Cromwell

At one of the free musical events that make the NC mountains so attractive during the summer, I saw a photographer wearing a t-shirt showing Lincoln playing an electric guitar. I wanted to buy it off his back. Something about it captured the best of America–freedom, soulfulness, great skill, and the endless ability to reinvent yourself.

I was going to post something about how Trump, with his perpetual desire to divide America, had ruined the 250th birthday, but I will leave that for tomorrow. Happy Independence Day!

H: What’s up, Mr. J.? Looks like you’re deep in thought. Are you musing about America’s birthday?

J: Sure am. That was my day in the sun. People still talk about the Declaration and argue about what it means. There’s even a popular musical about it. I can’t help being proud of that.

H: I would have written the Declaration somewhat differently, to emphasize the unique nationality of Americans, but I’ll give you your due as a writer. Did the country turn out the way you planned?

J: Definitely not. In the short run, your party collapsed because my vision of an America of small landowners was more accurate than yours. In the long run, you won. The size of the military, the prominence of huge corporations . . . I didn’t see any of that. America isn’t nearly as virtuous as I would like, but it sure is powerful.

H: Aren’t you ignoring one thing you were right on?

J: What’s that?

H: Trump, of course. He stands for what he calls “real Americans.” He hates immigrants, minorities, and everyone who lives in a city. That sounds just like you.

J: We’ve been through that. Trump doesn’t in any way resemble the yeoman farmers that I imagined would be running the country. He’s a former casino owner from New York who made his living screwing people out of their money. That sounds more like you than me.

H: I was an immigrant. He would have tried to deport me. I also served with distinction in the military, unlike him, and I left America’s finances in good shape. He isn’t doing that, either.

J: What about his war? You always wanted to beef up the armed forces. You wanted an America that was as militarily powerful as England or France.

H: I believed in a rich and powerful America, but I didn’t believe in stupid wars. To give you some credit, you didn’t, either. Back in our day, neutrality was the only sane option.

J: We agree on that much. Will you be celebrating tomorrow?

H: I think we both should celebrate. I doubt either of us believed our creation would last this long and thrive this much. We’re entitled to the credit people still give us, even if the country doesn’t exactly look the way we thought it would.

J: OK then. Happy Independence Day!

William McKinley was not a warmonger. He was a Civil War veteran, so he was familiar with the face of battle. But the pressure to do something became too great after the Maine blew up, and war became inevitable.

The war started as an effort to address Spanish human rights violations in Cuba, a rationale that would have been more familiar in the next century. It ended, however, as an exercise in American imperialism. America would use its naval and financial power to get its way in its backyard for decades to come. Does that sound at all familiar to you?

John Roberts is just a passenger on the culture wars train–it’s more Alito’s thing–but he’s the engineer on issues involving money and power. And what a ride it has been! Sweeping immunity for presidents; the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action; positively embracing gerrymandering; eliminating limits on campaign spending; and putting an end to independent agencies. It all adds up to more power for Republicans, the president, and the Supreme Court, and less for everyone else.

So where does the train go from here? The remaining issues that come to mind are the constitutionality of impoundment and the War Powers Act. If the Democrats win at least one house in the midterms, look for both of these issues to become more prominent in the next two years.

There was a brief time during Radical Reconstruction when the creation of a liberal democratic South appeared to be possible. Its failure was inevitable, however. Why? Racism is only a part of the answer. The real reasons were that a large majority of whites in the South never bought into the vision of a multi-ethnic liberal democracy, and the taxpayers in the North, having borne huge costs from the war, were never going to keep large numbers of troops in the South for generations to impose liberal values on white supremacists. That’s not how we fight wars, even against Nazis. We win and go home.

The optimist looks at Reconstruction and argues that it at least planted the seeds for real change in the last half of the 20th century. That’s true, but it didn’t do any good for the millions of people who suffered through decades of oppression and stagnation. We look back and see the arc of history bending towards justice; they looked at the present and saw little hope for the future.

The failure of Reconstruction meant that the former Confederacy kept its backward Third World economy, run by and for a handful of wealthy landowners, for decades thereafter. Some areas still have it today.

He campaigned for president as an unabashed imperialist. Shortly after taking office, he ordered the U.S. Army to engage in acts that were designed to provoke a war, which they did. The ensuing conflict was unpopular, but thanks to brilliant leadership by generals who belonged to the other party, it was wildly successful.

He sent a diplomat to negotiate a peace treaty based on substantial territorial concessions. He subsequently decided that his terms were too lenient, but his representative ignored his instructions and made a deal based on his initial instructions. He grudgingly accepted that deal, and America became a much larger country.

Other than the part about the brilliant military leadership, it sounds a bit like Trump, but it is actually James K. Polk. I have included it in my list of underappreciated turning points because it made the Civil War much more likely. Prior to the Mexican War, moderates of both parties had more or less reached a detente on the issue based on the Missouri Compromise, but the new annexation put slavery in the territories squarely back on the table, and this time, the various efforts to solve the problem (the Compromise of 1850, popular sovereignty, and Dred Scott) were totally unsuccessful. The center could not hold. A dramatic change to the nation was in the air.

The American World Cup has been a smashing success to date. While most of the competition has been surprisingly gripping, the best story has been the willingness of local communities to embrace foreign teams. I haven’t seen any stories about hate or hooliganism, either; the fans have been patriotic in a colorful and completely inoffensive way.

It’s a long way from Trump and his comments about many of the countries represented in the World Cup, to say nothing of his position on birthright citizenship. He’s supposed to be presenting the trophy at the end; wouldn’t it be great if he has to give it to a nation he despises? Like, say, Spain?

He’s probably rooting for Argentina.

In his concurring and dissenting opinion in the birthright citizen case, the noted conservative jurist Brett Kavanaugh makes a strong case for the need for a living Constitution. For their part, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, passionate proponents of textualism and the colorblind Constitution, essentially argue that the Court should read nonexistent language into the text of the 14th Amendment to limit its application to black Americans.

That’s awesome, guys. Do you really write this stuff with a straight face?

The 1800 election was a mess, comparable to 1824, 1876, 2000, and 2020. Both parties were convinced that a victory for the other meant the end of life as Americans knew it. Hamilton did his best to sabotage the Adams campaign. And then there was the whole Burr-Jefferson episode. Not much to admire there.

Except that Adams, gracelessly as usual, did in fact transfer power peacefully to Jefferson, and Jefferson did not set up a guillotine for Federalists in Washington. The moderation of both parties after the election set a precedent that made liberal democracy possible in America. It would be followed until January 6.

The Roberts constitutional counterrevolution continues! Independent agencies, with the paltry exception of the Fed, are now a thing of the past. This means, of course, that vast powers and responsibilities which were considered too sensitive to belong exclusively to the executive branch for decades are now in the hands of Donald Trump.

The liberals are aware of the danger. Justice Gorsuch, to his credit, acknowledges it, as well, but insists that an active judiciary will keep the executive in check, most notably through the major questions doctrine. Are you satisfied with that? Do you have confidence that SCOTUS will use its authority to keep Republicans as well as Democrats from becoming tyrants? Do you really want an imperial SCOTUS to go along with the imperial presidency?

If so, that makes one of us. And the exception carved out for the Fed is totally unconvincing on either historical or textual grounds. That part of the Cook/Slaughter suite of opinions is a monument to judicial opportunism and pragmatism, not logic or principle.

European nations were created by the movement of masses of people, military conquest, and a slow process of cultural assimilation. As a result, the contract theory of government makes little historical sense there. William the Conqueror never made a deal with his new Anglo-Saxon subjects.

But America was different. The native population was pushed away and wiped out, not conquered and exploited. The newcomers, with the glaring exception of the slaves, were there by choice. They created an ethnic, cultural, and religious mix that was conspicuously different than the mother country, which was too far away, given the technology of the day, to effectively rule them on a day-to-day basis.

The new nation-state was consequently created by a successful rebellion and the subsequent consent of the population. Jefferson’s language in the Declaration is far from universally true, but it works for us.

Imagine, again, that Trump concedes that the Constitution forbids him from running again. That means he will be out of office permanently in 2029. What kind of ex-president will he be? Will he be content to become a quiet retiree, playing golf every day?

Of course not! He will remain the noisiest figure in American politics regardless of which party wins the presidential election. If J.D. is his successor, he will behave as the acting president and make the real one’s life completely miserable. If a Democrat wins, he will effectively be the leader of the opposition as long as he wishes.

All I can say is, thank God he’s so old.

I’ve already laid out how J.D. could lose in the primaries to an outsider insurgent. Assume that doesn’t happen. How does he win the general election?

There are two possibilities. In the first scenario, he clings desperately to Trump, who has somehow regained some of his past popularity. The Democrats nominate a weak candidate, and he wins in spite of Trump’s record.

The second scenario is more sinister: the revival of the Green Bay sweep. This time, Trump has complete control of the military, the Supreme Court has been a reliable ally on issues pertaining to elections, and J.D. will be presiding at the meeting in which the votes will be counted. He also knows that Trump will pardon him if things go wrong.

It would be 1876–J.D.’s model for solving electoral problems–only much worse.

During a fundraiser at the Nixon Library a few days ago, J.D. opined that Nixon would have remained in office in today’s political landscape (probably true), minimized his abuses of power, and analogized himself to Nixon. What should we make of that?

Don’t take his noisy moralizing too seriously. J.D. is at heart an ambitious opportunist with radical views about the use of state power who excels at telling his audience what he thinks it wants to hear.

Congressional Republicans, with substantial assistance from the Democrats, managed to get a housing bill through the system. They were planning to hold a ceremony to publicize their accomplishment. But Trump announced he wouldn’t sign the bill until the GOP somehow muscles his precious SAVE legislation through the system, which simply isn’t going to happen. The ceremony had to be cancelled.

This is another instance in which Trump’s actions remind me of the scene in “Blazing Saddles” where the black sheriff fends off the white lynch mob by threatening to shoot himself. Does the man have any sense of reality? You have to wonder.