thebulwark--2020-07-30--Taking Up Trump’s Sec. 230 Petition Would Be a Mistake

Growing Republican participation in the war on “ big tech ” has many in the party on the precipice of sacrificing one of the Trump era ’ s more significant policy wins .
While the sky has seemingly fallen in 2020 , some Chicken Littles were proven decidedly wrong on “ net neutrality.
” Towards the end of the Obama administration , the Democratic FCC majority effectively designated Internet Service providers ( ISPs ) as public utilities to prevent the companies from manipulating Internet traffic in allegedly harmful ways .
This , despite scant evidence of such harms .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the move pointed to deleterious effects on critical network investment as a significant actual cost outweighing any theoretical benefit .
There were also concerns about inappropriate political pressure in the FCC ’ s rulemaking process .
All of this made reversing the utility designation a priority for regulatory reform-minded conservatives and the new Republican majority at the FCC .
The hyperbole over a wonky issue of regulatory classifications devised in the 1930s reached absurd levels .
CNN proclaimed the new FCC majority ’ s move as “ The end of the Internet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bomb threat was called in to the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) on the day of the vote to roll back the Obama-era rules .
Today , even in the midst of a pandemic causing massive surges in traffic , the Internet in America is not just fine , it is outperforming global networks and more people are enjoying faster connections than ever .
It is the defining victory for the FCC ’ s current Republican majority , and arguably one of the crown jewels of the broader Trump-era deregulatory push @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gotten in the way .
Now the FCC has been asked to join the Trump administration ’ s war on Silicon Valley via a recent Executive Order and a subsequent petition for rulemaking from the Department of Commerce regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act .
Section 230 is a part of federal law law that provides critical liability protections for web services through a simple premise : You are responsible for what you say and do online , not the website where you do it .
Trump Republicans have targeted Section @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against web services like Google , Facebook , and Twitter over allegations of bias against conservatives .
If the current Republican FCC majority does as the White House wishes , and uses their regulatory power to gut Section 230 , they will sacrifice the credibility of key policy arguments behind the rollback of the net neutrality rules .
Not only that , it would make it almost impossible for right-of-center advocates to credibly defend retaining the current light-touch regulatory framework in anything resembling layman ’ s language .
First there is the matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ independent regulatory agency .
The president appoints , and the Senate confirms the commissioners , but otherwise does not get to call the shots .
Republicans were justifiably outraged when Obama-era FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler did a 180 on utility-style classification of ISPs in response to clear White House pressure .
Now , the Trump White House is openly leaning on the FCC to gut Section 230 , albeit in a more formal fashion .
For an administration that dedicated its early years to wrangling in the expansive administrative state , this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wins in the waning innings of the game .
The practical policy parallels are undeniable .
In a nutshell , the progressive argument for net neutrality is that a few large ISPs could potentially block , throttle , and prioritize certain web data and therefore they should be designated as public utilities .
Conservatives correctly responded that these are private companies entitled to do what they want with their property and that we should instead focus on lowering barriers to competition .
The conservative argument against big tech ?
A few large companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information while prioritizing their own products and services and therefore they should be treated as “ public squares.
” Of course , there will be plenty of technical and legal wonks highlighting various differences between the ISP market and the big tech companies .
The problem is that this kind of hair splitting doesn ’ t matter much in the court of public opinion .
Progressives and conservatives alike perceive a problem of a handful of big companies having the ability to control the flow of information online ; they just happen to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The question then becomes , do big companies with said ability still enjoy the full set of speech , association , and property rights afforded to other private citizens and entities ?
Whether it ’ s next year or five years from now , the net neutrality fight will likely rear its ugly head once again .
It ’ s hard to imagine a world where conservatives are going to win that battle while backed into the corner of “ Facebook is a public square but Comcast is not a public utility.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The current FCC majority would be wise to do what their predecessors should have done , which is to reassert the commission ’ s independence from the White House and sit out the Section 230 fight that Trump and his allies so desperately want .

Growing Republican participation in the war on “big tech” has many in the party on the precipice of sacrificing one of the Trump era’s more significant policy wins. While the sky has seemingly fallen in 2020, some Chicken Littles were proven decidedly wrong on “net neutrality.”
Towards the end of the Obama administration, the Democratic FCC majority effectively designated Internet Service providers (ISPs) as public utilities to prevent the companies from manipulating Internet traffic in allegedly harmful ways. This, despite scant evidence of such harms. They called this “net neutrality.” Critics of the move pointed to deleterious effects on critical network investment as a significant actual cost outweighing any theoretical benefit. There were also concerns about inappropriate political pressure in the FCC’s rulemaking process. All of this made reversing the utility designation a priority for regulatory reform-minded conservatives and the new Republican majority at the FCC.
The hyperbole over a wonky issue of regulatory classifications devised in the 1930s reached absurd levels. CNN proclaimed the new FCC majority’s move as “The end of the Internet as we know it,” and a bomb threat was called in to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the day of the vote to roll back the Obama-era rules.
Today, even in the midst of a pandemic causing massive surges in traffic, the Internet in America is not just fine, it is outperforming global networks and more people are enjoying faster connections than ever. It is the defining victory for the FCC’s current Republican majority, and arguably one of the crown jewels of the broader Trump-era deregulatory push.
Alas, the culture war has gotten in the way.
Now the FCC has been asked to join the Trump administration’s war on Silicon Valley via a recent Executive Order and a subsequent petition for rulemaking from the Department of Commerce regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 is a part of federal law law that provides critical liability protections for web services through a simple premise: You are responsible for what you say and do online, not the website where you do it.
Trump Republicans have targeted Section 230 as a way to exact revenge against web services like Google, Facebook, and Twitter over allegations of bias against conservatives.
If the current Republican FCC majority does as the White House wishes, and uses their regulatory power to gut Section 230, they will sacrifice the credibility of key policy arguments behind the rollback of the net neutrality rules. Not only that, it would make it almost impossible for right-of-center advocates to credibly defend retaining the current light-touch regulatory framework in anything resembling layman’s language.
First there is the matter of process. The FCC is an independent regulatory agency. The president appoints, and the Senate confirms the commissioners, but otherwise does not get to call the shots. Republicans were justifiably outraged when Obama-era FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler did a 180 on utility-style classification of ISPs in response to clear White House pressure. Now, the Trump White House is openly leaning on the FCC to gut Section 230, albeit in a more formal fashion. For an administration that dedicated its early years to wrangling in the expansive administrative state, this is throwing away one of its few early wins in the waning innings of the game.
The practical policy parallels are undeniable. In a nutshell, the progressive argument for net neutrality is that a few large ISPs could potentially block, throttle, and prioritize certain web data and therefore they should be designated as public utilities. Conservatives correctly responded that these are private companies entitled to do what they want with their property and that we should instead focus on lowering barriers to competition. The conservative argument against big tech? A few large companies are deleting or deprioritizing certain accounts and information while prioritizing their own products and services and therefore they should be treated as “public squares.”
Sound familiar?
Of course, there will be plenty of technical and legal wonks highlighting various differences between the ISP market and the big tech companies. The problem is that this kind of hair splitting doesn’t matter much in the court of public opinion. Progressives and conservatives alike perceive a problem of a handful of big companies having the ability to control the flow of information online; they just happen to be a different set of companies. The question then becomes, do big companies with said ability still enjoy the full set of speech, association, and property rights afforded to other private citizens and entities?
Whether it’s next year or five years from now, the net neutrality fight will likely rear its ugly head once again. It’s hard to imagine a world where conservatives are going to win that battle while backed into the corner of “Facebook is a public square but Comcast is not a public utility.” Those arguments don’t add up.
The current FCC majority would be wise to do what their predecessors should have done, which is to reassert the commission’s independence from the White House and sit out the Section 230 fight that Trump and his allies so desperately want.


Trump’s Unconstitutional Census

In June 2019 , the U.S. Supreme Court issued a politically controversial decision in Department of Commerce v. New York , holding that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross ’ s plan to ask about American citizenship on the U.S. Census form was arbitrary and capricious , in violation of the federal statute that governs agency decision-making .
This was a blow for the Trump administration , which was trying to gin up an excuse to exclude non-citizens from the census count , depleting their home states ’ representation in Congress as well as their share of the appropriations pie .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ high court to be the end of the story—and the next chapter began last week , when Trump issued a presidential directive entitled “ Memorandum on Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census.
” It attempts to usurp from the U.S. Supreme Court the power to decide what the Constitution means when it talks about the census and apportionment .
In the world of constitutional scholarship , this is a big deal , which is why Attorney General Bill Barr was asked about it by House Democrats during his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this Trumpian power grab ignores established law .
Keep in mind that law in the United States is a hierarchy .
The Constitution is at the top , then statutes passed by Congress , then regulations and other rules passed by federal agencies , and then decisions issued by courts ( unless they ’ re interpreting the Constitution ) .
The Constitution is the boss of legislation , which is the boss of regulations , and so on .
By the same token , an agency can not issue a regulation that overrides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress can not pass an unconstitutional law .
States each have their own constitutions and sets of laws too , but those can ’ t conflict with the U.S. Constitution , either , or in many instances , with federal statutory law .
It turns out that the Constitution has a fair amount to say about Trump ’ s new memorandum on the census .
The Constitution requires an “ Enumeration ” of the population every 10 years , to be made “ in such Manner ” as Congress “ shall by Law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress tasked the commerce secretary with conducting the decennial census “ in such form and content as he may determine ” —thus handing the census baton to a member of the president ’ s cabinet .
But because the census power ultimately derives from Congress under the Constitution , the commerce secretary is bound to comply with statutory law when he conducts the census .
That includes the Administrative Procedure Act , which basically requires agencies to have sound reasons for making policy decisions that smack of lawmaking .
In the Department of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that when Ross decided to ask about citizenship , he did so for bogus reasons , and sent him back to the drawing board .
Note that the Constitution ’ s Fourteenth Amendment goes on to state that “ Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers , counting the whole number of persons in each State ” ( emphasis added ) .
What this means is that the commerce secretary must count actual heads—not just citizens or vegetarians or Mayflower descendants .
Neither Congress nor the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because the Constitution is the ultimate boss of all laws .
To be sure , the Supreme Court has , as the chief justice noted in his 2019 opinion , “ assumed that Congress has the power to use the census for information-gathering purposes ” ( and to hand that power off to the commerce secretary ) but that ’ s a far cry from allowing Congress or anybody else to use that data to limit which “ whole persons ” can be counted for purposes of dividing up the 435 members of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Enter Trump ’ s memorandum from last week .
In it , he admits that the Constitution says what it says , but weakly claims that its reference to “ whole number of persons ” is ambiguous as it “ does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base.
” But the Supreme Court already observed in 2016 that “ States must draw congressional districts with populations as close to perfect equality as possible ” and that “ today , all States use total-population numbers from the census @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Court also held in 1982 that an undocumented individual living in the United States “ is a ‘ person ’ in any ordinary sense of that term , ” “ whatever his status under the immigration laws.
” In short , there has never been a legitimate argument raised that the Constitution only defines “ whole persons ” as only including citizens .
Until Trump .
Trump ’ s lawyers ( whose salaries include dollars supplied by non-citizens who pay taxes ) go on in the memorandum to posit that the Constitution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of persons ” doesn ’ t actually mean “ every individual physically present within a State ’ s boundaries.
” Instead , they argue , it means “ inhabitants , ” which—conveniently—they announce is a term that the executive branch has full discretion to define .
Despite the plain language of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent , then , Trump has endowed himself with power to define “ whole persons ” so as “ to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.
” Or to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , people in the country illegally are not whole persons according to Trump .
( But we knew that already . )
This is a problem for the separation of powers because the census power belongs to Congress , not the president , and because the Supreme Court has made clear that the president ’ s power to implement the Census Act is not unlimited , and because the Supreme Court has already interpreted apportionment to capture entire populations and to define “ person ” in the “ ordinary sense ” that includes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Lawsuits challenging the memorandum as unconstitutional are already pending .
Yet this is cold comfort , as it ’ s hard to fathom that Trump cares what the Supreme Court might say next if he doesn ’ t seem to care much about what it has said already .
The answer to this abomination—once again—must lie , if anywhere , at the ballot box in November .

In June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a politically controversial decision in Department of Commerce v. New York, holding that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’s plan to ask about American citizenship on the U.S. Census form was arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the federal statute that governs agency decision-making. This was a blow for the Trump administration, which was trying to gin up an excuse to exclude non-citizens from the census count, depleting their home states’ representation in Congress as well as their share of the appropriations pie.
No one expected the rebuke from the high court to be the end of the story—and the next chapter began last week, when Trump issued a presidential directive entitled “Memorandum on Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census.” It attempts to usurp from the U.S. Supreme Court the power to decide what the Constitution means when it talks about the census and apportionment.
In the world of constitutional scholarship, this is a big deal, which is why Attorney General Bill Barr was asked about it by House Democrats during his testimony on Tuesday. And again, this Trumpian power grab ignores established law.
Keep in mind that law in the United States is a hierarchy. The Constitution is at the top, then statutes passed by Congress, then regulations and other rules passed by federal agencies, and then decisions issued by courts (unless they’re interpreting the Constitution). The Constitution is the boss of legislation, which is the boss of regulations, and so on. By the same token, an agency cannot issue a regulation that overrides a statute or the Constitution, and Congress cannot pass an unconstitutional law. States each have their own constitutions and sets of laws too, but those can’t conflict with the U.S. Constitution, either, or in many instances, with federal statutory law.
It turns out that the Constitution has a fair amount to say about Trump’s new memorandum on the census.
The Constitution requires an “Enumeration” of the population every 10 years, to be made “in such Manner” as Congress “shall by Law direct.” Under the Census Act, Congress tasked the commerce secretary with conducting the decennial census “in such form and content as he may determine”—thus handing the census baton to a member of the president’s cabinet. But because the census power ultimately derives from Congress under the Constitution, the commerce secretary is bound to comply with statutory law when he conducts the census. That includes the Administrative Procedure Act, which basically requires agencies to have sound reasons for making policy decisions that smack of lawmaking. In the Department of Commerce case, the Supreme Court held that when Ross decided to ask about citizenship, he did so for bogus reasons, and sent him back to the drawing board.
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…
Note that the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment goes on to state that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State” (emphasis added). What this means is that the commerce secretary must count actual heads—not just citizens or vegetarians or Mayflower descendants. Neither Congress nor the president nor Wilbur Ross can alter that requirement because the Constitution is the ultimate boss of all laws.
To be sure, the Supreme Court has, as the chief justice noted in his 2019 opinion, “assumed that Congress has the power to use the census for information-gathering purposes” (and to hand that power off to the commerce secretary) but that’s a far cry from allowing Congress or anybody else to use that data to limit which “whole persons” can be counted for purposes of dividing up the 435 members of the House of Representatives among the states.
Enter Trump’s memorandum from last week. In it, he admits that the Constitution says what it says, but weakly claims that its reference to “whole number of persons” is ambiguous as it “does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base.” But the Supreme Court already observed in 2016 that “States must draw congressional districts with populations as close to perfect equality as possible” and that “today, all States use total-population numbers from the census when designing congressional and state-legislative districts.” The Court also held in 1982 that an undocumented individual living in the United States “is a ‘person’ in any ordinary sense of that term,” “whatever his status under the immigration laws.”
In short, there has never been a legitimate argument raised that the Constitution only defines “whole persons” as only including citizens. Until Trump.
Trump’s lawyers (whose salaries include dollars supplied by non-citizens who pay taxes) go on in the memorandum to posit that the Constitution’s reference to “whole number of persons” doesn’t actually mean “every individual physically present within a State’s boundaries.” Instead, they argue, it means “inhabitants,” which—conveniently—they announce is a term that the executive branch has full discretion to define.
Bingo!
Despite the plain language of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, then, Trump has endowed himself with power to define “whole persons” so as “to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.” Or to put it in distasteful, bottom-line terms, people in the country illegally are not whole persons according to Trump. (But we knew that already.)
This is a problem for the separation of powers because the census power belongs to Congress, not the president, and because the Supreme Court has made clear that the president’s power to implement the Census Act is not unlimited, and because the Supreme Court has already interpreted apportionment to capture entire populations and to define “person” in the
“ordinary sense” that includes undocumented individuals living in the United States.
Lawsuits challenging the memorandum as unconstitutional are already pending. Yet this is cold comfort, as it’s hard to fathom that Trump cares what the Supreme Court might say next if he doesn’t seem to care much about what it has said already.
The answer to this abomination—once again—must lie, if anywhere, at the ballot box in November.


thebulwark--2020-07-30--The Ghost of Mike Dukakis

The Ghost of Mike Dukakis

I woke up the other night in the midst of a godawful nightmare .
I saw a terrible ghost .
As my eyes opened in raw fear , I could only scream a few horrible words : That ’ s the problem with having been in the campaign business for 30 years .
You ’ ve seen a bunch , and actually remember a lot of it .
I recall the summer and fall of 1988 very well .
I was on the Bush for President media team , working under Roger Ailes .
I still remember sitting on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night as we rolled slowly through Boston ’ s then-infamous Combat Zone filming various irate creatures of the night screaming at us , and more importantly , at our cameras .
Alex Castellanos and I were there , brimming with happy rascality as we collected footage for a long form television spot we were making for the Bush campaign about the Massachusetts “ miracle ” under Governor Mike Dukakis .
As a beer bottle flew past our heads , Alex and I ducked and traded a grin .
These spots were gon na @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back then most expert observers in DC thought that the Bush campaign was hopeless .
A Gallup poll of July 1988 had Mike Dukakis with an invincible 17-point lead over Vice President George H.W .
Bush .
Other early polls in June and July also showed Dukakis in front , by anywhere from 5 to 14 points .
But then , Mike Dukakis got defined .
Now , every campaign is different and the future is never the prisoner of the past .
.
.
but I find myself a little worried as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and winking and nudging the current crop of “ Trump is finished ” summer polling has encouraged .
No doubt Trump is in big trouble .
And it is true that summer polling showing one candidate with a big lead in other presidential elections—1984 and 1972 for example—has held up and delivered a landslide .
But in both those cases it was the incumbent president who held the commanding lead .
For a challenger to be this far ahead , this early , and then hold that lead down the stretch ?
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather new .
Now , have no doubt : I ’ d much rather be Biden than Trump .
If the election were held next week I am very confident Trump would lose in a landslide .
( And the R ’ s would probably lose the Senate , too . )
In fact , I ’ ve publicly predicted Trump is likely to lose reelection since the day he was sworn in , and the political news for the GOP has indeed been awful in every election since Trump was inaugurated .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a big campaign reset , the American people have been ready to fire The Donald for a long time .
The president ’ s COVID-19 fiasco and only made that urge even stronger and more urgent .
But the future—in politics especially—is never certain .
There are just enough loose bolts on the Biden Express to make wise Trump opponents wary and encourage them to not let up one bit .
First , Joe Biden is a good man and a patriot , but has so far has been an imperfect candidate .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of fierce competition , he did poorly despite starting from a commanding position .
Now , as a nominee who never quit and ultimately won the Democratic nomination with a lot of grit , I think Biden has significantly improved as a candidate .
But we have not seen enough yet to know for sure .
Second , the three biggest defining events of the Biden campaign are yet to occur : Each could present an opportunity for the flailing and so far incompetent Trump campaign to seize a Biden misstep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s bungling of the COVID-19 pandemic and onto a hostile examination of Joe Biden .
Biden is unlike Mike Dukakis in that he has been a major national figure for a long time .
But he is like Mike Dukakis in that , at this point in the race , he is not yet very well-defined .
We ’ ll see how Biden does .
He has a far smarter , more professional operation than Trump ’ s clown academy .
But as I learned as the camera rolled from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the outfit that defines its opponent best in the last two months of the campaign has the decisive advantage on Election Day .
I think Biden will win .
It could well be a landslide .
But most of the real campaign has yet to be fought .
Biden supporters would do well to forget these summer polls .

I woke up the other night in the midst of a godawful nightmare. I saw a terrible ghost.
As my eyes opened in raw fear, I could only scream a few horrible words:
Dukakis!
Poll Lead!!
In July!!!
That’s the problem with having been in the campaign business for 30 years. You’ve seen a bunch, and actually remember a lot of it.
I recall the summer and fall of 1988 very well. I was on the Bush for President media team, working under Roger Ailes. I still remember sitting on the roof of a station wagon late one night as we rolled slowly through Boston’s then-infamous Combat Zone filming various irate creatures of the night screaming at us, and more importantly, at our cameras. Alex Castellanos and I were there, brimming with happy rascality as we collected footage for a long form television spot we were making for the Bush campaign about the Massachusetts “miracle” under Governor Mike Dukakis.
As a beer bottle flew past our heads, Alex and I ducked and traded a grin. These spots were gonna make a dent.
Of course, back then most expert observers in DC thought that the Bush campaign was hopeless. A Gallup poll of July 1988 had Mike Dukakis with an invincible 17-point lead over Vice President George H.W. Bush. Other early polls in June and July also showed Dukakis in front, by anywhere from 5 to 14 points.
But then, Mike Dukakis got defined.
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…
Now, every campaign is different and the future is never the prisoner of the past . . . but I find myself a little worried as I see the growing level of grinning and winking and nudging the current crop of “Trump is finished” summer polling has encouraged.
No doubt Trump is in big trouble. And it is true that summer polling showing one candidate with a big lead in other presidential elections—1984 and 1972 for example—has held up and delivered a landslide. But in both those cases it was the incumbent president who held the commanding lead. For a challenger to be this far ahead, this early, and then hold that lead down the stretch? That may indeed happen, but it is rather new.
Now, have no doubt: I’d much rather be Biden than Trump. If the election were held next week I am very confident Trump would lose in a landslide. (And the R’s would probably lose the Senate, too.)
In fact, I’ve publicly predicted Trump is likely to lose reelection since the day he was sworn in, and the political news for the GOP has indeed been awful in every election since Trump was inaugurated. I have no doubt that, barring a big campaign reset, the American people have been ready to fire The Donald for a long time. The president’s COVID-19 fiasco and only made that urge even stronger and more urgent.
But the future—in politics especially—is never certain.
There are just enough loose bolts on the Biden Express to make wise Trump opponents wary and encourage them to not let up one bit.
First, Joe Biden is a good man and a patriot, but has so far has been an imperfect candidate. In Iowa and New Hampshire, facing a lot of fierce competition, he did poorly despite starting from a commanding position. Now, as a nominee who never quit and ultimately won the Democratic nomination with a lot of grit, I think Biden has significantly improved as a candidate. But we have not seen enough yet to know for sure.
Second, the three biggest defining events of the Biden campaign are yet to occur:
The VP choice
The Convention
And the Debate
Each could present an opportunity for the flailing and so far incompetent Trump campaign to seize a Biden misstep and wrench the campaign focus away from Trump’s bungling of the COVID-19 pandemic and onto a hostile examination of Joe Biden.
Biden is unlike Mike Dukakis in that he has been a major national figure for a long time. But he is like Mike Dukakis in that, at this point in the race, he is not yet very well-defined.
We’ll see how Biden does.
He has a far smarter, more professional operation than Trump’s clown academy. But as I learned as the camera rolled from the roof of that station wagon in 1988, the outfit that defines its opponent best in the last two months of the campaign has the decisive advantage on Election Day.
I think Biden will win. It could well be a landslide. But most of the real campaign has yet to be fought.
Biden supporters would do well to forget these summer polls.


thebulwark--2020-07-31--Trumpers Know Comedy and It’s Making Us Nervous

Some on the right have accused us Never Trumpers of being a bit too severe with our focus on banal ephemera such as “ norms ” and “ institutions ” and “ democracy.
” ( SNOOZE . )
They argue that we concern ourselves with matters such as “ governance , ” rather than keeping our eye on the ball of what best owns the libs .
We ’ ve been called “ coronabros ” for caring a wee bit too much about mass death and economic decay , rather than throwing caution to the wind and gathering in poorly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another .
And to be fair , our critics do have a point with these charges .
While we ’ ve indulged in a joke from time to time , our oeuvre does tend towards the austere .
When it comes to matters of burlesque and buffoonery we must instead defer to the experts , the Original Kings of Comedy—the Senate GOP Conference and their cheerleaders in the conservative media .
Yes these folks truly have a refined ear for a wisecrack , and their comedic acumen is making lefties nervous .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump blowhards like the co-founder of the Federalist Society and recognized some good , old-fashioned tomfoolery when President Trump unleashed another hot fire tweet yesterday morning suggesting that the 2020 vote will be “ fraudulent ” and we should “ delay the election.
” “ I think it ’ s a joke , ” said Big John Cornyn , somebody who knows his way around a cheeky tweet about a matter of life or death .
North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer went further , “ I laughed , I thought my gosh this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , except real people .
And it was clever.
” Clever ?
Huh .
I have to admit , I ’ m not seeing it .
The same morning as Trump ’ s tweet about delaying the election we received news that the economy is in tatters .
An ally of the president had succumbed to the coronavirus , another of the over 150,000 Americans dead .
A civil rights icon whose life ’ s work was fighting for voting rights for all Americans was being eulogized .
Meanwhile , the leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voter fraud and canceling elections .
Maybe the joke is in there somewhere .
Doesn ’ t land for me .
But hey , that ’ s a tedious Never Trump scold for you .
Maybe if we dissect the tweet we can find the humor .
The good news is that the president of the United States pinned this dire warning to the top of his Twitter home page—usually the place for comedy—so it can be found easily .
The most familiar type of humor for me is wordplay .
Who doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But not seeing anything here in that department .
The tweet also seems to be absent both a set-up and a punch line .
I don ’ t believe it to be satire .
Deepak Chopra said that a joke is when “ the deepest part of your consciousness—your soul—recognizes a paradox and laughs.
” The paradox here may be that this callous buffoon is in tweeting nonsense during a time of grave national concern , but that doesn ’ t seem to be the type of thing that Kevin Cramer would laugh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Then again , this isn ’ t the first time such a joke has flown over our heads .
The president recently “ joked ” about how , as the death toll from the coronavirus was skyrocketing , he slowed down the testing regime because all the charts they were showing on his favorite TV shows were making him look bad .
His spokesperson tried to explain that knee-slapper on CNN and , well .
.
.
Got ta say , still not seeing it .
Which leaves me with the old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table , then you ARE the sucker.
” Maybe it ’ s ME who is the butt of the joke here .
Maybe the clever part is that the man presiding over compounding crises is such a master troll that he has gotten people who care about our democracy all hot and bothered over something that he ’ s too hapless to actually act on while giving millions of his supporters the impression that their preferred candidate was illegally robbed of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our institutions and using that grievance to keep his grip on their loyalty even in defeat .

Some on the right have accused us Never Trumpers of being a bit too severe with our focus on banal ephemera such as “norms” and “institutions” and “democracy.” (SNOOZE.) They argue that we concern ourselves with matters such as “governance,” rather than keeping our eye on the ball of what best owns the libs. We’ve been called “coronabros” for caring a wee bit too much about mass death and economic decay, rather than throwing caution to the wind and gathering in poorly ventilated auditoriums to breathe all over one another.
And to be fair, our critics do have a point with these charges. While we’ve indulged in a joke from time to time, our oeuvre does tend towards the austere.
When it comes to matters of burlesque and buffoonery we must instead defer to the experts, the Original Kings of Comedy—the Senate GOP Conference and their cheerleaders in the conservative media. Yes these folks truly have a refined ear for a wisecrack, and their comedic acumen is making lefties nervous.
It was these senators who brushed off Never Trump blowhards like the co-founder of the Federalist Society and recognized some good, old-fashioned tomfoolery when President Trump unleashed another hot fire tweet yesterday morning suggesting that the 2020 vote will be “fraudulent” and we should “delay the election.”
“I think it’s a joke,” said Big John Cornyn, somebody who knows his way around a cheeky tweet about a matter of life or death. North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer went further, “I laughed, I thought my gosh this is going to consume a lot of people, except real people. And it was clever.”
Clever? Huh. I have to admit, I’m not seeing it.
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…
The same morning as Trump’s tweet about delaying the election we received news that the economy is in tatters. An ally of the president had succumbed to the coronavirus, another of the over 150,000 Americans dead. A civil rights icon whose life’s work was fighting for voting rights for all Americans was being eulogized. Meanwhile, the leader of the free world was vamping about voter fraud and canceling elections.
Maybe the joke is in there somewhere. Doesn’t land for me. But hey, that’s a tedious Never Trump scold for you.
Maybe if we dissect the tweet we can find the humor. The good news is that the president of the United States pinned this dire warning to the top of his Twitter home page—usually the place for comedy—so it can be found easily.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
The most familiar type of humor for me is wordplay. Who doesn’t love a good pun? But not seeing anything here in that department.
The tweet also seems to be absent both a set-up and a punch line.
There’s no physical humor or scatology.
I don’t believe it to be satire.
Deepak Chopra said that a joke is when “the deepest part of your consciousness—your soul—recognizes a paradox and laughs.” The paradox here may be that this callous buffoon is in tweeting nonsense during a time of grave national concern, but that doesn’t seem to be the type of thing that Kevin Cramer would laugh about.
It’s a mystery. Then again, this isn’t the first time such a joke has flown over our heads. The president recently “joked” about how, as the death toll from the coronavirus was skyrocketing, he slowed down the testing regime because all the charts they were showing on his favorite TV shows were making him look bad.
His spokesperson tried to explain that knee-slapper on CNN and, well . . .
Gotta say, still not seeing it.
Which leaves me with the old Rounders maxim: “If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.”
Maybe it’s ME who is the butt of the joke here.
Maybe the clever part is that the man presiding over compounding crises is such a master troll that he has gotten people who care about our democracy all hot and bothered over something that he’s too hapless to actually act on while giving millions of his supporters the impression that their preferred candidate was illegally robbed of his re-election, weakening their trust in our institutions and using that grievance to keep his grip on their loyalty even in defeat.
Hilarious.


thebulwark--2020-07-31--Social Media Is the Problem

Social Media Is the Problem

It ’ s 1995 .
A man stands on a busy street corner yelling vaguely incoherent things at the passersby .
He ’ s holding a placard that says “ THE END IS NIGH .
REPENT.
” You come upon this guy while out getting the paper .
How do you feel about him ?
You might feel some flavor of annoyance .
Most people would also feel compassion for him as he is clearly suffering from something .
No reasonable person would think of convincing this man that his point of view is incorrect .
This isn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This guy doesn ’ t kill at parties .
This guy doesn ’ t go to parties .
He ’ s only out here because he ’ s not violent and there ’ s no room for him at Bellevue .
In terms of who this guy is and who you are absolutely nothing has changed .
And yet here you are—arguing with him on Twitter or Facebook .
And you , yourself , are being brought to the brink of insanity .
But you can ’ t seem to stop .
You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the other people responding and your cortisol and adrenaline levels are spiking and your blood pressure is rising and you ’ re suddenly at risk of a heart attack .
And the ugly truth is that you ’ ve become addicted to arguing with the “ End Is Nigh ” sandwich board guy .
The guy you used to quietly skirt , you now seek him out and you bring your friends and for some idiotic reason you think that if you just post a little bit more you ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Or put him in his place .
Or maybe you don ’ t even know why you ’ re doing it .
But you can ’ t stop , won ’ t stop .
Back in 2011 Chamath Palihapitiya left Facebook and said of his former company , “ It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.
” Keep in mind that was 2011 .
Which we now think of as a lost Golden Age .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that all modern social , political , and sociological ills can be traced to social media .
It is single-handedly responsible for the tearing apart of our social fabric which Palihapitiya so presciently predicted .
It ’ s not “ part of ” the problem .
It is the problem : An insidious malware slowly corrupting our society in ways that are extremely difficult to quantify , but the effects of which are evident all around us .
Anti-vaccers , anti-maskers , Qanon , cancel-culture , Alex Jones , flat-earthers , racists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Twitter stylings of our Dear Leader .
All this nonsense is here for your endless irritation , consternation , bewilderment and ultimately outrage .
And it ’ s all brought to you exclusively and specifically by social media .
It is exacerbated by two things : ( 1 ) The fact that your phone in your pocket guarantees that you can get your fix at every minute of every day .
( 2 ) The unfortunate reality that media organizations are so starved for content that every time something outrageous garners a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ project and amplify it out to the masses .
However , if we compare this with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse , social media is Death .
The other horsemen are playing supporting roles but without Death their effects would not be particularly detrimental .
Before the internet people socialized in relatively small , geographically constrained groups .
They had friends and colleagues and relatives and they communicated with these people largely in person or via the phone using the rules of engagement that have been evolving generations .
These include facial movements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cues such as “ does this person look and smell like they haven ’ t showered for a week ?
” These are tried and true and essential components to a healthy social “ network.
” In such an environment the only place for the “ End Is Nigh ” guy to get an audience is on the street corner .
He wouldn ’ t have been allowed to do this at work during his smoke break .
He probably didn ’ t have friends who would grant him an audience at birthday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insanity was relegated to the corner on which he stood .
And we ignored him .
But along came the internet and the EIN guy became an anonymous Internet denizen who could insert himself into conversations across the globe .
First he did this on listservs and chat rooms and message boards .
Then he did it in the comments sections .
And with the advent of social media , he did it right in your face , courtesy of The Algorithm ( peace be upon it ) .
But you know how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nobody knows you ’ re a dog .
And so now the EIN guy isn ’ t a dude wearing a sandwich board on a street corner .
He ’ s in your feed and basically looks like everyone else .
He uses the same fonts as you .
His icon can be just as cute as your icon .
His rants are laundered by the mediation of the internet so that you can ’ t see his deranged glare , and vocal tone , and the fact that he hasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is now just part of the crowd .
And what ’ s worse , while every town has one EIN guy , the internet has allowed all of the EIN guys to find each other so that now they think they ’ re just as normal as everyone else .
And what are you supposed to make of their little brigade ?
Now you ’ re doubting yourself , too , because it ’ s one thing to ignore one crazy guy—but a crazy movement ?
No—you can ’ t ignore that—it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to quash it before it gets out of control and you don ’ t even realize that instead of quashing it , you ’ re now part of it .
Because what EIN guy always wanted—more than anything—was for the normies to stop walking past him .
He wanted them to notice him and argue with him because that would be a sign that what he had to say was important and legitimate .
And here you are .
Standing on the corner .
Arguing with the crazy guy wearing the sandwich board @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Which , actually , kind of makes you look like a crazy , too .
Social media has made it possible for deranged people to break through what I think of as the holistic herd immunity of sanity which geography has traditionally conferred .
And once they broke through , thanks to social media , the traditional media decided to start elevating them .
Perhaps you have noticed that journalistic outlets now rush out to broadcast anything weird enough to draw an audience .
Which , practically speaking , means taking people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for all to see .
Which is a form of validation , even if the media disagrees with them .
Because otherwise , why would they even bother presenting it as a debate ?
Maybe the earth is flat ?
!
Maybe Qanon is right ?
!
Maybe vaccines are super dangerous ?
!
Of course , these are patently insane ideas that don ’ t deserve consideration .
But there you are considering them .
And it annoys you and you turn to your spouse and say , “ What the heck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could believe this nonsense ?
Why the hell are these people being quoted on TV ?
” And all the time your cortisol levels are going up , up , up .
Have you heard of “ incels ” ?
If you haven ’ t I ’ m genuinely sorry to bespoil you of your ignorance .
The incels were a big deal a couple years ago .
They are ( were ? )
a cohort of college-age men who are celibate and that celibacy is involuntary and they were pissed that women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So they posted really ugly diatribes that explain how the women who rejected them were just angry self-righteous “ bitches ” out to wield power .
Their language was substantially more acerbic ; I ’ m sure you can imagine .
And right on cue the world ’ s media swooped in to see what the fuss was all about and re-broadcast their concerns to the world .
And before you knew it , the incels were a movement .
Social media made those people , full stop .
No social media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not here to outrage you about the incels—they ’ re so 2018 .
My point is that the incel phenomenon is just one molecule of lead in our water and we ’ re all drinking from the heavily leaded well of social media .
Leave all social media .
Try it for one month .
Depending on how addicted you are , it might be hard .
You can ’ t peek .
Uninstall it .
Add a blocker to your browser so that it won ’ t let you see TwitterDOTcom .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ incels and the Qanon imbeciles and the people who think the Earth is flat—they aren ’ t going away .
Those genies are out of the bottle and we ’ re not putting them back .
There may ( or may not ) be a way to quell their cacophony eventually but there ’ s nothing you can do about them right now .
And listening to them or arguing with them is definitely not the answer .
There are very real actions that social media companies can take to help move things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harris and Jaron Lanier and Roger McNamee have been discussing this for years .
But social media companies aren ’ t going to do anything helpful so long as the incentive structure is what it is today .
Like most evil things that are bad for you , social media has enough attractive , useful , and even beneficial components to give you the false impression that it ’ s actually a good thing .
Or at least harmless .
I mean , smoking helps you control your appetite and focus your attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , net-net , good for you .
In the future , we may be able to defang and declaw it and everyone can have it as a pet .
But that ’ s somewhere down the road when Mark Zuckerberg isn ’ t the most powerful man in the world .
We ’ ll get there .
But for now , go uninstall it , and take a walk with a friend whom you haven ’ t seen since the plague began .

Let’s take a short walk down memory lane.
It’s 1995. A man stands on a busy street corner yelling vaguely incoherent things at the passersby. He’s holding a placard that says “THE END IS NIGH. REPENT.”
You come upon this guy while out getting the paper. How do you feel about him? You might feel some flavor of annoyance. Most people would also feel compassion for him as he is clearly suffering from something.
No reasonable person would think of convincing this man that his point of view is incorrect. This isn’t an opportunity for an engaging debate. This guy doesn’t kill at parties. This guy doesn’t go to parties. He’s only out here because he’s not violent and there’s no room for him at Bellevue.
Now fast forward to 2020.
In terms of who this guy is and who you are absolutely nothing has changed. And yet here you are—arguing with him on Twitter or Facebook. And you, yourself, are being brought to the brink of insanity. But you can’t seem to stop. You have to respond or read the comments of the other people responding and your cortisol and adrenaline levels are spiking and your blood pressure is rising and you’re suddenly at risk of a heart attack.
And the ugly truth is that you’ve become addicted to arguing with the “End Is Nigh” sandwich board guy. The guy you used to quietly skirt, you now seek him out and you bring your friends and for some idiotic reason you think that if you just post a little bit more you’re going to get him to see reason. Or put him in his place.
Or maybe you don’t even know why you’re doing it. But you can’t stop, won’t stop.
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…
Back in 2011 Chamath Palihapitiya left Facebook and said of his former company, “It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”
Keep in mind that was 2011. Which we now think of as a lost Golden Age.
I’m here to make the case that all modern social, political, and sociological ills can be traced to social media. It is single-handedly responsible for the tearing apart of our social fabric which Palihapitiya so presciently predicted. It’s not “part of” the problem. It is the problem: An insidious malware slowly corrupting our society in ways that are extremely difficult to quantify, but the effects of which are evident all around us.
Anti-vaccers, anti-maskers, Qanon, cancel-culture, Alex Jones, flat-earthers, racists, anti-racists, anti-anti-racists, and of course the Twitter stylings of our Dear Leader.
All this nonsense is here for your endless irritation, consternation, bewilderment and ultimately outrage. And it’s all brought to you exclusively and specifically by social media. It is exacerbated by two things:
(1) The fact that your phone in your pocket guarantees that you can get your fix at every minute of every day.
(2) The unfortunate reality that media organizations are so starved for content that every time something outrageous garners a small buzz on social media they immediately project and amplify it out to the masses.
However, if we compare this with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, social media is Death. The other horsemen are playing supporting roles but without Death their effects would not be particularly detrimental.
Before the internet people socialized in relatively small, geographically constrained groups. They had friends and colleagues and relatives and they communicated with these people largely in person or via the phone using the rules of engagement that have been evolving generations. These include facial movements, and vocal intonation or more global cues such as “does this person look and smell like they haven’t showered for a week?” These are tried and true and essential components to a healthy social “network.”
In such an environment the only place for the “End Is Nigh” guy to get an audience is on the street corner. He wouldn’t have been allowed to do this at work during his smoke break. He probably didn’t have friends who would grant him an audience at birthday parties. He was insane and his insanity was relegated to the corner on which he stood. And we ignored him.
But along came the internet and the EIN guy became an anonymous Internet denizen who could insert himself into conversations across the globe. First he did this on listservs and chat rooms and message boards. Then he did it in the comments sections. And with the advent of social media, he did it right in your face, courtesy of The Algorithm (peace be upon it).
But you know how it is: On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. And so now the EIN guy isn’t a dude wearing a sandwich board on a street corner. He’s in your feed and basically looks like everyone else.
He uses the same fonts as you. His icon can be just as cute as your icon. His rants are laundered by the mediation of the internet so that you can’t see his deranged glare, and vocal tone, and the fact that he hasn’t showered in two weeks.
EIN guy is now just part of the crowd. And what’s worse, while every town has one EIN guy, the internet has allowed all of the EIN guys to find each other so that now they think they’re just as normal as everyone else.
And what are you supposed to make of their little brigade? Now you’re doubting yourself, too, because it’s one thing to ignore one crazy guy—but a crazy movement? No—you can’t ignore that—it’s your duty as a responsible citizen to quash it before it gets out of control and you don’t even realize that instead of quashing it, you’re now part of it.
Because what EIN guy always wanted—more than anything—was for the normies to stop walking past him. He wanted them to notice him and argue with him because that would be a sign that what he had to say was important and legitimate.
And here you are. Standing on the corner. Arguing with the crazy guy wearing the sandwich board saying that the “End Is Nigh.”
Which, actually, kind of makes you look like a crazy, too.
Social media has made it possible for deranged people to break through what I think of as the holistic herd immunity of sanity which geography has traditionally conferred.
And once they broke through, thanks to social media, the traditional media decided to start elevating them.
Perhaps you have noticed that journalistic outlets now rush out to broadcast anything weird enough to draw an audience. Which, practically speaking, means taking people from social media and holding them up for all to see. Which is a form of validation, even if the media disagrees with them. Because otherwise, why would they even bother presenting it as a debate?
Maybe the earth is flat?! Maybe Qanon is right?! Maybe vaccines are super dangerous ?!
Of course, these are patently insane ideas that don’t deserve consideration. But there you are considering them. And it annoys you and you turn to your spouse and say, “What the heck are these people talking about? Who could believe this nonsense? Why the hell are these people being quoted on TV?”
And all the time your cortisol levels are going up, up, up.
Have you heard of “incels”? If you haven’t I’m genuinely sorry to bespoil you of your ignorance.
The incels were a big deal a couple years ago. They are (were?) a cohort of college-age men who are celibate and that celibacy is involuntary and they were pissed that women aren’t having sex with them. So they posted really ugly diatribes that explain how the women who rejected them were just angry self-righteous “bitches” out to wield power. Their language was substantially more acerbic; I’m sure you can imagine.
And right on cue the world’s media swooped in to see what the fuss was all about and re-broadcast their concerns to the world. And before you knew it, the incels were a movement.
Social media made those people, full stop. No social media, no incels.
I’m not here to outrage you about the incels—they’re so 2018. My point is that the incel phenomenon is just one molecule of lead in our water and we’re all drinking from the heavily leaded well of social media.
So what’s the answer? It’s shockingly simple.
Leave all social media. Try it for one month.
Just 30 days!
Depending on how addicted you are, it might be hard. You can’t peek. Uninstall it. Add a blocker to your browser so that it won’t let you see TwitterDOTcom.
But you should do it because the incels and the Qanon imbeciles and the people who think the Earth is flat—they aren’t going away. Those genies are out of the bottle and we’re not putting them back.
There may (or may not) be a way to quell their cacophony eventually but there’s nothing you can do about them right now. And listening to them or arguing with them is definitely not the answer.
There are very real actions that social media companies can take to help move things back towards sanity. People like Tristan Harris and Jaron Lanier and Roger McNamee have been discussing this for years.
But social media companies aren’t going to do anything helpful so long as the incentive structure is what it is today.
Like most evil things that are bad for you, social media has enough attractive, useful, and even beneficial components to give you the false impression that it’s actually a good thing. Or at least harmless. I mean, smoking helps you control your appetite and focus your attention. This does not mean that smoking is, net-net, good for you.
In the future, we may be able to defang and declaw it and everyone can have it as a pet. But that’s somewhere down the road when Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the most powerful man in the world.
We’ll get there. But for now, go uninstall it, and take a walk with a friend whom you haven’t seen since the plague began.
You’ll thank me.


thebulwark--2020-07-31--The Violence Is the Point

The Violence Is the Point

What is happening to this country ?
Let me give you a few scenes from the past few weeks—vignettes of a nation seemingly falling apart .
Protesters go online to boast about surrounding the car of a “ white woman ” and to complain that police came to her rescue and wouldn ’ t allow them to imprison her in her vehicle .
Same with the protesters who blocked a couple in their car in order to shut down a bridge .
All of this was originally posted by the protesters themselves on social media , not as a shameful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ random passersby , but as chest thumping .
This is the use of force as virtue-signaling : “ Look at me , I ’ m a good person who really cares about important issues , and you can tell that because I terrorized an elderly couple in their car.
” In Colorado , protesters blocked a freeway , causing a possibly frightened or confused driver to steer his Jeep through the crowd , which in turn caused one of the protesters to panic and fire a gun randomly , hitting two other protesters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protest armed is something the left borrowed from anti-shutdown protesters on the right .
Because what could possibly go wrong ?
What could possibly go wrong was illustrated in a tragicomic incident in Louisville , where a march with “ rival militias ” led to three people being shot—but the shooting was described by the police as “ negligent ” and the injuries were not life-threatening .
In other words : a member of one of these so-called “ militias ” accidentally discharged his gun and grazed a few of his fellows .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ long as nobody dies , but this is starting to get out of control , and we will be lucky if people keep living through it .
The epicenter and symbol for all of this is Portland , which is looking like a dystopia no matter which side you view it from .
On the one side , there are Little Green Men sent out by the Department of Homeland Security to roam the streets and arrest people arbitrarily .
On the other side , a federal courthouse has been turned into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inside : No , this is not all that is going on right now in the United States , and I don ’ t think we are actually going to collapse into chaos and civil war , despite the best efforts of the people I just described above .
But if we don ’ t , it will be because a lot of us take a hard look at it and ask : How have things spun so badly out of control ?
The main thing to note about the resurgent violence is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to it .
From the beginning of the protest movement set off by the killing of George Floyd , there was a split between the earnest young activists who wanted to draw attention to a cause and the angry would-be revolutionaries who were there to brawl .
We saw videos from the early protests of young activists begging the black-clad anarchists to stop smashing store windows or vandalizing property ( and being ignored ) .
Over time , though , the non-violent activists have mostly gone home .
After all , suddenly a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talking about .
It was time to stop marching and start the actual work of forming an agenda people could agree on—this is the tough part—and getting politicians to vote for it .
If , that is , a reform agenda was what you were interested in .
The more radical wing of the protests was not , in fact , interested in such an agenda , and some weeks ago , the two wings of the protest movement moved more clearly apart .
You can see that in Portland , where a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ draws from a pre-existing local subculture in which young people make a hobby of cosplaying socialist revolution by engaging in minor clashes with the police .
It keeps guys like Andy Ngo in business , because there will always be an antifa riot to film .
But notice the recreational nature of these conflicts , the Choose Your Own Adventure spirit in which you can go to a peaceful protest or clash with the police , whatever you ’ re in the mood for .
This is less a calculation about how to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The current wave of demonstrations does not appear to be not tied to any particular reform agenda and it has no recognizable endgame .
To borrow a popular meme , the reasoning might be summed up this way : That ’ s what makes me conclude that the riots , the violence , the low-level confrontations are the goal .
The rioting is an end in itself .
This is beginning to spread from Portland to other cities , and parts of the media seem to be cheerleading and running interference , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from ABC News : “ Protesters in California set fire to a courthouse , damaged a police station , and assaulted officers after a peaceful demonstration intensified.
” Yes , arson and assault are the usual intensifications of peacefulness .
President Trump ’ s reaction has been to accept the terms set by the protesters and play into them .
What we need is the use of federal investigations to track down individual rioters and prosecute them , creating a quiet but consistent deterrent effect .
The whole attraction of a riot is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you can get lost in the crowd and cause destruction without getting caught .
Quiet and dogged law enforcement could change that calculus .
Professional police work—not policemen with truncheons brawling in the streets—is what asserts the rule of law .
But that ’ s not how President Trump sees it .
He sees this as a challenge to “ dominate the streets , ” to meet brawling with brawling .
Predictably , this has escalated the conflict , taking a persistent but small protest movement and giving it an exciting new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the local community .
It doesn ’ t help that Trump sees himself as having an interest in escalation .
If the protests are violence as virtue-signaling , then Trump ’ s response is its own kind of political theater .
The Trump campaign has been playing up the specter of riots as a sign of what he is going to save the voters from .
But the campaign also understands that Trump ’ s base actually loves the sight of protesters getting pushed around and beaten and teargassed .
Which is why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cops to do more of it .
John McCain used to joke about how “ punch the hippies ” was part of his platform .
Leave it to Donald Trump to make actually doing this the linchpin of his re-election strategy .
It could get worse .
The appeal of these violent skirmishes is the momentary sense of power that comes from using force—either directly or vicariously , by cheering others on to use it .
The paradox of protest in a free society is that you are going out into the streets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on others in order to impose your agenda—when you have the means of doing so by persuading your fellow citizens and getting them to go to the polls and vote .
Protests always risk becoming anti-democratic , turning into an attempt by a minority to bully political leaders into adopting an agenda that is opposed by the “ silent majority.
” But achieving a goal through ordinary politics is difficult and tedious work .
It involves planning , strategy , trade-offs , the forging of alliances , and some hard thought to figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aims .
This difficulty can lead to a sense of powerlessness—and that , in turn , creates the temptation to seize on the temporary illusion of power that comes from blocking someone ’ s car and making them stop just because we are the mob and we can make you obey .
Or the more elementary sense of power that comes from hitting someone over the head with a stick .
The real danger here is that in giving vent to this psychology , the protests are in the process of making political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of life .
We face many important problems that will require clear thinking and persuasion—all of which is impossible if we succumb to the temptation to accept force and violence as our political instruments instead .

What is happening to this country?
Let me give you a few scenes from the past few weeks—vignettes of a nation seemingly falling apart.
Protesters go online to boast about surrounding the car of a “white woman” and to complain that police came to her rescue and wouldn’t allow them to imprison her in her vehicle.
Same with the protesters who blocked a couple in their car in order to shut down a bridge. All of this was originally posted by the protesters themselves on social media, not as a shameful admission of their bullying and intimidation of random passersby, but as chest thumping.
This is the use of force as virtue-signaling: “Look at me, I’m a good person who really cares about important issues, and you can tell that because I terrorized an elderly couple in their car.”
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…
In Colorado, protesters blocked a freeway, causing a possibly frightened or confused driver to steer his Jeep through the crowd, which in turn caused one of the protesters to panic and fire a gun randomly, hitting two other protesters. The idea of going to a protest armed is something the left borrowed from anti-shutdown protesters on the right.
Because what could possibly go wrong?
What could possibly go wrong was illustrated in a tragicomic incident in Louisville, where a march with “rival militias” led to three people being shot—but the shooting was described by the police as “negligent” and the injuries were not life-threatening. In other words: a member of one of these so-called “militias” accidentally discharged his gun and grazed a few of his fellows.
It’s easy to laugh so long as nobody dies, but this is starting to get out of control, and we will be lucky if people keep living through it.
The epicenter and symbol for all of this is Portland, which is looking like a dystopia no matter which side you view it from. On the one side, there are Little Green Men sent out by the Department of Homeland Security to roam the streets and arrest people arbitrarily.
On the other side, a federal courthouse has been turned into a bunker. Here is a report from inside:
The firework came whizzing over the fence so fast that the agent didn’t have time to move. It exploded with a boom, leaving his hearing deadened and bloody gashes on both forearms. Stunned, with help from his cohorts, he stripped to his boxer shorts and a black T-shirt so his wounds could be examined and photographed for evidence. He told his fellow agents he was more worried about his hearing than about the gouges and burns on his arms. By the end of the night, five other federal agents would be injured, including another who got a concussion when he was hit in the head with a commercial-grade firework. One agent was hospitalized. Several agents have lingering vision problems from the lasers.
No, this is not all that is going on right now in the United States, and I don’t think we are actually going to collapse into chaos and civil war, despite the best efforts of the people I just described above.
But if we don’t, it will be because a lot of us take a hard look at it and ask: How have things spun so badly out of control?
The main thing to note about the resurgent violence is that there is no plan or program to it.
From the beginning of the protest movement set off by the killing of George Floyd, there was a split between the earnest young activists who wanted to draw attention to a cause and the angry would-be revolutionaries who were there to brawl. We saw videos from the early protests of young activists begging the black-clad anarchists to stop smashing store windows or vandalizing property (and being ignored).
Over time, though, the non-violent activists have mostly gone home. After all, suddenly a police reform agenda was what everyone was talking about. It was time to stop marching and start the actual work of forming an agenda people could agree on—this is the tough part—and getting politicians to vote for it.
If, that is, a reform agenda was what you were interested in.
The more radical wing of the protests was not, in fact, interested in such an agenda, and some weeks ago, the two wings of the protest movement moved more clearly apart. You can see that in Portland, where a local blogger described the split:
“The more moderate demonstrators coalesced around a new organization called Rose City Justice…. They succeeded in avoiding conflict with the police, but their numbers rapidly dwindled…. Meanwhile, the more extreme members of the movement gravitated towards a series of nightly protests around the fence walling the Justice Center and Courthouse off from the rest of the city…. “The Justice Center protests became a regular outlet for activists, a place where someone could always go to have a confrontation with the police….On any given day, Portlanders could generally find some sort of peaceful rally or, if they choose, wind up in a skirmish with the PPB.”
This draws from a pre-existing local subculture in which young people make a hobby of cosplaying socialist revolution by engaging in minor clashes with the police. It keeps guys like Andy Ngo in business, because there will always be an antifa riot to film.
But notice the recreational nature of these conflicts, the Choose Your Own Adventure spirit in which you can go to a peaceful protest or clash with the police, whatever you’re in the mood for. This is less a calculation about how to achieve an agenda than a lifestyle choice.
The current wave of demonstrations does not appear to be not tied to any particular reform agenda and it has no recognizable endgame. To borrow a popular meme, the reasoning might be summed up this way:
Phase 1: Riot outside federal courthouse.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Socialist Revolution!
That’s what makes me conclude that the riots, the violence, the low-level confrontations are the goal. The rioting is an end in itself. This is beginning to spread from Portland to other cities, and parts of the media seem to be cheerleading and running interference, with comically Orwellian headlines like this one from ABC News:
“Protesters in California set fire to a courthouse, damaged a police station, and assaulted officers after a peaceful demonstration intensified.”
Yes, arson and assault are the usual intensifications of peacefulness.
President Trump’s reaction has been to accept the terms set by the protesters and play into them. What we need is the use of federal investigations to track down individual rioters and prosecute them, creating a quiet but consistent deterrent effect. The whole attraction of a riot is the prospect that in the general chaos, you can get lost in the crowd and cause destruction without getting caught. Quiet and dogged law enforcement could change that calculus. Professional police work—not policemen with truncheons brawling in the streets—is what asserts the rule of law.
But that’s not how President Trump sees it. He sees this as a challenge to “dominate the streets,” to meet brawling with brawling. Predictably, this has escalated the conflict, taking a persistent but small protest movement and giving it an exciting new opponent to fight—along with the sympathy of the local community.
It doesn’t help that Trump sees himself as having an interest in escalation. If the protests are violence as virtue-signaling, then Trump’s response is its own kind of political theater. The Trump campaign has been playing up the specter of riots as a sign of what he is going to save the voters from. But the campaign also understands that Trump’s base actually loves the sight of protesters getting pushed around and beaten and teargassed. Which is why he’s sending out his DHS cops to do more of it.
John McCain used to joke about how “punch the hippies” was part of his platform. Leave it to Donald Trump to make actually doing this the linchpin of his re-election strategy.
It could get worse.
The appeal of these violent skirmishes is the momentary sense of power that comes from using force—either directly or vicariously, by cheering others on to use it.
The paradox of protest in a free society is that you are going out into the streets, blocking traffic, and intruding yourself on others in order to impose your agenda—when you have the means of doing so by persuading your fellow citizens and getting them to go to the polls and vote. Protests always risk becoming anti-democratic, turning into an attempt by a minority to bully political leaders into adopting an agenda that is opposed by the “silent majority.”
But achieving a goal through ordinary politics is difficult and tedious work. It involves planning, strategy, trade-offs, the forging of alliances, and some hard thought to figure out what policies would actually achieve your aims. This difficulty can lead to a sense of powerlessness—and that, in turn, creates the temptation to seize on the temporary illusion of power that comes from blocking someone’s car and making them stop just because we are the mob and we can make you obey.
Or the more elementary sense of power that comes from hitting someone over the head with a stick.
The real danger here is that in giving vent to this psychology, the protests are in the process of making political violence normal, an everyday and acceptable part of life.
We face many important problems that will require clear thinking and persuasion—all of which is impossible if we succumb to the temptation to accept force and violence as our political instruments instead.


Congress’s COVID Opportunity

The current political moment may test whether power really does abhor a vacuum .
There is vast open space at the top of the national response to the coronavirus pandemic—space that President Trump and the agencies he oversees have purposefully abandoned .
As House and Senate leaders work on the next round of COVID-19 legislation , Congress should assert itself and provide the strong federal leadership the country needs .
The president ’ s maneuvers since April to evade responsibility for controlling the pandemic have only compounded his troubles .
Whether he likes it or not , his fortunes are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus .
As new cases have surged this summer , the public has become alarmed at federal mismanagement of the response .
Even now , at this late stage , the president could improve his position if he and his team changed course and executed an effective national plan .
His seeming determination not to do so is holding back the recovery he desperately needs .
In the U.S. , the absence of assertive executive leadership does not portend certain failure .
Congress , the first branch of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s laws , and can use that unrivaled power to force upon the agencies it creates and funds responsibilities and policies that the president may oppose or prefer to avoid .
That is what must occur in the current bill , as it is likely the last chance to get the federal response on track before a possible surge of infections in the fall .
In May , House Democrats passed the HEROES Act , which the Congressional Budget Office ( CBO ) estimated will add $ 3.4 trillion to the federal budget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1.7 trillion in 2020 and $ 1.4 trillion in 2021 .
Senate Republicans introduced a competing bill this week that costs much less—perhaps around $ 1.0 trillion over ten years .
Republicans need not like most of what is in the HEROES Act to recognize that its key public health provisions are pointed in the right direction , even if amendments are required .
In general , the Democrats are more willing than the Republicans to demand a more aggressive and coordinated federal response to the public health aspects of the crisis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Both parties should support a national framework with a primary objective of directing all efforts—by state government and citizens most especially—toward getting the pandemic under far better control : • Conditional State and Local Government Financial Support .
There is widespread support in Congress for providing direct financial aid to state and local governments .
Senate Republicans and the White House have not agreed to back additional direct support yet , but they will have to as part of their negotiations with Democrats .
Congress should condition whatever funding ends up in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national standards on testing , contact tracing , virus control measures , and re-opening standards .
States that refuse to follow coordinated , science-driven protocols should receive reduced federal financial support .
Such an enforcement provision would ensure widespread compliance .
• Testing .
The administration says states have the resources they need to perform sufficient numbers of tests , but that is not true .
The lack of a coordinated national testing strategy is the primary reason the country is experiencing an uncontrolled surge of new cases .
It is long past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan focused on increased capacity for diagnostic tests , the purchase and widespread dissemination of point-of-care screening tests necessary to re-open schools and businesses , and a national coordination system that can harness private sector manufacturing capacity and direct supplies to areas of the country most in need of added surveillance.A Rockefeller Foundation committee has recommended $ 75 billion in new funding for this initiative , which is the amount in the House bill .
Senate Republicans are offering $ 16 billion in new funding .
Republicans seem unaware that substantial new assistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acquiring the screening tests that are essential to safely reopening schools and businesses .
State and local school systems do not have sufficient funds to buy these screening tests on their own , and businesses are reluctant to do so also .
A $ 75 billion federal investment would be well worth the cost , as this is the single most important step necessary to safely resume more economic activity .
• Contact Tracing .
States have had at least four months to build their contact tracing capacities , and yet many have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agencies believe a workforce of about 100,000 is needed to keep the virus under control .
There is no single formula for effective virus control internationally , but a common theme is robust contact tracing working in tandem with widespread testing .
Congress should stipulate that states must meet minimum contact tracing standards to receive full federal financial support .
• Virus Control Measures and Reopening Metrics .
There is no mystery at this stage of the pandemic about what steps citizens should take to help control the spread of the virus .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the avoidance of cramped indoor facilities , and widespread use of facial coverings are all essential , population-based mitigation measures .
Currently , 30 states plus the District of Columbia have mandatory mask rules .
Congress should make it a nationwide requirement .
Further , Congress should put teeth in the reopening standards promulgated by the White House in April .
States that meet the milestones can move onto the next phases of relaxed standards .
Those that don ’ t can not relax their reopening protocols without losing some of the federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are many other aspects of the crisis response that should be addressed in the legislation too : assistance to support the economy and limit the damage to business viability ; funding for vaccine procurement and distribution , including internationally ; direct financial assistance for schools to meet the costs of redesigned classrooms and other expenses ; and many other provisions as well .
While all of these matters are important , the next phase of the public health response is what is most urgent and essential .
More effective containment of the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of something close to normalcy this fall while awaiting an effective vaccine .
Without it , the country is courting a true catastrophe , with an uncontrolled pandemic causing increasing harm to human health and economic well-being .
In recent years , many conservatives have called on Congress to reassert itself in its never-ending power struggle with the executive branch .
The president has made it clear he does not want to take the lead in responding to the current crisis .
Congress has the opportunity to take ownership of the federal response @ @ @ @

The current political moment may test whether power really does abhor a vacuum. There is vast open space at the top of the national response to the coronavirus pandemic—space that President Trump and the agencies he oversees have purposefully abandoned. As House and Senate leaders work on the next round of COVID-19 legislation, Congress should assert itself and provide the strong federal leadership the country needs.
The president’s maneuvers since April to evade responsibility for controlling the pandemic have only compounded his troubles. Whether he likes it or not, his fortunes are tied to how well the country contains transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As new cases have surged this summer, the public has become alarmed at federal mismanagement of the response. Even now, at this late stage, the president could improve his position if he and his team changed course and executed an effective national plan. His seeming determination not to do so is holding back the recovery he desperately needs.
In the U.S., the absence of assertive executive leadership does not portend certain failure. Congress, the first branch of the federal government, writes the nation’s laws, and can use that unrivaled power to force upon the agencies it creates and funds responsibilities and policies that the president may oppose or prefer to avoid. That is what must occur in the current bill, as it is likely the last chance to get the federal response on track before a possible surge of infections in the fall.
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…
In May, House Democrats passed the HEROES Act, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated will add $3.4 trillion to the federal budget deficit over ten years, including $1.7 trillion in 2020 and $1.4 trillion in 2021. Senate Republicans introduced a competing bill this week that costs much less—perhaps around $1.0 trillion over ten years.
Republicans need not like most of what is in the HEROES Act to recognize that its key public health provisions are pointed in the right direction, even if amendments are required. In general, the Democrats are more willing than the Republicans to demand a more aggressive and coordinated federal response to the public health aspects of the crisis, and they are right to do so.
Both parties should support a national framework with a primary objective of directing all efforts—by state government and citizens most especially—toward getting the pandemic under far better control:
Conditional State and Local Government Financial Support. There is widespread support in Congress for providing direct financial aid to state and local governments. Senate Republicans and the White House have not agreed to back additional direct support yet, but they will have to as part of their negotiations with Democrats. Congress should condition whatever funding ends up in the final bill on state adherence to national standards on testing, contact tracing, virus control measures, and re-opening standards. States that refuse to follow coordinated, science-driven protocols should receive reduced federal financial support. Such an enforcement provision would ensure widespread compliance.
Testing. The administration says states have the resources they need to perform sufficient numbers of tests, but that is not true. The lack of a coordinated national testing strategy is the primary reason the country is experiencing an uncontrolled surge of new cases. It is long past time to develop and execute a coherent plan focused on increased capacity for diagnostic tests, the purchase and widespread dissemination of point-of-care screening tests necessary to re-open schools and businesses, and a national coordination system that can harness private sector manufacturing capacity and direct supplies to areas of the country most in need of added surveillance.A Rockefeller Foundation committee has recommended $75 billion in new funding for this initiative, which is the amount in the House bill. Senate Republicans are offering $16 billion in new funding. Republicans seem unaware that substantial new assistance is needed to finance the costs of acquiring the screening tests that are essential to safely reopening schools and businesses. State and local school systems do not have sufficient funds to buy these screening tests on their own, and businesses are reluctant to do so also. A $75 billion federal investment would be well worth the cost, as this is the single most important step necessary to safely resume more economic activity.
Contact Tracing. States have had at least four months to build their contact tracing capacities, and yet many have not done so. Local public health agencies believe a workforce of about 100,000 is needed to keep the virus under control. There is no single formula for effective virus control internationally, but a common theme is robust contact tracing working in tandem with widespread testing. Congress should stipulate that states must meet minimum contact tracing standards to receive full federal financial support.
Virus Control Measures and Reopening Metrics. There is no mystery at this stage of the pandemic about what steps citizens should take to help control the spread of the virus. Social distancing when out in public, the avoidance of cramped indoor facilities, and widespread use of facial coverings are all essential, population-based mitigation measures. Currently, 30 states plus the District of Columbia have mandatory mask rules. Congress should make it a nationwide requirement. Further, Congress should put teeth in the reopening standards promulgated by the White House in April. States that meet the milestones can move onto the next phases of relaxed standards. Those that don’t cannot relax their reopening protocols without losing some of the federal support provided in the bill.
There are many other aspects of the crisis response that should be addressed in the legislation too: assistance to support the economy and limit the damage to business viability; funding for vaccine procurement and distribution, including internationally; direct financial assistance for schools to meet the costs of redesigned classrooms and other expenses; and many other provisions as well.
While all of these matters are important, the next phase of the public health response is what is most urgent and essential. More effective containment of the virus is the key to allowing the resumption of something close to normalcy this fall while awaiting an effective vaccine. Without it, the country is courting a true catastrophe, with an uncontrolled pandemic causing increasing harm to human health and economic well-being.
In recent years, many conservatives have called on Congress to reassert itself in its never-ending power struggle with the executive branch. The president has made it clear he does not want to take the lead in responding to the current crisis. Congress has the opportunity to take ownership of the federal response, and should.