thebulwark--2020-11-24--Trump’s GOP is Increasingly Racist and Authoritarian—and Here to Stay

Donald Trump entered our political bloodstream propelled by racism and mendacity—the bogus “ birther ” movement intended to delegitimize America ’ s first black president .
Six years later he is exiting our highest office trailing lies and extra-constitutional maneuvers aimed at maintaining power by disenfranchising black voters .
In between he inflicted on us a presidency which was ignorant , cruel , reckless , lawless , divisive , and disloyal .
Mendacity and bigotry became the mode of communication between America ’ s president and his party ’ s base .
Not only did he worsen a deadly pandemic—by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his alternate reality , he is sickening our future .
Trump did not materialize from the ether .
He rose from a political party bent on thwarting demographic change by subverting the democratic process ; a party whose base was addicted to white identity politics , steeped in religious fundamentalism , and suffused with authoritarian cravings—a party which , infected by Trumpism , now spreads the multiple malignancies metastasized by Trump ’ s personal and political pathologies .
Since the civil rights revolution triggered an influx of resentful Southern whites , the GOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump ’ s transformative contribution has been to make racial antagonism overt—a badge of pride that bonds him to his followers in opposition to a pluralist democracy that threatens their imperiled social and political hegemony .
Hence the 2019 tweet in which America ’ s president told four congresswomen of color—three native-born Americans and one a naturalized citizen—that they should “ go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.
” With poisonous efficiency , Trump managed to combine racism , xenophobia , and hostility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ antagonism against “ the other.
” He comprehends his audience all too well .
Take the poll released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute ( PRRI ) measuring the attitudes of “ Fox News Republicans ” —the 40 percent of party adherents who trust Fox as their primary source of TV news .
The survey found that 91 percent oppose the Black Lives Matter movement ; 90 percent believe that police killings of blacks are “ isolated incidents ” ; and 58 think that whites are victimized by racial discrimination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blacks are .
Their animus toward immigration is equally strong .
Substantial majorities believe that immigrants consume a disproportionate amount of governmental services , increase crime in local communities , and threaten our cultural and ethnic character .
Support for Trump ’ s wall is nearly unanimous ( 96 percent ) ; two-thirds ( 66 percent ) favor barring refugees from entering the United States ; and a majority ( 53 percent ) support separating children from their parents when a family enters the country without permission .
Another key subgroup of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar attitudes .
The poll found that the majority adamantly disbelieve that the legacy of racial discrimination makes it difficult for African Americans to succeed .
The head of the PRRI , Robert P. Jones , concludes that Trump arouses white Christians “ not despite , but through appeals to white supremacy ” based on evoking “ powerful fears about the loss of White Christian dominance.
” That sense of racial and cultural besiegement pervades the 73 percent of Fox News Republicans who , the survey found , believe that white Christians suffer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discrimination—more than double the number who say that blacks do .
This religious persecution complex explains the otherwise mystifying ability of evangelicals to conjure a “ war on Christmas ” from the greeting “ happy holidays ” —simply because some Americans choose to acknowledge our divergent beliefs .
In sum , the GOP is now the party of white identity .
In 2016 , Vox reports , Trump carried whites by 54 to 39 percent ; in 2020 , by 57 to 42 percent ( per the raw exit polls ) .
Whites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supported Trump ; in both elections , Trump lost overwhelmingly among nonwhite Americans .
It has long been apparent that the party can not indefinitely survive the changing demographics which are making us a multiracial democracy—and which engender such resentment in its electoral base .
That fear of displacement helps explain the profound emotional connection between Trump and Republican voters .
Their loyalty is not to the political philosophy traditionally embraced by the GOP , but a visceral sense of racial , religious , and cultural identity—and the need to preserve it—which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is captured through research by Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels which Philip Bump reported in the Washington Post last September .
Bartels surveyed respondents regarding four statements which , taken together , read like a blueprint for Trump : • The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it .
• A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands .
• Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout .
Reports Bump : “ Most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agreed with the first statement .
.
.
.
Nearly three-quarters agreed that election results should be treated with skepticism.
” Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were also “ significantly more likely to say they agreed with the other two statements than that they disagreed.
” “ Ethnic antagonism , ” Bartels told Bump , is “ the most powerful factor associated with willingness to resort to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support for ‘ patriotic Americans ’ taking the law into their own hands and ‘ strong leaders ’ bending rules.
” This lies at the heart of Trump ’ s appeal : his shared sense of victimization by an insidious elite ; his unvarnished denunciation of white America ’ s supposed enemies ; and his promise to keep them at bay—if necessary , by force .
For many in the Republican base , he fulfills a psychic longing for an American strongman .
This will to autocracy as self-defense is supplemented by fundamentalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Katherine Stewart describes the growth of “ a radical political ideology that is profoundly hostile to democracy and pluralism , and a certain political style that seeks to provoke moral panic , rewards the paranoid and views every partisan conflict as a conflagration , the end of the world.
” Further , Stewart observes , “ Christian nationalism is a creation of a uniquely isolated messaging sphere .
Many members of the rank and file get their main political information not just from messaging platforms that keep their audiences in a world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also from dedicated religious networks and reactionary faith leaders.
” Their unwavering loyalty despite Trump ’ s glaring personal faults is , she adjures , “ proof enough that the religious-nationalist end of the right-wing information bubble has gotten more , not less , resistant over time.
” Stewart chillingly describes a November 11 virtual prayer gathering organized by the Family Research Council .
One speaker asserted that Joe Biden ’ s election embodied “ the whole godless ideology that ’ s wanted to swallow our homes , destroy our marriages , throw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; another that Biden and Kamala Harris represent an “ ideology ” that is “ anti-Christ , anti-Biblical to its core.
” When electoral defeat augurs a religious apocalypse in the minds of evangelicals , democracy itself becomes their enemy .
This compound of racial , cultural , and religious anxiety drives the GOP ’ s longstanding aversion to minority voting rights—and to representative governance in an increasingly diverse society .
As Republican strategists well appreciate , a party whose appeal is confined to conservative whites is , over the demographic long term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s design is to postpone as long as possible their electoral day of reckoning .
The party ’ s efforts to suppress the nonwhite electorate through voter ID laws , upheld by its conservative Supreme Court majority , have been amply documented—as have its massive voter purges and poll closures in minority precincts .
The cynical pretext for these measures—the prevention of voting fraud for which no evidence exists—became the GOP ’ s primary means of tilting elections long before Trump appropriated it to enrage his credulous base .
No such excuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on extreme gerrymandering to fix congressional and state legislative elections—upheld , once again , by Republican justices .
Examples abound .
In 2018 , Wisconsin ’ s electorate gave Democrats 53 percent of their votes , whereupon Republicans won 63 of the 99 seats in the state assembly ; 11 of the 17 seats up for election in the state senate ; and 5 of the state ’ s 8 congressional districts .
But these subversions of the popular will , however grotesque , merely serve as the gateway to Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Electoral College to reverse Joe Biden ’ s indubitable victory .
In launching his naked attempt to disenfranchise the majority of voters in Arizona , Georgia , Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin through assertions of fraud unprecedented in their speciousness and scope , Trump took the GOP ’ s distaste for free and fair elections to its logical conclusion : the abrogation of American democracy at the highest level .
Trump justified his anti-democratic sociopathy by proliferating a plethora of groundless and preposterous falsehoods calculated to delegitimize our electoral processes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballots had been cast for Biden ; that voting machines had been re-engineered to exclude millions more cast for him ; and that Republican election observers had been excluded from many polling places by a host of local officials bent on serving a labyrinthine conspiracy to purloin the White House .
“ The Radical Left Democrats , ” Trump tweeted , “ working with their partner , the Fake News Media , are trying to STEAL this Election.
” Never once did he or his lawyers cite a shred of evidence supporting any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to convince the Republican base that they were being cheated of their leader by the insidious “ other.
” Numerous polls confirm that it ’ s working ; typical is a Politico/Morning Consult survey showing that 70 percent of Republicans don ’ t believe the election was fairly conducted .
So persuaded , the base supports Trump ’ s desperate efforts to overturn the results .
He began with a spate of bogus lawsuits seeking to invalidate many thousands of ballots in five critical states—particularly those cast by African Americans in major cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Milwaukee .
This effort at race-based disenfranchisement differed only in scale and timing , but not in kind , from the GOP ’ s traditional efforts to prevent minorities from voting at all .
Subjected to an embarrassing series of defeats , Trump then turned to attacks on long-established norms which exposed the seamy reality of banana Republicanism : By attempting to prevent partisan local and state officials from certifying the results confirming Biden ’ s victory , Trump hoped to persuade Republican state legislators to appoint a rival slate of Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choose them over Biden ’ s—or at least to judge enough electoral votes unsettled to throw the decision to the House of Representatives .
The House would presumably then hand Trump a second term because , per the constitutional provision for “ contingent ” elections that was last used in 1825 , each state delegation would get one vote—and at least 26 delegations in the new Congress will contain more Republicans than Democrats .
Setting aside that this would shred American democracy , Trump ’ s plan suffered from a situational flaw : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevent this from happening .
Last night , this improvisational strategy finally collapsed from its own incongruity .
Newly spotlighted by unwanted celebrity , Michigan ’ s canvassing board voted—with one abstention—to certify the state ’ s electoral results .
Shortly thereafter , the head of the federal government ’ s General Services Administration , who had for weeks stymied the orderly transition process to the Biden administration , at last authorized the transition to go forward .
However defiant , Trump is destined to leave office without acknowledging his loss .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closer election , Republicans would have pushed even harder to give Trump a second term he had lost at the ballot box .
And even now one can ascertain the ongoing harm to our democracy from Trump ’ s aborted efforts .
It is not just the death threats against secretaries of state from both parties who defied Trump ’ s wishes .
It is the perpetuation of a distrust in democracy among a significant segment of Americans ; the encouragement of Republican state legislatures to pass more restrictive voting laws ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his office to lobby state officials ; and the prospect of more successful efforts to rig presidential elections .
As Trevor Potter , a Republican who formerly headed the Federal Election Commission , told the New York Times , Trump “ is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years .
.
.
.
What he ’ s saying , explicitly , is if a party doesn ’ t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.
” One danger has become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans are just fine with Trump ’ s anti-democratic moves , or at least would not honor their sworn responsibility to defend the Constitution from his depredations—often because they are simply too terrified of their party ’ s base , and the voracious right-wing media which inflames it .
That partisan media , ever more toxic , is creating a separate America fed by infinite servings of hagiography and disinformation meant to nourish Trump ’ s cult of personality .
Their latest target of opportunity is Fox News , which has thrived on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Trump .
As Trump works to undermine the election , outlets like Newsmax and OAN are striving to cannibalize Fox ’ s viewership by outdoing its hysteria in perpetuating Trumps lies and endorsing his methods Here , remarkably , Tucker Carlson serves as a cautionary tale .
When Carlson dismissed , as gently as possible , the crackpot allegations of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell about a sweeping conspiracy using rogue voting machines , he was savaged across the right-wing echo chamber as a spineless quisling .
Lesson learned .
At bottom , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Waldman of the Washington Post observes : “ It is not enough for the GOP ’ s base to be disappointed in the results of the election and determined to do better next time .
They must be enraged .
For the conservative media , creating and feeding anger is a business model that goes back decades.
” Republican officials who defy Trump can expect no sanctuary save on media loathed by the base .
Their cautionary tale is Mitt Romney , conspicuous in his forthright denunciation of Trump ’ s efforts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difficult to imagine a worse , more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.
” Duly castigated , Romney stands virtually alone .
Most elected Republicans have spent the last three weeks vociferously supporting Trump ’ s machinations , timorously hiding behind pusillanimous verbal formulae about combating fraud and counting every vote , or tepidly allowing that Biden might—eventually—become the president-elect .
Some , like Lindsey Graham , even pressured state election officials to honor Trump ’ s wishes .
Collectively , they have quickened the GOP ’ s transformation into a quasi-authoritarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will give his nominal party no surcease .
His need for omnipresence is omnivorous ; his means various .
Already he is contemplating running for president again in 2024—or at least teasing a run so he can soak his most ardent followers .
He is seeking to control the Republican National Committee by supporting the re-election as party chair of his factotum Ronna McDaniel .
He is planning a PAC to finance his public activities—and , no doubt , his private needs .
Other widely discussed possibilities include starting his own media company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he deems to have been insufficiently loyal .
Whatever the means , he will perpetuate the myth of a stolen election for his political and personal profit .
Given his vengeful nature , one can expect him to take noisy revenge on any Republican who dares to contradict him .
For the Republican party , Trump will be kudzu in human form : near-impossible to kill .
Predicts former RNC chair Michael Steele : “ Unlike any of our former presidents , he will be an ongoing presence .
.
.
.
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consumed by him and his madness.
” Ultimately , this otherworldly obduracy stems from Trump ’ s manifest psychological illness : his imperishable narcissism ; his ineradicable drive to be noticed ; his relentless need to dominate ; his comprehensive carelessness of all considerations save what pleases him in the moment .
Television turned this moral pygmy into a mythic figure—and he can not let go .
His loyal supporters reciprocate his needs .
They will become whatever he desires—the base for his political comeback ; the funders for his PAC ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Their devotion will make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago de rigueur for Republican officeholders ambitious to rise .
More than ever , they will dominate Republican primaries .
As Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote in the Atlantic , the forces of whiteness who constitute Trump ’ s base—evangelical Christians , conservative Catholics , and Tea Party adherents—are an increasingly prohibitive majority of the GOP electorate .
The consequences are inescapable .
As The Bulwark ’ s Jonathan V. Last wrote in the New Republic : That ’ s why one sympathizes with those hopeful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through a multiracial coalition rooted in an economic agenda which codifies Trump ’ s pseudo-populism .
Trump was never about programs so much as feelings—foremost a racial and religious defensiveness fundamentally opposed to diversity .
Moreover , a notable phenomenon of Trump ’ s presidency is the degree to which financially embattled working-class whites imagined , contrary to observable reality , that their economic situation had improved—or soon would .
There are few better examples of how politics mirrors psychology more than lived experience .
This fidelity is why some Republican gurus remain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maximizing support among middle-class and blue-collar whites .
After all , they argue , despite Trump ’ s defeat the GOP did better than expected in senatorial and congressional races .
Why risk tinkering with his formula ?
Finally , economic populism is antithetical to the donor classes who , in truth , did better under Trump than did anyone else .
They got their tax cuts and their judges—the GOP ’ s pipeline for judicial nominees , the Federalist Society , is dedicated to advancing pro-corporate jurisprudence .
This is not the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s difficult to identify a potential Republican candidate with sufficient gifts to reorient the party , or even to beguile the base with a more rarefied Trumpism .
Far more likely the nominee in 2024 will be whoever best channels Trump in the raw .
And who better than Trump himself or , at least , some Trump—more likely the suitably unhinged Don Jr. than the White House Barbie .
For the foreseeable future , Trumpism will define the GOP .
The path to regeneration runs not through reform but , one fears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wait time will be painful for the party , and fateful for the country .

Donald Trump entered our political bloodstream propelled by racism and mendacity—the bogus “birther” movement intended to delegitimize America’s first black president. Six years later he is exiting our highest office trailing lies and extra-constitutional maneuvers aimed at maintaining power by disenfranchising black voters.
In between he inflicted on us a presidency which was ignorant, cruel, reckless, lawless, divisive, and disloyal. Mendacity and bigotry became the mode of communication between America’s president and his party’s base. Not only did he worsen a deadly pandemic—by immersing an angry and alienated minority in his alternate reality, he is sickening our future.
Trump did not materialize from the ether. He rose from a political party bent on thwarting demographic change by subverting the democratic process; a party whose base was addicted to white identity politics, steeped in religious fundamentalism, and suffused with authoritarian cravings—a party which, infected by Trumpism, now spreads the multiple malignancies metastasized by Trump’s personal and political pathologies.
Since the civil rights revolution triggered an influx of resentful Southern whites, the GOP has catered to white grievance and anxiety. Trump’s transformative contribution has been to make racial antagonism overt—a badge of pride that bonds him to his followers in opposition to a pluralist democracy that threatens their imperiled social and political hegemony.
Hence the 2019 tweet in which America’s president told four congresswomen of color—three native-born Americans and one a naturalized citizen—that they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” With poisonous efficiency, Trump managed to combine racism, xenophobia, and hostility to non-white immigrants to inflame his followers’ antagonism against “the other.”
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
He comprehends his audience all too well. Take the poll released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) measuring the attitudes of “Fox News Republicans”—the 40 percent of party adherents who trust Fox as their primary source of TV news. The survey found that 91 percent oppose the Black Lives Matter movement; 90 percent believe that police killings of blacks are “isolated incidents”; and 58 think that whites are victimized by racial discrimination, compared to 36 percent who think blacks are.
Their animus toward immigration is equally strong. Substantial majorities believe that immigrants consume a disproportionate amount of governmental services, increase crime in local communities, and threaten our cultural and ethnic character. Support for Trump’s wall is nearly unanimous (96 percent); two-thirds (66 percent) favor barring refugees from entering the United States; and a majority (53 percent) support separating children from their parents when a family enters the country without permission.
Another key subgroup of the GOP base, white evangelicals, harbors similar attitudes. The poll found that the majority adamantly disbelieve that the legacy of racial discrimination makes it difficult for African Americans to succeed. The head of the PRRI, Robert P. Jones, concludes that Trump arouses white Christians “not despite, but through appeals to white supremacy” based on evoking “powerful fears about the loss of White Christian dominance.”
That sense of racial and cultural besiegement pervades the 73 percent of Fox News Republicans who, the survey found, believe that white Christians suffer from “a lot” of societal discrimination—more than double the number who say that blacks do. This religious persecution complex explains the otherwise mystifying ability of evangelicals to conjure a “war on Christmas” from the greeting “happy holidays”—simply because some Americans choose to acknowledge our divergent beliefs.
In sum, the GOP is now the party of white identity. In 2016, Vox reports, Trump carried whites by 54 to 39 percent; in 2020, by 57 to 42 percent (per the raw exit polls). Whites are the only racial group whose majority supported Trump; in both elections, Trump lost overwhelmingly among nonwhite Americans. It has long been apparent that the party cannot indefinitely survive the changing demographics which are making us a multiracial democracy—and which engender such resentment in its electoral base.
That fear of displacement helps explain the profound emotional connection between Trump and Republican voters. Their loyalty is not to the political philosophy traditionally embraced by the GOP, but a visceral sense of racial, religious, and cultural identity—and the need to preserve it—which is instinctively authoritarian and anti-democratic.
This linkage is captured through research by Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels which Philip Bump reported in the Washington Post last September. Bartels surveyed respondents regarding four statements which, taken together, read like a blueprint for Trump:
The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.
A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.
Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done.
It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.
Reports Bump: “Most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agreed with the first statement. . . . Nearly three-quarters agreed that election results should be treated with skepticism.” Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were also “significantly more likely to say they agreed with the other two statements than that they disagreed.”
“Ethnic antagonism,” Bartels told Bump, is “the most powerful factor associated with willingness to resort to force in pursuit of political ends and support for ‘patriotic Americans’ taking the law into their own hands and ‘strong leaders’ bending rules.” This lies at the heart of Trump’s appeal: his shared sense of victimization by an insidious elite; his unvarnished denunciation of white America’s supposed enemies; and his promise to keep them at bay—if necessary, by force. For many in the Republican base, he fulfills a psychic longing for an American strongman.
This will to autocracy as self-defense is supplemented by fundamentalist fanaticism. In the New York Times, Katherine Stewart describes the growth of “a radical political ideology that is profoundly hostile to democracy and pluralism, and a certain political style that seeks to provoke moral panic, rewards the paranoid and views every partisan conflict as a conflagration, the end of the world.”
Further, Stewart observes, “Christian nationalism is a creation of a uniquely isolated messaging sphere. Many members of the rank and file get their main political information not just from messaging platforms that keep their audiences in a world that is divorced from reality, but also from dedicated religious networks and reactionary faith leaders.” Their unwavering loyalty despite Trump’s glaring personal faults is, she adjures, “proof enough that the religious-nationalist end of the right-wing information bubble has gotten more, not less, resistant over time.”
Stewart chillingly describes a November 11 virtual prayer gathering organized by the Family Research Council. One speaker asserted that Joe Biden’s election embodied “the whole godless ideology that’s wanted to swallow our homes, destroy our marriages, throw our children into rivers of confusion”; another that Biden and Kamala Harris represent an “ideology” that is “anti-Christ, anti-Biblical to its core.” When electoral defeat augurs a religious apocalypse in the minds of evangelicals, democracy itself becomes their enemy.
This compound of racial, cultural, and religious anxiety drives the GOP’s longstanding aversion to minority voting rights—and to representative governance in an increasingly diverse society. As Republican strategists well appreciate, a party whose appeal is confined to conservative whites is, over the demographic long term, doomed to defeat. The GOP’s design is to postpone as long as possible their electoral day of reckoning.
The party’s efforts to suppress the nonwhite electorate through voter ID laws, upheld by its conservative Supreme Court majority, have been amply documented—as have its massive voter purges and poll closures in minority precincts. The cynical pretext for these measures—the prevention of voting fraud for which no evidence exists—became the GOP’s primary means of tilting elections long before Trump appropriated it to enrage his credulous base.
No such excuse precedes the party’s overt reliance on extreme gerrymandering to fix congressional and state legislative elections—upheld, once again, by Republican justices. Examples abound. In 2018, Wisconsin’s electorate gave Democrats 53 percent of their votes, whereupon Republicans won 63 of the 99 seats in the state assembly; 11 of the 17 seats up for election in the state senate; and 5 of the state’s 8 congressional districts.
But these subversions of the popular will, however grotesque, merely serve as the gateway to Trump’s efforts to steal the presidency by rigging the Electoral College to reverse Joe Biden’s indubitable victory. In launching his naked attempt to disenfranchise the majority of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin through assertions of fraud unprecedented in their speciousness and scope, Trump took the GOP’s distaste for free and fair elections to its logical conclusion: the abrogation of American democracy at the highest level.
Trump justified his anti-democratic sociopathy by proliferating a plethora of groundless and preposterous falsehoods calculated to delegitimize our electoral processes. He claimed that millions of phony mail-in ballots had been cast for Biden; that voting machines had been re-engineered to exclude millions more cast for him; and that Republican election observers had been excluded from many polling places by a host of local officials bent on serving a labyrinthine conspiracy to purloin the White House.
“The Radical Left Democrats,” Trump tweeted, “working with their partner, the Fake News Media, are trying to STEAL this Election.” Never once did he or his lawyers cite a shred of evidence supporting any material impropriety. Rather his purpose was to convince the Republican base that they were being cheated of their leader by the insidious “other.” Numerous polls confirm that it’s working; typical is a Politico/Morning Consult survey showing that 70 percent of Republicans don’t believe the election was fairly conducted.
So persuaded, the base supports Trump’s desperate efforts to overturn the results. He began with a spate of bogus lawsuits seeking to invalidate many thousands of ballots in five critical states—particularly those cast by African Americans in major cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. This effort at race-based disenfranchisement differed only in scale and timing, but not in kind, from the GOP’s traditional efforts to prevent minorities from voting at all.
Subjected to an embarrassing series of defeats, Trump then turned to attacks on long-established norms which exposed the seamy reality of banana Republicanism: By attempting to prevent partisan local and state officials from certifying the results confirming Biden’s victory, Trump hoped to persuade Republican state legislators to appoint a rival slate of Trump electors and then ask the Congress to choose them over Biden’s—or at least to judge enough electoral votes unsettled to throw the decision to the House of Representatives. The House would presumably then hand Trump a second term because, per the constitutional provision for “contingent” elections that was last used in 1825, each state delegation would get one vote—and at least 26 delegations in the new Congress will contain more Republicans than Democrats.
Setting aside that this would shred American democracy, Trump’s plan suffered from a situational flaw: In key states, Democratic governors could prevent this from happening.
Last night, this improvisational strategy finally collapsed from its own incongruity. Newly spotlighted by unwanted celebrity, Michigan’s canvassing board voted—with one abstention—to certify the state’s electoral results. Shortly thereafter, the head of the federal government’s General Services Administration, who had for weeks stymied the orderly transition process to the Biden administration, at last authorized the transition to go forward. However defiant, Trump is destined to leave office without acknowledging his loss.
One can fairly ask whether, in a closer election, Republicans would have pushed even harder to give Trump a second term he had lost at the ballot box. And even now one can ascertain the ongoing harm to our democracy from Trump’s aborted efforts.
It is not just the death threats against secretaries of state from both parties who defied Trump’s wishes. It is the perpetuation of a distrust in democracy among a significant segment of Americans; the encouragement of Republican state legislatures to pass more restrictive voting laws; the image of a president using the trappings of his office to lobby state officials; and the prospect of more successful efforts to rig presidential elections. As Trevor Potter, a Republican who formerly headed the Federal Election Commission, told the New York Times, Trump “is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years. . . . What he’s saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn’t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.”
One danger has become abundantly clear: far too many elected Republicans are just fine with Trump’s anti-democratic moves, or at least would not honor their sworn responsibility to defend the Constitution from his depredations—often because they are simply too terrified of their party’s base, and the voracious right-wing media which inflames it.
That partisan media, ever more toxic, is creating a separate America fed by infinite servings of hagiography and disinformation meant to nourish Trump’s cult of personality. Their latest target of opportunity is Fox News, which has thrived on igniting a Republican audience galvanized by fealty to Trump. As Trump works to undermine the election, outlets like Newsmax and OAN are striving to cannibalize Fox’s viewership by outdoing its hysteria in perpetuating Trumps lies and endorsing his methods
Here, remarkably, Tucker Carlson serves as a cautionary tale. When Carlson dismissed, as gently as possible, the crackpot allegations of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell about a sweeping conspiracy using rogue voting machines, he was savaged across the right-wing echo chamber as a spineless quisling. Lesson learned.
At bottom, this is about money. As Paul Waldman of the Washington Post observes: “It is not enough for the GOP’s base to be disappointed in the results of the election and determined to do better next time. They must be enraged. For the conservative media, creating and feeding anger is a business model that goes back decades.”
Republican officials who defy Trump can expect no sanctuary save on media loathed by the base. Their cautionary tale is Mitt Romney, conspicuous in his forthright denunciation of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election: “It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”
Duly castigated, Romney stands virtually alone. Most elected Republicans have spent the last three weeks vociferously supporting Trump’s machinations, timorously hiding behind pusillanimous verbal formulae about combating fraud and counting every vote, or tepidly allowing that Biden might—eventually—become the president-elect. Some, like Lindsey Graham, even pressured state election officials to honor Trump’s wishes. Collectively, they have quickened the GOP’s transformation into a quasi-authoritarian instrument of minority rule.
Trump himself will give his nominal party no surcease.
His need for omnipresence is omnivorous; his means various. Already he is contemplating running for president again in 2024—or at least teasing a run so he can soak his most ardent followers. He is seeking to control the Republican National Committee by supporting the re-election as party chair of his factotum Ronna McDaniel. He is planning a PAC to finance his public activities—and, no doubt, his private needs.
Other widely discussed possibilities include starting his own media company to compete with Fox News, which he deems to have been insufficiently loyal. Whatever the means, he will perpetuate the myth of a stolen election for his political and personal profit. Given his vengeful nature, one can expect him to take noisy revenge on any Republican who dares to contradict him.
For the Republican party, Trump will be kudzu in human form: near-impossible to kill. Predicts former RNC chair Michael Steele: “Unlike any of our former presidents, he will be an ongoing presence. . . . He wants the party to continue to be consumed by him and his madness.”
Ultimately, this otherworldly obduracy stems from Trump’s manifest psychological illness: his imperishable narcissism; his ineradicable drive to be noticed; his relentless need to dominate; his comprehensive carelessness of all considerations save what pleases him in the moment. Television turned this moral pygmy into a mythic figure—and he cannot let go.
His loyal supporters reciprocate his needs. They will become whatever he desires—the base for his political comeback; the funders for his PAC; the audience for his new media entity. Their devotion will make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago de rigueur for Republican officeholders ambitious to rise.
More than ever, they will dominate Republican primaries. As Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote in the Atlantic, the forces of whiteness who constitute Trump’s base—evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, and Tea Party adherents—are an increasingly prohibitive majority of the GOP electorate.
The consequences are inescapable. As The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last wrote in the New Republic:
Republican elites want very much to turn the page on Donald Trump following his loss. But . . . they do not have any say in the matter, because their party now belongs to him. And the party belongs to Donald Trump because he has delivered to Republican voters exactly what they want.
That’s why one sympathizes with those hopeful Republicans who imagine building a reformed GOP through a multiracial coalition rooted in an economic agenda which codifies Trump’s pseudo-populism. Trump was never about programs so much as feelings—foremost a racial and religious defensiveness fundamentally opposed to diversity.
Moreover, a notable phenomenon of Trump’s presidency is the degree to which financially embattled working-class whites imagined, contrary to observable reality, that their economic situation had improved—or soon would. There are few better examples of how politics mirrors psychology more than lived experience.
This fidelity is why some Republican gurus remain committed to Trump’s strategy of maximizing support among middle-class and blue-collar whites. After all, they argue, despite Trump’s defeat the GOP did better than expected in senatorial and congressional races. Why risk tinkering with his formula?
Finally, economic populism is antithetical to the donor classes who, in truth, did better under Trump than did anyone else. They got their tax cuts and their judges—the GOP’s pipeline for judicial nominees, the Federalist Society, is dedicated to advancing pro-corporate jurisprudence. This is not the prescription for worker-friendly policies.
It’s difficult to identify a potential Republican candidate with sufficient gifts to reorient the party, or even to beguile the base with a more rarefied Trumpism. Far more likely the nominee in 2024 will be whoever best channels Trump in the raw. And who better than Trump himself or, at least, some Trump—more likely the suitably unhinged Don Jr. than the White House Barbie.
For the foreseeable future, Trumpism will define the GOP. The path to regeneration runs not through reform but, one fears, must proceed from self-destruction. The wait time will be painful for the party, and fateful for the country.


thebulwark--2020-11-24--Summit for Democracy: Go Big

Summit for Democracy: Go Big

During the campaign , Joe Biden ’ s biggest foreign policy idea was a summit for democracy—a meeting of democratic states , intended to revive the spirit of democracy around the world .
This proposal shows that Biden understands the most fundamental question of geopolitics today : The rivalry between the free world and the autocratic world has returned , and America needs to emphasize the ideological element of this battle .
As Jennifer Welsh has said , history ended in 1991 , and now it is back with a vengeance .
During the Cold War , a major summit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have included , in addition to the United States , a handful of European countries , Canada , Australia , and Japan .
The world is more democratic today than it was at any point during the Cold War .
But there are worrying signs that democracy is in retreat : rising populism in Hungary and Poland ; Turkey turned fully autocratic ; an illiberal-minded leader in India ; a strongman in the Philippines ; repression and violence in Nicaragua and Venezuela ; declining political participation and deteriorating rule of law in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Freedom House reports , COVID-19 has accelerated the global retreat of democracy .
Biden ’ s summit has the potential of clarifying our understanding of global alignments—retiring the West vs. East paradigm , putting in its place a dichotomy of liberal and illiberal , free and unfree .
There are three crucial questions about Biden ’ s proposed summit that need clarification .
First , who should be invited ?
China , Russia , Iran , and Cuba are clearly not democracies .
The United Kingdom and Taiwan clearly are democracies .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Hungary and Poland ?
What about the democratic states whose leaders have anti-democratic tendencies , such as India and Brazil ?
The standards set for extending an invitation will have ramifications in those countries .
The president of Hungary , Viktor Orbán , would use his photo op at the summit to legitimize himself as a democratic leader .
An invitation extended to India ’ s Narendra Modi could be seen as legitimizing his persecution of minorities—but not inviting him could be seen as questioning the legitimacy of his democratic ascent to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indian constitution .
Maybe that is a good thing .
Maybe not .
Will inclusion make autocrats want to be more responsible or less ?
Will exclusion push them further into authoritarianism or make them hit the brakes ?
The decisions about whom to include and whom to exclude could have long-lasting consequences .
Second , what will be the substantive work of the summit ?
A large part of the importance of a summit like this , of course , is in the personal relationships that it helps to form in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to produce economic and strategic partnerships .
World leaders understand this ; hopefully they will see the immense value in this aspect of the gathering .
If this summit becomes a recurring event—a question that Biden should think about—it could encourage some excluded states to change their domestic behavior so they could participate in the future .
But will the meeting produce anything more formal—any kind of statement or agreement ?
According to Biden ’ s campaign website , the summit “ will prioritize results by galvanizing significant new country commitments in three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; ( 2 ) defending against authoritarianism , including election security ; ( 3 ) advancing human rights in their own nations and abroad.
” All that sounds worthy and admirable—but it ’ s still vague .
Biden also intends the summit to be not just an affair of governments but also their peoples .
It “ will include civil society organizations ” that “ stand on the frontlines in defense of our democracies , ” and will result in a “ call to action ” for the private sector , including tech @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for how they can ensure their algorithms and platforms are not empowering the surveillance state , facilitating repression in China and elsewhere , spreading hate , spurring people to violence , and remaining susceptible to misuse.
” Can such an agenda really be made “ concrete , ” rather than the sort of ambiguous blather that might be expected to emerge from Clinton Foundation or World Economic Forum conclaves ?
Third , should the summit be held soon but scaled down in acknowledgement of the global pandemic , or should it be delayed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and grandly ?
In making a passionate case for this summit in Defense One , Kevin Baron suggested that it should happen soon , despite the restrictions associated with the pandemic .
“ We may not get the usual full-scale media horde , motorcades , and the cherry-on-top class photo of big-deal international summits , ” Baron wrote .
“ But whatever is decided should be announced boldly , with great pomp and circumstance , and quickly.
” But we need the motorcades .
We need a full-scale media horde and the behind-the-scenes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glamour .
Most importantly , we need the photo ops .
A small-scale meeting would not generate the buzz needed to grasp the attention of the people of the world .
It might be remembered as just an oddity , a historical footnote to the pandemic .
But a big summit—held after the pandemic restrictions have been lifted , so as not to undermine Biden ’ s own message COVID caution , and to ensure that as many participants and reporters as possible can be included—could have a lasting effect .
Previous grand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yalta and Potsdam , the 1957 NATO summit in Paris—changed the world .
Biden ’ s summit could rank among them .
It will be an opportunity for democracies to stand together as equals—no matter their populations and GDPs .
And for America to once again be the first among equals .
A year ago , President Donald Trump was literally laughed out of a NATO summit .
The world needs the reverse : scenes of the president of the United States respected among and engaging with world leaders , nodding at what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
After years of American retreat in the world , we need the American president there responding to history that “ America , too , is back with a vengeance , and we have the full force of freedom behind us .
”

During the campaign, Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy idea was a summit for democracy—a meeting of democratic states, intended to revive the spirit of democracy around the world. This proposal shows that Biden understands the most fundamental question of geopolitics today: The rivalry between the free world and the autocratic world has returned, and America needs to emphasize the ideological element of this battle. As Jennifer Welsh has said, history ended in 1991, and now it is back with a vengeance.
During the Cold War, a major summit bringing together the world’s democracies would have included, in addition to the United States, a handful of European countries, Canada, Australia, and Japan. The world is more democratic today than it was at any point during the Cold War. But there are worrying signs that democracy is in retreat: rising populism in Hungary and Poland; Turkey turned fully autocratic; an illiberal-minded leader in India; a strongman in the Philippines; repression and violence in Nicaragua and Venezuela; declining political participation and deteriorating rule of law in much of Africa. And, as Freedom House reports, COVID-19 has accelerated the global retreat of democracy.
Biden’s summit has the potential of clarifying our understanding of global alignments—retiring the West vs. East paradigm, putting in its place a dichotomy of liberal and illiberal, free and unfree.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
There are three crucial questions about Biden’s proposed summit that need clarification.
First, who should be invited?
China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba are clearly not democracies. The United Kingdom and Taiwan clearly are democracies. But what about those in the gray zone—such as Hungary and Poland? What about the democratic states whose leaders have anti-democratic tendencies, such as India and Brazil?
The standards set for extending an invitation will have ramifications in those countries. The president of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, would use his photo op at the summit to legitimize himself as a democratic leader. An invitation extended to India’s Narendra Modi could be seen as legitimizing his persecution of minorities—but not inviting him could be seen as questioning the legitimacy of his democratic ascent to power and, by extension, the Indian constitution. Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe not. Will inclusion make autocrats want to be more responsible or less? Will exclusion push them further into authoritarianism or make them hit the brakes? The decisions about whom to include and whom to exclude could have long-lasting consequences.
Second, what will be the substantive work of the summit?
A large part of the importance of a summit like this, of course, is in the personal relationships that it helps to form in the private conversations. It has the potential to produce economic and strategic partnerships. World leaders understand this; hopefully they will see the immense value in this aspect of the gathering. If this summit becomes a recurring event—a question that Biden should think about—it could encourage some excluded states to change their domestic behavior so they could participate in the future.
But will the meeting produce anything more formal—any kind of statement or agreement? According to Biden’s campaign website, the summit “will prioritize results by galvanizing significant new country commitments in three areas: (1) fighting corruption; (2) defending against authoritarianism, including election security; (3) advancing human rights in their own nations and abroad.”
All that sounds worthy and admirable—but it’s still vague.
Biden also intends the summit to be not just an affair of governments but also their peoples. It “will include civil society organizations” that “stand on the frontlines in defense of our democracies,” and will result in a “call to action” for the private sector, including tech companies, to “make concrete pledges for how they can ensure their algorithms and platforms are not empowering the surveillance state, facilitating repression in China and elsewhere, spreading hate, spurring people to violence, and remaining susceptible to misuse.”
Can such an agenda really be made “concrete,” rather than the sort of ambiguous blather that might be expected to emerge from Clinton Foundation or World Economic Forum conclaves?
Third, should the summit be held soon but scaled down in acknowledgement of the global pandemic, or should it be delayed until it can be held both safely and grandly?
In making a passionate case for this summit in Defense One, Kevin Baron suggested that it should happen soon, despite the restrictions associated with the pandemic. “We may not get the usual full-scale media horde, motorcades, and the cherry-on-top class photo of big-deal international summits,” Baron wrote. “But whatever is decided should be announced boldly, with great pomp and circumstance, and quickly.”
But we need the motorcades. We need a full-scale media horde and the behind-the-scenes chatter and reports. We need the glamour. Most importantly, we need the photo ops.
A small-scale meeting would not generate the buzz needed to grasp the attention of the people of the world. It might be remembered as just an oddity, a historical footnote to the pandemic.
But a big summit—held after the pandemic restrictions have been lifted, so as not to undermine Biden’s own message COVID caution, and to ensure that as many participants and reporters as possible can be included—could have a lasting effect. Previous grand summits—Westphalia, the Congress of Vienna, Yalta and Potsdam, the 1957 NATO summit in Paris—changed the world. Biden’s summit could rank among them. It will be an opportunity for democracies to stand together as equals—no matter their populations and GDPs.
And for America to once again be the first among equals. A year ago, President Donald Trump was literally laughed out of a NATO summit. The world needs the reverse: scenes of the president of the United States respected among and engaging with world leaders, nodding at what he says. A leader of leaders. After years of American retreat in the world, we need the American president there responding to history that “America, too, is back with a vengeance, and we have the full force of freedom behind us.”


thebulwark--2020-11-25--Trump’s Embarrassingly Bad Legal Case in Pennsylvania

On Saturday , a federal district court judge issued a blistering dismissal of Donald J. Trump for President , Inc. v. Kathy Boockvar .
The opinion is a lesson in elementary lawyering—a once-in-a-career missive that I assigned to my first-year law students on Monday , because it reads like a toddler ’ s “ What ’ s Wrong With This Picture ” exercise for lawyers .
No wonder that Chris Christie , who was a U.S. attorney before he was New Jersey ’ s governor , called Trump ’ s legal team a “ national embarrassment ” in the wake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The more sobering problem is that , like much of government touched by Donald Trump , the legal system has now been sullied by his spurious attacks—relying on tortured arguments and illusory facts—upon legitimately cast and counted votes .
Too bad that—so far—no lawyers have been sanctioned for abusing the courts this way .
They should be .
Let ’ s start with some Lawyering 101 .
In order to bring a valid civil lawsuit , a plaintiff needs two things in hand : a law that authorizes certain relief from a court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proven , and some preliminary facts that have been gathered in good faith to justify proceeding with the case .
Without supporting law or facts , not only will a court dismiss the lawsuit , but the lawyer , the law firm , and the client can be sanctioned for initiating the bogus case in the first place .
The Trump campaign ’ s Pennsylvania effort lacked these basics .
Someone should be held accountable .
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included the Trump campaign and two voters who claimed that their mail-in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legislature extended vote-by-mail to all registered voters in October 2019 .
In March 2020 , the legislature amended the law to add procedures for voting by mail , including the requirements that voters place ballots in secrecy envelopes and that ballots be received by county election boards by 8:00 p.m. on election day .
The statute doesn ’ t address “ curing ” ballots—inviting voters to address deficiencies in their ballots , such as lacking the required outer envelopes—but in practice , counties could decide to implement a process for doing so .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ defendant in the case—Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar—emailed counties encouraging them to “ provide information to party and candidate representatives ” about curing options .
Some counties implemented notice-and-cure procedures .
Others didn ’ t , including those in which the individual plaintiffs voted .
Team Trump filed its lawsuit on November 9 .
The defendants immediately moved the court to throw it out .
In short order the plaintiffs ’ original lawyers asked the court for permission to withdraw from the case .
The day after the response to the dismissal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filed a revised complaint , essentially alleging a constitutional equal protection claim .
The judge noted that “ a review of the redline ” —that is , the revisions made to the complaint— “ shows that Plaintiffs deleted numerous allegations that were pled in the original complaint.
” New motions to dismiss followed , as did yet another round of Trump lawyers asking to withdraw from the case .
Two of the three lawyers had been involved for only seventy-two hours , so the judge let them off the hook ; the third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only one equal protection claim left after this comedic exchange of pleadings and legal team do-si-dos , one might expect the Trump case to be especially sound .
Not so .
The judge likened the allegation to “ Frankenstein ’ s Monster ” — “ haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.
” The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment addresses discrimination by the government on the basis of immutable characteristics like race and , to a lesser extent under Supreme Court precedent , gender @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the government treats people as equally as possible .
According to the judge , the Trump campaign merely alleged the “ general thrust ” of an equal protection claim , which amounted to an assertion “ that it is unconstitutional for Pennsylvania to give states discretion to adopt a notice-and-cure policy.
” Recall that in Bush v. Gore , the Supreme Court in 2000 held that the Florida legislature ’ s failure to adopt a consistent mechanism for recounting votes in that presidential election posed constitutional equal protection problems .
It ultimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This round , the Trump campaign seized on that case to argue that “ local control is unconstitutional because it creates an arbitrary system where some persons are allowed to cure procedurally defective mail-in ballots while others are not.
” But , as the judge notes , the Supreme Court explicitly explained that its Bush v. Gore ruling held no such thing : “ The question before the Court is not whether local entities , in the exercise of their expertise , may develop different systems for implementing elections.
” An added wrinkle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Trump campaign also “ apparently recogniz [ ed ] that such a broad claim is foreclosed under ” precedent from the Third Circuit , the federal appeals court for Pennsylvania , which recently held that only the legislature had standing to bring such a lawsuit in the first place .
Undeterred , the Trump campaign tried to ride the coattails of the individual plaintiffs , arguing that because their votes were disqualified , the campaign was entitled to throw out the election results altogether .
But the individual voters weren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ votes counted .
They were seeking to cancel roughly seven million other voters ’ votes .
Of course , this “ mix-and-match ” made no logical or legal sense to the judge .
It also arguably crossed into the realm of sanctionable conduct , because lawyers can only ask federal courts to push existing law if their arguments are “ nonfrivolous.
” These did not qualify .
Simply put , the plaintiffs “ fail [ ed ] to state an equal-protection claim.
” Boockvar ’ s email “ impose [ d ] no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right to vote .
“ Defendant Counties , by implementing a notice-and-cure procedure , have in fact lifted a burden on the right to vote , ” the judge explained .
Moreover : This is not legalese .
It ’ s just simple logic .
As the judge quipped , “ it is perfectly rational for a state to provide counties discretion to notify voters that they may cure procedurally defective mail-in ballots.
” Moreover , he added , “ Plaintiffs fail to understand the relationship between right and remedy.
” Even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claim , there exist no legal grounds to “ remedy the denial of their votes by invalidating the votes of millions of others.
” Utter nonsense , all the way around .
For good measure , the Trump campaign tossed into the complaint some gripes of “ uneven treatment ” of their poll watchers .
But those claims had no factual basis whatsoever .
“ Without actually alleging that one group was treated differently than another , ” the judge wrote , the “ argument falls flat.
” When asked by the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again , the judge said no .
Enough is enough , he likely figured .
Perhaps in recognition of how weak their arguments are , Trump ’ s lawyers only appealed that part of the opinion to the Third Circuit , which is likely to summarily back the trial court ’ s refusal to allow a new round of pleadings .
The rules give the trial judge loads of discretion stop this political shell game .
Straining their core competence even further , Trump ’ s lawyers—yet another set—have asked the appellate court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only the lower court can provide .
Final grade for this ragtag band of would-be lawyers is a resounding “ F. ” The chance that the Supreme Court will step in and ignore the facts , ignore the law , and ignore the governing procedural rules to snatch the election from Joe Biden and the American people and hand it to Donald Trump is zero .
I suppose that ’ s something to be thankful for this week .

On Saturday, a federal district court judge issued a blistering dismissal of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Kathy Boockvar. The opinion is a lesson in elementary lawyering—a once-in-a-career missive that I assigned to my first-year law students on Monday, because it reads like a toddler’s “What’s Wrong With This Picture” exercise for lawyers. No wonder that Chris Christie, who was a U.S. attorney before he was New Jersey’s governor, called Trump’s legal team a “national embarrassment” in the wake of its dozens of legal failures. The more sobering problem is that, like much of government touched by Donald Trump, the legal system has now been sullied by his spurious attacks—relying on tortured arguments and illusory facts—upon legitimately cast and counted votes. Too bad that—so far—no lawyers have been sanctioned for abusing the courts this way. They should be.
Let’s start with some Lawyering 101. In order to bring a valid civil lawsuit, a plaintiff needs two things in hand: a law that authorizes certain relief from a court if a set of facts is ultimately proven, and some preliminary facts that have been gathered in good faith to justify proceeding with the case. Without supporting law or facts, not only will a court dismiss the lawsuit, but the lawyer, the law firm, and the client can be sanctioned for initiating the bogus case in the first place. The Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania effort lacked these basics. Someone should be held accountable.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included the Trump campaign and two voters who claimed that their mail-in ballots were improperly disqualified. The Pennsylvania legislature extended vote-by-mail to all registered voters in October 2019. In March 2020, the legislature amended the law to add procedures for voting by mail, including the requirements that voters place ballots in secrecy envelopes and that ballots be received by county election boards by 8:00 p.m. on election day.
The statute doesn’t address “curing” ballots—inviting voters to address deficiencies in their ballots, such as lacking the required outer envelopes—but in practice, counties could decide to implement a process for doing so. On November 2, 2020, a defendant in the case—Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar—emailed counties encouraging them to “provide information to party and candidate representatives” about curing options. Some counties implemented notice-and-cure procedures. Others didn’t, including those in which the individual plaintiffs voted.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Team Trump filed its lawsuit on November 9. The defendants immediately moved the court to throw it out. In short order the plaintiffs’ original lawyers asked the court for permission to withdraw from the case. The day after the response to the dismissal motion was due, the new lawyers filed a revised complaint, essentially alleging a constitutional equal protection claim. The judge noted that “a review of the redline”—that is, the revisions made to the complaint—“shows that Plaintiffs deleted numerous allegations that were pled in the original complaint.”
New motions to dismiss followed, as did yet another round of Trump lawyers asking to withdraw from the case. Two of the three lawyers had been involved for only seventy-two hours, so the judge let them off the hook; the third was required to carry on.
With only one equal protection claim left after this comedic exchange of pleadings and legal team do-si-dos, one might expect the Trump case to be especially sound. Not so. The judge likened the allegation to “Frankenstein’s Monster”—“haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.”
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment addresses discrimination by the government on the basis of immutable characteristics like race and, to a lesser extent under Supreme Court precedent, gender. Ideally, it operates to ensure that the government treats people as equally as possible. According to the judge, the Trump campaign merely alleged the “general thrust” of an equal protection claim, which amounted to an assertion “that it is unconstitutional for Pennsylvania to give states discretion to adopt a notice-and-cure policy.”
Recall that in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court in 2000 held that the Florida legislature’s failure to adopt a consistent mechanism for recounting votes in that presidential election posed constitutional equal protection problems. It ultimately halted the recount as a consequence. This round, the Trump campaign seized on that case to argue that “local control is unconstitutional because it creates an arbitrary system where some persons are allowed to cure procedurally defective mail-in ballots while others are not.” But, as the judge notes, the Supreme Court explicitly explained that its Bush v. Gore ruling held no such thing: “The question before the Court is not whether local entities, in the exercise of their expertise, may develop different systems for implementing elections.”
An added wrinkle was that, according to the judge, the Trump campaign also “apparently recogniz[ed] that such a broad claim is foreclosed under” precedent from the Third Circuit, the federal appeals court for Pennsylvania, which recently held that only the legislature had standing to bring such a lawsuit in the first place.
Undeterred, the Trump campaign tried to ride the coattails of the individual plaintiffs, arguing that because their votes were disqualified, the campaign was entitled to throw out the election results altogether. But the individual voters weren’t asking merely to have their two votes counted. They were seeking to cancel roughly seven million other voters’ votes. Of course, this “mix-and-match” made no logical or legal sense to the judge. It also arguably crossed into the realm of sanctionable conduct, because lawyers can only ask federal courts to push existing law if their arguments are “nonfrivolous.” These did not qualify.
Simply put, the plaintiffs “fail[ed] to state an equal-protection claim.” Boockvar’s email “impose[d] no burden” on the individual voters’ right to vote. “Defendant Counties, by implementing a notice-and-cure procedure, have in fact lifted a burden on the right to vote,” the judge explained. Moreover:
expanding the right to vote for some residents of a state does not burden the rights of others. And Plaintiffs’ claim cannot stand to the extent that it complains that “the state is not imposing a restriction on someone else’s right to vote.”
This is not legalese. It’s just simple logic. As the judge quipped, “it is perfectly rational for a state to provide counties discretion to notify voters that they may cure procedurally defective mail-in ballots.”
Moreover, he added, “Plaintiffs fail to understand the relationship between right and remedy.” Even if they had alleged a valid equal protection claim, there exist no legal grounds to “remedy the denial of their votes by invalidating the votes of millions of others.” Utter nonsense, all the way around.
For good measure, the Trump campaign tossed into the complaint some gripes of “uneven treatment” of their poll watchers. But those claims had no factual basis whatsoever. “Without actually alleging that one group was treated differently than another,” the judge wrote, the “argument falls flat.”
When asked by the Trump campaign for permission to amend their complaint again, the judge said no. Enough is enough, he likely figured. Perhaps in recognition of how weak their arguments are, Trump’s lawyers only appealed that part of the opinion to the Third Circuit, which is likely to summarily back the trial court’s refusal to allow a new round of pleadings. The rules give the trial judge loads of discretion to stop this political shell game.
Straining their core competence even further, Trump’s lawyers—yet another set—have asked the appellate court for a temporary restraining order, which only the lower court can provide. Final grade for this ragtag band of would-be lawyers is a resounding “F.”
The chance that the Supreme Court will step in and ignore the facts, ignore the law, and ignore the governing procedural rules to snatch the election from Joe Biden and the American people and hand it to Donald Trump is zero.
I suppose that’s something to be thankful for this week.


thebulwark--2020-11-26--Why You Should Buy an OLED on Black Friday

The crucial technology that could enhance the cinema experience is a COVID vaccine .
Someday ( soon , please ! )
life will return to normal and we won ’ t have to watch every bit of entertainment on our home theater systems .
Once that happens , is there any reason to watch movies in a commercial theater ?
There ’ s a lot to consider when choosing a theater over home , including the seats , the ability to pause for a bathroom break , snacks that do not require a separate line of credit to consume , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , the shared experience , and finally the sound and picture .
Most of these issues are easy for consumers to discern for themselves .
Nobody needs me to tell them the technical reasons to prefer Cheetos popcorn over their home-popped popcorn ( since Cheetos popcorn is self-evidently amazing ) .
But information comparing the image quality of a movie theater to a home system isn ’ t readily available , and it can be very difficult to compare specifications between these two situations .
So let me help with that .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sound quality , but judging sound quality always descends into the madness of the audiophiles , who ( as everyone knows ) are best avoided .
For comparison , let ’ s consider three situations : a relatively inexpensive home theater system , a fairly high-end home theater , and a standard movie theater .
I ’ m leaving out premium large-format theaters like IMAX and Dolby theaters , which have much more complicated specifications and aren ’ t as widely available across the country .
Let me just stipulate that these and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ higher technical quality in their auditoriums .
But it ’ s fair to talk about standard theaters because there ’ s a written standard for digital movie projection , called DCI ( which stands for “ Digital Cinema Initiatives , LLC , ” the company that holds and maintains the standards ) .
These “ DCI-compliant ” theaters represent all the theaters that aren ’ t premium format theaters .
Every theater is designed to meet these specifications , so ( when everything is working properly and the dust and grease are cleaned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standard movie experience regardless of which movie theater you go to .
This is obviously not completely true , and there are quality control differences from theater to theater , but we ’ ll talk about the average experience in a standard theater .
For our “ relatively ” inexpensive home theater , let ’ s go shopping with just a kilobuck .
Something like a $ 650 LCD 55-inch UHD TV and a $ 300 sound bar with subwoofer .
You can have a pretty nice setup with a streaming system built @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to buy a standard Blu-Ray player because we like physical media .
( Notice that we do not use the speakers built into any television because we have self-respect . )
Then there ’ s the high-end home theater setup , where we will spend less than five thousand dollars .
This system has a $ 2000 65-inch UHD OLED television , a $ 750 7.2 channel object-sound compatible receiver , a $ 170 UHD Blu-Ray Player , and all the rest on really nice speakers for immersive sound .
The first image-related @ @ @ @ @ @ @ screen is .
For the movie theater , this would depend on where you sit , but typically it ’ s recommended to sit about 1 to 2 “ screen-heights ” from the screen , which is usually midway back in the house .
For the both home theater setups , this means sitting 3 to 6 feet from the screen .
For a good cinema experience , sitting closer would be recommended , but nobody does that .
Most people sit about 8 feet from their screen regardless of the size of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home setup the screen is not very eye-filling .
Notice that for very wide aspect ratio movies with letterboxing , you ’ d need to sit even closer because “ screen-height ” is the height of the image on the screen , not the height of the TV .
Next let ’ s look at resolution .
Both the home theaters have 4k resolution .
The movie theater might be 4k , as almost all new projectors installed in the past few years are , but the standard only calls for 2k resolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : almost no cinema content is distributed in 4k , and very little of it is even produced at any level in 4k resolution .
The streaming services are driving 4k content creation , so more content has a 4k workflow from camera through edit to distribution , but the final content sent to theaters is almost always 2k even if the master was 4k and the projector is capable of 4k projection .
That said , a 4k projector will still produce a much nicer picture on screen than a 2k projector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ screen door ” effect caused by large blocky pixels on the screen .
In real-world audience testing , a large fraction of the viewing audience can ’ t tell the difference between 2k content and 4k content when properly projected and when the audience is sitting at typical viewing locations .
So the extra cost associated with 4k distribution has been avoided without anyone really noticing .
Also , I should point out that the DCI standard for content distribution in movie theaters does not support 4k resolution for 3D movies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For color reproduction , the technical term used is “ color space ” of the display and content .
Since high definition television came along , the standard range of colors for HDTV and Blu-ray discs has been something called “ Rec .
709.
” It ’ s a good color space that reproduces lots of color .
Digital movie theaters use a wider color standard called “ P3 , ” which can create deeper blues , reds , and greens .
P3 covers all the colors that can be seen in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pigments , but can not reproduce “ unusually ” created colors like the iridescent colors of a peacock feather or a red neon sign .
The $ 5k home theater system can cover almost all of P3 , so to any normal viewer it will present the same colors as a movie theater .
But where things get interesting is in the image contrast .
One of the things that really makes an image “ pop ” on screen is how different the bright areas are from the dark areas .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theater .
The projector itself can ’ t make the screen completely black–some light always leaks through the guts of the digital projection optics .
Also , dust on the lens or port window will cause light to scatter from bright areas of the scene and fog the dark areas , making the colors there look muddy and indistinct .
Finally , a bright image on part of the screen will light up the whole auditorium , reflect off the chairs , walls , ceiling , and people in the auditorium , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the screen and make the image a bit dull .
( Tests of the impact of audience clothing on the image quality have been performed and the results showed that what people wear to the theater has a greater impact on the image contrast than the architecture of the auditorium .
It was suggested that patrons should be given black viewing robes to improve cinema contrast .
I hope they were joking . )
Flat-panel televisions don ’ t have the same kinds of image contrast issues , but they do have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uses an LCD television , and all LCD based sets have problems producing good images in dark regions and rely on a series of backlight tricks to try to overcome this deficiency .
The result is usually … not great .
The OLED television in the $ 5k setup is , however , fantastic in this regard .
It is demonstrably superior in every way to the contrast of a movie theater , and by a large margin .
The colors and detail in dark regions of the image look deep and pure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other side of the same image .
The new technology of the last few years has been high-dynamic-range imaging ( HDR ) .
This comes in several flavors , and the image will have greatly enhanced highlights without sacrificing the dark regions .
The glints of sunlight off of water or the sharp brightness of fireworks in a dark sky are strikingly rendered .
( A Dolby senior engineer once used the example of glints from sweat beads on my bald head as a great use of HDR .
I remain unamused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not support HDR , and the currently installed projectors simply can not create that level of dynamic range .
On the other hand , both the $ 1k and the $ 5k system support HDR on paper , but the difference in quality between the two systems will be striking .
The OLED system will deliver HDR in a way that is much more vibrant , but both televisions will outperform a movie theater in terms of dynamic range .
In passing , I should mention 3D .
Most standard cinemas are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the 3D standard is written into the DCI specification ( although it is not required ) .
Neither of our example home theater systems is capable of 3D viewing , and no television manufacturer has made a 3D capable set for several years now .
There is a standard for 3D viewing in home theaters , but it ’ s only supported by standard Blu-Ray discs ( not UHD ) .
3D Blu-Ray discs of new movies are still produced , but very seldom .
Very serious home-theater nerds still set up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passive circularly polarized glasses and projectors .
But for practical purposes , 3D isn ’ t really an option at home .
The hardware for watching a movie is one part of the puzzle , but the way we actually receive the movie data is another .
For the movie theater , the movie is transmitted as something called a “ DCP , ” or Digital Cinema Package .
In our home setups this is either a Blu-ray , a UHD Blu-ray ( a/k/a , a 4K disc ) , or a streaming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are usually shipped in on hard drives containing DCPs .
Each frame of the movie is stored as a separate JPEG 2000 file .
It ’ s a high-quality format , but is getting a bit old compared with the technologies deployed at home .
While DCPs support 4k , HDR , and high frame rates , almost all movies are distributed as 2k , 24 frames-per-second , and in standard dynamic range .
DCPs have a maximum data rate of 250 megabits per second , which is quite a lot , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the final image on-screen still suffers from compression artifacts .
Blu-ray discs use a more modern compression system than DCPs , but are limited to a much lower data rate of about 40 megabits per second .
Also , Blu-ray has a narrower color range than movie theater DCPs , and is limited to 2k resolution and standard dynamic range .
UHD Blu-ray is the newer standard for Blu-ray discs , and it uses an even more modern compression system .
It also provides a higher bit rate of 100 megabits per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same as a movie theater ( P3 ) .
Also , UHD Blu-ray discs support HDR and 4k resolution .
Although the bit rate is lower than movie theaters , because they use a more efficient compression system , the image quality of UHD Blu-Ray discs in many situations exceeds the quality of a cinema DCP .
Streaming services have different quality specifications , and many can provide 4k HDR content .
The bitrate of all streaming services are quite a bit lower than even standard Blu-ray discs , and they range @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This means that streaming content will often show compression and block artifacts that would not exist on physical media .
For good quality movie presentation , physical media currently beats streaming by a very large margin .
If we take all of these metrics together , a good case can be made that a $ 1k home theater system is almost comparable to a standard movie theater , and a $ 5k home theater system is demonstrably better in every metric except for how eye-filling the screen is ( unless you sit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , the cost of a multi-thousand dollar home setup won ’ t be offset by avoiding movie tickets .
But I have to own some sort of home theater if I want to watch streaming-only titles , so it ’ s not usually an option to simply forgo a home theater and only watch movies in the cinema .
When I ’ ve asked theater chain executives about the danger of people staying home and watching movies on their own home theaters , they have often pooh-poohed the idea by pointing out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about TV killing movies since the 1960 ’ s .
But I suggest that the current threat to movie theaters is different because the technical quality at home is now objectively superior to movie theaters .
It is as if in 1960 you had a 70mm CinemaScope projector in your house instead of watching 35mm movies in the theater .
The main draws to go to movie theaters are non-technical at this point : the community experience , the big-room feel , and of course the timing of new releases in theaters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The only technical advantages are the slightly more eye-filling screen and 3D .
I believe that if movie theaters are going to compete in the future , they ’ re going to have to step up their technical game .
There are many innovations right on the edge of deployment in movie theaters , including better resolution , better dynamic range , more brilliant color , and better sound .
These technologies exist already , and the price has been coming down .
Some of these technologies would be very difficult to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make a big differentiation between the home and cinema experience .
Premium format companies have been deploying some of these technologies for a while now but they aren ’ t part of the common cinema experience .
Hopefully as the moviegoing public returns to their local theaters next year they could be greeted with dramatically improved image and sound quality that will impress .
In the meantime , there are fantastic home theater options out there .
And if you mix Cheetos in with your popcorn , you ’ ll have the whole @ @

The crucial technology that could enhance the cinema experience is a COVID vaccine. Someday (soon, please!) life will return to normal and we won’t have to watch every bit of entertainment on our home theater systems. Once that happens, is there any reason to watch movies in a commercial theater?
There’s a lot to consider when choosing a theater over home, including the seats, the ability to pause for a bathroom break, snacks that do not require a separate line of credit to consume, fellow patrons (and their unimpeachable behavior), the shared experience, and finally the sound and picture.
Most of these issues are easy for consumers to discern for themselves. Nobody needs me to tell them the technical reasons to prefer Cheetos popcorn over their home-popped popcorn (since Cheetos popcorn is self-evidently amazing). But information comparing the image quality of a movie theater to a home system isn’t readily available, and it can be very difficult to compare specifications between these two situations. So let me help with that. In passing I’ll also mention sound quality, but judging sound quality always descends into the madness of the audiophiles, who (as everyone knows) are best avoided.
For comparison, let’s consider three situations: a relatively inexpensive home theater system, a fairly high-end home theater, and a standard movie theater. I’m leaving out premium large-format theaters like IMAX and Dolby theaters, which have much more complicated specifications and aren’t as widely available across the country. Let me just stipulate that these and other high-end brands specifically work to have higher technical quality in their auditoriums.
But it’s fair to talk about standard theaters because there’s a written standard for digital movie projection, called DCI (which stands for “Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC,” the company that holds and maintains the standards). These “DCI-compliant” theaters represent all the theaters that aren’t premium format theaters. Every theater is designed to meet these specifications, so (when everything is working properly and the dust and grease are cleaned out) you should expect a reasonably standard movie experience regardless of which movie theater you go to. This is obviously not completely true, and there are quality control differences from theater to theater, but we’ll talk about the average experience in a standard theater.
For our “relatively” inexpensive home theater, let’s go shopping with just a kilobuck. Something like a $650 LCD 55-inch UHD TV and a $300 sound bar with subwoofer. You can have a pretty nice setup with a streaming system built in and have some dollars left over to buy a standard Blu-Ray player because we like physical media. (Notice that we do not use the speakers built into any television because we have self-respect.)
Then there’s the high-end home theater setup, where we will spend less than five thousand dollars. This system has a $2000 65-inch UHD OLED television, a $750 7.2 channel object-sound compatible receiver, a $170 UHD Blu-Ray Player, and all the rest on really nice speakers for immersive sound.
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The first image-related item to address is how eye-filling the screen is. For the movie theater, this would depend on where you sit, but typically it’s recommended to sit about 1 to 2 “screen-heights” from the screen, which is usually midway back in the house. For the both home theater setups, this means sitting 3 to 6 feet from the screen. For a good cinema experience, sitting closer would be recommended, but nobody does that. Most people sit about 8 feet from their screen regardless of the size of the screen, so in almost every home setup the screen is not very eye-filling. Notice that for very wide aspect ratio movies with letterboxing, you’d need to sit even closer because “screen-height” is the height of the image on the screen, not the height of the TV.
Next let’s look at resolution. Both the home theaters have 4k resolution. The movie theater might be 4k, as almost all new projectors installed in the past few years are, but the standard only calls for 2k resolution. And here’s the secret: almost no cinema content is distributed in 4k, and very little of it is even produced at any level in 4k resolution. The streaming services are driving 4k content creation, so more content has a 4k workflow from camera through edit to distribution, but the final content sent to theaters is almost always 2k even if the master was 4k and the projector is capable of 4k projection. That said, a 4k projector will still produce a much nicer picture on screen than a 2k projector for 2k content because it will reduce the “screen door” effect caused by large blocky pixels on the screen.
In real-world audience testing, a large fraction of the viewing audience can’t tell the difference between 2k content and 4k content when properly projected and when the audience is sitting at typical viewing locations. So the extra cost associated with 4k distribution has been avoided without anyone really noticing. Also, I should point out that the DCI standard for content distribution in movie theaters does not support 4k resolution for 3D movies, so all 3D movies are 2k.
For color reproduction, the technical term used is “color space” of the display and content. Since high definition television came along, the standard range of colors for HDTV and Blu-ray discs has been something called “Rec. 709.” It’s a good color space that reproduces lots of color. Digital movie theaters use a wider color standard called “P3,” which can create deeper blues, reds, and greens. P3 covers all the colors that can be seen in the real world by reflected light off pigments, but cannot reproduce “unusually” created colors like the iridescent colors of a peacock feather or a red neon sign. The $5k home theater system can cover almost all of P3, so to any normal viewer it will present the same colors as a movie theater.
But where things get interesting is in the image contrast. One of the things that really makes an image “pop” on screen is how different the bright areas are from the dark areas. This is very hard to do in a movie theater. The projector itself can’t make the screen completely black–some light always leaks through the guts of the digital projection optics. Also, dust on the lens or port window will cause light to scatter from bright areas of the scene and fog the dark areas, making the colors there look muddy and indistinct. Finally, a bright image on part of the screen will light up the whole auditorium, reflect off the chairs, walls, ceiling, and people in the auditorium, and put light back onto the dark areas of the screen and make the image a bit dull. (Tests of the impact of audience clothing on the image quality have been performed and the results showed that what people wear to the theater has a greater impact on the image contrast than the architecture of the auditorium. It was suggested that patrons should be given black viewing robes to improve cinema contrast. I hope they were joking.)
Flat-panel televisions don’t have the same kinds of image contrast issues, but they do have different ones. The $1k system uses an LCD television, and all LCD based sets have problems producing good images in dark regions and rely on a series of backlight tricks to try to overcome this deficiency. The result is usually … not great. The OLED television in the $5k setup is, however, fantastic in this regard. It is demonstrably superior in every way to the contrast of a movie theater, and by a large margin. The colors and detail in dark regions of the image look deep and pure even when very bright highlights exist on the other side of the same image.
The new technology of the last few years has been high-dynamic-range imaging (HDR). This comes in several flavors, and the image will have greatly enhanced highlights without sacrificing the dark regions. The glints of sunlight off of water or the sharp brightness of fireworks in a dark sky are strikingly rendered. (A Dolby senior engineer once used the example of glints from sweat beads on my bald head as a great use of HDR. I remain unamused by this example.) Standard theaters do not support HDR, and the currently installed projectors simply cannot create that level of dynamic range. On the other hand, both the $1k and the $5k system support HDR on paper, but the difference in quality between the two systems will be striking. The OLED system will deliver HDR in a way that is much more vibrant, but both televisions will outperform a movie theater in terms of dynamic range.
In passing, I should mention 3D. Most standard cinemas are 3D capable using circular polarized glasses, and the 3D standard is written into the DCI specification (although it is not required). Neither of our example home theater systems is capable of 3D viewing, and no television manufacturer has made a 3D capable set for several years now. There is a standard for 3D viewing in home theaters, but it’s only supported by standard Blu-Ray discs (not UHD). 3D Blu-Ray discs of new movies are still produced, but very seldom. Very serious home-theater nerds still set up 3D at home with shutter glasses or passive circularly polarized glasses and projectors. But for practical purposes, 3D isn’t really an option at home.
The hardware for watching a movie is one part of the puzzle, but the way we actually receive the movie data is another. For the movie theater, the movie is transmitted as something called a “DCP,” or Digital Cinema Package. In our home setups this is either a Blu-ray, a UHD Blu-ray (a/k/a, a 4K disc), or a streaming service.
In movie theaters, movies are usually shipped in on hard drives containing DCPs. Each frame of the movie is stored as a separate JPEG 2000 file. It’s a high-quality format, but is getting a bit old compared with the technologies deployed at home. While DCPs support 4k, HDR, and high frame rates, almost all movies are distributed as 2k, 24 frames-per-second, and in standard dynamic range. DCPs have a maximum data rate of 250 megabits per second, which is quite a lot, but because the compression system is relatively inefficient, the final image on-screen still suffers from compression artifacts.
Blu-ray discs use a more modern compression system than DCPs, but are limited to a much lower data rate of about 40 megabits per second. Also, Blu-ray has a narrower color range than movie theater DCPs, and is limited to 2k resolution and standard dynamic range.
UHD Blu-ray is the newer standard for Blu-ray discs, and it uses an even more modern compression system. It also provides a higher bit rate of 100 megabits per second, and the color space is the same as a movie theater (P3). Also, UHD Blu-ray discs support HDR and 4k resolution. Although the bit rate is lower than movie theaters, because they use a more efficient compression system, the image quality of UHD Blu-Ray discs in many situations exceeds the quality of a cinema DCP.
Streaming services have different quality specifications, and many can provide 4k HDR content. The bitrate of all streaming services are quite a bit lower than even standard Blu-ray discs, and they range from 1.5 to 10 megabits per second. This means that streaming content will often show compression and block artifacts that would not exist on physical media. For good quality movie presentation, physical media currently beats streaming by a very large margin.
If we take all of these metrics together, a good case can be made that a $1k home theater system is almost comparable to a standard movie theater, and a $5k home theater system is demonstrably better in every metric except for how eye-filling the screen is (unless you sit a bit closer). For most people, the cost of a multi-thousand dollar home setup won’t be offset by avoiding movie tickets. But I have to own some sort of home theater if I want to watch streaming-only titles, so it’s not usually an option to simply forgo a home theater and only watch movies in the cinema.
When I’ve asked theater chain executives about the danger of people staying home and watching movies on their own home theaters, they have often pooh-poohed the idea by pointing out that people have been wringing their hands about TV killing movies since the 1960s. But I suggest that the current threat to movie theaters is different because the technical quality at home is now objectively superior to movie theaters. It is as if in 1960 you had a 70mm CinemaScope projector in your house instead of watching 35mm movies in the theater.
The main draws to go to movie theaters are non-technical at this point: the community experience, the big-room feel, and of course the timing of new releases in theaters and the delay in release to home theaters. The only technical advantages are the slightly more eye-filling screen and 3D.
I believe that if movie theaters are going to compete in the future, they’re going to have to step up their technical game. There are many innovations right on the edge of deployment in movie theaters, including better resolution, better dynamic range, more brilliant color, and better sound. These technologies exist already, and the price has been coming down. Some of these technologies would be very difficult to implement in a home environment and could make a big differentiation between the home and cinema experience. Premium format companies have been deploying some of these technologies for a while now but they aren’t part of the common cinema experience. Hopefully as the moviegoing public returns to their local theaters next year they could be greeted with dramatically improved image and sound quality that will impress.
In the meantime, there are fantastic home theater options out there. And if you mix Cheetos in with your popcorn, you’ll have the whole shebang.