major dilemma: When a POTUS unabashedly crimes with impunity, our choices are (1) indict him and uphold rule of law, or (2) accept that any POTUS can crime all they want with no consequences apart from losing their re-election campaign (which they could also claim was stolen and refuse to accept).

Which will it be?

Stormy weather,

This is dF

The outcome of Impeachapalooza 2 is old news by now, I know, but in light of the spectacle of Donald Trump headlining CPAC – which is packed with his minions parroting his election fraud conspiracy theories – I thought I might as well post some thoughts.

1. In regards to Trump’s acquittal, I mean, sure – we knew more or less how this would end. The only real surprise was that seven Republicans voted to convict – which is apparently a US record in terms of bipartisan impeachment. Still, you know, where were most of these people when he was impeached the first time?

2. Apart from those seven, the GOP basically confirmed that they are the Trump Party, and that if he wants to make up stuff about election fraud and whip his MAGA base into a violent frenzy to overturn the election and install him as POTUS for life, then they're totally cool with that.

3. Mitch McConnell’s post-vote speech did not impress me. He can bloviate all he likes about the unconstitutionality of impeaching someone who isn't President anymore (which, let’s not forget, was the result of McConnell intentionally delaying the trial until after Trump was out of office) – the truth is that he knows which way the political winds are blowing, and if he wants to remain the Senate minority leader, he can’t be showing disloyalty to the Trump MAGA cult that comprises most of the Senate GOP now. He’s trying to have it both ways – he wants to be loyal to Trump without looking like he’s actually condoning Trump’s attempted coup.

Ironically, of course, Trump is not having any of that. Which just goes to show.

4. Speaking of which, Trump is now free to start his 2024 campaign. Or whatever it is he plans to do. Whatever it is, he did it at CPAC this weekend, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect – insult comedy, conspiracy theories and a declaration of war against his enemies. Which, notably, includes all disloyal Republicans who didn’t do enough to keep him in office. Whether or not he actually runs in 2024, Trump made it pretty clear that he’s not interested in starting a new political party – he’d much rather complete his takeover of the GOP and purge the anti-Trump heretics, or at least the ones that don’t change their tune permanently. And he’s likely to succeed.

5. On a side note, I would be very surprised if Trump didn't run in 2024. Yes, there’s the possibility that Trump will be in jail by then. However, there’s literally no rule saying you can’t run for President from a prison cell – Eugene Debs and Lyndon LaRouche did it in 1920 and 1992, respectively.

Granted, both lost. Which is why we don't yet know whether you can take office if you win – being in jail might count as “impairment”, which could result in 25^th Amendment proceedings to make Trump’s running mate President. There’s also the question of whether you could be released via pardon or some other mechanism. As I understand it, it’s pretty straightforward if you’re in a federal prison, but harder if you're in a state prison (remembering that if Trump does go to jail, it will be for breaking state laws).

In any case, I think running a campaign from prison would probably help him by feeding the “political persecution by anti-American libs” meme that the MAGA cult thrives on. So yeah, I think Trump is likely to try to get his chair back. And barring any other viable options, I think the GOP will go out of their way to help him get it.

6. As I’ve said before, the key takeaway from all this is that America does not have a viable mechanism for dealing with a crooked authoritarian President. Impeachment and the 25^th Amendment are too political to be effective remedies, and the ballot box option is only available every four years. Trump did plenty of damage in that time, not all of which can be fixed with executive orders.

The challenge is that the Founding Fathers intentionally made it difficult to get rid of a POTUS. If it were easy, the Opposition would spend every waking moment finding some excuse to have him arrested, and we’d have impeachments probably every year.

However, as we just learned over the last four years, as long as we stand by the DOJ concept that a sitting President cannot be indicted, the truth is that a sitting POTUS can commit all manner of high crimes and misdemeanours – to include attempting a coup – with no fear of consequences (apart from maybe losing the election).

We need to have a very serious conversation about whether this is a status quo worth preserving, and whether the alternatives would be worse in the long run.

Crime time,

This is dF

Given how hard Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists have been fighting to establish true democracy in Hong Kong, you’d think they’d also be happy at the news that the US has managed to survive Donald Trump’s attempt to destroy democracy there, and that Trump has been denied a second term.

And you’d be not entirely correct.

Some pro-Democracy activists in HK (not all, but a lot) are disappointed in Biden’s victory, and up to Election Day were hoping out loud that Trump would win re-election.

If that sounds odd considering Trump basically did to BLM protesters and America in general what Carrie Lam did to them, well yes it is.

This WaPo story provides a good explanation of what’s going on, as does this Twitter thread from Sharon Yam. The short version:

1. With China now actively oppressing HK, they are in desperate need of overseas political allies. They want a US strongman who will crush Xi Jinping and the CCP, and they think Trump is that guy. They like that Trump has disrupted every polite political norm regarding China and Taiwan, and that he blames China for COVID-19, and that he has taken action against China for its treatment of HK (namely, signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) and imposing sanctions on HK leaders for violating human rights).

2. A lot of the younger pro-Democracy activists don't really follow US politics that closely, so don’t have much of an idea of just what BLM is or the historical context in which it is happening.

3. What they do know about US politics from the last few years largely comes from the same funnel of disinformation that informs Trump and his MAGA base. Jimmy Lai – the media tycoon and publisher of Apple Daily (the last pro-Democracy newspaper left in HK) currently arrested under the National Security Law – has been pushing a lot of pro-Trump pieces in his paper that echoes the kind of stuff you hear on Fox News. Meanwhile a lot of pro-Trump posts in HK tend to parrot just about every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard, from Deep State plots and Fake News Liberal Media to Obama teaming up with the former Italian PM to steal the election via satellite and “The Capitol Riots were Antifa in disguise”.

4. They think Biden will be soft on the CCP because they’re under the impression that Democrat Presidents generally aren’t as hawkish as Republicans. Which is not really accurate, historically speaking (see Points 2 and 3). If nothing else, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was a very bipartisan bill passed by Congress, not some unilateral executive order Trump cooked up.

Anyway, it’s weird – especially when remembering Trump himself supports and admires Xi Jinping (as he does with most dictators and strongmen). And while he did at some point say he supported HK protesters, he initially planned to veto the HKHRDA, he only signed it to put pressure on China to get a better trade deal out of them.

It’s a minor thing in terms of the US election, of course – the political opinions of HK activists aren’t going to affect the outcome one way or another.

But it’s potentially damaging to the HK democracy movement, which needs unity now more than ever. At the moment a US-style rift is developing (at least online) between pro-Trump activists who want Trump to kick the CCP’s ass and anti-Trump activists who think the movement loses credibility if it’s not in solidarity with US BLM protesters also fighting oppression.

As you might expect, I’m inclined to agree with the latter view– partly because I have a pretty good handle on US politics (hopefully), and also because I think it’s hypocritical to oppose oppression in your own backyard while advocating or turning a blind eye to it elsewhere just because you think you’ll benefit from it. If you oppose Xi Jinping but support Trump, that tells me you don’t really oppose dictatorship – you just want a dictator that’s on your side.

And sure, the objective is for neither dictator to control HK – but the thing about attaining power you’ve never had before because the system was rigged against you, is that it’s always tempting to take steps to ensure you never lose that power again for the good of the country because the losing side is just Too Dangerous To Be Allowed Back In Power.

And we know where that road leads.

Anyway, one thing everyone agrees on is that Hong Kong is now effectively a police state and a dictatorship masquerading as a partial democracy. So whatever they think of Biden, hopefully his China policy will keep the pressure on in ways that don’t result in World War 3, and we can stop arguing about that and focus on the task at hand.

On the other hand, we already know that the damage done from disinformation and gaslighting is difficult to undo. That’s why America is in for a long decade as Trump’s legacy festers in the MAGA cult at large and living in an alternate reality from the rest of us. The same may be true for a significant portion of the HK democracy movement – and that’s not really what we need at a time when our own govt is trying to write its own alt-reality and force the rest of us to accept it or face possible jail time (at least if we speak truth out loud).

Down the rabbit hole,

This is dF

One of the strange hallmarks of US elections is that it’s over when the TV news channels say it is – which is not the same as when all the votes have been counted. Officially, at least, Joe Biden hasn’t won just yet. And of course Trump is going to contest this with every lawyer he can throw at it.

But close enough.

I’ll have more to say later once things start to gel. Meanwhile:

PART 1: INITIAL THOUGHTS

1. Thank Christ that’s over.

2. I use the word “over” loosely – for one thing, Trump is still POTUS for the next two months and God knows what he’s going to do between now and then.

3. More importantly (and a number of people have also pointed this out), we have to live with the fact that after four years of this absolute racist corrupt trash fire of a presidency, over 70 million people (almost 48% of the electorate) said, “Yes, give us more of that.” As I said earlier, the reasons vary and are not as ideological as you may think. But the fact remains that these people are not going to magically turn back into Reagan conservatives – not with the current meme that the election was rigged, and not with the whole Trump family blustering away on Twitter.

4. This has made a lot of liberals very sad – and understandably so. Many of them seemed convinced that Trump would not only lose, but would get creamed to the point of humiliation as America utterly rejected his toxic brand. That clearly did not happen – Biden barely pulled this off. What’s even more sad is that the GOP still controls the Senate – which in turn means that Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and John Cornyn are still Senators. Which doesn't seem fair at all.

5. In fact, it's worth widening the scope to understand just what has happened here, and why there is no going back to business as usual.

Zeynep Tufekci sums it up brilliantly here, but the general takeaway is that the GOP is now the MAGA Party, who may have lost the White House barely) but kept the Senate (barely), and made gains both in the House and at state level. They have been exploiting populist anger to establish authoritarian rule long before Trump, with the goal of propping up a strongman who would ensure they keep power forever within democratic trappings a’la Putin, Erdogan, etc. It was their bad luck that a buffoon like Trump ended up the first beneficiary of all that work – but their next POTUS candidate is likely to be someone smarter who actually wants to be POTUS and knows how to play the political game, which will make him a lot harder to defeat than Trump (and again, Trump almost won).

6. Which might make Joe’s “let’s give each other a chance” comment to Trump voters in his victory speech seem naïve or disingenuous. And sure, probably, in the sense that most GOP voters, politicians and pundits are probably more interested in petty revenge than reconciliation. (Meanwhile, I’m sure plenty of liberals will find it hard to reconcile with a party that openly embraced white supremacy, homophobia, etc –and justifiably so.)

But I think it was important for Joe to say that – partly because tactically it puts the ball in their court, and partly because sociopolitical division and systemic racism are major problems that we need to address now. Yes, it will take a long, long time to resolve – it’s not something you fix with a new POTUS. But you have to start somewhere. And it sure won't start with Biden telling Trump voters to get fucked and they're all officially canceled as of now.

7. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that polling forecasts suck and we probably need to stop using them to treat the election like the world’s biggest horse race.

PART 2: SOME GOOD THINGS (APART FROM TRUMP LOSING)

1. A black woman is Vice President. In fact, it seems people are more stoked about Kamala Harris than they are about Biden. And, you know, I can’t blame them. I mean, of the two, only one made my Top 3 Choices in the primaries. And Joe wasn’t one of them.

2. The Squad is still in effect. Hurrah!

3. Election Day violence was mercifully minimal, and – at least so far – the pro-Trump protests haven’t resulted in anyone getting murdered. May it continue to be so, because we’re about to hit the Anger Stage of grief.

4. Everyone at Fox News seems very, very sad. Poor lambs.

5. SCOTUS isn’t likely to save Trump.

6. The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference was of course perfect. The going theory is that Trump tweeted the press conference before they had confirmed the hotel booking, and when the Four Seasons said “Forget it”, his team booked anything named Four Seasons so as not to contradict Glorious Leader. Which is very North Korea.

Which is why my own take is that they probably did try to book another hotel, but no hotel would take them.

Whatever the case, you couldn’t ask for a more fitting finale to this reality show.

Even RTHK in Hong Kong took notice:

Well played, RTHK. Well played.

Next,

This is dF

I’m a little behind on political commentary and I know you’re all dying to hear what I think about that debate and the thing about his taxes, etc.

So:

1. I didn’t watch the debate, because (1) I already know which candidate I prefer, (2) I already know that debates never tell me anything I don’t already know about the candidates – it’s all trainwreck entertainment theatre that I can live without, and (3) I value what little sanity I have remaining. My Twitter feed of people watching the debate live assures me I made the right decision.

That said, based on the coverage and commentary, it went the way I expected. Which is also why I find all the hand-wringing over how it was a low point in Presidential elections and a total shit show and etc a bit disingenuous. I mean, yes, it was all that, but what honestly did they expect? Trump did exactly what Trump always does when you put him in front of an audience – lies and bloviates and bullies and disregards all rules and decorum generally shouts word salads at you  He always does that. He’s never not done that. It’s his brand. Like, dude, where have you been for the last four years?

2. While we’re at it, the “Trump paid almost no taxes” story was welcome, but again didn’t say much we didn’t already know. If anything, it told us that Trump is like most rich people in America – he pays people good money to make sure his tax bill is as close to zero as you can get.

I don’t think it matters in terms of the election outcome. To be clear, I think it does matter very much in the sense of understanding how desperate Trump is and what he may do to save his own skin (rig an election, say, or cry fraud if he loses), and it matters in the sense that Trump’s tax returns are symptomatic of a much wider problem of systemic tax evasion that the rich have been utilizing for years.

But as a game changer in the 2020 election? It’s not going to move the needle much, if at all. It certainly won't turn Republicans and his MAGA base against him – most of them would love to know how he did it so they can do it, too. Remember how the Panama Papers showed just how many rich people with actual money do this kind of thing all the time? Remember how no one did anything to really change that?

So yeah. I don’t think it will affect the outcome of the election. It should. But it won’t.

Also, I admit I’d be kind of annoyed that this would be the dealbreaker for Republicans that have backed every other horrible thing Trump has done so far. The racism, the cruelty, the sexual assault and harassment, the bullying, the incitement of violence, kids in cages, collusion, corruption, nepotism, mocking the disabled, the constant lying – and this is where you draw the line? Come now.

3. Back to the debate, the big takeaway for me is his statement about/to the Proud Boys. It’s hard to make it more obvious that Trump supports them and approves of their intentions and activities.

Predictably he’s been trying to walk that back in his usual bizarre way – simultaneously claiming he has no idea who the Proud Boys are but he condemns them anyway. But like most of his walkbacks, he sounds like he just saying what his advisers told him to say and doesn’t really understand why he has to say it, and is just as likely to turn right back around and say what he said the first time. The fact that he didn’t condemn them the first time when he had a chance – and honestly, the fact that it has to be asked at all is not a good sign – speaks more loudly than his damage-control followups.

4. Even if you can somehow prove that Trump was just mouthing off and wasn’t serious, or misspoke, or whatever, the fact remains that the Proud Boys and groups like them are feeling mighty proud that that President Himself supports their manifesto and their actions, which makes them even more dangerous and more likely to pull a Rittenhouse in the belief that Trump will have their back.

5. Anyway, the debate experience was so awful that even before Trump got sick, people were suggesting maybe we cancel all the others. I cannot think of a good reason against this. POTUS debates don’t really add any value in terms of learning where candidates stand on topics and hashing out whose plan is better. The only people who benefit from TV debates are the candidates (cos hey, free airtime) and the TV networks (cos hey, trainwrecks are good television).

And in this particular election year, I’d wager most people already know what the choice is – four more years of Trump TV, or something that is not that.

Anyway, if the tone of that first debate really put you off, here’s the bad news: that’s as good as it gets, and it will not get that good again. Maybe the Harris/Pence debate is worth doing as a relative palate cleanser, but I think the other Trump/Biden matches are going to be more of the same, and once was plenty.

The talk about extra rules or tools for the next debate to make it more civil is adorable, but look – the first debate had rules. Trump characteristically did not bother to follow any of them. He’s already opposed the proposed changes for the next one. That’s no reason not to put the rules in, but Trump is gonna Trump.

And honestly democracy won’t suffer if we cancel the rest of the debates. Frankly, democracy has far bigger problems to worry about.

Muted,

This is dF

Previously on Senseless Acts of Bloggery:

As for what happens next, that’s a whole other post and it’s going to take me a little time to get that written – and it seems that particular story is fast-moving. So I’m gonna need a little time on that.

So yeah, about that:

1. We already knew what Mitch McConnell was going to say about whether the Senate should be accepting SCOTUS nominations during an election year – i.e. literally the exact opposite of what he said in 2016 when Antonin Scalia passed away and Presidente Obama nominated Merrick Garland. It was so expected you can’t call it irony, or even a plot twist.

2. We also knew that at the end of the day, the rest of the GOP Senate would back Mitch up on it. Apparently it’s worth being lambasted as shameless opportunist hypocrites if they can get a SCOTUS supermajority – not least since at least some of them have put up with Trump for the last four years for that very purpose. If they don’t push this now, they’ll have sold their soul for nothing and they may not have an opportunity like this again.

3. I don’t have much to say about Amy Coney Barrett, except to say that, considering who else was on the shortlist, it could be a lot worse. But then that’s kind of like saying it’s better for a kaiju to destroy the city than Cthulhu.

If it helps, all those memes claiming The Handmaid’s Tale is based on People of Praise are apparently incorrect. (Short version: wrong ultraconservative Catholic splinter group.)

That said, the thing about SCOTUS (and this is important to remember) is that Supremes tend not to stick strictly to party lines, depending on the case before them and the legal arguments being made. I’m not saying ideology doesn’t matter – I’m saying it doesn’t produce a predictable result every time. In other words, having a political majority on the SCOTUS bench isn’t the rubber-stamp slam dunk everyone thinks it is. In the past year, SCOTUS has made quite a few decisions in favor of the liberal side of the case in question.

Granted, this was largely because conservative lawyers presented legally weak and sloppy arguments to make their case – which in turn was mainly because conservative lawyers went in thinking they were preaching to the choir and didn’t need to work hard because hey, it’s a 5-4 majority and two are Trump appointees, how can we possibly lose?

They lost because SCOTUS generally doesn’t work like that. To be sure, a justice’s political leanings do matter – but mainly in terms of interpretation of the law. At the end of the day, the law – and its applicability to the specific case – is what matters, not the outcome a judge might personally want. Sometimes the decision is based on technicalities (the current conservative SCOTUS team saved DACA because of sloppy paperwork).

That said, a 6-3 supermajority may well change that dynamic considerably.

4. We’ve had supermajorities before, of course. However, this particular supermajority is problematic for a couple of reasons.

One: everyone’s view of the role of SCOTUS has become increasingly politicized (i.e. most people think the role of SCOTUS is not to serve as a check against unconstitutional laws, but to settle political arguments), which is not good.

Two: This conservative supermajority is arriving in the broader context of an unhinged authoritarian POTUS who has gone out of his way to undermine the election process to ensure that he wins, and that the 40% of people who support him will accept no other result as legit.

Which means if Trump loses and refuses to step down (which is a distinct possibility), the inevitable court case will go before a SCOTUS with six conservative Supremes, three of which were appointed by Trump. That might not go the way he thinks. But if it does, SCOTUS will lose whatever legitimacy it has and Trump will be an authoritarian POTUS with a federal judicial system rigged in his favor. That’s a bad combination – unless yr part of the MAGA cult, I guess, then it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for all this time.

5. Assuming Barrett is confirmed (and it’s not yet clear just how the Demos could prevent it at this stage), the question for the Demos is: what now?

There are currently three possible Demo strategies being bandied about:

(1)   Pack the court

(2)   Term limits for Supremes (18 years is the most common suggestion, though there are others)

(3)   Both.

6. Both are old ideas, and both are legal. I confess I’m not a fan of either strategy, but I think the court-packing option is the worst of the two for the reason mentioned above – i.e. SCOTUS is supposed to be politically independent. It’s not meant to represent the will of whatever party controls the White House and/or Congress.

To me, court-packing legitimizes the idea of SCOTUS as political-ideology enforcer because the whole point is to intentionally stack the odds in your favor. Yes, this has become the objective of SCOTUS nominations under the current system, but it’s much harder to do – unless, like Trump, you get lucky. (While we’re at it, let's admit if HRC was POTUS under the same conditions, you can bet we’d be having the same argument with everyone’s roles reversed.)

But let’s be clear – the intention of court-packing is to give the political party doing the packing control over SCOTUS. I’m not cool with that, even if (as mentioned above) the SCOTUS rulings aren’t as predictable as people seem to think.

Also, on a more practical level, if the Demos can expand the SCOTUS bench to 15 justices to give liberal judges a majority, the next GOP admin could come in and add 15 more, or knock it back down to nine, or six, or whatever. Where will it end?
 

7. Term limits are a better option, although I disagree with the argument that it would make nomination battles less political. If anything, it will make them more political. Still, the politicization issue is a much deeper-rooted problem that no reconfiguration of SCOTUS will fix. 

Meanwhile, whether term limits would result in a more balanced bench seems to depend on the outcome of each election – if (say) the GOP wins the White House four times in a row, you’re looking at an 8-1 GOP-appointed bench that would take up to nine years to reverse. (Feel free to check my math, because I didn’t.)

Still, it's not a bad idea in itself. And if the Demos do resort to court-packing, I'd rather they make term limits part of that deal. 

8. The thing is, any of these options require a Biden/Harris victory AND the Demos holding the House and retaking the Senate. If Trump wins, and/or the GOP holds the Senate, that’s not going to happen.

And as mentioned above, if Trump loses and refuses to step down, we’ve got far bigger problems.

Developing …

Judge dread,

This is dF

ITEM: Joe Biden has selected his Veep.

In my opinion, he has chosen well – not least because it’s encouraging Tucker Carlson to make an even bigger fool of himself than usual.

However, I know people who are very unhappy with Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris.

Most of the reasons I’ve heard fall into the usual categories: sour grapes, DNC conspiracy theories and/or the fact that neither Biden nor Harris tick nearly enough of their ideological boxes, or have at some point in their careers done or said things that are ideologically blasphemous, or atavistic, or whatever.

And … well, look, I don’t know what to tell you.

And you know, Biden wasn’t my first choice either – not by a long shot. Harris was in my Top 3, and if it were up to me, I’d just as soon she switch places with Joe on the ticket. Or I’d keep her where she is and replace Biden with Elizabeth Warren.

But Biden/Harris is what we’ve got to work with, and looking at the alternative choice in 2020, I personally will vote for a Biden/Harris ticket so hard I might accidentally break the machine.

For the progressives seething that they’re being forced by the DNC to support politicians instead of the activists they wanted, I’ve already posted some thoughts about that here. I don’t have much to add to it.

As for the obvious question – “Is it a winning combination?” – I don’t know.

On the one hand, Biden has built up a good lead in the polls as Trump keeps digging himself into a deeper hole – and picking Harris seems to have helped – but then Hillary had a decent lead on Trump too. Between that and Trump’s war on the USPS (to say nothing of the Russians), I am taking nothing for granted.

Toot toot hey veep veep,

This is dF

It seems like we’ve crossed some sort of event horizon or cultural Rubicon when I scroll past protest  photos and videos on Twitter and I have to look closely to see if they’re from Hong Kong or Minneapolis.

The parallels are striking, from the excessive and indiscriminate use of tear gas and gratuitously pepper-spraying and arresting reporters to pundits and leaders calling protesters thugs who should be shot and blaming teachers and church leaders for encouraging them.

And not just in Minneapolis, of course. Protests are popping up in other major cities. Even the White House was in lockdown temporarily.

And, you know:

1. To get the obvious out of the way, yes, all four officers should be arrested (Derek Chauvin has finally been charged with murder – the others should at least be charged with accessory), though it seems the police seem to be going with the defense that George Floyd would still be alive if he’d lived a healthier lifestyle, and I don’t see that helping to ease tensions.

2. And yes, institutional racism in America is most definitely a thing, and has been since we were still colonies of the Crown. Trump’s so-called presidency has made things worse, but the problem existed long before he invented Birtherism.

Indeed, the protests are not just about George Floyd. They’re about Kenneth Walker, Breona Taylor, Sean Reed, Ahmaud Arbery, Steve Taylor (and that’s just in the last month) and so on and etc all the way back to Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and the thousands upon thousands before them – to say nothing of the whole stupid Amy Cooper saga.

3. So IMO the anger and fury of protesters is 100% justified. The violence, not so much, but it’s understandable. MLK Jr told us this way back in the 60s: riots are the language of the unheard, and the inevitable result of systemic injustice – they don’t just magically pop up out of nowhere.

That said, it’s worth adding that protest violence is often the result of police handling the protests badly by escalating tensions rather than defusing them, whether intentionally or by accident. In cases where the police themselves are the object of protest anger, simply showing up in riot gear is almost guaranteed to make a bad situation worse. I’ve seen anecdotal accounts that this is the case in Minneapolis. It’s certainly the case in Hong Kong. Like the saying goes, when you send in riot police, you get a riot.

4. Like in HK, the law-and-order response from Trump and those who worship him has been predictably awful and likely to get people killed. One thing going for the US is that the police is not just one force that takes orders from the White House – it’s a diverse array of local and state forces, and at least some of them are trying to defuse tensions rather than escalate them.

5. It’s hard to know how bad this is going to get. Past history isn't much help – usually, things die down after a few days and we spend the aftermath discussing the problem and generally doing little to address it. Here in 2020, we have a white supremacist in the White House with a cult army of supporters fuelled by paranoid conspiracy theories that liberals, the media and PoC are all out to get them.

I guess we’re lucky the Open Carry buffoons who stormed capital buildings because they couldn't get haircuts on demand haven't shown up at these protests to “help” – not yet, anyway. That could change.

And I don’t even want to think about what all this could mean for the 2020 election.

6. Anyway, as I said, we’ve been living our own version of this in HK for some time now in terms of protests and police brutality. And it's almost like we’ve become a template for Minneapolis – not just the police going crazy with tear gas and targeting reporters (at least the non-white ones), but protesters reportedly throwing tear gas canisters back at police.

So there’s a certain hypocritical irony that Trump advocates shooting black protesters for rioting while he simultaneously takes steps to punish Beijing and the HK govt for oppressing protests here.

That said, I’m not sure he even knows what’s going on here. His statement on HK doesn’t say a word about police brutality or human rights. He’s concerned mainly with HK’s loss of autonomy under 1C2S, and I think he only cares inasmuch as it’s something else he can add to his anti-China rhetoric, which he deploys mostly to entertain his cult and push the nonsense narrative that China – not Trump – is to blame for COVID-19 killing over 100,000 Americans.

Which I only mention because a number of HK people seem to think Trump can somehow save us if he takes action. Thing is, Trump doesn’t care about us, or about human rights in general. He pals around with oppressive authoritarians and ruthless dictators, and even talks about Xi Jinping as a good friend. Sure, it's all in his head. The point is that if his actions do us any good whatsoever, it will be by sheer dumb luck.

And okay, when things look increasingly hopeless as they do here, you can't afford to be picky. If Kim Jong-un or Rodrigo Duterte intervened to save us, we’d probably take it.

Still, the thing about Trump is that his whims turn on a dime, and he regularly undermines his own policies on Twitter. Also, his “plan” is pretty vague and hasn’t actually been enacted yet. Everything depends on details and execution, and it’s always possible that his “solution” to HK will be worse than the problem.

7. Oh, BTW, shoutout to Laura Ingraham for coming up with the worst attempt so far to convince black people that Trump totally understands what they're going through.

Developing …

Revolution earth,

This is dF