Category: Uncategorized

Whatever you may think about the reasoning in Roe, you can’t call it a partisan decision; most of the justices in the majority were appointed by Republicans, and one of the dissenters was appointed by JFK. Whatever you might think of the draft decision in Dobbs, on the other hand, it clearly is a partisan decision. Alito probably doesn’t care, but it isn’t a good look for the Supreme Court.

I read somewhere this morning that GOP members of Congress are already discussing legislation to enforce a nationwide ban on abortion. Don’t say I never warned you.

As I predicted even before the 2020 election, the most powerful Joe in Washington is Manchin, not Biden. As a result, the Democrats’ agenda is bottled up in Congress. In the meantime, red state legislatures are having a field day imposing their culture war views on the left, frequently in the name of “freedom.”

Is it any wonder that the left is demoralized?

I read the opinion on Politico this morning. My reactions are as follows:

1. My initial assumption was that the opinion was leaked by one of the clerks for a liberal justice, but, on further reflection, I have doubts about that. This could very well be a signal to red state legislatures that there is no risk in moving ahead with total abortion bans as quickly as possible. If so, the leaker probably works for a right-wing justice.
2. With one notable exception, the opinion is consistent with the predictions I made several months ago. It contains lots of analysis about history and text; it is very pro-democracy and states’ rights; it emphatically does not touch Griswold; it nods to the “personhood” argument without making any commitments; and it addresses the Ginsburg equal protection line of reasoning at some length, primarily by making the same points that Barrett did during the oral argument.
3. Assuming, for purposes of argument, that this draft serves as the basis for the final majority opinion, I was wrong about the identity of the author. I thought the majority would prefer Barrett as the author in an effort to protect the Court from charges of rank sexism. It would appear that Alito’s desire to make history was more powerful than the majority’s concerns about public opinion.
4. I have predicted that Thomas will write a gloating, obnoxious concurring opinion. We don’t know the answer to that yet.

And so, the ambiguity is gone. To return to the slavery analogy, we are now turning to the “popular sovereignty” phase of the debate. The real question is whether the red states will succeed in imposing their will on the blue states through extraterritorial provisions in their new statutes. That issue will take center stage very quickly.

Oh, and I wouldn’t want to be Susan Collins today. She’s going to get a lot of difficult questions about her vote for Kavanaugh.

As I predicted months ago, red states are trying to give their anti-abortion regulations extraterritorial effect. You didn’t think the great state of Texas would tolerate any division of opinion on abortion, did you? For their part, blue states are approving regulations that are intended to nullify the extraterritorial parts of the red state legislation.

Where is this headed? The red state legislation impacts rights and regulations that have their source in the federal government. The right to travel to another state, even for an abortion, is protected by the First Amendment. The use of the Postal Service to provide abortion pills is controlled by the federal government. The idea that a nonresident can be sued in a red state just for putting information online is inconsistent with traditional notions of jurisdiction and due process. And so on.

This is going to get really interesting, from a legal and political perspective, faster than you think.

Tucker Carlson, and those of his ilk, typically get very angry when they are accused of racism. Do they have a case? As usual with disputes like these, it depends on your definition of racism.

Carlson, along with most contemporary reactionaries, does not defend slavery or de jure segregation. He does not argue–at least not openly–that people of color are genetically inferior to white people. What most people refer to as “racism” is based on the following positions:

1. All Americans, including people of color, are entitled to equal treatment from their government.
2. Black people have been free from slavery since 1865, and free from various kinds of legally imposed discrimination since the 1960s.
3. Whatever claim they had to special treatment from the government has expired with the passage of time. They should be treated just like everyone else. MLK said so.
4. Instead, they just whine about racism, demand handouts and affirmative action, and vote for politicians who pick the pockets of hardworking Americans for their benefit. They are the real racists in this picture.
5. Their inferior economic status is due to their own, shall we say, cultural inferiority, which has been exacerbated by coddling by politicians of the left. What they really need is tough love, which will instill a love of enterprise in them that doesn’t exist today.
6. As to immigrants of color, there are just too many of them, and their culture is antithetical to ours. They cannot be assimilated. They will annihilate our culture and poison our politics if given a chance.

Of course, most of these statements are clearly inconsistent with the facts. American culture has always been in a state of constant flux, and has been disproportionately influenced by people of color. Furthermore, it is obvious to any reasonably objective observer that the impacts of slavery and discrimination over centuries of American history still exist in the form of wealth disparities and unequal access to education and housing. Immigrants still assimilate over time, as they always have. Finally, affirmative action programs only impact a relative handful of people, and do not fully compensate for the lingering effects of discrimination.

The bottom line here is that making a patently false argument, in essence, that people of color are culturally, rather than biologically, inferior is still racist.

The pre-Ukraine consensus that force should not be used to change international borders was the product, not of abstract rules, but of the following:

1. Lingering memories of the destruction caused by World War II, and a general desire not to repeat the experience;
2. A principled rejection of colonialism; and
3. American military power as a backstop.

All three of these things have waned over time to varying degrees; hence, the invasion of Ukraine. One has to hope that the images of the destruction in Ukraine, and the failures of the Russian military in the face of Ukrainian courage and NATO weapons, will revive them.

Fueled by the presumed presidential ambitions of their respective governors, Texas and Florida are engaged in a spirited race to the bottom on cultural issues. Texas initially took the lead with its abortion vigilante law and its treatment of trans people. Florida, however, clearly passed Texas with its Don’t Say Gay Act, its Stop Woke Act, and its Disney retaliation bill, just to name a few. Don’t count Texas out, however; the race has just begun.

One area in which Texas has an unassailable lead is guns. Concealed weapon bags are a big seller in stores there. Practically every business establishment has a large sign addressing unpermitted carry at its front door. And, believe it or not, you can actually carry guns into the Capitol building! You just have to use an entrance dedicated for that purpose.

I am not making that up. Seriously. Florida will struggle to meet that standard.

DeSantis has been deeply critical of the efforts to investigate the causes of the January 6 riot. That seems to be the default GOP position; neither express support for nor condemnation of the rioters, but blame the Democrats for trying to use January 6 as a wedge issue. This approach maintains the facade of unity between the pro- and anti-riot factions of the party, which is viewed as a necessary step to regaining power.

The Democrats need to pin him down. It should be asserted as often and openly as possible that he supports the rioters until he makes a clear statement to the contrary. Make him prove that he is willing to suffer the consequences for standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law. Is he? I doubt it.

Ross Douthat identifies three different ideological strains being manifested in the Ohio primary, with candidates to match: a pro-business, internationalist establishment (Dolan); a group of Tea Party movement “True Conservatives” (Mandel); and a purely populist group supported by Trump (Vance). Is he right?

Yes. What he is describing, in my terms, are the PBP, CL, and Reactionary factions of the GOP. His analysis of their composition and beliefs is completely consistent with mine.

This battle will be extremely interesting for commentators such as myself. The outcome won’t matter much in November, as the party will rally around the winner in order to defeat the Democrats, no matter how extreme and hypocritical he might be (here’s looking at you, J.D.). If the Republicans win the general election and gain control of Congress, however, the ideological differences within the party will be meaningful again. That’s why the GOP Congress accomplished almost nothing in the first two Trump years.

Yes, it happens once in a blue moon. The issue in question is the blanket forgiveness of student loans.

I’ve written about this many times in the past, and I won’t repeat myself. As far as I’m concerned, the only basis for it is the desire to do something dramatic to mobilize the youthful blue base in November. It would be a form of popularism.

Unfortunately, the limits of popularism were exposed by the approval of the stimulus checks. The recipients have all forgotten the checks, and are whining about inflation, even if they are, on balance, better off. And why would you think the debt relief recipients would be grateful? Young people think Biden is uninspiring and out of touch in any event, so you can be certain they would complain that any measure of relief isn’t enough, and say they’re too demoralized with the failures of the left to vote in November.

Just don’t do it. The student loan problem is real, but giving everyone a break, regardless of the circumstances, isn’t the answer.

During our recent trip to Texas, we learned that one of the principal precipitants of the Texas War of Independence was illegal immigration–that is, Anglo efforts to get around Mexican limits on immigration.

How’s that for irony?

Ross Douthat will allow that the Florida Disney retaliation bill is probably poor policy and may be struck down as a First Amendment violation. In general, however, he thinks it’s OK for large corporations to lose their special privileges for speaking out against conservative legislation. Is he right?

No, for two reasons:

1. While the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District is an obvious and extreme example of a “special privilege,” the vast majority of retaliatory actions the government can take will involve tax code provisions that pertain to an entire class of businesses. To call these “special privileges” would be misleading at best.
2. It is inappropriate, and not permitted by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, for the government to deprive anyone of anything just because he expressed a political opinion that is unpopular with a particular official or political party. To overturn that rule would be to threaten a fundamental principle of liberal democracy.

In the early stages of the pandemic, apart from showing an inappropriate preference for his older constituents, DeSantis’ record was fairly unremarkable. That changed, however, when he saw political advantages in throwing his support to the anti-vax movement. As a result, he prohibited school districts, local governments, and even businesses from imposing mask and vaccine mandates on employees and consumers, talked up bogus cures, and spread doubts about the efficacy of the vaccines. He even refused to say whether he had been vaccinated or not. On the whole, then, his record is even worse than Trump’s. His “freedom” agenda meant freedom for the virus, and unnecessary deaths for vulnerable Floridians.

How should the Democrats make this point? First, they need to find a reputable study that identifies the number of unnecessary deaths for which DeSantis is responsible. Then they need to run lots of ads featuring haggard nurses in which they tell the world DeSantis has blood on his hands. They might even make the point that DeSantis claims to be “pro-life” on the abortion issue, but only cares about the lives of the unborn. That would be another twofer.

Increasingly among the far-right crowd, “Make America Great Again” means turning our country into a facsimile of Orban’s Hungary. How would Trump or DeSantis go about doing it?

The key elements of the Orban regime are:

1. Extreme gerrymandering;
2. Using public funds to reward key supporters;
3. Politicizing law enforcement, vote counting, and the judiciary;
4. Finding appropriate scapegoats for your failures; and
5. Gaining effective control of the media, including the internet.

As to #1, the state parties and the Constitution itself have already accomplished as much as can be done. On #2, Trump has already shown the way with his tariff regime. #3 has already been partially accomplished, thanks mostly to Mitch McConnell; you only have to pick the right law enforcement people to finish the job. Liberals, foreigners, and illegal immigrants make great scapegoats. But what about the media?

Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is right out of the Orban playbook. Gaining control of the media in America will be more difficult than it was in Hungary, given the First Amendment and the size and number of influential media companies. It can be done, however. Just use the regulatory tools at hand to harass your opponents unmercifully, persuade the Supreme Court to loosen the standards for libel cases, and get your plutocrat friends to buy the companies at a discount. Once that is accomplished, your position will be unassailable.

DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have just approved a bill prohibiting virtually all abortions–even for rape and incest victims–after 15 weeks. Relative to some other red states, this is actually a fairly modest change, but do not be fooled. The GOP is simply banking its assumed winnings with the Supreme Court; it will be back for more if the Court completely overturns Roe.

How should the Democrats deal with the issue on the campaign trail? By running lots of commercials featuring testimonials from attractive women about how the loss of abortion rights will ruin their lives. Focusing on the rape and incest issue would be particularly useful. Imagine, if you will, a rape victim talking about how painful it would be to carry the perp’s child to term, and thus endanger her life, at her own expense due to the GOP’s unwillingness to provide her with affordable health insurance.

That’s what I call a twofer.