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During the pandemic, some states thought it was necessary to loosen the usual voting rules in order to maximize participation in the process. Republicans, by and large, thought this was an outrage, because it would lead to fraud. They never found any, but they screamed about it all the same. They still do.

Today, Ian has created similar problems for voting in Southwest Florida. The difference, of course, is that Southwest Florida is a Republican stronghold. Do you think DeSantis and the GOP will insist on the same strict adherence to state voting rules that they thought was essential in 2020? Do you believe that tens of thousands of Republicans will consequently be denied the right to vote for DeSantis and Rubio in November?

Yeah, right. Fraud is a concept that only applies in large urban areas with predominantly minority populations, if you support the GOP.

A note to my readers: I will be returning to the Sunshine State to deal with the damage to my house starting tomorrow. Regular posts will resume when I return.

Yes, the Supreme Court has clearly become a tool of the right. It cherry-picks history for ideological reasons, disregards precedent, and turns GOP talking points into constitutional law. That record alone, however, is not the reason the public is starting to doubt the Court’s legitimacy. The more compelling reason is the absence of one or more swing justices.

As I noted in a previous post, the Court had a swing justice throughout my entire adult life until Kennedy retired. The presence of a persuadable justice gives hope to both sides and thus provides a source of public support for the Court. That no longer exists. Everyone knows where each of the justices stands on the major political and culture war issues; the outcome of any given case will be dictated by the identity of the parties. The only question now is how far and how fast the Court will feel comfortable in pursuing the reactionary agenda. So far, the answer has been quite far and fast, indeed.

On the one hand, the Fifth Circuit has ruled that social media are more akin to common carriers than traditional media companies, and that using editorial discretion is “censorship,” which has no protection in Section 230 or the First Amendment. On the other hand, the Supreme Court has decided to hear a case in which the plaintiffs argue that the use of algorithms is not protected by Section 230, so the social media companies can be held liable for some third-party postings. In a very narrow sense, given the emphasis on algorithms in the second case, the two arguments are not mutually exclusive, but in a broader sense, they clearly are. Both threaten the current business models of the social media companies: the first is consistent with arguments about censorship typically made by the right; and the second with the position of the left, which worries about the dissemination of extreme right-wing lies.

The partisan divide in Congress as to what exactly is the problem presented by social media makes legislation unlikely. The judiciary, however, may do the job instead. These cases bear close watching.

Assume that the Ukrainian army has broken through. The Russians are on the run. Lacking other good options, Putin uses tactical nukes to halt the advance and bring the situation back under control. It’s his trump card, no?

The problem is that he would be using nuclear weapons to irradiate areas that he now says are legally part of Russia. In other words, the gambit only works if you assume that the annexation is bogus, and that Putin is a liar.

Which he is, of course. Just ask the hundreds of thousands of Russian men fleeing his draft.

During the height of the pandemic, Ron DeSantis gambled and won. Facing what looked like a substantial revenue shortfall, he continued to spend as if nothing had happened in the hope that the federal government would bail him out. It did. The pandemic relief bill, and the recovery that followed it, left Florida awash in cash. DeSantis was consequently in a position to cut taxes, give state employees a raise, and complain about Biden’s inflation at the same time.

Today, the only hope for the survival of the Florida Freedom Project is an absolutely massive infusion of federal aid; otherwise, DeSantis and the Republicans in the Florida Legislature will have to raise taxes, add an assessment to state hurricane insurance policies, and impose lots of new building regulations to address the impacts of Ian. Will the federal government come to the rescue again? Yes, but probably not to the extent that DeSantis would wish.

Of course, that will mean that he can take the cash with one hand and lob grenades of ingratitude back at Washington with the other, which would suit him and the base just fine.

Superstorm Donald hit New York and New Jersey yesterday, causing countless deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage. The desperate citizens of the two states cried out for relief from FEMA. President DeSantis, however, stated firmly that no relief would be forthcoming unless the two blue states agreed to eliminate all manifestations of wokeness within their boundaries.

When questioned about the apparent inconsistency between his position on hurricane relief for red and blue states, DeSantis denied that any inconsistency existed. He indicated that the purpose of government was to provide assistance to real Americans, not to rootless, secular cosmopolitans who hate America and demean and exploit struggling workers in red states. It was consequently totally appropriate to provide storm aid for red states, but to demand reform in exchange for aid to states dominated by blue people.

In the end, it would be for their own good, said DeSantis. Sometimes, you just have to use tough love to get people back to God and traditional values.

Timing is everything in politics. If Reagan and Thatcher had faced the voters in the early part of 1982, they would have been crushed. But they didn’t. Thatcher won the Falklands War, Reagan benefited from drastic interest rate cuts and a surging economy, and the rest is history.

I have to assume that Truss is hoping for the same sequence of events: collapse, followed by a recovery fueled by lower interest rates and her tax cuts right around the time of the next election. Will it work? It’s not impossible, but it’s not likely, either.

Once upon a time, it was a big tent, tactically flexible party that believed in limited government, balanced budgets, and traditional values. Today, it is a party of radicals dedicated to two things: victory in a culture war against half of the nation’s citizens; and tax cuts for the wealthy under all circumstances, even if they will lead to higher interest rates and inflation.

Is it the Conservative Party or the GOP? The Truss government is proof that the two are converging, which is bad news for the UK.

IMAGINE

Imagine there’s no Biden.

It isn’t hard to do.

An end to contraception.

Blue states have got the blues.

____________

Imagine all the children

Giving thanks to God.

Whoo-hoo!

___________

Imagine there’s no NATO.

It’s easy if you try.

EU’s imploded.

White Christians riding high.

______________

Imagine Western nations

Beating back Islam.

Whoo-hoo!

___________

You may say we’re just dreamers.

But we’re not the only ones.

You’d better choose to join us.

Because the storm’s begun.

_________________

Parody of “Imagine” by John Lennon

The Florida GOP thought it had the magic formula. Lots of sun, great beaches, low taxes, and “freedom” from annoying regulations caused the state to boom. It was the recipe for permanent prosperity, not to mention electoral success.

But there was a dark cloud hanging over the success story–climate change. Monster storms and catastrophic losses were on the horizon. As a result, even before Ian, the Florida property insurance market was on its last legs. The Florida Legislature was doing its best to bail it out, with limited success. Now what?

Ian is going to be the end of private hurricane insurance in Florida. As a result, the GOP will have two choices. One of them is to accept the logic of their “freedom” agenda, keep taxes and regulations low, and acknowledge that coastal property is about to become valueless. Millions of people will flee the state, and the economy will crash. The other option is to pour huge amounts of public money into the state’s insurer of last resort (which will now be the only one), raise taxes, and impose lots of new regulations in order to keep future costs down. Either way, it’s the end of the “freedom” project.

Then, the question will become, will Texas be next?

Back in the day, when Marco Rubio was asked about climate change, he would reply “I’m not a scientist.” However, as the evidence for climate change has mounted and the GOP mainstream opinion has shifted slightly, he has gone with the flow, so to speak. Today, he will tell you that climate change is real, but that nothing can be done about it without wrecking our economy. The implicit judgment there is that a few deaths and a few billion dollars in damage from fires, heat, and hurricanes annually represent acceptable collateral damage.

Well, Marco, what about now? Your home state is on its knees. It will take hundreds of billions of dollars to fix it. Virtually all of that will have to come from the federal government. Florida coastal property values are going to collapse. And it will almost certainly happen again, and again.

Does that sound like a good way to keep the economy humming? Does that sound like acceptable collateral damage to you?

At a press conference today, a combative Governor DeSantis attributed the loss of life and property damage from Ian not to bad disaster planning and climate change denial, but to the wrath of God. According to DeSantis, God was angry at the spread of woke ideology in America (particularly in Florida) and was taking vengeance on the state. Instead of throwing money at insurance companies and climate mitigation measures, which would be inconsistent with the GOP’s views on limited government, he vowed to redouble his efforts to root out every possible manifestation of wokeness in his state and to make Christianity our state religion.

The portion of the reactionary base that was still alive after Ian applauded vigorously.

We evacuated from Irma. The trip to North Carolina was a nightmare. All of the major evacuation routes were jammed, and it was extremely difficult to find gas. In the end, the storm was not that bad. Probably what everyone remembered most about it was the images of the clogged evacuation routes and the gas issues.

I was, as you would expect, watching video of Ian from the beginning to the end. The televised images of the evacuation routes strongly suggested to me that people weren’t leaving. It now appears that I was right, and the death toll will reflect that.

Katrina was the result of events that were not foreseen–the failure of some of the levees–and the practical inability of many of the city’s residents to evacuate. Ian was different. Everyone could have evacuated, and the government told them to do so; the problem was getting people to believe, based on their experiences with Charley and Irma, that leaving was a better option than staying.

At the micro level, I don’t think you can blame Florida government for sending the wrong message. In the long run, however, refusing to deal with climate change is a crime, because it will lead to more storms and more deaths. In that sense, Florida government, which is to say uninterrupted rule by the GOP– is very much culpable, and will pay the price when residents start fleeing the state.

Power, unlike wealth, is a zero-sum game, so in light of the economic turmoil in the West, you would think that China was the winner. You would be wrong.

Growth has slowed to a crawl in China. The government’s covid policies are damaging the economy and creating unrest. The Russian invasion, which effectively was backed by the Chinese government, is an international embarrassment. Western Europe and Japan are moving away from China and towards the United States. If that’s winning, Xi is probably already tired of it.

Who is winning? Only the Gulf States, at this point.

A Thomas Edsall column in the NYT made me aware of a “Statement of Principles” from a group called the “National Conservatism Project.” The group includes numerous luminaries from the New Right, including our old friend Rod Dreher.

The geopolitical vision of this group could be best described as a collection of completely sovereign Christian nations working in concert, but not through international institutions, to do battle with China, Islamic countries, and, of course, woke people. The domestic agenda essentially is to make Christianity great again. The authors of the “Statement” want to return Christianity to its dominant place in the public sphere wherever Christians are in a majority; religious minorities will be tolerated, but only in their private sphere.

This raises three major questions:

1. HOW CAN RED STATES RECHRISTIANIZE, IN LIGHT OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT? The answer to that can only be that the authors of the “Statement” want a complete reversal of First Amendment jurisprudence. The Establishment Clause would be limited to the prohibition against creating an official state sect. Christianity as a whole, not being a sect, could be lawfully institutionalized.
2. WHAT HAPPENS IN BLUE STATES, WHERE CHRISTIANS ARE A MINORITY? DOES THE STATEMENT LEAVE THEM OUT OF THE PROJECT? Not really. The Edsall column contains a quote from one of the authors which suggests that they really believe in federalism, but the “Statement” itself makes it clear that the federal government must step in if “immorality” runs rampant in blue states. That is an invitation to create a fascist state.
3. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE MEDIA, WHICH ARE TYPICALLY LOCATED IN BLUE STATES? The “Statement” doesn’t address that issue directly, but its tenor is such that one must assume that all left-leaning media would be subjected to strict controls, and possibly eliminated altogether.

Are you surprised by any of this? You shouldn’t be. This is where we are heading.