Cromwell

There are three facially independent strains of reactionary thought in America. The religious reactionaries think Christianity is in danger from the PC thought police; the racists are afraid that the prevailing white American culture (as they incorrectly define it) will be swamped by the growing number of people of color; and the economic reactionaries are angry that their skills have lost value, and they have lost status, in an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

These are ideal types. In reality, many individual reactionaries would meet at least two, and sometimes all three, of the tests. For example, people identifying themselves as religious reactionaries frequently aren’t religious at all, in the orthodox Christian sense; their God is actually The Big White Guy in the Sky, who assures them every day that white Christian men have the divine right to rule America, that women are their subjects, and that people of color are whiny interlopers in their Jerusalem.

That is why you have Capitol rioters comfortably waving Jesus flags next to compatriots in pagan outfits, and why black Christian liberals are among their enemies, not their friends.

History tells us there are two paths to fascism. The first involves the creation of a mass party, backed by thousands of paramilitary thugs, with a populist economic agenda, a charismatic leader, and a nostalgic, nationalistic program; the second is dependent on the strength, ruthlessness, and prestige of the armed forces, typically juxtaposed against a powerful leftist movement that endangers the interests of the wealthy and privileged.

We’re some distance from either of these; illiberal democracy is a much better bet. As I’ve noted before, however, the raw materials already exist, so, with the proper leadership, a truly threatening fascist movement in this country is far from an impossibility.

Once upon a time, the founders of what became giant social media companies had a vision: to bring the world together with cute cat videos. They seemed harmless at the time. Heck, a lot of people even gave Facebook credit for the Arab Spring. Social media seemed like an unvarnished good.

That was then, and this is now. Social media, as it turns out, can as easily be a pipeline for religious, ethnic, and ideological hatred as for your travel photos. Algorithms used by the social media corporations generate higher profits when they drive consumers to extreme opinions. Rumors and conspiracy theories thrive and spread in this friendly environment. The companies can’t respond quickly enough to solve the problems, and have every financial incentive not to. What can be done?

Antitrust actions can limit the size of these corporations, but do very little to resolve the free speech/censorship problem. The repeal of Section 230 would address the issue pertaining to false and inflammatory posts by forcing the corporations to take legal responsibility for objectionable material posted on their platforms by third parties, but it would discourage speech, to the ultimate detriment of the GOP members who claim to support it. The answer has to lie elsewhere.

The antitrust actions that have been filed in the last month were an appropriate response to Facebook’s attempts to eliminate competition. The free speech/censorship issues are best addressed by the adoption and enforcement of clear and transparent government regulations which establish standards that have nothing to do with the current algorithms.

In the meantime, if you’re a Republican complaining about Twitter and Facebook using the First Amendment rights your party fought so hard to give them against Trump and his henchmen, put a sock in it.

One of the greatest “accomplishments” of the right over the past several decades has been to establish the existence of a variety of First Amendment rights for corporations through legal action. The Hobby Lobby case (won by Josh Hawley) went so far as to say that corporations with no legal connections to any church can have rights pertaining to religion, even though I have yet to see a corporation take communion.

It is, therefore, ironic to see GOP leaders screaming about giant tech corporations exercising their First Amendment rights to cut off right-wing extremists peddling lies and sedition. The moral here is to be careful what you ask for, because you might well get it.

The GOP civil war has, if anything, intensified. Business groups are now threatening to withhold their financial support. Can the split become permanent? If so, how?

PBPs are transactional; they demand tax cuts, deregulation, freedom from arbitrary governmental interference, and stability. If the Reactionary-driven GOP only offers them electoral losses and chaos, they will flip.

I don’t think we’re there yet, but we’re a lot closer than we were a week ago. I suspect it will take either another round of losses or some outrageous event perpetrated by a right-wing extremist–possibly a murder of a prominent politician or media figure–to seal the deal for the foreseeable future.

In case you’re worried that Biden, at 78, is just too old to be up for the job, consider that he is: a year younger than Bob Dylan; the same age as Paul McCartney; a year older than Mick Jagger; and just three years older than Pete Townshend. They’re doing ok for themselves, aren’t they?

Hope I die before I get old, indeed.

When I was watching the attack on the Capitol in real time, my initial thought was that the rioters had inside help. Based on the information available to us now, that appears to be a bit of an overstatement, but it is clear that at least a few of the security people were sympathetic to the rioters, and provided them with some level of assistance.

As I’ve noted many times over the past year or so, the scary thing about the far right is that: (a) its members number in the tens of millions; (b) a disproportionate number of them own guns and are willing to use them; and (c) they have infiltrated government (particularly law enforcement) at all levels. I predicted that (c) would create serious issues for the vote counting process after the election, but for the most part, that did not happen; the local elections officials, of both parties, gritted their teeth and did their job in the face of great adversity.

The realization of my fears was merely deferred–we’re facing it now. Buckle up.

It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Wednesday’s riot turned into a serious threat to our political system. The rioters, with extensive inside help, take complete control of the Capitol, seize the evidence of the vote, and hold all of the members of Congress prisoner; Trump immediately declares himself re-elected and calls out carefully selected members of the military to restore order; other units shut down unfriendly media outlets in New York and D.C.; right-wing militia members rise at Trump’s direction and take control of state governments and local TV stations throughout the country; the bulk of the military refuses to take sides, thereby effectively helping the insurgents; and the left has to choose between fighting a guerrilla war against the new regime or sullen acquiescence.

All of that would have required careful and extensive preparation and communication which was far beyond the ability of the man on golf cart, let alone the furry Viking and Mr. Zip-Tie. Trump didn’t have any notion of what would happen next; he was just blowing off steam in his usual thoughtless way. The rioters didn’t think through the consequences of their actions, either. Just storming the Capitol and threatening Mitch and Nancy wasn’t going to make Trump president without a whole lot more coordinated action.

If there is a next time, you had better assume it will be different, and far more dangerous.

GOP House members reacted very differently to the riot than GOP senators. Why?

Several reasons:

1. The Republicans gained seats in the House during the last election, but lost control of the Senate. GOP House members consequently are more likely to see Trumpism as a winning hand than senators.
2. There are plenty of House districts that are uniformly bright red. The greatest danger to an incumbent in such districts is a primary challenger, not a Democrat in the general election. That is also true for some senators, but less so; there are pockets of urban blue in every state.
3. Similarly, the cost of running an election in a rural district is relatively low. House members from those districts don’t need to worry about sucking up to RINO business interests for campaign contributions.
4. The minority has some influence in the Senate as a result of the filibuster. The minority party in the House has no power (or responsibility) at all. Individual members of the House minority thus have every incentive to throw bombs in order to get attention; what do they have to lose?
5. And, of course, McConnell and McCarthy are very different people. Only one of them plays the long game. Spoiler alert: it isn’t McCarthy.

Josh Hawley is the very personification of the elite privilege that GOP voters profess to despise. The son of a banker, he attended Stanford and Yale Law School, then clerked for Chief Justice Roberts. He made his name litigating for Hobby Lobby, got elected Missouri Attorney General, filed a legal challenge to Obamacare, and was elected to the Senate in 2018. He is, by all accounts, dying to be president.

The quickest way from Point A to Point B, in his view, was to suck up to Trump and the base. Hence, his unwavering support for the man on golf cart, and the now infamous clenched fist for the benefit of the rioters.

The riot and its aftermath have been a mixed bag for Hawley. On the one hand, he lost his book deal and some of his wealthy patrons, and his colleagues are treating him with disgust and contempt. On the other hand, he probably thinks he cemented his relationship with the trusty base and burnished his outsider credentials–assets he will most assuredly need in 2024.

The problem for Hawley is that he is a lawyer trying to position himself as the logical spokesman for guys like the one with the fur and the Viking hat. Those people don’t represent enough money and votes to win a primary. Furthermore, unlike Trump, Hawley doesn’t appear to have the background and skill set of a street populist, so anti-democratic politics won’t work for him, either. He’s stuck in the middle–inspiring confidence neither from the establishment nor the conspiracy theorists and street thugs.

The bottom line is that lawyers don’t make good fascist leaders. Hawley has lost any connection with the GOP establishment, and replaced it with a temporary advantage that will prove to be fool’s gold.

Tom Cotton, who did not make the same mistake, will be watching with great satisfaction.

A new impeachment process won’t result in Trump’s removal from office, given the timeframes. It won’t divide the GOP in any meaningful way. It won’t uncover and publicize any facts about Trump and the rioters that aren’t already known. It will, however, create an unhelpful distraction at a time when the focus should be on Biden’s agenda. So what’s the point?

To blow off steam, I guess. If there is one thing I learned in 37 years of dealing with government, it is that venting without a sense of strategic purpose is counterproductive. Let’s put an end to this as soon as possible.

I’ve explained many times why sending large checks to all taxpayers is a poor form of stimulus. In a nutshell, a large percentage of the money will go to relatively affluent people who are unscathed by the pandemic, and who will just save it. That does not provide any relief for struggling small businesses, or the unemployed.

But the checks are broadly popular, and money is almost free right now. What if the checks are thrown into a package that also includes aid for state and local governments and a longer extension of unemployment benefits? Why not make the GOP pay the price if it wants to make a stand for austerity for blue states and restaurant employees?

McConnell was in a position to prevent a vote on a package of this nature when he was Majority Leader. Now, he isn’t. I will be surprised if it doesn’t happen.

I think it was Bret Stephens who called the rioters “Visigoths.” In light of the guy with the fur and the Viking hat, that sounds about right.

It also sounds eerily like Pat Buchanan’s reference to “peasants with pitchforks.” Buchanan was speaking over 20 years ago, but now he sounds like a prophet instead of a clown. Was this truly his vision of what America should become? Someone should ask him.

Ross Douthat is fond of pointing out that Trump missed his Reichstag Fire opportunity to crush liberal democracy when he chose not to take the pandemic seriously. For Ross, this is proof that Trump was too lazy and inept to be the threat to the system that some of us made him out to be. There is some truth to that.

Instead, to continue with the German theme, we got something like the Beer Hall Putsch last week, with Trump splitting time between the Hitler and Ludendorff roles. If the absurdity of it makes you feel better about the future, think again; Hitler and his henchmen learned from their mistakes.

Paul Krugman argues that the GOP has been taken over by fascists, and that history tells us that appeasement of right-wing extremists doesn’t work. I previously addressed the first proposition; is he right about the second?

It is important to distinguish between ends and means here. Fascists are reactionaries who rely on extraconstitutional methods (typically violence, of course) to accomplish their objectives. To the extent that reactionaries are using violence and breaking the law, appeasement is not and should not be an option. Appeasing peaceful reactionaries on the substance of some culture war issues, however, would be an appropriate way to prevent them from crossing the line into fascism and becoming a threat to our political system.

The Supreme Court will probably do Biden’s dirty work for him by creating a series of Christian carve-outs over the next few years. One hopes that will stop the rot. We’ll see.