washingtonmonthly--2020-07-18--Better Policy Ideas Alone Won’t Stop Monopolies

Over the last four years , new voices in the Democratic Party have been calling for policies that push back on established power structures .
The growing anti-monopoly movement is a major part of this populist uprising—aimed at breaking up the corporate giants that dominate large swaths of the economy .
Even some stalwarts of the old system are now anti-monopolists : In late April , a group of longtime Democratic economists and antitrust practitioners sent a letter urging Congress to pass legislation that would align antitrust law with “ modern economic theory and to fix harmful judicial rules.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enacted , would create a substantially more active antitrust regime than we ’ ve seen over the last four decades .
In other words , elite liberals now recognize that something has gone wrong in how America polices market concentration .
The problem , though , is they haven ’ t yet fully figured out what that “ something ” is .
The April missive prescribes new legislation and judicial interpretations of antitrust law , which would be welcome , but it ignores the circumstances that made antitrust enforcement collapse in the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies have flourished because a cloistered world of bureaucrats—some well-intentioned , some not—have been charged with implementing it with few checks on their power .
This small cache of regulators , lawyers , and judges all know each other , and all know that there ’ s a lot of money in letting the system fall into the decay it has .
Too often , the same antitrust officials who set lax antitrust standards then go and work for firms that benefit from those decisions .
To fix our monopoly problem , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of policy prescriptions from well-meaning wonks .
It requires a fundamental shift in both who we trust to shape our political economy—and the personal incentives that drive those people ’ s careers .
As they stand , the principal federal institutions that enforce antitrust law—the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission—present conflicts of interests to the lawyers and economists who carry out the agencies ’ missions .
That ’ s because civil servants regularly leave government to cash in on their insider knowledge and connections in the private sector .
Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career path—by far—for former FTC antitrust lawyers was to argue for corporate mergers and acquisitions before the very agencies for which they used to work .
Forty-one of 81former FTC Bureau of Competition officials who left the agency between 2014 and April 2020 went to BigLaw firms , such as Kirkland & Ellis , Baker Potts , and Akin Gump .
Another 11 became in-house competition counsels at acquisition-fueled companies like Facebook and Amazon .
In total , 67 percent of former FTC officials went to work for corporate America arguing against their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ antitrust experts who signed on to the April letter , at least one is currently advising corporate clients .
Bloomberg revealed that Fiona Scott Morton , Yale professor and former deputy assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division , has been advising Apple and Amazon while co-authoring papers on the government ’ s cases against Google and Facebook .
This revolving door underlies many frustrating examples of our failure to police big business .
In April 2020 , Facebook hired a lawyer from the FTC ’ s Anticompetitive Practices division , just as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past acquisitions .
Former FTC higher-ups also helped Facebook secure its wrist-slap of a settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal .
The coronavirus pandemic demonstrates how the FTC ’ s revolving door can have deadly consequences .
In 2007 , for instance , federal officials attempted to stock up on cheap ventilators to be supplied by a firm called Newport Medical Instruments .
But this arrangement threatened medtech giant Covidien , whose ventilators were more expensive to produce .
So through what executives called a “ killer acquisition , ” pushed through by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Newport and terminated the government contract , and thus the cheaper ventilators .
As we reported , that merger was approved by FTC leaders who all , without exception , left the agency for positions representing corporate clients .
This dynamic has proved toxic .
When a partnership at a corporate law firm appears to be the logical next step in a career , officials are incentivized to keep private interests in mind when they ’ re supposed to be carrying out antitrust enforcement in the public interest .
To truly change the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political appointees— including nominees by a potential Biden administration—must be provably free from corporate interests , due to long and clear records advocating for the public good and against private buckraking .
Congress and the agencies also need to limit the influence of former antitrust officials who leave for private gigs , via restrictions on post-employment work and other binding ethics guidelines .
At the same time , Congress and a future Biden administration should also heavily prioritize promoting career officials within government , and better compensate them for their expertise .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corporate lawyers inside the agencies they once sought to undermine—and likely will again .
Economists with antitrust authorities also have a clear path to representing corporate clients through a cottage industry of consultancies .
C-Suite executives rarely lose any sleep if the FTC or DOJ start asking tough questions about their corporation ’ s latest acquisition .
They simply cut a check to one of these consultancies and , like magic , a tenured academic or well-regarded economist comes back with numbers showing that merger to be a godsend to consumers .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hire an economist with experience at the very agency they ’ re seeking to persuade .
Our organization has found that at least five members of the Bureau of Economics ended up at an economic consulting group after leaving the FTC .
Fittingly , there are only two major firms that regularly argue in favor of monopolies : Charles River Associates and Compass Lexecon .
Charles River , for example , consulted on a full third of all merger cases in the early 2010 ’ s .
Lax professional ethics are common inside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case reported by ProPublica , a group of government lawyers hired Compass Lexecon ’ s Jonathan Baker as a consultant for a case against Apple .
In the courtroom , however , Baker found himself arguing against his own boss at Compass Lexecon , Jonathan Orszag , who ’ d helped to set up Baker ’ s contract with the Feds .
Baker conducted an economic analysis finding Apple artificially inflated e-book prices by 19 percent .
Orszag ran a similar analysis and found Apple only had negligibly higher prices of 1.9 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , two different answers to the same question .
The only difference was who was paying whom .
With case studies like these , is it any wonder why “ outdated and bad economic theory has undermined antitrust enforcement , ” in the words of the letter from established antitrust actors ?
This isn ’ t simply a matter of good-faith economists coming to the wrong conclusions .
It ’ s far simpler : If these economists can not justify what corporate America wants , they don ’ t get paid .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quote : “ It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
” The antitrust regulatory agencies simply can not compete with the deep pockets of BigLaw and mega-corporations .
Mergers in the US economy have quintupled since 1985 , while the DOJ Antitrust division ’ s budget has declined in real dollars .
Government officials ’ paychecks look pitiful compared to private sector peers .
Plus , the FTC and DOJ Antitrust highly value private-sector experience when looking to promote , thus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agencies and further incentivizing ambitious lawyers to revolve back and forth .
Executive appointments to the top positions similarly pull from the pool of revolving antitrust experts rather than steady promotions from within .
That means genuinely career-oriented officials are effectively barred from attaining positions of peak responsibility or prestige unless they go work for the other side .
This does not need to be the case : recently retired Postmaster General Megan Brennan achieved her position within the US Postal Service after starting her career as a mail carrier 30 years ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ along with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Office of the Comptroller of Currency , operates on an alternative pay scale specifically to attract skilled experts that normally might take higher-paying private sector positions .
And of course , Dr. Anthony Fauci has run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 , and is trusted by 70 percent of Americans , including 60 percent of Republicans .
Americans have faith in his judgement about when to re-open the economy more than the president ’ s by more than two-to-one .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ FTC Commissioners came to the FTC from private sector jobs : Christine Wilson was a senior vice president at Delta Airlines , while Noah Phillips was the co-chair of the antitrust section of Paul Weiss , a BigLaw firm .
The assistant attorney general who oversees DOJ Antitrust , Makan Delrahim , was a longtime partner practicing competition and intellectual property law at BigLaw firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck before he joined the Trump Administration in 2017 .
But there ’ s yet another way that corporate America rigs antitrust law in its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Demand Justice , a progressive court-watching group , found that nearly 60 percent of all 175 circuit-court judges ( the level just below the Supreme Court ) were once BigLaw partners .
Given most judges ’ formative experiences , it ’ s unsurprising that each decade the courts become more permissive of mergers and acquisitions .
That ’ s an example of why BigLaw partners are less , rather than more , suited to the bench than lawyers who represent small businesses , much less unions , consumers , or civil rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , affects more than just antitrust ; corporate and labor law would , for example , be unrecognizable if fewer members of the bench were corporate law veterans ) .
A recognizable liberal impulse undergirds the calls for reform from established antitrust practitioners—a belief that rationality will prevail , that Congress and DOJ and FTC officials just need to have the problems with current antitrust enforcement explained to them properly .
Then , they ’ ll naturally spring into action to correct these innocent errors .
It ’ s a desperate belief that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that actors in the system just haven ’ t noticed the problems that exist .
But not everyone is acting in good faith .
Many antitrust regulators have been motivated by their own bottom line .
The real challenge , then , is to ensure that people who occupy those positions don ’ t have a conflict of interest .
That way , we can be sure they are acting in the public interest , not their own .

Over the last four years, new voices in the Democratic Party have been calling for policies that push back on established power structures. The growing anti-monopoly movement is a major part of this populist uprising—aimed at breaking up the corporate giants that dominate large swaths of the economy.
Even some stalwarts of the old system are now anti-monopolists: In late April, a group of longtime Democratic economists and antitrust practitioners sent a letter urging Congress to pass legislation that would align antitrust law with “modern economic theory and to fix harmful judicial rules.” The letter’s recommendations, if enacted, would create a substantially more active antitrust regime than we’ve seen over the last four decades.
In other words, elite liberals now recognize that something has gone wrong in how America polices market concentration. The problem, though, is they haven’t yet fully figured out what that “something” is. The April missive prescribes new legislation and judicial interpretations of antitrust law, which would be welcome, but it ignores the circumstances that made antitrust enforcement collapse in the first place.
America’s flawed anti-monopoly policies have flourished because a cloistered world of bureaucrats—some well-intentioned, some not—have been charged with implementing it with few checks on their power. This small cache of regulators, lawyers, and judges all know each other, and all know that there’s a lot of money in letting the system fall into the decay it has. Too often, the same antitrust officials who set lax antitrust standards then go and work for firms that benefit from those decisions.
To fix our monopoly problem, the United States needs more than a set of policy prescriptions from well-meaning wonks. It requires a fundamental shift in both who we trust to shape our political economy—and the personal incentives that drive those people’s careers.
As they stand, the principal federal institutions that enforce antitrust law—the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission—present conflicts of interests to the lawyers and economists who carry out the agencies’ missions. That’s because civil servants regularly leave government to cash in on their insider knowledge and connections in the private sector.
Our organization has found that the most popular career path—by far—for former FTC antitrust lawyers was to argue for corporate mergers and acquisitions before the very agencies for which they used to work. Forty-one of 81former FTC Bureau of Competition officials who left the agency between 2014 and April 2020 went to BigLaw firms, such as Kirkland & Ellis, Baker Potts, and Akin Gump. Another 11 became in-house competition counsels at acquisition-fueled companies like Facebook and Amazon. In total, 67 percent of former FTC officials went to work for corporate America arguing against their former government colleagues.
Even among the antitrust experts who signed on to the April letter, at least one is currently advising corporate clients. Bloomberg revealed that Fiona Scott Morton, Yale professor and former deputy assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division, has been advising Apple and Amazon while co-authoring papers on the government’s cases against Google and Facebook.
This revolving door underlies many frustrating examples of our failure to police big business. In April 2020, Facebook hired a lawyer from the FTC’s Anticompetitive Practices division, just as the company faces an examination of its past acquisitions. Former FTC higher-ups also helped Facebook secure its wrist-slap of a settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The coronavirus pandemic demonstrates how the FTC’s revolving door can have deadly consequences. In 2007, for instance, federal officials attempted to stock up on cheap ventilators to be supplied by a firm called Newport Medical Instruments. But this arrangement threatened medtech giant Covidien, whose ventilators were more expensive to produce. So through what executives called a “killer acquisition,” pushed through by a former FTC lawyer, Covidien bought Newport and terminated the government contract, and thus the cheaper ventilators. As we reported, that merger was approved by FTC leaders who all, without exception, left the agency for positions representing corporate clients.
This dynamic has proved toxic. When a partnership at a corporate law firm appears to be the logical next step in a career, officials are incentivized to keep private interests in mind when they’re supposed to be carrying out antitrust enforcement in the public interest.
To truly change the culture within the antitrust enforcement agencies, political appointees— including nominees by a potential Biden administration—must be provably free from corporate interests, due to long and clear records advocating for the public good and against private buckraking. Congress and the agencies also need to limit the influence of former antitrust officials who leave for private gigs, via restrictions on post-employment work and other binding ethics guidelines. At the same time, Congress and a future Biden administration should also heavily prioritize promoting career officials within government, and better compensate them for their expertise. This would be vastly superior to hiring former corporate lawyers inside the agencies they once sought to undermine—and likely will again.
Economists with antitrust authorities also have a clear path to representing corporate clients through a cottage industry of consultancies. C-Suite executives rarely lose any sleep if the FTC or DOJ start asking tough questions about their corporation’s latest acquisition. They simply cut a check to one of these consultancies and, like magic, a tenured academic or well-regarded economist comes back with numbers showing that merger to be a godsend to consumers. If they’re savvy, they can hire an economist with experience at the very agency they’re seeking to persuade. Our organization has found that at least five members of the Bureau of Economics ended up at an economic consulting group after leaving the FTC.
Fittingly, there are only two major firms that regularly argue in favor of monopolies: Charles River Associates and Compass Lexecon. Charles River, for example, consulted on a full third of all merger cases in the early 2010’s.
Lax professional ethics are common inside the consultancies, too. In one case reported by ProPublica, a group of government lawyers hired Compass Lexecon’s Jonathan Baker as a consultant for a case against Apple. In the courtroom, however, Baker found himself arguing against his own boss at Compass Lexecon, Jonathan Orszag, who’d helped to set up Baker’s contract with the Feds. Baker conducted an economic analysis finding Apple artificially inflated e-book prices by 19 percent. Orszag ran a similar analysis and found Apple only had negligibly higher prices of 1.9 percent. Two economists from the same firm, two different answers to the same question. The only difference was who was paying whom.
With case studies like these, is it any wonder why “outdated and bad economic theory has undermined antitrust enforcement,” in the words of the letter from established antitrust actors? This isn’t simply a matter of good-faith economists coming to the wrong conclusions. It’s far simpler: If these economists cannot justify what corporate America wants, they don’t get paid. It’s like the old Upton Sinclair quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
The antitrust regulatory agencies simply cannot compete with the deep pockets of BigLaw and mega-corporations. Mergers in the US economy have quintupled since 1985, while the DOJ Antitrust division’s budget has declined in real dollars. Government officials’ paychecks look pitiful compared to private sector peers. Plus, the FTC and DOJ Antitrust highly value private-sector experience when looking to promote, thus stifling any promising talent from inside the agencies and further incentivizing ambitious lawyers to revolve back and forth. Executive appointments to the top positions similarly pull from the pool of revolving antitrust experts rather than steady promotions from within. That means genuinely career-oriented officials are effectively barred from attaining positions of peak responsibility or prestige unless they go work for the other side.
This does not need to be the case: recently retired Postmaster General Megan Brennan achieved her position within the US Postal Service after starting her career as a mail carrier 30 years ago. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Office of the Comptroller of Currency, operates on an alternative pay scale specifically to attract skilled experts that normally might take higher-paying private sector positions. And of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci has run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, and is trusted by 70 percent of Americans, including 60 percent of Republicans. Americans have faith in his judgement about when to re-open the economy more than the president’s by more than two-to-one.
In contrast, two of the current FTC Commissioners came to the FTC from private sector jobs: Christine Wilson was a senior vice president at Delta Airlines, while Joseph Simons was the co-chair of the antitrust section of Paul Weiss, a BigLaw firm. The assistant attorney general who oversees DOJ Antitrust, Makan Delrahim, was a longtime partner practicing competition and intellectual property law at BigLaw firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck before he joined the Trump Administration in 2017.
But there’s yet another way that corporate America rigs antitrust law in its favor—the courts themselves. A recent analysis by Demand Justice, a progressive court-watching group, found that nearly 60 percent of all 175 circuit-court judges (the level just below the Supreme Court) were once BigLaw partners.
Given most judges’ formative experiences, it’s unsurprising that each decade the courts become more permissive of mergers and acquisitions. That’s an example of why BigLaw partners are less, rather than more, suited to the bench than lawyers who represent small businesses, much less unions, consumers, or civil rights plaintiffs. (This, of course, affects more than just antitrust; corporate and labor law would, for example, be unrecognizable if fewer members of the bench were corporate law veterans).
A recognizable liberal impulse undergirds the calls for reform from established antitrust practitioners—a belief that rationality will prevail, that Congress and DOJ and FTC officials just need to have the problems with current antitrust enforcement explained to them properly. Then, they’ll naturally spring into action to correct these innocent errors. It’s a desperate belief that everyone else is acting in good faith, that actors in the system just haven’t noticed the problems that exist.
But not everyone is acting in good faith. Many antitrust regulators have been motivated by their own bottom line. The real challenge, then, is to ensure that people who occupy those positions don’t have a conflict of interest. That way, we can be sure they are acting in the public interest, not their own.


washingtonmonthly--2020-07-18--Why Is Trump Sending Stormtroopers into Portland?

In one of the most alarming developments of Trump ’ s presidency , dozens of federal agents in full camouflage seized protesters and threw them into unmarked cars , taking them to locations unknown without specifying a reason for arrest .
It appears that at least some of the agents involved belonged to the US Customs and Border Protection ( colloquially known as Border Patrol ) , an organization that obviously has no business whatsoever conducted counterinsurgency tactics against peaceful American protesters in Portland , Oregon .
Neither the mayor of Portland nor the governor of Oregon wanted them there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they leave .
And now a U.S. Attorney for the State of Oregon is calling for an investigation into the arrests , even as the Acting head of Homeland Security , Chad Wolf , is vowing to ramp up these actions both in Portland and reportedly elsewhere .
Needless to say , this is a chilling step toward police state authoritarian rule in the United States , one that was presaged by Attorney General Barr ’ s approval of an pre-curfew assault on protesters instigated in Lafayette Square to clear the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Few took it seriously when leftist organizers were warning that the border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) were being culturally and structurally converted into stormtroopers for the Trump regime , equally ready to be deployed against politically inconvenient American citizens as against undocumented immigrants seeking a better life .
Those warnings should be heeded now .
We should not allow ourselves to become numb to this .
It is helpful psychologically–even if tired and stale as a rhetorical device–to remind ourselves what the reactions would be if a Democrat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama had sent in in military-garbed federal stormtroopers to round up Tea Party protesters into unmarked cars , over the top of the objections of local governors and mayors .
It ’ s unthinkable .
It ’ s the sort of thing that drove bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories like Jade Helm , but that if any shred of them were true would instantly have embroiled the country in a civil war .
So why is Trump doing it ?
Many theories abound–none of them entirely convincing on their own , but all of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s a trial run for future police state actions , partly to push the window of the possible , partly to desensitize the public to further abuses , and partly to see precisely what they can get away with and what Americans will tolerate .
This is no doubt true to a certain extent , but the challenge is that it also carries enormous downside risk .
If Trump doesn ’ t win re-election he has less than six months left in his presidency–hardly time enough for a deeply unpopular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state coup .
And just as with the outrage in Lafayette Square , the mere action itself will likely make Trump even more unpopular with the few undecided voters who remain .
Another convergent explanation is that making a show of supposed toughness in conducting military counterinsurgency in Democratic-controlled cities that want no part of it will thrill Trump ’ s base .
This is reasonable to assume , since Trump ’ s base takes no greater joy than in seeing authoritarian cruelty exercised against their political enemies .
And it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with his base to the exclusion of all else beyond his own personal profit .
But the problem is that almost everyone in the Trump campaign ’ s immediate orbit beyond the president himself knows that Trump must expand beyond his shrinking base to have any chance of winning re-election .
The more Trump gives aging bigots dopamine hits , the more the rest of the country falls away from him .
Camouflaged stormtroopers used against American citizens will almost certainly lose him more votes than he gains .
But there is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more convincing : the Fox News effect .
Trump spends endless hours watching garbage cable television , specifically One America News ( OAN ) and Fox News .
Judging from Trump ’ s tweets , his entire political universe revolves around Fox News–and , more recently , the even more bizarrely propagandistic OAN when even Fox News fails to adequately toe the line .
Ever since the beginning of the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd , Fox News has been portraying liberal American cities as hellscapes of violence in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the role of hero against rampaging hordes .
Most Americans , of course , didn ’ t see it that way .
But if you live entirely in the Fox News bubble , then this narrative is as self-evident a truth as the rising of the sun in the east .
Most recently , Fox News has been describing Portland in particular , in the words of former Media Matters for America contributor Oliver Willis , as if it were Baghdad circa 2003 .
This is not the case , of course .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a steady decline for decades , with the last month being no significant exception .
In fact , the worst Acting HHS Secretary Wolf could point to was literally a few instances of graffiti .
No kidding .
But if Fox News were the sum of your reality , you would believe that emergency action needed to be taken before the residents started to erect a Thunderdome and the services of Snake Plissken would be required .
You would send in the troops despite the potential cost out of a belief that relieved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embrace of “ law and order ” ( even if it were heavy on the “ order ” and light on the “ law.
” ) You would do whatever it took to bring the situation to heel , and figure the public approval would follow from the new Pax Trumpiana .
After all , Fox News declared it must be so .
This last scenario is admittedly ridiculous .
But it ’ s also likely closest to the truth .
While figures like Stephen Miller no doubt have a laser focus on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white supremacist Republican rule the demographic tsunami preparing to overwhelm them , they are not the president .
Donald Trump is .
Trump is a man of impulse , not of plans .
His head is not set on the next 20 years of power , but on tomorrow ’ s cable news ratings .
The constructed reality of Fox News is his reality .
The rest of the authoritarian project follows from there .
And that more than anything else likely explains why the president is precipitating a constitutional crisis by sending @ @ @ @

In one of the most alarming developments of Trump’s presidency, dozens of federal agents in full camouflage seized protesters and threw them into unmarked cars, taking them to locations unknown without specifying a reason for arrest. It appears that at least some of the agents involved belonged to the US Customs and Border Protection (colloquially known as Border Patrol), an organization that obviously has no business whatsoever conducted counterinsurgency tactics against peaceful American protesters in Portland, Oregon. Neither the mayor of Portland nor the governor of Oregon wanted them there; in fact, they specifically requested that they leave. And now a U.S. Attorney for the State of Oregon is calling for an investigation into the arrests, even as the Acting head of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is vowing to ramp up these actions both in Portland and reportedly elsewhere.
Needless to say, this is a chilling step toward police state authoritarian rule in the United States, one that was presaged by Attorney General Barr’s approval of an pre-curfew assault on protesters instigated in Lafayette Square to clear the way for a presidential campaign photo op. Few took it seriously when leftist organizers were warning that the border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were being culturally and structurally converted into stormtroopers for the Trump regime, equally ready to be deployed against politically inconvenient American citizens as against undocumented immigrants seeking a better life. Those warnings should be heeded now.
We should not allow ourselves to become numb to this. It is helpful psychologically–even if tired and stale as a rhetorical device–to remind ourselves what the reactions would be if a Democrat were acting similarly. Imagine if President Obama had sent in in military-garbed federal stormtroopers to round up Tea Party protesters into unmarked cars, over the top of the objections of local governors and mayors. It’s unthinkable. It’s the sort of thing that drove bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories like Jade Helm, but that if any shred of them were true would instantly have embroiled the country in a civil war.
So why is Trump doing it?
Many theories abound—none of them entirely convincing on their own, but all of them deeply disturbing. One explanation is that it’s a trial run for future police state actions, partly to push the window of the possible, partly to desensitize the public to further abuses, and partly to see precisely what they can get away with and what Americans will tolerate.
This is no doubt true to a certain extent, but the challenge is that it also carries enormous downside risk. If Trump doesn’t win re-election he has less than six months left in his presidency–hardly time enough for a deeply unpopular and divisive president to engineer a police state coup. And just as with the outrage in Lafayette Square, the mere action itself will likely make Trump even more unpopular with the few undecided voters who remain.
Another convergent explanation is that making a show of supposed toughness in conducting military counterinsurgency in Democratic-controlled cities that want no part of it will thrill Trump’s base. This is reasonable to assume, since Trump’s base takes no greater joy than in seeing authoritarian cruelty exercised against their political enemies. And it’s likely true, since Trump is obsessed with his base to the exclusion of all else beyond his own personal profit. But the problem is that almost everyone in the Trump campaign’s immediate orbit beyond the president himself knows that Trump must expand beyond his shrinking base to have any chance of winning re-election. The more Trump gives aging bigots dopamine hits, the more the rest of the country falls away from him. Camouflaged stormtroopers used against American citizens will almost certainly lose him more votes than he gains.
But there is a third explanation, simultaneously dumber and yet more convincing: the Fox News effect. Trump spends endless hours watching garbage cable television, specifically One America News (OAN) and Fox News. Judging from Trump’s tweets, his entire political universe revolves around Fox News–and, more recently, the even more bizarrely propagandistic OAN when even Fox News fails to adequately toe the line.
Ever since the beginning of the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Fox News has been portraying liberal American cities as hellscapes of violence in which the police and the Trump Administration played the role of hero against rampaging hordes. Most Americans, of course, didn’t see it that way. But if you live entirely in the Fox News bubble, then this narrative is as self-evident a truth as the rising of the sun in the east. Most recently, Fox News has been describing Portland in particular, in the words of former Media Matters for America contributor Oliver Willis, as if it were Baghdad circa 2003. This is not the case, of course. Crime rates in Portland have been on a steady decline for decades, with the last month being no significant exception. In fact, the worst Acting HHS Secretary Wolf could point to was literally a few instances of graffiti. No kidding.
But if Fox News were the sum of your reality, you would believe that emergency action needed to be taken before the residents started to erect a Thunderdome and the services of Snake Plissken would be required. You would send in the troops despite the potential cost out of a belief that relieved Americans would be desperately grateful for your embrace of “law and order” (even if it were heavy on the “order” and light on the “law.”) You would do whatever it took to bring the situation to heel, and figure the public approval would follow from the new Pax Trumpiana. After all, Fox News declared it must be so.
This last scenario is admittedly ridiculous. But it’s also likely closest to the truth. While figures like Stephen Miller no doubt have a laser focus on instituting an authoritarian apartheid regime to save white supremacist Republican rule the demographic tsunami preparing to overwhelm them, they are not the president. Donald Trump is. Trump is a man of impulse, not of plans. His head is not set on the next 20 years of power, but on tomorrow’s cable news ratings. The constructed reality of Fox News is his reality. The rest of the authoritarian project follows from there.
And that more than anything else likely explains why the president is precipitating a constitutional crisis by sending stormtroopers into Portland.


washingtonmonthly--2020-07-19--Trump May Use DHS Stormtroopers To Stop People from Voting. Dems Must Plan Accordingly

Last night I wrote about Trump ’ s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters .
In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base , but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America ’ s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News .
But there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse .
As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone : The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties .
Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey , the group agreed to stop harassing and intimidating voters of color , including by deputizing off-duty law-enforcement officers and equipping those officers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next three decades , Democrats marshaled enough evidence of ongoing Republican voter suppression to maintain the consent decree until 2018 , when a federal judge lifted the order .
The 2020 presidential election will be the first in nearly 40 years when the RNC isn ’ t bound by the terms of the 1982 decree .
Clark , the Trump campaign lawyer , told the group of Republicans at the private meeting last November that the end of the consent decree was “ a huge , huge , huge , huge deal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations .
The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures , which include recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts .
So consider the following facts : 1 ) The Republican National Committee under Trump is set to deploy tens of thousands of likely armed , unbadged goons to try to intimidate voters of color from exercising their right of suffrage ; 2 ) Both Border Patrol and ICE are functioning as largely unaccountable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whims and interpretations of law , detaining citizens for hours without explanation or formal charges , and operating in direct conflict with local mayors and governors ; 3 ) Border Patrol and ICE both have stridently bigoted , conservative organizational cultures hostile to most people of color and more liberal , urban areas generally–and they are well aware that their powers will likely be curtailed under a possible future Democratic administration ; 4 ) Trump continues to ramp up rhetoric against nonexistent “ voter fraud ” in liberal areas .
His focus has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the COVID pandemic , but imaginary in-person voter impersonation fraud among communities of color in Democratic-leaning cities has long been a Republican obsession .
A senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign recently declared that Trump would win even California if voting were “ fair , ” showing just how deeply the conspiratorial thinking around this issue runs in top GOP circles .
5 ) Acting Department of Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf appears to have no constraints on his behavior or his overheated rhetoric , and that the Trump Administration is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patrol agents as a conservative paramilitary nationwide .
6 ) Donald Trump and his campaign team know by now that absent some explosive scandal around Biden or other unpredictable event to change the fundamentals of the race , the president ’ s only path to victory lies not in persuading a majority of voters but in choosing his own electorate by suppressing the votes of the majority of Americans who despise him .
Put all of this together , and it opens the possibility of a terrifying abuse of power .
We could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters , bolstered by camouflage-wearing taxpayer-funded rifle-toting border patrol agents aggressively checking papers of every voter in line in the guise of “ securing against voter fraud ” on the president ’ s orders .
This would be happening during the most tense presidential election in our lifetimes during a raging pandemic , often in lines in which voters must wait 8 to 10 hours to vote due to restricted polling places in minority communities–also a blatant suppression attempt enabled by the Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the protections of the Voting Rights Act .
The likelihood that these actions would be met with immediate enraged protest would be very high .
Election Day violence unheard of since the Civil Rights era could ensue , which would give Trump an excuse to instigate further crackdowns across the country as election day continues .
Federal agents could forseeably be sent in to attempt to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in the days following the election on presidential orders .
No need for a Brooks Brothers Riot if you can just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instead .
Absent some form of preventive action by states , municipalities , the Democratic Party and left-affiliated organizations , there is very little to stop Trump , Attorney General Bill Barr and Acting DHS Secretary Wolf from attempting any or all of this .
And unlike in normal political circumstances where a party that loses an election can hope and expect to retool and win elections in the future , Republicans know that if they get wiped out in 2020 , demographic realities mean it could be the last hurrah for this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level .
If Democrats were to follow up a landslide victory with efforts to secure a voting bill of rights , an elimination of gerrymandering and the filibuster , and a rebalancing of the Senate , the courts and the electoral college , the Republican Party would not be able to regain serious federal power in its current form without a realignment .
Donald Trump himself would literally be in danger of going to jail .
The Republican incentive in November would be to pull out all the stops to prevent this from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Perhaps these fears are paranoid .
But when left organizers warned that ICE and Border Patrol were being converted into an authoritarian paramilitary security force and demanded that they be disbanded and abolished , self-proclaimed serious people in politics tended to dismiss their concerns as so much overheated partisanship .
One of the most important lessons of the Trump administration has been that whatever you fear they might do , expect them to do worse if they can get away it .
Far better to be prepared for such eventualities and be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legal means on Election Day , than to be caught surprised by the next unthinkable transgression .
If Trump and his cronies can create authoritarian chaos on Election Day to intimidate Democratic voters , they likely will .
Portland was just the first step .

Last night I wrote about Trump’s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters. In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base, but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America’s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News.
But there is another deeply alarming possibility to consider. This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse. As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone:
The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey, the group agreed to stop harassing and intimidating voters of color, including by deputizing off-duty law-enforcement officers and equipping those officers with guns or badges. Over the next three decades, Democrats marshaled enough evidence of ongoing Republican voter suppression to maintain the consent decree until 2018, when a federal judge lifted the order. The 2020 presidential election will be the first in nearly 40 years when the RNC isn’t bound by the terms of the 1982 decree. Clark, the Trump campaign lawyer, told the group of Republicans at the private meeting last November that the end of the consent decree was “a huge, huge, huge, huge deal,” freeing the RNC to directly coordinate with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations. The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures, which include recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts.
So consider the following facts:
1) The Republican National Committee under Trump is set to deploy tens of thousands of likely armed, unbadged goons to try to intimidate voters of color from exercising their right of suffrage;
2) Both Border Patrol and ICE are functioning as largely unaccountable enforcers of the president’s personal whims and interpretations of law, detaining citizens for hours without explanation or formal charges, and operating in direct conflict with local mayors and governors;
3) Border Patrol and ICE both have stridently bigoted, conservative organizational cultures hostile to most people of color and more liberal, urban areas generally–and they are well aware that their powers will likely be curtailed under a possible future Democratic administration;
4) Trump continues to ramp up rhetoric against nonexistent “voter fraud” in liberal areas. His focus has primarily been on vote-by-mail as a result of the COVID pandemic, but imaginary in-person voter impersonation fraud among communities of color in Democratic-leaning cities has long been a Republican obsession. A senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign recently declared that Trump would win even California if voting were “fair,” showing just how deeply the conspiratorial thinking around this issue runs in top GOP circles.
5) Acting Department of Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf appears to have no constraints on his behavior or his overheated rhetoric, and that the Trump Administration is planning to scale up the use of border patrol agents as a conservative paramilitary nationwide.
6) Donald Trump and his campaign team know by now that absent some explosive scandal around Biden or other unpredictable event to change the fundamentals of the race, the president’s only path to victory lies not in persuading a majority of voters but in choosing his own electorate by suppressing the votes of the majority of Americans who despise him.
Put all of this together, and it opens the possibility of a terrifying abuse of power. We could end up seeing armed private contractors hired by the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters, bolstered by camouflage-wearing taxpayer-funded rifle-toting border patrol agents aggressively checking papers of every voter in line in the guise of “securing against voter fraud” on the president’s orders. This would be happening during the most tense presidential election in our lifetimes during a raging pandemic, often in lines in which voters must wait 8 to 10 hours to vote due to restricted polling places in minority communities–also a blatant suppression attempt enabled by the Supreme Court’s voiding of many of the protections of the Voting Rights Act. The likelihood that these actions would be met with immediate enraged protest would be very high. Election Day violence unheard of since the Civil Rights era could ensue, which would give Trump an excuse to instigate further crackdowns across the country as election day continues. Federal agents could forseeably be sent in to attempt to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in the days following the election on presidential orders. No need for a Brooks Brothers Riot if you can just send in an armed federal paramilitary, instead.
Absent some form of preventive action by states, municipalities, the Democratic Party and left-affiliated organizations, there is very little to stop Trump, Attorney General Bill Barr and Acting DHS Secretary Wolf from attempting any or all of this.
And unlike in normal political circumstances where a party that loses an election can hope and expect to retool and win elections in the future, Republicans know that if they get wiped out in 2020, demographic realities mean it could be the last hurrah for this version of the GOP at a federal level. If Democrats were to follow up a landslide victory with efforts to secure a voting bill of rights, an elimination of gerrymandering and the filibuster, and a rebalancing of the Senate, the courts and the electoral college, the Republican Party would not be able to regain serious federal power in its current form without a realignment. Donald Trump himself would literally be in danger of going to jail. The Republican incentive in November would be to pull out all the stops to prevent this from happening, especially in a census year.
Perhaps these fears are paranoid. But when left organizers warned that ICE and Border Patrol were being converted into an authoritarian paramilitary security force and demanded that they be disbanded and abolished, self-proclaimed serious people in politics tended to dismiss their concerns as so much overheated partisanship. One of the most important lessons of the Trump administration has been that whatever you fear they might do, expect them to do worse if they can get away with it.
Far better to be prepared for such eventualities and be ready to fight back with all available legal means on Election Day, than to be caught surprised by the next unthinkable transgression. If Trump and his cronies can create authoritarian chaos on Election Day to intimidate Democratic voters, they likely will. Portland was just the first step.


washingtonmonthly--2020-07-19--A New Poll Shows That Trump Likely Cannot Win Without Controlling the Pandemic

Yet another poll has been released showing Biden in a dominant position against the incumbent president with just over 100 days until Election Day .
A Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Trump trailing Biden by a shocking 15 points nationally against Trump .
The latest survey backs up other recent polls all showing Biden anywhere from 8 to 15 points ahead .
Gone are the days when a 15-point lead in this race would be seen as a comical outlier .
This is the new normal .
Worse for Trump , it is likely to stay the new normal barring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Clinton ’ s similar lead at one point in 2016 , only to lose to Trump in the end .
But it ’ s important to note that Trump ’ s double-digit deficit to Clinton occurred very briefly in the immediate wake of the release of the Access Hollywood tape , and that that incident was followed immediately by the Wikileaks release of Clinton campaign emails .
Both were deeply unpopular nominees .
No such dynamic exists with Biden , nor is there any ray of hope for the president in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows Biden well , and Trump trails the presumptive Democratic nominee in every geographic area including the South , and on practically every measure of public policy .
Trump ’ s unpopularity has many obvious causes , but the one singular metric that has damaged Trump the most has been his response to the COVID pandemic crisis .
Per the WaPo-ABC poll , Trump has moved from 2 points ahead of Biden on dealing with the pandemic , to Biden leading by 20 points .
Even controlling for every other demographic factor from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indicator that determines Trump ’ s slide in approval is whether the respondent fears that they might catch the disease .
As COVID has moved from blue to red states and from cities to rural areas , the president ’ s standing has fallen even among his core support groups , including Republicans , evangelicals , seniors and non-college whites .
Trump and the GOP believe that their only path to victory lies in forcing the American economy to reopen , riding on the coattails of an optimistic recovery .
But as Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you can lead that horse to water but you can not make it drink .
Even if you force schools to reopen and even if teachers don ’ t strike en masse as they deserve , most parents won ’ t send their kids if they don ’ t feel it ’ s safe to do so .
Most populous states will not allow restaurants and bars to reopen–and even if they did , it ’ s not clear that enough people would come to drive a recovery .
Meanwhile , Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basic as wearing a mask into a culture war football infused with conspiracy theory and toxic masculinity , such that it will be nearly impossible for conservative-leaning communities to reopen safely .
Republicans have spent the last five months blithely assuming that the COVID problem would mostly take care of itself without resorting to a strict test , trace and isolate regimen alongside massive public support , wage guarantees and housing assistance .
They feared disrupting the “ normal ” functioning of the economy , and obsessed over whether people might be disincentivized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic by getting unemployment benefits higher than their previous wages .
They did everything they could to make sure that the stock market stayed nominally healthy even as the rest of the country sickened , while doing the bare minimum to provide assistance for the affected individuals .
The end result has been disastrous .
One third of Americans couldn ’ t make their rent or mortgage payments , tens of millions face eviction , droves of small businesses are closing forever , hospitals are overflowing , case counts and COVID deaths are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been exposed as little more than a Rich People ’ s Feelings Index rather than any credible metric of the health of a society or economy .
The real economy can not recover without bringing COVID under control .
American children can not go back to school without bringing COVID under control .
Americans will not be able to travel abroad until the pandemic is brought to heel .
While the rest of the world has mostly put out the fire , Americans are being forced to live in an inferno .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we ’ ll act like it ’ s the new normal and accept another several hundred thousand dead and millions permanently damaged by the disease as just the cost of doing business .
Most people will not do that .
But they will take out their anger on Republicans at the ballot box .
Republicans deeply deserve the drubbing they ’ re likely about to receive .
But if they want to gain any hope of avoiding it , the only measure beyond attempting to destroy democracy itself must be to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic directly and give Americans the necessary economic tools to survive the truly strict lockdown in place that we should have implemented in March and April .
They won ’ t do it , of course .
Neither their base voters nor their donors will tolerate it .
But it ’ s the only legitimate way out that doesn ’ t end in either the destruction of democracy or an electoral landslide for Democrats .

Yet another poll has been released showing Biden in a dominant position against the incumbent president with just over 100 days until Election Day. A Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Trump trailing Biden by a shocking 15 points nationally against Trump. The latest survey backs up other recent polls all showing Biden anywhere from 8 to 15 points ahead. Gone are the days when a 15-point lead in this race would be seen as a comical outlier. This is the new normal.
Worse for Trump, it is likely to stay the new normal barring an unforeseeable event. Skeptics will point to Clinton’s similar lead at one point in 2016, only to lose to Trump in the end. But it’s important to note that Trump’s double-digit deficit to Clinton occurred very briefly in the immediate wake of the release of the Access Hollywood tape, and that that incident was followed immediately by the Wikileaks release of Clinton campaign emails. Both were deeply unpopular nominees. No such dynamic exists with Biden, nor is there any ray of hope for the president in the latest polling. The voting public already knows Biden well, and Trump trails the presumptive Democratic nominee in every geographic area including the South, and on practically every measure of public policy.
Trump’s unpopularity has many obvious causes, but the one singular metric that has damaged Trump the most has been his response to the COVID pandemic crisis. Per the WaPo-ABC poll, Trump has moved from 2 points ahead of Biden on dealing with the pandemic, to Biden leading by 20 points. Even controlling for every other demographic factor from race to partisanship itself, the one indicator that determines Trump’s slide in approval is whether the respondent fears that they might catch the disease. As COVID has moved from blue to red states and from cities to rural areas, the president’s standing has fallen even among his core support groups, including Republicans, evangelicals, seniors and non-college whites.
Trump and the GOP believe that their only path to victory lies in forcing the American economy to reopen, riding on the coattails of an optimistic recovery. But as Trump’s failed rally in Tulsa demonstrated, you can lead that horse to water but you cannot make it drink. Even if you force schools to reopen and even if teachers don’t strike en masse as they deserve, most parents won’t send their kids if they don’t feel it’s safe to do so. Most populous states will not allow restaurants and bars to reopen–and even if they did, it’s not clear that enough people would come to drive a recovery. Meanwhile, Republicans have turned even a beneficent practice as basic as wearing a mask into a culture war football infused with conspiracy theory and toxic masculinity, such that it will be nearly impossible for conservative-leaning communities to reopen safely.
Republicans have spent the last five months blithely assuming that the COVID problem would mostly take care of itself without resorting to a strict test, trace and isolate regimen alongside massive public support, wage guarantees and housing assistance. They feared disrupting the “normal” functioning of the economy, and obsessed over whether people might be disincentivized from going back to work in a pandemic by getting unemployment benefits higher than their previous wages. They did everything they could to make sure that the stock market stayed nominally healthy even as the rest of the country sickened, while doing the bare minimum to provide assistance for the affected individuals.
The end result has been disastrous. One third of Americans couldn’t make their rent or mortgage payments, tens of millions face eviction, droves of small businesses are closing forever, hospitals are overflowing, case counts and COVID deaths are exploding, and the oh-so-precious stock market has been exposed as little more than a Rich People’s Feelings Index rather than any credible metric of the health of a society or economy.
The real economy cannot recover without bringing COVID under control. American children cannot go back to school without bringing COVID under control. Americans will not be able to travel abroad until the pandemic is brought to heel. While the rest of the world has mostly put out the fire, Americans are being forced to live in an inferno. Republicans, meanwhile, are just hoping that we’ll act like it’s the new normal and accept another several hundred thousand dead and millions permanently damaged by the disease as just the cost of doing business.
Most people will not do that. But they will take out their anger on Republicans at the ballot box.
Republicans deeply deserve the drubbing they’re likely about to receive. But if they want to gain any hope of avoiding it, the only measure beyond attempting to destroy democracy itself must be to do the hard work to deal with the pandemic directly and give Americans the necessary economic tools to survive the truly strict lockdown in place that we should have implemented in March and April.
They won’t do it, of course. Neither their base voters nor their donors will tolerate it. But it’s the only legitimate way out that doesn’t end in either the destruction of democracy or an electoral landslide for Democrats.


washingtonmonthly--2020-07-19--Trump May Use DHS Stormtroopers To Stop People from Voting

Last night I wrote about Trump ’ s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters .
In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base , but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America ’ s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News .
But there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse .
As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone : The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties .
Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey , the group agreed to stop harassing and intimidating voters of color , including by deputizing off-duty law-enforcement officers and equipping those officers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next three decades , Democrats marshaled enough evidence of ongoing Republican voter suppression to maintain the consent decree until 2018 , when a federal judge lifted the order .
The 2020 presidential election will be the first in nearly 40 years when the RNC isn ’ t bound by the terms of the 1982 decree .
Clark , the Trump campaign lawyer , told the group of Republicans at the private meeting last November that the end of the consent decree was “ a huge , huge , huge , huge deal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations .
The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures , which include recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts .
So consider the following facts : 1 ) The Republican National Committee under Trump is set to deploy tens of thousands of likely armed , unbadged goons to try to intimidate voters of color from exercising their right of suffrage ; 2 ) Both Border Patrol and ICE are functioning as largely unaccountable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whims and interpretations of law , detaining citizens for hours without explanation or formal charges , and operating in direct conflict with local mayors and governors ; 3 ) Border Patrol and ICE both have stridently bigoted , conservative organizational cultures hostile to most people of color and more liberal , urban areas generally–and they are well aware that their powers will likely be curtailed under a possible future Democratic administration ; 4 ) Trump continues to ramp up rhetoric against nonexistent “ voter fraud ” in liberal areas .
His focus has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the COVID pandemic , but imaginary in-person voter impersonation fraud among communities of color in Democratic-leaning cities has long been a Republican obsession .
A senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign recently declared that Trump would win even California if voting were “ fair , ” showing just how deeply the conspiratorial thinking around this issue runs in top GOP circles .
5 ) Acting Department of Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf appears to have no constraints on his behavior or his overheated rhetoric , and that the Trump Administration is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ border patrol agents as a conservative paramilitary nationwide .
6 ) Donald Trump and his campaign team know by now that absent some explosive scandal around Biden or other unpredictable event to change the fundamentals of the race , the president ’ s only path to victory lies not in persuading a majority of voters but in choosing his own electorate by suppressing the votes of the majority of Americans who despise him .
Put all of this together , and it opens the possibility of a terrifying abuse of power .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hired by the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters , bolstered by camouflage-wearing taxpayer-funded rifle-toting border patrol agents aggressively checking papers of every voter in line in the guise of “ securing against voter fraud ” on the president ’ s orders .
This would be happening during the most tense presidential election in our lifetimes during a raging pandemic , often in lines in which voters must wait 8 to 10 hours to vote due to restricted polling places in minority communities–also a blatant suppression attempt enabled by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the protections of the Voting Rights Act .
The likelihood that these actions would be met with immediate enraged protest would be very high .
Election Day violence unheard of since the Civil Rights era could ensue , which would give Trump an excuse to instigate further crackdowns across the country as election day continues .
Federal agents could forseeably be sent in to attempt to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in the days following the election on presidential orders .
No need for a Brooks Brothers Riot if you can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , instead .
Absent some form of preventive action by states , municipalities , the Democratic Party and left-affiliated organizations , there is very little to stop Trump , Attorney General Bill Barr and Acting DHS Secretary Wolf from attempting any or all of this .
And unlike in normal political circumstances where a party that loses an election can hope and expect to retool and win elections in the future , Republicans know that if they get wiped out in 2020 , demographic realities mean it could be the last hurrah for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal level .
If Democrats were to follow up a landslide victory with efforts to secure a voting bill of rights , an elimination of gerrymandering and the filibuster , and a rebalancing of the Senate , the courts and the electoral college , the Republican Party would not be able to regain serious federal power in its current form without a realignment .
Donald Trump himself would literally be in danger of going to jail .
The Republican incentive in November would be to pull out all the stops to prevent this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year .
Perhaps these fears are paranoid .
But when left organizers warned that ICE and Border Patrol were being converted into an authoritarian paramilitary security force and demanded that they be disbanded and abolished , self-proclaimed serious people in politics tended to dismiss their concerns as so much overheated partisanship .
One of the most important lessons of the Trump administration has been that whatever you fear they might do , expect them to do worse if they can get away with it .
Far better to be prepared for such eventualities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all available legal means on Election Day , than to be caught surprised by the next unthinkable transgression .
If Trump and his cronies can create authoritarian chaos on Election Day to intimidate Democratic voters , they likely will .
Portland was just the first step .


washingtonmonthly--2020-07-20--Beware of a Cornered Trump

Beware of a Cornered Trump

As President Trump ’ s poll numbers slip four months before the election , he and his frenzied staff have launched an end game of wild thrashing that could bring further damage to a country they pretend to love .
The closer defeat looms , the more desperate the death throes of a deranged administration .
It lunges for levers of power and propaganda .
It undermines institutions that stand above politics .
It smears physicians who work for the public ’ s health .
It attempts to conceal pandemic data , Soviet-style .
It issues absurd decrees to local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or else .
It dispatches unidentified federal forces to kidnap peaceful protesters .
It flails out against measures to ease voting .
And these are only the omens .
A final spasm—if it is final—seems likely .
Insurgencies , dictatorships , and the like often tend toward untamed outrages as they are backed into a corner and face annihilation .
Similar impulses appear ascendant in Trump ’ s criminal government , where the rule of law is a minor irritation and self-enrichment at taxpayers ’ expense is routine .
He has shed his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them with cruel dogmatists whose ideology of ignorance is a plague on the nation .
It ’ s hard to see impediments to the abuses .
Trump has no moral brakes .
His values are those of a mafia boss who rewards and punishes those who protect or oppose him .
Never in U.S. history has a president commuted the prison sentence of the chief witness against him , as Trump did for Roger Stone , who defied every legal requirement to testify on Russia ’ s alleged collaboration with the Trump 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was Stone .
His silence stymied Robert Mueller ’ s investigation and enabled Trump to crow , “ Hoax !
” The full truth may never be known .
Where are the Republicans who chant “ law and order ” when their party leader ignores the law and sows disorder ?
Where are the conservatives who don ’ t fight to conserve the American constitutional system that Trump and his accomplices try to shred ?
If there is a glaring lesson from the Trump era , it is how easily compromised are the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deferent to autocratic aims are those who wear the camouflage of liberty : Congressional Republicans , right-wing broadcast personalities , self-righteous evangelicals , flinty citizens who make a show of individualism and resistance .
In Sinclair Lewis ’ s 1935 novel It Can ’ t Happen Here , a state militia loyal to the eventual fascist president , Buzz Windrip , “ considered him their general and their god.
” The militia was a precursor to the Minute Men , his private troops in black capes or white or khaki shirts , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ purged books , manuscripts , and thinkers from the political landscape .
In 2020 America , armed right-wing vigilantes have already attacked Black Lives Matter demonstrators , and have been encouraged by the Trump campaign to “ monitor ” polling places in November .
The smell of political violence is in the air .
This fear could be overdrawn—let ’ s hope so .
Trump ’ s incompetence as a manager might save us .
But he has a zealous base and a compliant coterie of collaborators .
Consider this passage from Lewis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fictional Windrip ’ s supporters before a rally in Madison Square Garden : “ Eighth Avenue , lined with cheapjack shops , was packed with drab , discouraged people who yet , tonight , were tipsy with the hashish of hope .
.
.
.
they were people concerned with the tailor ’ s goose , the tray of potato salad , the card of hooks-and-eyes , the leech-like mortgage on the owner-driven taxi , with , at home , the baby ’ s diapers , the dull safety-razor blade , the awful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and kosher chicken .
.
.
.
Kind people , industrious people , generous to their aged , eager to find any desperate cure for the sickness of worry over losing the job .
Most facile material for any rabble-rouser.
” Trump ’ s mental and emotional disabilities have infected many under him , and they in turn create a loop of reinforcement for his most destructive impulses .
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos parrots his dangerous insistence that schools reopen entirely in the fall or risk losing federal funds .
Acting Homeland Security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to deport international college students whose classes proceed online ( before uproars and lawsuits force a reversal ) .
He and Attorney General Bill Barr begin to mobilize elements of law enforcement for political ends , specifically to tout “ law and order ” in Portland , Oregon , where the U.S.
Marshal ’ s Service has been deployed in violation of local officials ’ demands to depart and halt their violent harassment and false arrests of demonstrators .
It would be wise to see Portland as only the first stepping stone toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ muster in the coming months .
Pity Trump and the country he leads .
Raised in a family rife with emotional abuse , as his niece Mary Trump has documented , he suffers from narcissism and a fragile ego that deliver him to an unending reliance on lies , conflict , and bullying .
His obvious brain dysfunctions prevent him from processing information , reasoning logically , remembering what he said a minute earlier , and governing effectively .
He can not stand anyone smarter or more popular than him , so his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anonymous acolytes try to take down Dr. Anthony Fauci , whose credibility in polls far exceeds Trump ’ s .
The president of what is supposed to be the greatest country in all of human history can not tell the difference between image and reality , or cares more about image than reality , as he orders a halt in reporting COVID-19 hospitalizations to the CDC and laments the increase in coronavirus testing because it makes the case numbers go higher .
Is it possible that his mental defect means that he doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of infection is a fact independent of how many are detected by tests ?
Or is he just trying to fool his fellow Americans ?
And how many will be fooled ?
Or frightened ?

As President Trump’s poll numbers slip four months before the election, he and his frenzied staff have launched an end game of wild thrashing that could bring further damage to a country they pretend to love.
The closer defeat looms, the more desperate the death throes of a deranged administration. It lunges for levers of power and propaganda. It undermines institutions that stand above politics. It smears physicians who work for the public’s health. It attempts to conceal pandemic data, Soviet-style. It issues absurd decrees to local school boards to open in the fall or else. It dispatches unidentified federal forces to kidnap peaceful protesters. It flails out against measures to ease voting. And these are only the omens. A final spasm—if it is final—seems likely.
Insurgencies, dictatorships, and the like often tend toward untamed outrages as they are backed into a corner and face annihilation. Similar impulses appear ascendant in Trump’s criminal government, where the rule of law is a minor irritation and self-enrichment at taxpayers’ expense is routine. He has shed his White House of responsible advisers, replacing them with cruel dogmatists whose ideology of ignorance is a plague on the nation. It’s hard to see impediments to the abuses. Trump has no moral brakes. His values are those of a mafia boss who rewards and punishes those who protect or oppose him. Never in U.S. history has a president commuted the prison sentence of the chief witness against him, as Trump did for Roger Stone, who defied every legal requirement to testify on Russia’s alleged collaboration with the Trump 2016 election campaign. No “snitch” was Stone. His silence stymied Robert Mueller’s investigation and enabled Trump to crow, “Hoax!” The full truth may never be known.
Where are the Republicans who chant “law and order” when their party leader ignores the law and sows disorder? Where are the conservatives who don’t fight to conserve the American constitutional system that Trump and his accomplices try to shred? If there is a glaring lesson from the Trump era, it is how easily compromised are the nation’s founding principles, how deferent to autocratic aims are those who wear the camouflage of liberty: Congressional Republicans, right-wing broadcast personalities, self-righteous evangelicals, flinty citizens who make a show of individualism and resistance.
In Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, a state militia loyal to the eventual fascist president, Buzz Windrip, “considered him their general and their god.” The militia was a precursor to the Minute Men, his private troops in black capes or white or khaki shirts, who beat, arrested, and confined—and thereby purged books, manuscripts, and thinkers from the political landscape. In 2020 America, armed right-wing vigilantes have already attacked Black Lives Matter demonstrators, and have been encouraged by the Trump campaign to “monitor” polling places in November. The smell of political violence is in the air.
This fear could be overdrawn—let’s hope so. Trump’s incompetence as a manager might save us. But he has a zealous base and a compliant coterie of collaborators. Consider this passage from Lewis and its familiar ring, describing the fictional Windrip’s supporters before a rally in Madison Square Garden: “Eighth Avenue, lined with cheapjack shops, was packed with drab, discouraged people who yet, tonight, were tipsy with the hashish of hope. . . . they were people concerned with the tailor’s goose, the tray of potato salad, the card of hooks-and-eyes, the leech-like mortgage on the owner-driven taxi, with, at home, the baby’s diapers, the dull safety-razor blade, the awful rise in the cost of rump steak and kosher chicken. . . . Kind people, industrious people, generous to their aged, eager to find any desperate cure for the sickness of worry over losing the job. Most facile material for any rabble-rouser.”
Trump’s mental and emotional disabilities have infected many under him, and they in turn create a loop of reinforcement for his most destructive impulses. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos parrots his dangerous insistence that schools reopen entirely in the fall or risk losing federal funds. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf adopts a callous plan to deport international college students whose classes proceed online (before uproars and lawsuits force a reversal). He and Attorney General Bill Barr begin to mobilize elements of law enforcement for political ends, specifically to tout “law and order” in Portland, Oregon, where the U.S. Marshal’s Service has been deployed in violation of local officials’ demands to depart and halt their violent harassment and false arrests of demonstrators. It would be wise to see Portland as only the first stepping stone toward as much repression as this administration can muster in the coming months.
Pity Trump and the country he leads. Raised in a family rife with emotional abuse, as his niece Mary Trump has documented, he suffers from narcissism and a fragile ego that deliver him to an unending reliance on lies, conflict, and bullying. His obvious brain dysfunctions prevent him from processing information, reasoning logically, remembering what he said a minute earlier, and governing effectively. He cannot stand anyone smarter or more popular than him, so his economic adviser, Peter Navarro, and anonymous acolytes try to take down Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose credibility in polls far exceeds Trump’s.
The president of what is supposed to be the greatest country in all of human history cannot tell the difference between image and reality, or cares more about image than reality, as he orders a halt in reporting COVID-19 hospitalizations to the CDC and laments the increase in coronavirus testing because it makes the case numbers go higher. Is it possible that his mental defect means that he doesn’t realize that the actual incidence of infection is a fact independent of how many are detected by tests? Or is he just trying to fool his fellow Americans? And how many will be fooled? Or frightened?
We’ll find out in November.


washingtonmonthly--2020-07-20--Trump Has Unleashed a Giant: Mothers

Trump Has Unleashed a Giant: Mothers

According to Harry Enten , Joe Biden is currently leading the presidential race by historic margins in the suburbs .
Biden is up by a 52 % to 43 % margin among suburban voters in the ABC News/Washington Post poll…In the average of all the polls , Biden ’ s ahead by more than 15 points with suburban voters .
This is a historic margin , if it holds…Four years ago at this time , Trump was beating Clinton by a 45 % to 35 % margin in the ABC/Washington Post poll among suburban voters… If you were to go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data reveals that no Democrat has won the suburban vote by more than 5 points since at least 1972 , when the first exit poll was taken in a presidential election…Back in 2008 ( the best year for Democrats this century ) , Obama won in the suburbs by 2 points in the exit polls .
The final ABC News/Washington Post poll had him winning in the suburbs by 5 points .
There are a couple of things to keep in mind about this data .
The first is that the demographics of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ documented a few months ago .
No longer the exclusive destination of “ white flight ” that began in the 1960s , the suburban population is becoming more diverse both in terms of race and class .
Secondly , the so-called “ blue wave ” of the 2018 midterms happened primarily in the suburbs .
Of the 41 congressional districts that Democrats turned from red to blue that year , 38 were suburban .
That was paired with the biggest gender gap in U.S. political history .
The term “ resistance ” has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lives Matter to the Bernie Sanders campaign .
But we must never forget the role that women ( especially mothers ) played .
It all started with the Women ’ s March the same weekend that Trump was inaugurated .
As the research by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson documented , it didn ’ t end there .
…after they marched , many of them went home , held meetings , invited friends to the meetings , started Facebook groups to get more friends to the meetings , called their Congressional representatives , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and , finally , figured out which Republicans in their town councils or county governments or state legislatures or congressional districts they wanted to get rid of—and sometimes , which Democrats… As parents and often churchgoers , they have broad networks of family and friends .
Maybe they recently retired and have time on their hands .
Their groups shrank a bit over the summer , but Trump ’ s belligerent tweets and reckless executive orders have served as a kind of reveille , rallying at least some of the troops back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just prior to the 2018 midterms , even white evangelical mothers in Texas rebelled against Trump ’ s caging of immigrant children , leading one of them to say that “ I care as much about babies at the border as I do about babies in the womb.
” It was the “ Mothers of the Movement ” that organized against police brutality after the killing of their unarmed children by law enforcement .
One of them , Lucy McBath , was elected to Congress in 2018 to represent a district in suburban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t surprise me that mothers showed up this weekend in Portland , Oregon—armed with face masks and bike helmets— to protest the actions of federal troops in that city .
The list of things Donald Trump has done to offend mothers in this country is long—not the least of which is his attempt to force their children back to school with no plan to keep them safe from a raging pandemic .
As Skocpol and Williamson documented with their research , many of these mothers had never been involved in electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican enablers have woken up a sleeping giant and the day will come when they rue the day they did so .

According to Harry Enten, Joe Biden is currently leading the presidential race by historic margins in the suburbs.
Biden is up by a 52% to 43% margin among suburban voters in the ABC News/Washington Post poll…In the average of all the polls, Biden’s ahead by more than 15 points with suburban voters. This is a historic margin, if it holds…Four years ago at this time, Trump was beating Clinton by a 45% to 35% margin in the ABC/Washington Post poll among suburban voters… If you were to go back over time, the exit poll data reveals that no Democrat has won the suburban vote by more than 5 points since at least 1972, when the first exit poll was taken in a presidential election…Back in 2008 (the best year for Democrats this century), Obama won in the suburbs by 2 points in the exit polls. The final ABC News/Washington Post poll had him winning in the suburbs by 5 points.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind about this data. The first is that the demographics of the suburbs are changing, as I documented a few months ago. No longer the exclusive destination of “white flight” that began in the 1960s, the suburban population is becoming more diverse both in terms of race and class.
Secondly, the so-called “blue wave” of the 2018 midterms happened primarily in the suburbs. Of the 41 congressional districts that Democrats turned from red to blue that year, 38 were suburban. That was paired with the biggest gender gap in U.S. political history.
The term “resistance” has been used to describe everything from Black Lives Matter to the Bernie Sanders campaign. But we must never forget the role that women (especially mothers) played. It all started with the Women’s March the same weekend that Trump was inaugurated. As the research by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson documented, it didn’t end there.
…after they marched, many of them went home, held meetings, invited friends to the meetings, started Facebook groups to get more friends to the meetings, called their Congressional representatives, held letter-writing parties, flooded Town Halls, and, finally, figured out which Republicans in their town councils or county governments or state legislatures or congressional districts they wanted to get rid of—and sometimes, which Democrats… As parents and often churchgoers, they have broad networks of family and friends. Maybe they recently retired and have time on their hands. Their groups shrank a bit over the summer, but Trump’s belligerent tweets and reckless executive orders have served as a kind of reveille, rallying at least some of the troops back to the flag.
As I wrote just prior to the 2018 midterms, even white evangelical mothers in Texas rebelled against Trump’s caging of immigrant children, leading one of them to say that “I care as much about babies at the border as I do about babies in the womb.”
It was the “Mothers of the Movement” that organized against police brutality after the killing of their unarmed children by law enforcement. One of them, Lucy McBath, was elected to Congress in 2018 to represent a district in suburban Georgia.
That’s why it didn’t surprise me that mothers showed up this weekend in Portland, Oregon—armed with face masks and bike helmets— to protest the actions of federal troops in that city.
The list of things Donald Trump has done to offend mothers in this country is long—not the least of which is his attempt to force their children back to school with no plan to keep them safe from a raging pandemic. As Skocpol and Williamson documented with their research, many of these mothers had never been involved in electoral politics before. The president and his Republican enablers have woken up a sleeping giant and the day will come when they rue the day they did so.