washingtonmonthly--2020-09-10--The Case Against Trump is Complete, Now We Need a Verdict

I ’ m glad the NFL season starts tonight .
I have a feeling the games will seem less contrived and artificial than baseball has come off in the Age of Corona .
And I need the distraction .
Four years is a very long time to put up with having Donald Trump in the Oval Office .
Americans elected a complete ignoramus to be the most powerful person in the world , and I ’ m definitely at the end of my rope .
The people in my life know that I follow politics closely , so they usually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The conversations always end the same way .
People listen , and then they throw their hands up and say , “ I just don ’ t know that anyone will care.
” I ’ m tired of hearing it .
I ’ m ready to vote and find out what people care about .
I share Jennifer Szalai ’ s boredom about the revelations in Bob Woodward ’ s new book Rage , which contains virtually nothing we didn ’ t know or , at least , should have surmised .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ misguided political reasons ?
I must have written as much more than a dozen times .
Did his trusted advisers consider him dangerous ?
Did they call him a moron with the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader ?
Well , we ’ ve known that for years .
Does his former intelligence chief still have the nagging feeling that Vladimir Putin is blackmailing the president ?
Welcome to the club , Dan Coats .
I don ’ t know that hearing this again is going to change a thing because it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What I do know is that there are already a lot of ex-Republicans and ex-Trump supporters .
Everyone has their breaking point .
With George W. Bush , some walked away after no weapons of mass destruction turned up in Iraq .
Others couldn ’ t abide the response to Hurricane Katrina .
But people have their reasons and maybe some will hear Trump on tape admitting that he deliberately lied about COVID-19 and think that ’ s worse than anything that ’ s come before .
The case against Trump was made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s spent four years proving us right .
I ’ m ready to send it to the jury , and if they give him a bill of health then I don ’ t think I ’ ll have much to say about politics again .
After all , in that case , it really will be true that no one cared .

I’m glad the NFL season starts tonight. I have a feeling the games will seem less contrived and artificial than baseball has come off in the Age of Corona. And I need the distraction. Four years is a very long time to put up with having Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Americans elected a complete ignoramus to be the most powerful person in the world, and I’m definitely at the end of my rope.
The people in my life know that I follow politics closely, so they usually want my opinion on the latest outrage. The conversations always end the same way. People listen, and then they throw their hands up and say, “I just don’t know that anyone will care.”
I’m tired of hearing it. I’m ready to vote and find out what people care about. I share Jennifer Szalai’s boredom about the revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book Rage, which contains virtually nothing we didn’t know or, at least, should have surmised.
Did Trump downplay the virus for some misguided political reasons? I must have written as much more than a dozen times. Did his trusted advisers consider him dangerous? Did they call him a moron with the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader? Well, we’ve known that for years. Does his former intelligence chief still have the nagging feeling that Vladimir Putin is blackmailing the president? Welcome to the club, Dan Coats.
I don’t know that hearing this again is going to change a thing because it’s Bob Woodward saying it. What I do know is that there are already a lot of ex-Republicans and ex-Trump supporters. Everyone has their breaking point. With George W. Bush, some walked away after no weapons of mass destruction turned up in Iraq. Others couldn’t abide the response to Hurricane Katrina. But people have their reasons and maybe some will hear Trump on tape admitting that he deliberately lied about COVID-19 and think that’s worse than anything that’s come before.
The case against Trump was made before he was elected. He’s spent four years proving us right. I’m ready to send it to the jury, and if they give him a bill of health then I don’t think I’ll have much to say about politics again. After all, in that case, it really will be true that no one cared.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-11--Donald Trump, Constitutional Grift, and John Yoo

There is a species of executive powers scholarship that never gets very far past—or all the way through—Federalist No .
70 .
That ’ s where Alexander Hamilton famously argued that a one-man executive branch would bring more “ energy ” to the presidential office and would be empowered to act with greater “ ( d ) ecision , activity , secrecy , and despatch ” than if forced to share authority .
Significantly , Federalist 70 does not support untrammeled exercises of presidential power .
To the contrary , at the essay ’ s halfway mark , Hamilton declared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vesting power in a single person—rather than , say , an executive council or Caesarian triumvirate—was to avoid creating an executive power structure that would allow elected leaders to “ conceal faults and destroy responsibility.
” Putting one man in charge would make it easy to “ censure ” or “ punish ” him in the event of national disaster .
So it doesn ’ t make a lot of sense to deploy Federalist 70 as support for the proposition that the president may do as he pleases .
Hamilton ’ s central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couldn ’ t .
Far from staking out sweeping parameters for presidential power , Hamilton articulated a vision of executive legal authority that draws its shape and legitimacy from the maximization of political accountability .
Yet presidential carte blanche is more or less the premise of John Yoo ’ s Defender in Chief : Donald Trump ’ s Fight for Presidential Power .
Yoo , a law professor at the University of California , Berkeley , cites the importance of Hamiltonian “ energy ” more than two dozen times to make his case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undermining the Constitution by trying to sap the presidential office of that energy .
( By Yoo ’ s account , this far-flung group includes career civil servants within the law enforcement and national security bureaucracies ; Special Counsel Robert Mueller ; Congress generally ; House Democrats specifically ; and the eleven Republican senators who voted to block Trump ’ s use of a national emergency declaration to build the border wall . )
There isn ’ t a lot more to Yoo ’ s argument than his insistence that executive energy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the hook from which the whole book hangs .
The Constitution as originally envisioned by the Founders demands a mostly unhampered executive .
Trump has acted as , or has purported to be , an unhampered executive .
Trump has successfully defended the Founder ’ s vision of the Constitution .
Q.E.D .
The beauty of this form of argument is that whether Trump has any interest in defending the Constitution is beside the point .
( Yoo does not attempt to strain the credulity of his readers on that issue .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a president either does his best to get what he wants , thereby strengthening the office and the whole constitutional blueprint , or is unduly thwarted , thereby weakening both .
It ’ s a startlingly flat caricature of the relationship between the nation ’ s most powerful office and the person elected to represent it , a doodle in place of the three-dimensional landscape needed to model the harm that undisciplined executive action can do to the presidential office , as well as the vast array of constitutional institutions and interests that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sharp departure from positions Yoo staked out early in the Trump presidency .
Less than two weeks after Trump took office , Yoo , best known as the Bush administration lawyer who thought he could use a Medicare benefits statute to legalize waterboarding , drew wryly from his public reputation as the most extreme among executive powers theorists to underscore the seriousness of President Trump ’ s overreaches .
In an op-ed for the New York Times , Yoo declared , “ even I have grave concerns about Mr. Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the president was in danger of spending his time in office “ haphazardly wasting the executive ’ s powers.
” A sampling : In 2017 , Yoo argued that Trump ’ s request for “ a Muslim ban ” would “ most likely violate the Constitution ’ s protection for freedom of religion or its prohibition on the state establishment of religion ” ; in 2020 , Yoo writes , “ If the judiciary had the right to examine a president ’ s motives , judges would know no bounds.
” In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s his firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates specifically for being weak on borders suggested “ a misconception of the president ’ s authority of removal ” ; in 2020 , he writes , “ Article II gives the president the right to remove subordinate executive officers , for any reason or no reason.
” Yoo acknowledges his 180-turn in the book but qualifies it ( “ I never signed the Never Trumper letters that freely circulated among former Bush national security officials ” ) and declines to provide an analysis that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discontinuity is conspicuous in a book that criticizes “ liberals ” for “ prov ( ing ) inconsistent in their attitude toward presidential powers ” depending on who occupies the White House , and combined with Yoo ’ s frequent forays into invective , results in a work that presents primarily as a bid for political relevance .
Yoo sets out the terms of his project on the first page : “ This book will explain why Trump has not become the Constitution ’ s destroyer , but instead its most unlikely defender @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Constitution has become Trump ’ s shield.
” This doesn ’ t quite square .
Using the Constitution as your shield doesn ’ t mean you ’ re defending it ; it means that , soundly or not , you ’ re using it to defend yourself .
But what looks like a head-scratcher is , on inspection , an accurate summation of the book ’ s big theoretical bait-and-switch , a conflation of the interests of the office and the interests of the person occupying it .
What purports to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of executive authority is a novel account of sweeping personal entitlement .
Yoo imagines for the president a panoply of “ rights ” : the right to wage war unilaterally , the right to devise and carry-out restrictionist immigration and free trade policies , the right to fire the FBI director , and any other subordinate executive officer , the right to end the Russia investigations ( under FBI Director James Comey and later Mueller ) , the right to compel the obedience of private individuals , and even states , to federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ executive agency officials on the performance of their duties and , if they refuse , to remove them from office , the sole right to enforce federal law , the right to decide the foreign policy of the United States and who shall carry it out , the right to undo actions by his own branch through use of the pardon power , the right to self-pardon , the right to bar aliens from entering the country , the right to receive ambassadors , and the right to terminate treaties .
What Yoo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acknowledge is that nowhere does the Constitution grant the president “ rights.
” It accords him authorities , which are significant—but also , as a matter of constitutional principle and democratic process , constrained and conditional .
Analytically speaking , swapping out “ authorities ” for “ rights ” might seem like a slip of the pen rather than a deliberate shading of the terms of our constitutional inheritance .
But this is a book that attributes “ the progressive rights of privacy and dignity ” to the “ Supreme Court ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , non-textual judicially created rights.
” Yoo ’ s consistent insistence on the president ’ s “ rights ” reads not as an inadvertence but as a conspicuous inversion of our constitutional language .
Significantly , it ’ s a trick Trump himself has endorsed .
Elsewhere , I have catalogued Trump ’ s self-declared “ absolute rights ” and have suggested the recurring move is reflective of “ a real-estate mogul who understands power through the prism of private property rather than public obligation.
” Since entering office , Trump has claimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ classified information , to “ do what I want to do with the Justice Department , ” to pardon himself , to declare a national emergency , to close the border , to ask foreign countries for help in investigating corruption , and to intervene in the criminal case of his former campaign adviser , Roger Stone .
“ I have an Article II , where I have the right to do whatever I want as president , ” Trump informed a group of teenage conservatives at a Washington , D.C. , summit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yoo ’ s subtler variation of presidential rights talk might barely register .
But the upshot is the same .
In “ a government of the people , by the people , for the people , ” the language of presidential “ rights ” is constitutional grift .
Yoo ’ s legal analysis does not fare better at the level of brass tacks .
To start , Yoo misstates basic points of law .
Consider his description of how a Senate impeachment trial works ( and , by implication , why the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the proceedings against Trump ) .
He claims that “ [ i ] ndividual senators can not speak , question witnesses or test evidence ” or “ debate the meaning of ‘ high crimes and misdemeanors , ” and that “ a Senate trial creates no forum for the testing of the witnesses or the evidence.
” He concludes , “ Because of the Senate ’ s obsolete rules , the House impeachment process provided the only opportunity for the American people to weigh the factual evidence and the legal arguments against President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fast about the existing impeachment rules ; the Senate may modify or supplement them , as it did at the start of President Bill Clinton ’ s impeachment trial—and at the start of Trump ’ s .
But Yoo ’ s description is inaccurate even taking as given the existing rules in the Senate Manual .
Under Rule XIX , senators can submit written questions to be read aloud by the Presider .
The prohibition on debate in Rule XXIV does not apply if a majority of Senators agrees to debate a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far from precluding the testing of witnesses or the evidence , the rules offer a few bare-bones points of process and otherwise leave the Senate to organize this crucial aspect of the proceedings as it sees fit .
Other politically-freighted errors abound .
For example , Yoo dismisses the Russia investigation as an FBI “ revolt ” that was initially “ orchestrated ” by Comey and “ his inner circle , ” based on “ frivolous ” charges .
But official sources , including a 2019 report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael @ @ @ @ @ @ @ properly opened the investigation based on adequate factual predication .
Yoo also writes : “ Mueller did Trump a great favor by definitively clearing him.
” That claim contradicts Mueller ’ s own report , which states , for the benefit of those who might misunderstand what prosecutors do : “ while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime , it also does not exonerate him.
” Then there ’ s the more fundamental problem of Yoo ’ s premise .
Yoo must establish that Trump has been largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show he has effectively defended and exercised the powers of the office .
Yoo doesn ’ t .
Yoo acknowledges the chasm between what Trump has promised to do and what he has gotten done but casts it , flatteringly , as a difference of principle : “ Trump campaigns like a populist but governs like a constitutional conservative.
” Compare this to the view offered by Samuel Moyn , a historian at Yale Law School , who has measured that space using the metric that , at least for Yoo ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In Moyn ’ s view , given Trump ’ s demonstrated inability to effectuate his powers , he can only be understood “ as the weakest American president in our lifetimes.
” Yoo comes to a different assessment of Trump ’ s constitutional power record by narrowly defining the executive actions that make the scoreboard .
He explains he is referring to Trump ’ s success in “ stopping bad ideas ” from Democrats , such as abolishment of the electoral college , and his appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump can hardly be credited with the continuing existence of the electoral college ) , and the second holds up insofar as the assertion seems to be that Trump did largely what any other Republican president would have done .
Yoo also argues , with skillful vagueness , that Trump “ stood up ” for executive leadership in foreign affairs and war and “ fought ” Robert Mueller ’ s special counsel investigation and his impeachment .
But neither argument illustrates Trump ’ s defense of the executive power , under his administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yoo ’ s foreign affairs analysis is his best bet at making the case , but it consists almost entirely of a recitation of all the ways Trump has moved to unilaterally “ undo the entanglements of his predecessors ” —for example , by withdrawing the country from the Iran nuclear deal , the Paris climate accord , and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty .
Yoo is right that these examples and unmentioned others are a stunning testament to the president ’ s ability to transform the United States ’ relationship to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s affirmative defense of his powers , but all told , better attest to the culmination of decades of congressional acquiescence to growing presidential control over international law and international relations .
As for Yoo ’ s most compelling example of how Trump has expanded executive power—his air strikes on Syria in 2017 and 2018 in response to the Syrian Arab Army ’ s use of chemical weapons against civilians—this is also the least persuasive example of constitutional action , as it rests on an interpretation of the Constitution that renders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war meaningless and the president ’ s power to initiate armed hostilities virtually unlimited .
Lastly , Yoo does none of the factual or legal legwork necessary to support his characterization of the Russia investigation and Ukraine impeachment as examples of executive efficacy or long-term power gains .
The best arguments to the contrary have been made , in real time , by Jack Goldsmith , a professor at Harvard Law School , who within days of Trump ’ s inauguration noted the infirmities of an administration overtaken by chaos and internal rebellion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on his early observations with an analysis of the precedented leaks coming from career civil servants seeking to undermine what they perceived as the president ’ s damaging conduct .
Goldsmith recognized the leaks as “ an immune response to Trump ’ s attacks on the intelligence community.
” But he noted that some of them—in particular , leaks coming from intelligence officials involved in the surveillance of Russian officials—also violated “ taboos that had been respected even in the wild west of unlawful government disclosures ” and could result in a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump but on future administrations .
Two years later , Trump ’ s impeachment provided additional examples of the same immune response in action .
Notwithstanding the administration ’ s sweeping public claims of executive privilege , in the space of weeks , a parade of not just former but current administration officials and political appointees appeared on the Hill to testify on facts detrimental to the president ’ s position on Ukraine .
“ The [ White House ] is asserting no legal authorities , and does not appear even to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and can not say , ” Goldsmith observed .
The failure attested to a “ really remarkable breakdown of soft and hard presidential power.
” This type of close consideration of the mechanics of the executive branch—how it works and the powers it exercises in fact—is simply missing from Yoo ’ s analysis , which instead weaves error and vagueness in service of an unctuous conclusion : “ In securing the benefits of an energentic executive for his successors , Trump may have done the nation his greatest service.
” The particular relevance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump administration ’ s policies came into focus about a month before the book ’ s July release , when reports emerged that Yoo was advising the White House in formulating its last pre-election foreign and domestic policy plays in connection with the Supreme Court ’ s recent decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California .
That decision rejected the procedural adequacy of Trump ’ s attempt to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program .
Yoo ’ s view , floated in articles published in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is that by requiring the executive branch to undergo “ laborious ” processes to reverse what Yoo sees as an illegal program established by “ executive fiat , ” the Court has expanded , rather than curbed , the president ’ s powers .
As Yoo put it , in an apparent elaboration of objections set out in Justice Clarence Thomas ’ s dissent , “ presidents can now stop enforcing laws they dislike , hand out permits or benefits that run contrary to acts of Congress and prevent their successors from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yoo reportedly met virtually with Trump sometime in July to discuss the theory .
On July 10 , Trump offered what sounded like a clear endorsement of Yoo ’ s ideas when he promised he would soon be signing “ a very major immigration bill as an executive order ” based on powers accorded to him by the DACA decision .
In a recorded interview with Chris Wallace that aired on Fox News Sunday on July 19 , Trump again indicated he would be pushing through a health-care plan , an immigration plan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ congressional sign-off .
Trump explained , “ The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had , by approving , by doing what they did—their decision on DACA.
” Yoo ’ s DACA theory is a riff on a major idea in his book and other writings .
He argues that presidents have “ the power of reversal ” —also described as the “ right of reversal ” —which permits him to not just undo but immediately undo the actions of past presidents without a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s view , to the extent Trump sees the Obama-era program as an unconstitutional violation of the president ’ s obligation to “ take Care that the Laws be faithfully Executed , ” he has the right to order the program ’ s almost-instant dissolution , notwithstanding the consequences for hundreds of thousands of program recipients who have relied on the program ’ s promises .
An onslaught of litigation would be sure to commence if Trump were to issue a slew of executive orders reshaping the healthcare and immigration landscape .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ interpretation of the DACA ruling could be operationalized , Yoo ’ s recent talks with the White House on the subject are notable given he sees his own interpretation of the DACA ruling as bad news for the Constitution .
The irony could not be greater .
Yoo ’ s advice on the Supreme Court ’ s DACA opinion is useful to Trump not for what Yoo has to say about the law of executive power but because of what he claims about the impotence of the law .
Yoo laments that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to violate the law ” by creating a pathway for presidents to issue unconstitutional executive orders that cut Congress out of the lawmaking process .
For his interpretation of Regents to form the basis for a suite of impending executive orders would thus signal , from Yoo ’ s own perspective , the collapse of his professed project : to establish “ Donald Trump as a defender of the Constitution .
”

There is a species of executive powers scholarship that never gets very far past—or all the way through—Federalist No. 70. That’s where Alexander Hamilton famously argued that a one-man executive branch would bring more “energy” to the presidential office and would be empowered to act with greater “(d)ecision, activity, secrecy, and despatch” than if forced to share authority. Significantly, Federalist 70 does not support untrammeled exercises of presidential power. To the contrary, at the essay’s halfway mark, Hamilton declared that the “weightiest” reason for vesting power in a single person—rather than, say, an executive council or Caesarian triumvirate—was to avoid creating an executive power structure that would allow elected leaders to “conceal faults and destroy responsibility.” Putting one man in charge would make it easy to “censure” or “punish” him in the event of national disaster.
So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to deploy Federalist 70 as support for the proposition that the president may do as he pleases. Hamilton’s central argument was that a unitary executive surely couldn’t. Far from staking out sweeping parameters for presidential power, Hamilton articulated a vision of executive legal authority that draws its shape and legitimacy from the maximization of political accountability.
Yet presidential carte blanche is more or less the premise of John Yoo’s Defender in Chief: Donald Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, cites the importance of Hamiltonian “energy” more than two dozen times to make his case and charges Trump’s critics with undermining the Constitution by trying to sap the presidential office of that energy. (By Yoo’s account, this far-flung group includes career civil servants within the law enforcement and national security bureaucracies; Special Counsel Robert Mueller; Congress generally; House Democrats specifically; and the eleven Republican senators who voted to block Trump’s use of a national emergency declaration to build the border wall.)
There isn’t a lot more to Yoo’s argument than his insistence that executive energy is a good and constitutional thing. This is the hook from which the whole book hangs. The Constitution as originally envisioned by the Founders demands a mostly unhampered executive. Trump has acted as, or has purported to be, an unhampered executive. Trump has successfully defended the Founder’s vision of the Constitution. Q.E.D.
The beauty of this form of argument is that whether Trump has any interest in defending the Constitution is beside the point. (Yoo does not attempt to strain the credulity of his readers on that issue.) In Yoo’s view, a president either does his best to get what he wants, thereby strengthening the office and the whole constitutional blueprint, or is unduly thwarted, thereby weakening both. It’s a startlingly flat caricature of the relationship between the nation’s most powerful office and the person elected to represent it, a doodle in place of the three-dimensional landscape needed to model the harm that undisciplined executive action can do to the presidential office, as well as the vast array of constitutional institutions and interests that exist beyond it.
The book marks a sharp departure from positions Yoo staked out early in the Trump presidency. Less than two weeks after Trump took office, Yoo, best known as the Bush administration lawyer who thought he could use a Medicare benefits statute to legalize waterboarding, drew wryly from his public reputation as the most extreme among executive powers theorists to underscore the seriousness of President Trump’s overreaches. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Yoo declared, “even I have grave concerns about Mr. Trump’s uses of presidential power” and warned that the president was in danger of spending his time in office “haphazardly wasting the executive’s powers.”
A sampling: In 2017, Yoo argued that Trump’s request for “a Muslim ban” would “most likely violate the Constitution’s protection for freedom of religion or its prohibition on the state establishment of religion”; in 2020, Yoo writes, “If the judiciary had the right to examine a president’s motives, judges would know no bounds.” In 2017, Yoo argued that Trump’s his firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates specifically for being weak on borders suggested “a misconception of the president’s authority of removal”; in 2020, he writes, “Article II gives the president the right to remove subordinate executive officers, for any reason or no reason.”
Yoo acknowledges his 180-turn in the book but qualifies it (“I never signed the Never Trumper letters that freely circulated among former Bush national security officials”) and declines to provide an analysis that could explain or accommodate it. The discontinuity is conspicuous in a book that criticizes “liberals” for “prov(ing) inconsistent in their attitude toward presidential powers” depending on who occupies the White House, and combined with Yoo’s frequent forays into invective, results in a work that presents primarily as a bid for political relevance.
Yoo sets out the terms of his project on the first page: “This book will explain why Trump has not become the Constitution’s destroyer, but instead its most unlikely defender. Rather than a sword, the Constitution has become Trump’s shield.”
This doesn’t quite square. Using the Constitution as your shield doesn’t mean you’re defending it; it means that, soundly or not, you’re using it to defend yourself. But what looks like a head-scratcher is, on inspection, an accurate summation of the book’s big theoretical bait-and-switch, a conflation of the interests of the office and the interests of the person occupying it. What purports to be a meditation on the Founders’ original vision of executive authority is a novel account of sweeping personal entitlement.
Yoo imagines for the president a panoply of “rights”: the right to wage war unilaterally, the right to devise and carry-out restrictionist immigration and free trade policies, the right to fire the FBI director, and any other subordinate executive officer, the right to end the Russia investigations (under FBI Director James Comey and later Mueller), the right to compel the obedience of private individuals, and even states, to federal law, the right to direct all executive agency officials on the performance of their duties and, if they refuse, to remove them from office, the sole right to enforce federal law, the right to decide the foreign policy of the United States and who shall carry it out, the right to undo actions by his own branch through use of the pardon power, the right to self-pardon, the right to bar aliens from entering the country, the right to receive ambassadors, and the right to terminate treaties.
What Yoo, a textualist, doesn’t acknowledge is that nowhere does the Constitution grant the president “rights.” It accords him authorities, which are significant—but also, as a matter of constitutional principle and democratic process, constrained and conditional. Analytically speaking, swapping out “authorities” for “rights” might seem like a slip of the pen rather than a deliberate shading of the terms of our constitutional inheritance. But this is a book that attributes “the progressive rights of privacy and dignity” to the “Supreme Court’s misguided adventure into the world of unwritten, non-textual judicially created rights.” Yoo’s consistent insistence on the president’s “rights” reads not as an inadvertence but as a conspicuous inversion of our constitutional language.
Significantly, it’s a trick Trump himself has endorsed. Elsewhere, I have catalogued Trump’s self-declared “absolute rights” and have suggested the recurring move is reflective of “a real-estate mogul who understands power through the prism of private property rather than public obligation.” Since entering office, Trump has claimed an ”absolute right” to divulge classified information, to “do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” to pardon himself, to declare a national emergency, to close the border, to ask foreign countries for help in investigating corruption, and to intervene in the criminal case of his former campaign adviser, Roger Stone. “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump informed a group of teenage conservatives at a Washington, D.C., summit last summer.
Against this bluster, Yoo’s subtler variation of presidential rights talk might barely register. But the upshot is the same. In “a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” the language of presidential “rights” is constitutional grift.
Yoo’s legal analysis does not fare better at the level of brass tacks.
To start, Yoo misstates basic points of law. Consider his description of how a Senate impeachment trial works (and, by implication, why the Democratic House is responsible for any deficiencies in the proceedings against Trump). He claims that “[i]ndividual senators cannot speak, question witnesses or test evidence” or “debate the meaning of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,” and that “a Senate trial creates no forum for the testing of the witnesses or the evidence.” He concludes, “Because of the Senate’s obsolete rules, the House impeachment process provided the only opportunity for the American people to weigh the factual evidence and the legal arguments against President Trump.
There’s nothing hard and fast about the existing impeachment rules; the Senate may modify or supplement them, as it did at the start of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial—and at the start of Trump’s. But Yoo’s description is inaccurate even taking as given the existing rules in the Senate Manual. Under Rule XIX, senators can submit written questions to be read aloud by the Presider. The prohibition on debate in Rule XXIV does not apply if a majority of Senators agrees to debate a proposed order behind closed doors. And far from precluding the testing of witnesses or the evidence, the rules offer a few bare-bones points of process and otherwise leave the Senate to organize this crucial aspect of the proceedings as it sees fit.
Other politically-freighted errors abound. For example, Yoo dismisses the Russia investigation as an FBI “revolt” that was initially “orchestrated” by Comey and “his inner circle,” based on “frivolous” charges. But official sources, including a 2019 report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, have confirmed that the FBI properly opened the investigation based on adequate factual predication. Yoo also writes: “Mueller did Trump a great favor by definitively clearing him.” That claim contradicts Mueller’s own report, which states, for the benefit of those who might misunderstand what prosecutors do: “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Then there’s the more fundamental problem of Yoo’s premise. Yoo must establish that Trump has been largely successful in getting what he wants to show he has effectively defended and exercised the powers of the office. Yoo doesn’t.
Yoo acknowledges the chasm between what Trump has promised to do and what he has gotten done but casts it, flatteringly, as a difference of principle: “Trump campaigns like a populist but governs like a constitutional conservative.” Compare this to the view offered by Samuel Moyn, a historian at Yale Law School, who has measured that space using the metric that, at least for Yoo’s thesis, more clearly matters: power. In Moyn’s view, given Trump’s demonstrated inability to effectuate his powers, he can only be understood “as the weakest American president in our lifetimes.”
Yoo comes to a different assessment of Trump’s constitutional power record by narrowly defining the executive actions that make the scoreboard. He explains he is referring to Trump’s success in “stopping bad ideas” from Democrats, such as abolishment of the electoral college, and his appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices. The first point is unintelligible (Trump can hardly be credited with the continuing existence of the electoral college), and the second holds up insofar as the assertion seems to be that Trump did largely what any other Republican president would have done. Yoo also argues, with skillful vagueness, that Trump “stood up” for executive leadership in foreign affairs and war and “fought” Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation and his impeachment. But neither argument illustrates Trump’s defense of the executive power, under his administration or for purposes of the next.
Yoo’s foreign affairs analysis is his best bet at making the case, but it consists almost entirely of a recitation of all the ways Trump has moved to unilaterally “undo the entanglements of his predecessors”—for example, by withdrawing the country from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accord, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Yoo is right that these examples and unmentioned others are a stunning testament to the president’s ability to transform the United States’ relationship to the world. They offer some proof of Trump’s affirmative defense of his powers, but all told, better attest to the culmination of decades of congressional acquiescence to growing presidential control over international law and international relations. As for Yoo’s most compelling example of how Trump has expanded executive power—his air strikes on Syria in 2017 and 2018 in response to the Syrian Arab Army’s use of chemical weapons against civilians—this is also the least persuasive example of constitutional action, as it rests on an interpretation of the Constitution that renders Congress’s exclusive power to declare war meaningless and the president’s power to initiate armed hostilities virtually unlimited.
Lastly, Yoo does none of the factual or legal legwork necessary to support his characterization of the Russia investigation and Ukraine impeachment as examples of executive efficacy or long-term power gains. The best arguments to the contrary have been made, in real time, by Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School, who within days of Trump’s inauguration noted the infirmities of an administration overtaken by chaos and internal rebellion. In October 2017, Goldsmith built on his early observations with an analysis of the precedented leaks coming from career civil servants seeking to undermine what they perceived as the president’s damaging conduct. Goldsmith recognized the leaks as “an immune response to Trump’s attacks on the intelligence community.” But he noted that some of them—in particular, leaks coming from intelligence officials involved in the surveillance of Russian officials—also violated “taboos that had been respected even in the wild west of unlawful government disclosures” and could result in a new normal that exacts costs not only on Trump but on future administrations.
Two years later, Trump’s impeachment provided additional examples of the same immune response in action. Notwithstanding the administration’s sweeping public claims of executive privilege, in the space of weeks, a parade of not just former but current administration officials and political appointees appeared on the Hill to testify on facts detrimental to the president’s position on Ukraine. “The [White House] is asserting no legal authorities, and does not appear even to be trying to manage what executive officials can and cannot say,” Goldsmith observed. The failure attested to a “really remarkable breakdown of soft and hard presidential power.”
This type of close consideration of the mechanics of the executive branch—how it works and the powers it exercises in fact—is simply missing from Yoo’s analysis, which instead weaves error and vagueness in service of an unctuous conclusion: “In securing the benefits of an energentic executive for his successors, Trump may have done the nation his greatest service.”
The particular relevance of Yoo’s ideas for the Trump administration’s policies came into focus about a month before the book’s July release, when reports emerged that Yoo was advising the White House in formulating its last pre-election foreign and domestic policy plays in connection with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California. That decision rejected the procedural adequacy of Trump’s attempt to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Yoo’s view, floated in articles published in Newsweek and the National Review in June, is that by requiring the executive branch to undergo “laborious” processes to reverse what Yoo sees as an illegal program established by “executive fiat,” the Court has expanded, rather than curbed, the president’s powers. As Yoo put it, in an apparent elaboration of objections set out in Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent, “presidents can now stop enforcing laws they dislike, hand out permits or benefits that run contrary to acts of Congress and prevent their successors from repealing their policies for several years.”
Yoo reportedly met virtually with Trump sometime in July to discuss the theory. On July 10, Trump offered what sounded like a clear endorsement of Yoo’s ideas when he promised he would soon be signing “a very major immigration bill as an executive order” based on powers accorded to him by the DACA decision. In a recorded interview with Chris Wallace that aired on Fox News Sunday on July 19, Trump again indicated he would be pushing through a health-care plan, an immigration plan and “various other plans” without congressional sign-off. Trump explained, “The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had, by approving, by doing what they did—their decision on DACA.”
Yoo’s DACA theory is a riff on a major idea in his book and other writings. He argues that presidents have “the power of reversal”—also described as the “right of reversal”—which permits him to not just undo but immediately undo the actions of past presidents without a helping hand from Congress. In Yoo’s view, to the extent Trump sees the Obama-era program as an unconstitutional violation of the president’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully Executed,” he has the right to order the program’s almost-instant dissolution, notwithstanding the consequences for hundreds of thousands of program recipients who have relied on the program’s promises.
An onslaught of litigation would be sure to commence if Trump were to issue a slew of executive orders reshaping the healthcare and immigration landscape. But putting aside whether Yoo’s interpretation of the DACA ruling could be operationalized, Yoo’s recent talks with the White House on the subject are notable given he sees his own interpretation of the DACA ruling as bad news for the Constitution.
The irony could not be greater. Yoo’s advice on the Supreme Court’s DACA opinion is useful to Trump not for what Yoo has to say about the law of executive power but because of what he claims about the impotence of the law. Yoo laments that the opinion “makes it easy for presidents to violate the law” by creating a pathway for presidents to issue unconstitutional executive orders that cut Congress out of the lawmaking process. For his interpretation of Regents to form the basis for a suite of impending executive orders would thus signal, from Yoo’s own perspective, the collapse of his professed project: to establish “Donald Trump as a defender of the Constitution.”


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-11--A Lesson From the Pandemic on How Our Culture Infects Politics

Last spring , when even Donald Trump had to admit that we were in the midst of a pandemic , there were those who suggested that warmer weather would slow the spread of the coronavirus .
As we approach the fall season , it is clear that didn ’ t happen , with around 40,000 new COVID-19 cases being reported every day .
But if you watched the Republican Convention , you might think that the whole scare is over , with speakers referring to the pandemic in the past tense .
The worst offender was White House economic advisor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later , USA Today is reporting that , as colleges and universities reopen , communities heavy with college students represent 19 of the 25 hottest outbreaks in the U.S. We could see similar results as K-12 schools reopen .
In other words , this pandemic is hardly over .
Trump and some governors have hampered an effective approach to the coronavirus .
While it is important to hold them accountable , Ed Yong has documented some of the other reasons why the United States is “ trapped in a pandemic spiral.
” He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much misinformation being spread , Americans relied on their intuition .
Many Americans trusted intuition to help guide them through this disaster .
They grabbed onto whatever solution was most prominent in the moment , and bounced from one ( often false ) hope to the next .
They saw the actions that individual people were taking , and blamed and shamed their neighbors .
They lapsed into magical thinking , and believed that the world would return to normal within months .
Following these impulses was simpler than navigating a web of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and accepting that the pandemic would rage for at least a year .
Where Yong talks about “ intuition , ” it might be more helpful to think about how our culture has an impact on how we approach the challenges we face as a country .
As such , it isn ’ t limited to our response to a pandemic , but also helps explain the barriers we face in tackling everything from climate change to systemic racism .
Yong identifies nine “ errors of intuition ” that have trapped this country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them are significant , there are four that stand out as the kind of errors we ’ ve made over and over again on other issues .
The entire framing of COVID-19 has been that most people experience mild symptoms but , for a relatively small subset of those infected , it becomes fatal .
That dichotomy has precluded any discussion about the so-called “ long haulers ” who have suffered debilitating symptoms for months that could plague them for the rest of their lives .
That led to another dichotomy when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saving lives and saving the economy .
The fact is that the economy can ’ t be saved until we get control of the virus .
It ’ s not an either/or , but a both/and .
A close cousin to that dichotomy is the lie we often hear about having to choose between saving the planet and saving jobs .
Finger-pointing has been ubiquitous during this pandemic , but here ’ s how Yong responded : If you add our neglected public health system to the “ tattered social safety net , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the problem .
Yong refers to the possibility that our puritanical roots can help explain why Americans “ prize shame over support.
” That is exactly how so-called “ cancel culture ” can often get in the way of addressing issues like systemic racism .
Given that COVID-19 symptoms show up weeks after an infection and that the concept of exponential growth is counterintuitive , we got stuck in a reactive rut .
American politics is often reactive to the moment rather than taking a long-term view .
As such , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fires rage across California without taking the necessary steps to address climate change .
This is the most dangerous error of intuition that the U.S. has been practicing for decades .
While it is always appropriate to hold leaders accountable , these are just some of the ways that we have allowed our culture to infect our politics in a way that not only got us in a pandemic spiral , but prevents us from addressing the major issues we face .

Last spring, when even Donald Trump had to admit that we were in the midst of a pandemic, there were those who suggested that warmer weather would slow the spread of the coronavirus. As we approach the fall season, it is clear that didn’t happen, with around 40,000 new COVID-19 cases being reported every day.
But if you watched the Republican Convention, you might think that the whole scare is over, with speakers referring to the pandemic in the past tense. The worst offender was White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow.
Just a few weeks later, USA Today is reporting that, as colleges and universities reopen, communities heavy with college students represent 19 of the 25 hottest outbreaks in the U.S. We could see similar results as K-12 schools reopen. In other words, this pandemic is hardly over.
Trump and some governors have hampered an effective approach to the coronavirus. While it is important to hold them accountable, Ed Yong has documented some of the other reasons why the United States is “trapped in a pandemic spiral.” He points out that, especially with so much misinformation being spread, Americans relied on their intuition.
Many Americans trusted intuition to help guide them through this disaster. They grabbed onto whatever solution was most prominent in the moment, and bounced from one (often false) hope to the next. They saw the actions that individual people were taking, and blamed and shamed their neighbors. They lapsed into magical thinking, and believed that the world would return to normal within months. Following these impulses was simpler than navigating a web of solutions, staring down broken systems, and accepting that the pandemic would rage for at least a year.
Where Yong talks about “intuition,” it might be more helpful to think about how our culture has an impact on how we approach the challenges we face as a country. As such, it isn’t limited to our response to a pandemic, but also helps explain the barriers we face in tackling everything from climate change to systemic racism.
Yong identifies nine “errors of intuition” that have trapped this country in a pandemic spiral. While all of them are significant, there are four that stand out as the kind of errors we’ve made over and over again on other issues.
1. False Dichotomies
The entire framing of COVID-19 has been that most people experience mild symptoms but, for a relatively small subset of those infected, it becomes fatal. That dichotomy has precluded any discussion about the so-called “long haulers” who have suffered debilitating symptoms for months that could plague them for the rest of their lives. That led to another dichotomy when we were all asked to choose between saving lives and saving the economy. The fact is that the economy can’t be saved until we get control of the virus. It’s not an either/or, but a both/and. A close cousin to that dichotomy is the lie we often hear about having to choose between saving the planet and saving jobs.
2. Personal Blame Over Systemic Fixes
Finger-pointing has been ubiquitous during this pandemic, but here’s how Yong responded:
[T]attered social safety nets are less visible than crowded bars. Pushing for universal health care is harder than shaming an unmasked stranger. Fixing systemic problems is more difficult than spewing moralism, and Americans gravitated toward the latter.
If you add our neglected public health system to the “tattered social safety net,” you begin to see the scope of the problem. Yong refers to the possibility that our puritanical roots can help explain why Americans “prize shame over support.” That is exactly how so-called “cancel culture” can often get in the way of addressing issues like systemic racism.
3. A Reactive Rut
Given that COVID-19 symptoms show up weeks after an infection and that the concept of exponential growth is counterintuitive, we got stuck in a reactive rut.
Pandemic data are like the light of distant stars, recording past events instead of present ones. This lag separates actions from their consequences by enough time to break our intuition for cause and effect. Policy makers end up acting only when it’s too late. Predictable surges get falsely cast as unexpected surprises.
American politics is often reactive to the moment rather than taking a long-term view. As such, we’ll react with horror every time fires rage across California without taking the necessary steps to address climate change.
5. Habituation of Horror
This is the most dangerous error of intuition that the U.S. has been practicing for decades.
While it is always appropriate to hold leaders accountable, these are just some of the ways that we have allowed our culture to infect our politics in a way that not only got us in a pandemic spiral, but prevents us from addressing the major issues we face.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-11--We Can’t Endure Much More Bad Leadership

Over the years I have often emphasized my belief in the importance of leadership .
I know that some things follow a kind of inexorable dialectical logic , but you can ’ t explain many historical outcomes without looking at specific human beings who made choices .
Bill Clinton made a choice to have a sexual dalliance with a White House intern .
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections made a choice to use a confusing butterfly ballot .
Combined , these two decisions almost certainly led to Al Gore ’ s “ defeat ” in 2000 .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received the presidential daily briefing warning that Osama Bin-Laden was determined to strike the United States and planning to hijack airplanes .
Al Gore might have sprung into action .
George W. Bush told the briefer “ All right .
You ’ ve covered your ass , now , ” and went on about his day .
The success of the 9/11 attacks led directly to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq , as well as to the Patriot Act , the creation of the Department of Homeland Security , and many examples @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
These events weren ’ t inevitable results of economic or demographic pressures , but rather the unfortunate consequences of bad leadership .
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates my point in a merciless way .
We can make a choice to follow expert medical guidance or not .
Kristi Noem , the governor of South Dakota , wanted the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis to go off as planned , but she should have canceled it .
Nineteen percent of the 1.4 million new coronavirus cases in the U.S. between Aug. 2 and Sept. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota , according to researchers from San Diego State University ’ s Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies .
That ’ s more than 266,000 coronavirus cases attributed to the 10-day event , which more than 460,000 people attended despite fears it could become a so-called super-spreader event .
“ We conclude that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally generated public health costs of approximately $ 12.2 billion , ” the researchers wrote in a paper .
“ This is enough to have paid each of the estimated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attend.
” President Trump has likewise contributed to the COVID-19 death count by his poor leadership , including his insistence of holding rallies and discouraging mask-wearing and social distancing .
It ’ s quite likely that a President Hillary Clinton would have taken different actions , and my son would be at school right now instead of on a Zoom conference call with his classmates in my kitchen .
It ’ s not a stretch to say that Trump ’ s poor leadership has caused more than 100,000 unnecessary deaths and all manner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high unemployment , business failures , and widespread psychological distress .
An outside observer would think our refusal to consistently follow medical advice completely insane , and that ’ s the point director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins made in response to President Trump ’ s rally in Michigan on Thursday .
In unusually frank remarks during a CNN town hall event focused on the novel coronavirus , the nation ’ s top public health official lamented that commonsense mitigation measures had become politicized and claimed that aliens from far-off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic would conclude that Earth was all but doomed .
“ How did we get here ?
Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth , and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread , ” Collins said when asked about Trump ’ s Thursday night rally outside an airport hangar in Freeland .
“ And yet , when you went around , you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and it turned out it was their political party .
And you would scratch your head and think , ‘ This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future , if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.
’ ” Human beings can be led in good or bad directions .
Truly smart aliens would understand this and realize that there ’ s still promise for our future if we change leadership .
We ’ ve been plagued by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infidelity to Bush ’ s inattention and response to 9/11 , to Trump ’ s handling of the coronavirus .
It ’ s had a cascading effect that has left Syria in ruins , California on fire , and my son in my kitchen when he should be at school .
It ’ s time to choose a good leader and see if things improve .

Over the years I have often emphasized my belief in the importance of leadership. I know that some things follow a kind of inexorable dialectical logic, but you can’t explain many historical outcomes without looking at specific human beings who made choices.
Bill Clinton made a choice to have a sexual dalliance with a White House intern. The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections made a choice to use a confusing butterfly ballot. Combined, these two decisions almost certainly led to Al Gore’s “defeat” in 2000. That meant it was George W. Bush who received the presidential daily briefing warning that Osama Bin-Laden was determined to strike the United States and planning to hijack airplanes. Al Gore might have sprung into action. George W. Bush told the briefer “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now,” and went on about his day.
The success of the 9/11 attacks led directly to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and many examples of unconstitutional surveillance of the American people. These events weren’t inevitable results of economic or demographic pressures, but rather the unfortunate consequences of bad leadership.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates my point in a merciless way. We can make a choice to follow expert medical guidance or not. Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, wanted the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis to go off as planned, but she should have canceled it.
Nineteen percent of the 1.4 million new coronavirus cases in the U.S. between Aug. 2 and Sept. 2 can be traced back to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota, according to researchers from San Diego State University’s Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies. That’s more than 266,000 coronavirus cases attributed to the 10-day event, which more than 460,000 people attended despite fears it could become a so-called super-spreader event. “We conclude that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally generated public health costs of approximately $12.2 billion,” the researchers wrote in a paper. “This is enough to have paid each of the estimated 462,182 rally attendees $26,553.64 not to attend.”
President Trump has likewise contributed to the COVID-19 death count by his poor leadership, including his insistence of holding rallies and discouraging mask-wearing and social distancing. It’s quite likely that a President Hillary Clinton would have taken different actions, and my son would be at school right now instead of on a Zoom conference call with his classmates in my kitchen.
It’s not a stretch to say that Trump’s poor leadership has caused more than 100,000 unnecessary deaths and all manner of other negative consequences, like persistently high unemployment, business failures, and widespread psychological distress.
An outside observer would think our refusal to consistently follow medical advice completely insane, and that’s the point director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins made in response to President Trump’s rally in Michigan on Thursday.
In unusually frank remarks during a CNN town hall event focused on the novel coronavirus, the nation’s top public health official lamented that commonsense mitigation measures had become politicized and claimed that aliens from far-off worlds viewing Americans’ behavior amid the pandemic would conclude that Earth was all but doomed. “How did we get here? Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread,” Collins said when asked about Trump’s Thursday night rally outside an airport hangar in Freeland. “And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, ‘This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future, if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.’”
Human beings can be led in good or bad directions. Truly smart aliens would understand this and realize that there’s still promise for our future if we change leadership.
We’ve been plagued by bad decisions, from Clinton’s infidelity to Bush’s inattention and response to 9/11, to Trump’s handling of the coronavirus. It’s had a cascading effect that has left Syria in ruins, California on fire, and my son in my kitchen when he should be at school. It’s time to choose a good leader and see if things improve.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-11--Will an Endorsement From Joe Lieberman Help Susan Collins?

There is a case to be made that endorsements in political races don ’ t have much impact .
But if they do , there are some strange things happening in the Maine Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Sara Gideon .
Collins is in trouble .
In the poll aggregate at RealClearPolitics , Gideon is winning by 4.5 points .
No single poll has shown Collins in the lead since the summer of 2019 .
That is probably what sparked an endorsement from Joe Lieberman this week .
It ’ s interesting that Lieberman began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ life-long Democrat ” because , when he lost the Democratic primary in 2006 to Ned Lamont , he created a new party that he called “ Connecticut for Lieberman ” in order to remain on the ballot .
Then in 2008 , he endorsed the Republican candidate , John McCain , in his race against Barack Obama .
Lieberman ’ s endorsement probably isn ’ t meant to influence Democrats , but to assure Republicans and Independents that they can continue to support Collins in the era of Trump Republicanism .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ her independence from the president , her campaign has actually boasted about the fact that she voted with him 94 percent of the time .
On the other side of the coin , staff of Maine ’ s former Republican Senator Olympia Snowe are speaking out against Collins .
In addition , Snowe ’ s former chief of staff , Jane Calderwood , wrote an op-ed titled , “ I Can No Longer Support Sen. Susan Collins.
” Sadly , I can no longer support Senator Susan Collins .
She has proven unwilling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too enamored of political power to speak up for the good people of Maine .
I am tired of hearing about how “ concerned ” she is .
These times demand strength and action and she has shown neither .
Snowe herself deserves some respect for getting out of politics when she felt the winds of extremism blowing through her party .
But Collins stayed , and as Rep. Adam Schiff warned , she has tied her name to Trump ’ s “ with a cord of steel and for all of history.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ have any inside knowledge about the voters in Maine , but they have always shown a strong streak of independence and I doubt that they have been impressed by Collins ’ s cowardice .

There is a case to be made that endorsements in political races don’t have much impact. But if they do, there are some strange things happening in the Maine Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Sara Gideon.
Collins is in trouble. In the poll aggregate at RealClearPolitics, Gideon is winning by 4.5 points. No single poll has shown Collins in the lead since the summer of 2019. That is probably what sparked an endorsement from Joe Lieberman this week.
It’s interesting that Lieberman began that ad by referring to himself as a “life-long Democrat” because, when he lost the Democratic primary in 2006 to Ned Lamont, he created a new party that he called “Connecticut for Lieberman” in order to remain on the ballot. Then in 2008, he endorsed the Republican candidate, John McCain, in his race against Barack Obama.
Lieberman’s endorsement probably isn’t meant to influence Democrats, but to assure Republicans and Independents that they can continue to support Collins in the era of Trump Republicanism. But even though Collins has often touted her independence from the president, her campaign has actually boasted about the fact that she voted with him 94 percent of the time.
On the other side of the coin, staff of Maine’s former Republican Senator Olympia Snowe are speaking out against Collins.
In addition, Snowe’s former chief of staff, Jane Calderwood, wrote an op-ed titled, “I Can No Longer Support Sen. Susan Collins.”
Sadly, I can no longer support Senator Susan Collins. She has proven unwilling to stand up to the President and too enamored of political power to speak up for the good people of Maine. I am tired of hearing about how “concerned” she is. These times demand strength and action and she has shown neither.
Snowe herself deserves some respect for getting out of politics when she felt the winds of extremism blowing through her party. But Collins stayed, and as Rep. Adam Schiff warned, she has tied her name to Trump’s “with a cord of steel and for all of history.” I can’t claim to have any inside knowledge about the voters in Maine, but they have always shown a strong streak of independence and I doubt that they have been impressed by Collins’s cowardice.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-12--To Save Democracy, Democrats Must Hold Trump Officials Accountable

If Democrats do hold their House majority and retake the Senate and the White House , pressure will be intense to avoid looking backward and focus solely on solving the problems in front of them .
This is understandable : the wreckage the Trump administration would leave behind after just four short years is immense , the policy challenges dire .
If successful in November ( and if Trump doesn ’ t create irredeemable chaos in the transition ) , Biden and Congressional Democrats will have to deal with a raging pandemic , a collapsing small business and renter economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over racist police violence—as well as the myriad ongoing policy challenges related to healthcare , tuition , inequality , tech giant accountability and so much more .
It ’ s easy to foresee a scenario where , coupled with pressure from Republicans and centrists , Democrats decide that the public is sick of even thinking about Trump and bygones are allowed to be bygones .
But that would be a huge mistake .
If Trump and his enablers are allowed to get away with the misdeeds of the last four years unscathed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American experiment .
The American system of government has proven to be far more fragile and norms-dependent than most public policy professionals and politics nerds had thought possible .
It may only take one more president of limited moral constraints to topple it entirely .
And given that impeachment and removal have proven to be an empty threat , the only deterrent to a future Trumplike president and their enablers will be the fear of being held legally and financially accountable for wrongdoing after leaving office .
The degree to which Trump and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already warped the structures of power and obliterated ethical lines long considered sacred has frankly been shocking .
Democrats will almost certainly try to codify into law some of the violated norms–for instance , requiring that presidential candidates release tax returns , strengthening the Hatch Act , placing increased walls between the President and the Attorney General , etc–but these efforts will be like plugging holes in a sieve .
If a Chief Executive wants to abuse their power , and they have enough allied Senators to stave off removal after an impeachment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endless .
Investigations of past malfeasance , therefore , are not merely a political weapon to do damage to the standing of the leaders of the other party .
They are an essential tool for the preservation of democracy .
It is unlikely that the Republican Party of Trump will reform itself into a responsible governing body within a generation , and it is unrealistic to assume that Democrats will hold the presidency for as long as it takes until the day that democracy itself is not under direct threat .
All that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What else is to prevent a future Michael Caputo from rigging scientific findings in a pandemic to make his boss look good while endangering millions ?
What else is to prevent a future Louis DeJoy from sabotaging the Postal Service again ?
What else would stop a future Bill Barr from using the Justice Department as the president ’ s private legal firm ?
What else would stop a future Donald Trump from…well , everything ?
Certainly not shame or normative pressure .
Not the balance of powers in the Senate envisioned by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subpoenas , jail and penury stands in the way .
So as much as Democrats will have their work cut out for them next year , and as much as Republicans will howl about it , they can not avoid the necessity of full investigations and inquiries into this administration ’ s abuses .
People have to go to jail for what has happened , or there probably won ’ t be a democracy worth saving for long .

If Democrats do hold their House majority and retake the Senate and the White House, pressure will be intense to avoid looking backward and focus solely on solving the problems in front of them. This is understandable: the wreckage the Trump administration would leave behind after just four short years is immense, the policy challenges dire. If successful in November (and if Trump doesn’t create irredeemable chaos in the transition), Biden and Congressional Democrats will have to deal with a raging pandemic, a collapsing small business and renter economy, a climate crisis and continuing unrest over racist police violence—as well as the myriad ongoing policy challenges related to healthcare, tuition, inequality, tech giant accountability and so much more. It’s easy to foresee a scenario where, coupled with pressure from Republicans and centrists, Democrats decide that the public is sick of even thinking about Trump and bygones are allowed to be bygones.
But that would be a huge mistake. If Trump and his enablers are allowed to get away with the misdeeds of the last four years unscathed, it may mean the end of the American experiment.
The American system of government has proven to be far more fragile and norms-dependent than most public policy professionals and politics nerds had thought possible. It may only take one more president of limited moral constraints to topple it entirely. And given that impeachment and removal have proven to be an empty threat, the only deterrent to a future Trumplike president and their enablers will be the fear of being held legally and financially accountable for wrongdoing after leaving office.
The degree to which Trump and his cronies in under four years have already warped the structures of power and obliterated ethical lines long considered sacred has frankly been shocking. Democrats will almost certainly try to codify into law some of the violated norms–for instance, requiring that presidential candidates release tax returns, strengthening the Hatch Act, placing increased walls between the President and the Attorney General, etc–but these efforts will be like plugging holes in a sieve. If a Chief Executive wants to abuse their power, and they have enough allied Senators to stave off removal after an impeachment, then the opportunities for mischief are endless.
Investigations of past malfeasance, therefore, are not merely a political weapon to do damage to the standing of the leaders of the other party. They are an essential tool for the preservation of democracy. It is unlikely that the Republican Party of Trump will reform itself into a responsible governing body within a generation, and it is unrealistic to assume that Democrats will hold the presidency for as long as it takes until the day that democracy itself is not under direct threat. All that is left is fear of accountability.
What else is to prevent a future Michael Caputo from rigging scientific findings in a pandemic to make his boss look good while endangering millions? What else is to prevent a future Louis DeJoy from sabotaging the Postal Service again? What else would stop a future Bill Barr from using the Justice Department as the president’s private legal firm? What else would stop a future Donald Trump from…well, everything?
Certainly not shame or normative pressure. Not the balance of powers in the Senate envisioned by the framers. Only the fear of subpoenas, jail and penury stands in the way.
So as much as Democrats will have their work cut out for them next year, and as much as Republicans will howl about it, they cannot avoid the necessity of full investigations and inquiries into this administration’s abuses. People have to go to jail for what has happened, or there probably won’t be a democracy worth saving for long.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-12--Why Bill Barr Shields Foreign Terrorists from the Death Penalty

In July the U.S. attorney general directed his Department of Justice to resume the death penalty .
Since his directive this summer , he ’ s used lethal injection to kill five federal Death Row inmates .
Barr executed five murderers , rapists and torturers of children and the elderly .
Men who inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on their victims and surviving families .
Barr unapologetically resumed capital punishment after a two-decade hiatus , “ bringing justice to the most horrific crimes.
” Barr ’ s tough on crime .
Unless , of course , he ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ skip the death penalty for a pair of foreign ISIS terrorists who clearly qualified for the ultimate punishment .
Shockingly , Barr wrote a three-page letter dated Aug. 18 to British Home Secretary Priti Patel to say he won ’ t seek the death penalty for two terrorists in U.S. military custody in Iraq .
The despicable duo , nicknamed “ The Beatles ” because of their British accents , are accused of kidnapping and beheading several hostages in Syria in 2014 , including James Foley , an American journalist .
And Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , saying that even if a death penalty were imposed , “ It would not be carried out.
” That ’ s right , he ’ s both killing Americans and guaranteeing not to kill terrorists .
This disparity is offensive and needs to change .
Society is currently debating whether there are two systems of American justice as the 2020 presidential election forces the question : Is there one harshly punitive system for Black America and another less-severe system for the rest of America ?
That answer may come as early as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now is that there is a two-tier system of American justice .
One says the death penalty is OK for criminals inside U.S. territory .
The other essentially gives criminals residing outside the United States a get-out-of-jail-free card .
The reason ?
Countries can ’ t — and won ’ t — extradite to America criminals eligible for the death penalty .
Sen. Dianne Feinstein recognized this crazy reality in 2003 when she said , “ If you steal a car in the U.S. , Mexico will return you to face prosecution and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Mexico will protect you.
” That ’ s right .
The more heinous the crime , the less likely the chance of being extradited to the United States .
As a result , America can ’ t get its man .
In the case of the “ Beatles , ” the United Kingdom won ’ t even give evidence unless Barr cries “ Uncle.
” Bill Barr currently is in charge of this longstanding and absurd two-tiered system of capital injustice .
He freely applies the death penalty to guilty parties at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , guaranteeing that those committing monstrous acts abroad either escape justice or receive greater leniency than criminals at home .
It ’ s perverse .
Civilized countries around the world have stopped capital punishment .
Those nations refuse to extradite or provide evidence to places that execute criminals : Saudi Arabia , Iran , Iraq , Egypt , China and the United States .
Our country has to make an important choice .
Will it maintain its death penalty , recognizing that the trade-off means some of the world ’ s most wanted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Or , will the United States give up capital punishment entirely and join the community of nations that condemn the practice and fully collaborate on cross-border justice ?
America can ’ t have it both ways .
James Foley ’ s family has been incredibly understanding of the flawed U.S. legal policy requiring official “ assurances ” to mete justice .
A merciful and spiritually strong Diane Foley told the BBC , “ I feel that the death penalty is too easy .
It allows them to be martyrs .
.
.
.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so they have a chance for redemption themselves.
” America gave Russia assurances that there would be no death penalty if they sent NSA leaker Edward Snowden back home .
The United States promised the Mexican government that drug kingpin “ El Chapo ” Guzman would not be subject to capital punishment .
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks , the Brits said if they caught Saudi mass-murdering terrorist Osama bin Laden , he would not have been extradited to the United States .
The list of criminals escaping swift — or any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America ’ s backward approach to capital punishment .
While America may kill its own and spare those on foreign soil , Saudi Arabia just practiced the exact opposite .
A Saudi court overturned five death sentences for the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi , the Washington Post journalist suffocated and dismembered in Istanbul .
In a country that otherwise wholeheartedly embraces the death penalty , Khashoggi ’ s killers instead received between seven and 20 years in jail .
Is it ever possible to apply the death penalty equitably here or anywhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the world around capital punishment or accept that while some get executed , others will get away with murder .

Bill Barr is killing Americans but sparing terrorists.
In July the U.S. attorney general directed his Department of Justice to resume the death penalty. Since his directive this summer, he’s used lethal injection to kill five federal Death Row inmates.
Barr executed five murderers, rapists and torturers of children and the elderly. Men who inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on their victims and surviving families. Barr unapologetically resumed capital punishment after a two-decade hiatus, “bringing justice to the most horrific crimes.” Barr’s tough on crime.
Unless, of course, he’s not.
Barr also decided this summer to skip the death penalty for a pair of foreign ISIS terrorists who clearly qualified for the ultimate punishment. Shockingly, Barr wrote a three-page letter dated Aug. 18 to British Home Secretary Priti Patel to say he won’t seek the death penalty for two terrorists in U.S. military custody in Iraq. The despicable duo, nicknamed “The Beatles” because of their British accents, are accused of kidnapping and beheading several hostages in Syria in 2014, including James Foley, an American journalist.
And Barr’s assurances to Patel went further, saying that even if a death penalty were imposed, “It would not be carried out.” That’s right, he’s both killing Americans and guaranteeing not to kill terrorists. This disparity is offensive and needs to change.
Society is currently debating whether there are two systems of American justice as the 2020 presidential election forces the question: Is there one harshly punitive system for Black America and another less-severe system for the rest of America? That answer may come as early as Nov. 3.
What’s clear now is that there is a two-tier system of American justice. One says the death penalty is OK for criminals inside U.S. territory. The other essentially gives criminals residing outside the United States a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The reason? Countries can’t — and won’t — extradite to America criminals eligible for the death penalty. Sen. Dianne Feinstein recognized this crazy reality in 2003 when she said, “If you steal a car in the U.S., Mexico will return you to face prosecution and punishment. If you kill the driver, Mexico will protect you.” That’s right. The more heinous the crime, the less likely the chance of being extradited to the United States.
As a result, America can’t get its man. In the case of the “Beatles,” the United Kingdom won’t even give evidence unless Barr cries “Uncle.”
Bill Barr currently is in charge of this longstanding and absurd two-tiered system of capital injustice. He freely applies the death penalty to guilty parties at home while, at the same time, guaranteeing that those committing monstrous acts abroad either escape justice or receive greater leniency than criminals at home. It’s perverse.
Civilized countries around the world have stopped capital punishment. Those nations refuse to extradite or provide evidence to places that execute criminals: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, China and the United States.
Our country has to make an important choice. Will it maintain its death penalty, recognizing that the trade-off means some of the world’s most wanted criminals will get away with murder? Or, will the United States give up capital punishment entirely and join the community of nations that condemn the practice and fully collaborate on cross-border justice? America can’t have it both ways.
James Foley’s family has been incredibly understanding of the flawed U.S. legal policy requiring official “assurances” to mete justice. A merciful and spiritually strong Diane Foley told the BBC, “I feel that the death penalty is too easy. It allows them to be martyrs. . . . They really need to face life imprisonment, so they have a chance for redemption themselves.”
America gave Russia assurances that there would be no death penalty if they sent NSA leaker Edward Snowden back home. The United States promised the Mexican government that drug kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman would not be subject to capital punishment. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Brits said if they caught Saudi mass-murdering terrorist Osama bin Laden, he would not have been extradited to the United States. The list of criminals escaping swift — or any — justice continues to grow because of America’s backward approach to capital punishment.
While America may kill its own and spare those on foreign soil, Saudi Arabia just practiced the exact opposite. A Saudi court overturned five death sentences for the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist suffocated and dismembered in Istanbul. In a country that otherwise wholeheartedly embraces the death penalty, Khashoggi’s killers instead received between seven and 20 years in jail. Is it ever possible to apply the death penalty equitably here or anywhere?
America must sync up with most of the world around capital punishment or accept that while some get executed, others will get away with murder.
Equal justice requires us to end capital punishment.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-10--The Case Against Trump is Complete. Now We Need a Verdict.


washingtonmonthly--2020-09-12--The GOP Is Staging Chaos On the Way To A Coup

Two news stories story that almost speak for themselves without the need for commentary .
First , the 4-3 conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has made a bizarre , nonsensical ruling that will throw Wisconsin ’ s entire election into disarray for no good reason .
Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in .
On Thursday afternoon , by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines , the court issued a strange , cryptic order that could throw the election into chaos .
The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over .
Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position : either comply with the court ’ s order or violate both state and federal law .
Essentially , the Green Party failed to submit proper documents in Wisconsin .
They refused to state reasons , or to seek redress in a timely manner .
Then they asked the state at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party on the ballot , anyway , despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of ballots had already gone out to voters .
A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons : Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it , and it has no plausible legal basis .
But instead of dismissing the case , the infamously irresponsible court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots , who has been mailed a ballot already , and when these ballots were mailed .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballots to be printed , implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out .
In the meantime , the conservative majority effectively shut down the state ’ s election machinery , suspending the printing of more absentee ballots .
Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party .
Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire , grueling , monthslong process anew .
There is no plausible rationale for the decision , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manner that won ’ t throw the election into chaos .
The Wisconsin Supreme Court was made very well aware of this , and the conservative Koch-purchased majority choose this course of action , anyway .
Nor was the cynical Green Party acting alone : If the presidential election is at all close , everything may hinge on the outcome in Wisconsin .
And if Wisconsin is beset by legal challenges from thousands of voters casting legally received ballots prior to a court order demanding that different ballots be sent , even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legally mandated deadline , you have a recipe for a chaos of litigation that will ultimately only be resolved by Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court .
Meanwhile , Donald Trump ’ s pardoned felonious close advisor and Russia-Wikileaks conduit Roger Stone just told Alex Jones that Trump should seize total power in a coup should he lose the election : We know that Trump listens to Stone as the closest person he still has in his orbit to his beloved Roy Cohn , and cares enough about him to have sprung him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s recommending this course of action : Beyond Nevada , Stone recommended that Trump consider several actions to retain his power .
Stone recommended that Trump appoint former Rep. Bob Barr ( R-GA ) as a special counsel “ with the specific task of forming an Election Day operation using the FBI , federal marshals , and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity.
” Stone also urged Trump to consider declaring “ martial law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then using his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg , Apple CEO Tim Cook , “ the Clintons ” and “ anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.
” Even if Trump doesn ’ t actively take any of these measures–and there is a great deal of evidence that he might–right-wing groups may well take some of these matters into their own hands .
The context for all of this upheaval is that conservatives know they have lost the argument and the culture .
The nation ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to inequality to climate change to the pandemic itself , simply do not lend themselves to conservative “ solutions.
” Conservatism itself would have to change to adapt to the moment , and it is unwilling to do so .
Meanwhile , the Right is losing the culture wars , evangelicals are declining as a percentage of the population , and older social conservatives are aging out of the electorate , replaced by young progressives .
White supremacists know that whites are declining as a percentage of the population , Black Lives Matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is also slowly coming to grips with some of the consequences of toxic masculinity .
Universal healthcare , taxing the rich and even previously radical solutions like an income floor funded by taxes on Wall Street speculation are increasingly mainstream .
And finally , they know that the consequence of McConnell ’ s brinksmanship and Trump ’ s norm destruction is that Democrats are increasingly unafraid to actually wield power and govern in a way that finally maximizes majoritarian power : eliminating the filibuster , adding states to the union , bypassing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ size of the courts , enacting broad voter rights and gerrymandering reforms , and much else .
If they do , the conservative movement as it currently exists may not be able to hold national power again–not because the Democrats staged a coup , but rather because they simply undercut the apartheid structures that prevented the voice of the majority from being heard and implemented into law .
The conservative response to all this is to create as much chaos as possible , with a view toward seizing power in a coup–thereby short-circuiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legitimacy of popular will .
The Republican Party has become the Chaos Party .
And it will take all citizen hands on deck to resist them , overwhelm them at the ballot box , and move the country forward in a stable and more progressive direction .

Two news stories story that almost speak for themselves without the need for commentary.
First, the 4-3 conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has made a bizarre, nonsensical ruling that will throw Wisconsin’s entire election into disarray for no good reason.
Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in. On Thursday afternoon, by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines, the court issued a strange, cryptic order that could throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information it did not actually have. These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over. Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position: either comply with the court’s order or violate both state and federal law.
Essentially, the Green Party failed to submit proper documents in Wisconsin. They refused to state reasons, or to seek redress in a timely manner. Then they asked the state at the last minute to place the Green Party on the ballot, anyway, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of ballots had already gone out to voters.
A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons: Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it, and it has no plausible legal basis. But instead of dismissing the case, the infamously irresponsible court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots, who has been mailed a ballot already, and when these ballots were mailed. It also demanded to know who requested the ballots to be printed, implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out. In the meantime, the conservative majority effectively shut down the state’s election machinery, suspending the printing of more absentee ballots. Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party. Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire, grueling, monthslong process anew.
There is no plausible rationale for the decision, and no way to implement it in a manner that won’t throw the election into chaos. The Wisconsin Supreme Court was made very well aware of this, and the conservative Koch-purchased majority choose this course of action, anyway. Nor was the cynical Green Party acting alone:
Hawkins suggested in an interview that Trump supporters had helped the Green Party ticket with its legal claim before the state Supreme Court. The party’s petition was filed by attorneys from the Milwaukee-based von Briesen & Roper law firm, which has a history of representing Wisconsin Republicans. “You get help where you can find it,” Hawkins told The Washington Post when asked whether Republicans had financed the legal action. “They have their reasons and we have ours.”
If the presidential election is at all close, everything may hinge on the outcome in Wisconsin. And if Wisconsin is beset by legal challenges from thousands of voters casting legally received ballots prior to a court order demanding that different ballots be sent, even if those ballots go out later than the legally mandated deadline, you have a recipe for a chaos of litigation that will ultimately only be resolved by Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s pardoned felonious close advisor and Russia-Wikileaks conduit Roger Stone just told Alex Jones that Trump should seize total power in a coup should he lose the election:
Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.
We know that Trump listens to Stone as the closest person he still has in his orbit to his beloved Roy Cohn, and cares enough about him to have sprung him out of jail. And he’s recommending this course of action:
Beyond Nevada, Stone recommended that Trump consider several actions to retain his power. Stone recommended that Trump appoint former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) as a special counsel “with the specific task of forming an Election Day operation using the FBI, federal marshals, and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity.” Stone also urged Trump to consider declaring “martial law” or invoking the Insurrection Act and then using his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, “the Clintons” and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.”
Even if Trump doesn’t actively take any of these measures—and there is a great deal of evidence that he might—right-wing groups may well take some of these matters into their own hands.
The context for all of this upheaval is that conservatives know they have lost the argument and the culture. The nation’s greatest problems, from police racism to inequality to climate change to the pandemic itself, simply do not lend themselves to conservative “solutions.” Conservatism itself would have to change to adapt to the moment, and it is unwilling to do so.
Meanwhile, the Right is losing the culture wars, evangelicals are declining as a percentage of the population, and older social conservatives are aging out of the electorate, replaced by young progressives. White supremacists know that whites are declining as a percentage of the population, Black Lives Matter is broadly popular, and the country is also slowly coming to grips with some of the consequences of toxic masculinity. Universal healthcare, taxing the rich and even previously radical solutions like an income floor funded by taxes on Wall Street speculation are increasingly mainstream.
And finally, they know that the consequence of McConnell’s brinksmanship and Trump’s norm destruction is that Democrats are increasingly unafraid to actually wield power and govern in a way that finally maximizes majoritarian power: eliminating the filibuster, adding states to the union, bypassing the Electoral College, changing the composition and size of the courts, enacting broad voter rights and gerrymandering reforms, and much else. If they do, the conservative movement as it currently exists may not be able to hold national power again–not because the Democrats staged a coup, but rather because they simply undercut the apartheid structures that prevented the voice of the majority from being heard and implemented into law.
The conservative response to all this is to create as much chaos as possible, with a view toward seizing power in a coup—thereby short-circuiting the consequences of failing to secure the legitimacy of popular will.
The Republican Party has become the Chaos Party. And it will take all citizen hands on deck to resist them, overwhelm them at the ballot box, and move the country forward in a stable and more progressive direction.