Author: hamilton1788

Commonly understood, the “swamp” is synonymous with regulatory capture: wealthy, well-connected individuals and businesses exercise undue influence over legislators and bureaucrats who dream of crossing over and making more money in the private sector. Donald Trump, of course, sees things completely differently. In his view, the “swamp” consists of media people, civil servants, and judges who prevent him from ignoring the law and protocol and behaving capriciously and autocratically on behalf of himself (above all) and “real Americans.”

To that end, Trump has issued an executive order reclassifying large segments of the civil service as at will employees. No reasonable person can doubt that he plans to replace large numbers of competent, apolitical experts with toadies who will do whatever he wants regardless of the facts or the law if he wins the election.

Trump is right about one thing: civil servants and judges, not Democratic politicians, have been the real check on his arbitrary use of power over the last four years. He’s clearly determined to put an end to that as soon as possible. You can just imagine what the next four years will be like if he isn’t stopped next week.

Mitch McConnell and a majority of GOP senators are determined to prevent any meaningful stimulus before the election. That would appear to be inconsistent with the interests of Trump and several endangered GOP incumbents. What are they thinking?

They have given up on the idea of winning a free and fair election. In their eyes, one of two things will happen: the Republicans will win through vote suppression and their effective control of the Supreme Court; or they will lose, and the remaining Republican senators will be reasonably positioned to move immediately into Tea Party/bogus deficit reduction mode, as in 2009.

Do you understand that if you are part of a majority which decides to prevent the counting of votes in a manner consistent with state court decisions, thereby throwing the election to President Trump a few weeks after he put you on the Supreme Court, you will permanently stain your reputation, destroy the credibility of the Supreme Court, and tear the country apart?

Assume that Biden wins the election, but that his legislative initiatives are consistently frustrated by the Trump Supreme Court. Nothing positive has emerged from his court commission. As a result, court packing is his only viable option if he wants to get anything done. How many new positions should be created?

The objective would be to pick the minimum number required to prevent judicial obstruction, while providing a rationale that will seem fair to the general public and will discourage GOP attempts at retaliation in the future.

The number is four. That represents the two seats which were stolen from the Democrats and given to the Republicans. It would give the left a 7-6 majority on issues relating to voting rights. It would protect us from a Supreme Court which may well be determined to ignore the will of the majority and throw elections to Republicans on frivolous legal grounds.

The elderly were among Trump’s most reliable supporters in 2016, and have consistently voted for the GOP for the last two decades. It appears that Trump is about to lose a large percentage of them, and with them, the election. Why?

For these reasons:

1. The Democrats nominated an old white guy, so Trump wasn’t able to play the identity card the way he did in 2016. His obnoxious attacks on Biden’s acuity only made things worse.
2. The elderly, by and large, prefer to keep things on an even keel; they have less ability to react to change than younger people. Trump brings drama and danger every day.
3. And, of course, there was the virus. It wasn’t just that the government had no answers for the pandemic; it threatened the lives of the elderly by telling people to get on with their lives regardless of the medical consequences. Trump’s clear message was that the deaths of old people would be acceptable collateral damage in the process of opening up the economy and boosting the stock market. Is it any wonder many older voters don’t appreciate that?

Much attention has been given recently to the structural advantages the GOP enjoys in our political system as a result of the overrepresentation of rural areas in Washington. It has been estimated that the Democrats have to win the national popular vote by 2-3 percent to have any chance of winning the presidency, and 5-6 percent to win the Senate. How can this be addressed?

Recent history tells us the Electoral College problem is far from insuperable. The issue with the Senate, however, is far harder to deal with. Only a massive failure on the part of the GOP in government leads to effective Democratic control of both houses of Congress.

There are two ways to resolve the problem. The first is to create more states; the second is for the Democrats to show more tolerance for people who lean right in the culture wars. Rural residents don’t necessarily have an issue with a government that intervenes heavily in the economy (think farm subsidies here); they do, however, insist on legal safe spaces for Christians.

Which of these two solutions do you think is more plausible?

Most commentators have viewed Biden’s proposal for a bipartisan commission as a fairly lame attempt to avoid talking about court packing before the election. There is probably an element of that, but I think there is a much larger purpose that is being missed–a welcome effort to depoliticize the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process.

The process is horribly broken right now. Control of the Court, from a partisan perspective, turns on age and luck rather than any expression of popular will. Nominees refuse to answer perfectly legitimate questions about their judicial philosophy. Senators respond to the lack of information by engaging in personal attacks. Plenty of heat is generated, but almost no light.

Biden doesn’t need a commission to address court packing, but he does need one to discuss broader remedies to the problem, most of which would involve constitutional amendments. There are perfectly viable solutions, most notably getting rid of life tenure and staggering terms, that can be on the table if both parties agree. Since the Republicans currently have an advantage in appointments, why would they consent? Because the court packing option is available as leverage.

Life in the time of Trump.

The election is next week.

The polls all say that Trump’s behind.

He’s swimming up the creek.

He’s trying to suppress the votes

It’s his only path.

For if the vote is free and fair

We’ll see a blue bloodbath.

Are white Christians the only true Americans, and thus entitled to rule even if they don’t constitute the majority of the American people?

Does the winner of the presidential election have the right to behave as an autocrat, accountable to no one, for four years, or is he constrained by the law and the rest of our political institutions, as contemplated by the Constitution?

Assume that Trump loses the election by a decisive margin. What does he do between early November and Inauguration Day?

It won’t be pretty. He will be sulking at Mar-a-Lago and tweeting furiously. His interest in governing, always limited at best, will be restricted to finding ways to reward his friends and punish his enemies. He will pardon people who suck up to him and consider pardoning himself. He may direct people around him to destroy records that would make him look bad. His cooperation in making the transition should not be assumed.

The best case scenario is that he plays golf and watches lots of TV. Sad!

Some right-wing commentators are arguing that Barrett is not required to recuse herself from any litigation arising from the election because the argument in favor of recusal applies equally to Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Are they right?

No. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were confirmed well before the election was pending. There was no suggestion that their nomination was any kind of a quid pro quo for keeping Trump in office. Barrett is in a completely different position; the inference of undue influence will be drawn by hundreds of millions of Americans if she casts a deciding vote in favor of Trump in an election case.

For the good of the country, she should recuse herself. Period.

Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle” by remaining passive during the first several rounds and letting Foreman punch himself fruitlessly into exhaustion. Ali called this tactic the “rope-a-dope,” and, like many of his more memorable lines, it stuck.

Biden is doing something very similar with Trump. He’s making the election a referendum on the incumbent, rather than a choice between two visions of America, by saying and doing only the minimum that is required. Every day that Trump is out shooting himself in the foot is a victory for him. The fruits of it will be seen on November 3.

This is not a very inspiring approach, and it would only work against someone as narcissistic and erratic as Trump. It does, however, require great discipline, which has not been a hallmark of Biden’s campaigns in the past. The old dog has learned a new trick.

The point of the debates, in the final analysis, is to provide information to undecided voters. With such a polarizing president, who are these people in 2020? I answered that question in a post a month ago; they either wanted to see if the condition of the country would improve before the election, or they had unanswered questions about Biden’s strength and acuity.

Trump clearly agreed with my analysis, because his strategy for the first debate was to try to shake Biden and thus win over the second kind of undecided voter. It was a high risk, high reward approach, and it failed miserably. He came across as an obnoxious lunatic, and it cost him votes.

Instead of doubling down, he switched tactics last night in an apparent effort to win back the ground he lost at the first debate. While there was plenty of obvious untruth, ludicrous grandiosity and narcissism, and laughable absurdity in his presentation, he did not sound insane. As a result, he cleared the ridiculously low bar he created for himself, and he may have clawed back a few of the wavering supporters who had fallen off his bandwagon after the first debate.

But in the end, he accomplished nothing. Biden is still standing. He didn’t sound like a feeble, senile old man to the undecideds. Trump is far behind; he needed to do far more than prove to his supporters that he is still on his rocker. The election is still a referendum on him and his response to the pandemic. He can’t win that argument.

At least not in a fair fight. It’s all about vote suppression and the law now. If Biden wins Florida on November 3, it’s over. If he doesn’t, the nightmare scenario is upon us, and the question will be whether all of the lawful votes in the swing states will be counted.

The election is twelve days away.

We fear it more than we can say.

We have feelings of dread

Occupying our heads

But Trump wins if we give in that way.

The leaves are spectacular in the mountains of North Carolina at this time of year. You cling to them desperately, and try to savor every moment, because you know they’re doomed. They’ll be gone in a week or so. Winter is coming.

It’s hard to avoid seeing this as a metaphor for the election and our political system. If Trump somehow leverages vote suppression and the support of “his” Supreme Court into an unlikely victory, he will (probably correctly) view it as a successful referendum on autocracy, and behave accordingly. The next four years will be about the Orban Option, and whether it can be stopped. If Biden–the most inoffensive Democrat available–wins, he will have to deal with the fact that 30-40 percent of the voters consider his presidency illegitimate, because the bulk of his supporters aren’t straight white Christians. That, not the innumerable shortcomings of Trump’s personality, is the central problem of American politics today.

The only hope for our system is a successful Biden presidency that moves America to the left on economic issues and accommodates the right on cultural issues. It will be an exercise in threading the needle. The odds are against it. But it’s all we’ve got.