We Must Resist This Extreme Court

The Daily Escape:

Broad-tailed hummingbirds mating, northern CO – June 2024 photo by Hilary Bralove. This is what John Roberts and his radical Conservative associates are doing to American democracy.

“What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from’”Marilyn Vos Savant

The American colonies fought to get free from a king who ruled with absolute power. And on Monday, once again in America, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in substance overthrew the American Revolution by saying that any US president could have the rights of a modern-day king, broadly immune from prosecution under the law for his/her acts.

This betrayal of the American revolutionaries, Founders and Framers was delivered in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of the Conservative radicals who make up the majority of the SCOTUS. It hurts even more because it is designed to protect the most corrupt and dangerous person to ever hold the office of President of the US. Looking at the opinion, it becomes clear that the Conservative majority is more concerned with concentrating power in the hands of the president than in how a president might abuse that power.

This usurping of power is not implied anywhere in the Constitution, nor implied by the centuries of precedent in opinions by the SCOTUS. For you fans of Originalism, remember this, written by historian Joseph Ellis in 2018: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Most members of America’s founding generation would have regarded this situation as strange. If you read the debates among the delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and then read their prescriptions for judicial power in Article III of the Constitution, it becomes clear that the last thing the 39 signers of the document wanted was for the Supreme Court to become supreme.”

Bu real power in this country no longer lies in the People. It now resides at the Supreme Court.

For generations, doomsayers have warned us about the imminent collapse of the American republic, not by outside forces, but by inside elements gnawing at the nation’s gut like a cancer. Watch out for the Communists. Watch out for the foreigners swarming our borders. Watch out for leftists. Watch out for the Jews. Watch out for the Muslims. Watch out for rock and roll. Watch out for Disney.

Now the US as we knew it is tottering. But the collapse wasn’t caused by any of those things. It was caused by radical ideologues who knew how to pervert the very mechanism that was supposed to ensure the stability of American democracy: Its system of checks and balances. You know, the three branches of the federal government empowered to crack the whip on each other, and all of them answerable to The People. But for all their wisdom, the Founders were unable to foresee that two centuries on, there would be plotters and schemers who found a means to exploit the chinks in the wall. And possibly to bring the whole thing tumbling down.

We’re talking about the fallout from the SCOTUS 6-3 decision in Trump vs. US. As Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) noted:

“This is a profound change to our fundamental law—an amendment to the Constitution…”

Here’s a brief summary by Robert Hubbell: (Emphasis by Hubbell)

“Today, the Supreme Court invented a rule (found nowhere in the Constitution) granting presidents immunity from criminal prosecution as follows:

Core presidential functions are absolutely immune (“conclusive and preclusive”), for example, when granting pardons.

Official acts are preemptively immune from criminal prosecution for a president’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility—which is almost anything tangentially related to the president’s enumerated powers

Evidentiary rules. The Court also imposed two evidentiary rules on prosecutors seeking to navigate the above two rules:

A prosecutor may not use official acts as evidence in a prosecution of unofficial acts.

A prosecutor may not examine a president’s motives in attempting to distinguish between official and unofficial acts.”

HCR reminds us that at his confirmation hearing in 2005, now–Chief Justice John Roberts said:

“I believe that no one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law, the Constitution, and statutes.”

But he’s now changed his mind. Roberts’ opinion went even further than Trump had requested. And instead of reciting what the SCOTUS has now allowed the president to do without fear, let’s take a look at how we got here:

  • A jury found that Trump committed 34 felonies to help win in 2016.
  • After committing those crimes, once he took office, Trump then appointed three Supreme Court justices.
  • Those justices then delayed efforts to hold Trump accountable for allegedly committing more crimes to hold onto power after losing the 2020 election.
  • Now, those same justices support the idea that Trump enjoys absolute immunity for “official acts”—thereby drastically weakening efforts to hold Trump accountable.

One Constitutional flaw the founders left us is the Electoral College (EC). Its original purpose was to advance the interests of slaveholders. And while we no longer have slaveholders, their spiritual descendants now control the Supreme Court.

While the EC was supposed to safeguard against the “tyranny of the majority”, it has instead promoted the tyranny of the minority. The EC allowed the Supreme Court to be hijacked by authoritarians. Five of its current members were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and another who helped one of those popular vote losers, GW Bush, ascend to the Oval Office. That is Clarence Thomas, also married to a conspirator in the Jan. 6 insurrectionist plot.

This has cost us control of our politics and our courts. Control is now held by a minority, supported by some technocrats in the middle, and enabled by the apathy of most of the rest of us.

Worse, those in the current minority are extremists. The Supreme Court is now no different from the Senate: An explicitly partisan, supra-legislative body that, because of the EC, has a built-in bias for the rural party.

It took just eight years for a game show host who was unable to win a plurality of the vote to expose our entire political order as rotten and decayed. He demonstrated that the impeachment mechanism was a dead letter and then got the Supreme Court to declare that the president was, by definition, above the law.

How do we now save our Constitutional republic?

During this Fourth of July week, let’s remember that our common enemy is the partisan power of a partisan minority. This weekend is our opportunity to set a battle plan against that common enemy. That would be a plan to maintain control of Congress for the next two years. The Democrats are just five seats away from having majority control of the House of Representatives. It is a heavier lift to retain control of the Senate, but it isn’t beyond possibility. As Wrongo said the other day, focus on these seats may also help push Biden over the goal line. And even if it doesn’t, the incoming president Trump would be effectively blocked from implementing much of his agenda.

Ultimately, we need political power to dilute the power of this Extreme Court that has taken control of the duties of the other branches of government. If there’s a better argument for voting for Biden (or anyone else who’s not Trump) Wrongo doesn’t know what it is.

There is no option, we have to resist, no matter what. We have to fight.

At this difficult, traumatic time, we must convert the shock of this latest extreme judicial overreach into action, to achieve an overwhelming victory in November. Just as Dobbs fueled a massive turnout, so too should Trump v. US.

(This is Wrongo’s last column before the Independence Day holiday. The next column will be published on Monday, 7/8)

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Cartoons Of The Week – June 30, 2024

It’s no surprise that all of the cartoonists arose from their slumbers to draw various scenes of
the Biden and Trump debate and its aftermath. In most cases they magnified Joe’s decrepitude or show streams flowing from Trump’s mouth. Few are genuinely funny.

But before cartoons, a few more words about the debate and where we are going. The NYT has an editorial saying that Biden should stand down for the good of the country. Even though the idea has been rejected by Biden, that thought is alive and will play out over the next few weeks. And for better or for worse, it will largely gain or lose traction based on poll results, by those same people who we’ve been saying for months that we shouldn’t trust their numbers.

That’s the dilemma facing Democrats. Interestingly, Biden’s poll numbers went into positive territory in a post-debate poll yesterday and he had his best fundraising day ever. The viewing numbers show that only about 30% of those likely to vote this fall watched or streamed the debate on Thursday night.

That historically small audience was likely comprised mostly of partisans on both sides, particularly given that CNN allowed Fox to run a simulcast of the debate on its network, giving Trump supporters a safe space to watch.

That so few undecided or persuadable voters checked into the debate could explain why a new 538/Ipsos poll taken entirely after the debate, found little movement from a previous poll of the very same people. Note: Biden leads today by 2.7 points, 46.2%-43.9%:

Why is it that Democrats collapse in terror when their guy gets a cold? Republicans rally around their guy when he’s found civilly liable for sexual assault; when he tries to overthrow the government and loses more than 60 lawsuits before doing so; and when he’s convicted of a felony based on his desire to conceal paying off a porn star that he had at least somewhat coerced sex with, while his wife was recovering from childbirth.

The pundits would have you believe that Democrats have to “acknowledge reality.” Instead, that says Democrats are cowards looking for a place to hide from the big, bad NYT. It doesn’t matter if the Dems replace Biden or not, the media is going to harp on the shortcomings of whoever it is, no matter what.

So circle the wagons and not the firing squad. The administrations of both of these two men have track records that are easily predictive of future performance. Make this a choice between one or the other of them rather than the media’s default position of it being a referendum on Biden. Discipline yourselves and focus on what is really at stake. This election isn’t a casting call for a reality TV show. It’s an election where the candidates represent fundamentally different visions of the American future. And those visions are the only thing that matters. On to cartoons.

Contrasting platforms 2024:

The only choice?

What happened to the Biden’s taking drugs narrative?

Monday will bring new horrors:

How it really works:

Few things are as difficult to swallow as Louisiana’s new policy:

Scrawling by a pavement Plato telling us what to do this fall:

 

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Cartoons Of The Week – June 23, 2024

Wrongo was asked if he thought the presidential debate would be watched by many Americans. Here’s a report by CivicScience about the expected viewer demographics that show many will be tuning in:

“Exclusive data from CivicScience reveal that just over 4-in-10 US adults plan to watch or listen to some or all of the debate as it broadcasts live on CNN next week, with an additional 12% intending to catch the debate after it airs. That brings total intended viewership to just over half of the population. The other half is split between those who will be following coverage of the event in the news and those who don’t plan to follow the debate at all.”

Here’s CivicScience’s chart:

Note that there is zero data above for Independents or moderates. More from CivicScience:

  • Consumers who prefer to watch CNN for national news are the most likely to follow the debate live (59%), although Fox News viewers are not far behind (56%).
  • Wealthier earners ($100K or more yearly) are significantly more likely than lower-income earners ($50K or less yearly) to watch the live debate or follow the debate at all.
  • Americans who are concerned about inflation are twice as likely to tune into the live debate compared to those who are not concerned, ranking as the top election issue voters are following.

Less than a third of undecided voters (particularly younger ones) plan to watch the debate live, while a larger share will rely on social media clips and news coverage afterward. All that means is their perspective on the debate will be shaped by the people and outlets who curate their news for them. That’s the nature of politics today.

Younger audiences (under 35) are more likely than older adults to have cut the cord on cable for streaming, so they are the least likely (by a narrow margin) to watch the debate live. In fact, the percentage of the under-35 crowd who will watch or listen to the debate after it airs, or just plan to follow news about it instead, outnumbers those who plan to watch it live (see red dotted line box:

On to cartoons. Debate preview:

Should the GOP maybe reconsider their Biden attacks?

Two sides of the same political coin:

Supremes go off the deep end:

A mind is a terrible thing to waste:

The Olympics are coming. This might happen:

Remember what the words really mean:

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We Can’t Sit Back. We Must Become Activists

The Daily Escape:

Doll House, Bears Ears National Monument, UT – June 2024 photo by Robert Villegas

Over the weekend, Wrongo and Ms. Right along with friends of the blog Gloria R., Pat M. and David P. saw the play “Suffs” on Broadway, NYC.

The plot is that it’s 1913 and the women’s movement is trying to get women the right to vote. They are organized by the suffragists, not suffragettes (they call themselves “Suffs”). “Suffs” traces their heroic and occasionally dangerous campaign from 1913 through ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. There’s a schism in the movement between the conservative old-line establishment Suffs, and a youthful breakaway group who want to emulate a similar movement in England, led in the US by Alice Paul who briefly spent time in the UK.

Paul and her group confront then-president Woodrow Wilson, who, after jailing the Paul group and allowing them to nearly die in a hunger strike, eventually tumbles to supporting the Suffs’ cause.

So much has changed since the passing of the 19th Amendment over a century ago, and yet this musical reminds us that we sometimes need to look back, in order to march into the future.

It was a sold out crowd. The audience was enthusiastic, and predominantly women. “Suffs” is a fantastic show that should be seen by anyone who loves Broadway, loves musicals, and needs a breath of hope in this bleak world. Like “Hamilton“, it invites us to learn something about the history of America. It’s a good show and it’s good for the world. Wrongo was emotional, remembering his time as an activist in the Civil Rights movement.

The show sets the stage early with the song, “Find A Way”:

How will we do it when it’s never been done?
How will we find the way where there isn’t one?

Suffs” also makes us think about where we are today in America, along with what we can do to make it better. My lunch with the Broadway friends underlined that Democrats think it’s a scary time. Dan Pfeiffer wrote about how “Democrats are in a full-blown freakout over Biden”. Wrongo was the only one at lunch who thought that Biden has an excellent chance of winning in November. To paraphrase a line in the New Yorker by Lore Segal:

The current situation is like two Democrats who are fighting a duel. On the count of ten, they turn and each shoots themselves in the foot”.

More from Pfeiffer:

“People are right to worry. This race is closer than it should be and the stakes could not be higher. It’s shocking that, after everything, Donald Trump is welcome in public let alone on the doorstep of returning to the White House. However, the level of defeatism among so many Democrats is unwarranted.”

Pfeiffer includes an interesting chart that shows detail from the NYT/Siena poll after the Trump verdict. In summary, people who voted previously, back Biden while Trump leads with the folks who vote less often, pay less attention to the news, and engage less frequently with politics:

Pfeiffer concludes by saying: (brackets by Wrongo)

“It is a challenge [for Biden] to tell his story and focus voters on the dangers of Trump. The presence of third party candidates and the divisions within the Democratic Party over Gaza make matters worse.”

Can you imagine how freaked out Democrats would be if our nominee had just been convicted of 34 crimes, found liable for sexual assault, had his business found guilty of financial fraud, favored banning abortion, and was on the unpopular side of almost every issue? Dems might say to voters:

Voter: “How is the game going?”

Dem Party: “We forfeited.”

Voter: “What! Why?”

Dem Party: “We were down two points at the start of the 4th quarter.”

So the question is, like it was for the Suffs, can we find a way where there isn’t one?

The answer is we can, if we really try. Wrongo thinks we have to become activists, not Party members. We need to be “warriors for democracy” or “freedom fighters” in service of defeating Trump and all MAGA candidates in November. From Simon Rosenberg:

“The Choice, The Contrast, Joe Biden Is A Good President – I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about something I wrote to you about the other day – the idea of establishing a clear contrast in the election. It’s something I’ve been referring to as “the choice.” Central to my theory of 2024 is that regardless of where polling is today once the Biden campaign was able to bring “the choice” to voters in the battlegrounds Biden would gain and we would win…”

The new CBS/YouGov poll from last week confirms that making the election a referendum on Trump would be supported by Biden voters. Opposing Trump as a main motivation for voting for Biden has moved up by 7 points in the past 3 months:

In the same poll, Biden leads Trump among independent voters by two percentage points — 50% to 48%. It’s well within the margin of error, but importantly, it amounts to a 17 point swing for Biden in June compared to March’s polling.

Another thing Rosenberg points out is that polls around the world have been overestimating support for conservative candidates. The underperformance by Republicans in polls we’ve seen in the US also showed up in the European elections this weekend. Here’s The Economist: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“Consider the numbers. Ms. Le Pen’s [France] result is down on 2014, the previous European election. So is the Austrian Freedom Party and, more drastically, the Danish People’s Party and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands…. Alternative for Germany [AFD] also disappointed…on 10.8% it only modestly increased its support from 2014 and did less well than in the 2017 Bundestag election. The Lega [Italy] has made big gains, but it too seems to have done worse than was generally expected…”

The polls were off in India too, by a lot. Narendra Modi’s polls said his Right-wing party would sweep back into power, but they barely held on, and needed to share power in order to form a new government.

One of Wrongo’s lunch companions brought up David Sedaris’s quote in the New Yorker about the “Choice”:

“To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”

Wrongo often talks about Biden needing better messaging. He should for example, say what Mitt Romney keeps saying:

“I don’t want my President to be someone who committed sexual assault…”

Or fraud. How can Trump be seen as a “winner” or a strong leader when he’s a rapist, a fraudster, a traitor, and a felon? We’re just beginning to see the negative impact of the guilty verdict. And “rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon” will take away from Trump’s preferred framing that he’s strong and Biden is weak. Biden is 81 and Trump turns 78 this week. This isn’t about age — it’s about their records.

But, we can’t sit on our hands. We have to become activists. Few of the Suffs women believed what they did as individuals would make a difference.

Few of the Vietnam activists believed they would bring about change.

And the activists of the Civil Rights movement knew how it was nearly impossible to win the vote, right up until the time they did win it.

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Will The Guilty Verdict Matter?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Cundy’s Harbor, ME – May 2024 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Everyone’s talking about it. Apparently, as with everything political, there are two sides. In real life, Trump was found guilty. For those of you who feel good about what the jury decided, Wrongo would give you all a big hug if you were nearby. In the Republican parallel universe however, he’s the victim of a Communist show trial. Wrongo hasn’t seen this many White men cry since Larry Bird retired. Don’t be surprised if the verdict caused Martha-Ann Alito to lower her “Stop the Steal” flag to half-mast.

You may not have already heard, but one of the jurors who voted to convict Trump regularly gets their news from Truth Social and Fox, meaning against all odds, they were convinced by the evidence. That was most likely the juror Trump was counting to deliver a hung jury.

At the Mansion of Wrong, we opened a bottle of good champagne.

In a nutshell, the reality facing Americans in the presidential election is that one of the two main contenders is a felon whose campaign is based on claiming the system is rigged. From Ed Luce in the Financial Times (paywalled):

“The Republican party’s nominee now joins his former campaign manager, senior political adviser, chief White House strategist, and national security adviser as a convicted criminal. The jury’s speed and unanimity leave little doubt about the watertightness of the verdict.…No matter what his lawyers advise, Trump’s court of appeal will be the US electorate.”

What happens between the guilty verdict in New York and inauguration day on January 20, 2025 will be a comprehensive stress test of American society. The decision will be made by the individual votes of the 244 million citizens who are eligible to vote, many of whom will stay home rather than vote.

November 5th, 2024 isn’t the end point of this struggle because if the election outcome is disputed, societal forces beyond the courts and the ballot box will again come to draw up sides, as they did in the interregnum between November 2020 and January 2021.

The verdict matters. But is it enough to be decisive? The jury is, well, still out on that, and will be until November. But the verdict is a welcome outcome if you’re anti-Trump. It pierces Trump’s preferred narrative that he’s a winner and it’s plausible that it will depress some margin of potential Trump swing voters while activating the Democratic base.

Biden should seize the moment. He doesn’t need to speak about the details of the NY case, except to profess his faith in the judicial system and his respect for our fellow citizens who served on the jury. He doesn’t have to engage with the hysterical Trump defenders, except to point out their dangerous demagoguery and un-American attacks on our legal and judicial system.

Trump OTOH, can bitch and moan about unfairness all he wants, but only losers do that. And if you’re explaining, you’re losing. So while we should expect Trump’s conviction to have a very small effect on MAGA Republicans, it will be repellant to most centrists. By contrast, the verdict will be a heartening reminder to liberals and anyone invested in responsible government that the system can still work.

But first let’s take a deep breath and let this uplifting moment wash over us. Now, agree to start every conversation about him by saying:  “Convicted Felon Donald Trump…”.

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“A lot of polling shows that a conviction is bad news for Trump. The highly respected Marquette University Law School poll recently did a split-sample. The first group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” Biden led Trump 43-39. The other group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found not guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” In that group, Trump led 44-38.”

Other polls are similar. CNN released a poll in late April that offered some interesting details on the voters who could abandon Trump if convicted:

“They tend to be younger than other Trump supporters (64% are younger than 50 compared with 37% of those who would not reconsider), are less likely to be White (49% are people of color compared with 17% of those who would not reconsider), are more apt to report being Biden voters in 2020 (20% of them say they backed Biden in 2020 vs. 6% of those who would not reconsider) and are likelier to acknowledge that Biden legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency four years ago (63% vs. 22% among those who would not reconsider). They are also more apt to be politically independent (49% vs. 31%) and ideologically moderate (50% vs. 38%).”

These are some of the same voters who supported Biden in 2020 but who might defect in 2024. We need to remember that Trump is very good at distracting people from his problems by creating new ones, and most voters have very short attention spans.

America no longer has political guardrails. We no longer have standards which are bottom-line required in order for someone to be considered an admirable person. Apparently, a significant percentage of us are willing to elect anyone who yells the loudest or lies the most.

Still, there’s nothing but upside in believing Trump’s conviction will matter. Because if that turns out to be wrong, America will no longer be a place where it’s worth living.

Sadly, Wrongo has no plans for leaving it.

So it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where for the first time in forever, we can stay plugged into the news and talk about what’s going on with our friends and family. But we still need to take a few moments to consider the upcoming week and what it can mean for the nation. Since there’s beautiful weather in the northeast, start by grabbing a seat outdoors in the shade. Now, watch and listen to two musical performances.

First, “Song from a Secret Garden”, from an album by the Norwegian group, Secret Garden. Their music is sort of neo-classical new-age compositions. Here it is performed in 2022 by the Millennium Symphony Orchestra, a Korean group with solo Cello by Yoon Kyung Cho. It’s a lovely arrangement:

Second for levity, watch and listen to “I fought The Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four from 1966. The tune was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and covered by the Bobby Fuller Four. Their version of the song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004:

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Cartoons Of The Week – May 19, 2024

(There will not be a Monday Wake Up Call this week)

This week most cartoons were either about Justice Alito’s inverted flag, Congresspeople leaving their jobs in DC to go to NYC to help Trump violate his gag order, or the presidential debate which may or may not happen.

But there wasn’t one cartoon about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s pardon of Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. You may recall that he shot Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. Foster was carrying an AR-15, which is legal to do in Texas. Daniel Perry drove his car into the protesters and Foster (who was white) confronted him without raising his gun, largely to protect Whitney Mitchell, who was Foster’s fiancé. She was in a wheel-chair because she’s a quadruple amputee. Foster’s rifle was in a safe position: safety on, no round in the chamber, and pointed at the ground. Perry shot him five times. From JVL:

“The case had everything Republicans love: A peaceful protest with people exercising their First Amendment rights. A veteran lawfully exercising his Second Amendment right. And before the murder the killer had been searching the internet for young girls and sending sexually explicit texts to a minor. The only problem was the protest itself: It was a Black Lives Matter protest. And so Daniel Perry—a groomer who was convicted of murder by a jury of his peers—became a conservative cause celebré.”

Originally sentenced to 25 years in prison, Abbott pardoned him. He’s a sick, criminal piece of work who killed a man in cold blood. Abbott gave him a full pardon. Abbott’s death cult MAGA constituents are thrilled. On to cartoons.

We’re gonna have to shut down the whole Supreme Court until we figure out what’s going on:

Alito waves his flag for Armed Forces Day. It honors the Armed Forces, while Memorial Day honors members of the Armed Forces who died in war. But nothing about Alito is honorable:

What to expect from the next presidential debates:

The next GOP VP nominee will fit in the slot:

Dems are afraid of the political polls:

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Americans Have No Idea How Deep Our Illiberal Roots Are

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Avon Beach, NC – May 2024 photo by Donna Cartwright Hayden

Discussions about “Illiberalism” are suddenly popping up in Wrongo’s daily feeds from many sources. Several are reviews of a book (“Illiberal America”) by Steven Hahn, an NYU professor of history.

Hahn also wrote an article in Saturday’s NYT that condenses the arguments in his book. In his column, “The Deep, Tangled Roots of American Illiberalism”, Hahn argues that American illiberalism is not a mere reaction to a dominant tradition of freedom and individual rights, but a philosophy that has long competed against liberalism for primacy in American politics.

David Leonhardt in a NYT book review of Hahn’s book says:

“This country’s liberal tradition is certainly strong. It explains the democratic radicalism of the American Revolution, the relative openness of the US immigration system in the early 19th century and the inclusiveness of the nation’s public education system in the early 20th century.”

A short version of Hahn’s thesis is that the US has long been deeply reactionary and it’s amazing we’ve gotten as far as we have without a challenge to American democracy prior to Trump. Here’s a excerpt of Hahn’s view of our history:

“Back in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, in “Democracy in America,” glimpsed the illiberal currents that already entangled the country’s politics. While he marveled at the “equality of conditions,” the fluidity of social life and the strength of republican institutions, he also worried about the “omnipotence of the majority.”

“What I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom reigning there,” Tocqueville wrote, “but the shortage of guarantees against tyranny.” He pointed to communities “taking justice into their own hands,” and warned that “associations of plain citizens can compose very rich, influential, and powerful bodies, in other words, aristocratic bodies.” Lamenting their intellectual conformity, Tocqueville believed that if Americans ever gave up republican government, “they will pass rapidly on to despotism,” restricting “the sphere of political rights, taking some of them away in order to entrust them to a single man.”

The slide toward despotism that Tocqueville feared may be well underway, whatever the election’s outcome. Even if they try to fool themselves into thinking that Mr. Trump won’t follow through, millions of voters seem ready to entrust their rights to “a single man” who has announced his intent to use autocratic powers for retribution, repression, expulsion and misogyny.

Only by recognizing what we’re up against can we mount an effective campaign to protect our democracy, leaning on the important political struggles — abolitionism, antimonopoly, social democracy, human rights, civil rights, feminism — that have challenged illiberalism in the past and offer the vision and political pathways to guide us in the future.

Our biggest mistake would be to believe that we’re watching an exceptional departure in the country’s history. Because from the first, Mr. Trump has tapped into deep and ever-expanding illiberal roots. Illiberalism’s history is America’s history.”

America remains a self-deluded country since many Americans have no idea just how illiberal they are, or how deep those illiberal roots run. Today’s college students are living through the consequences of illiberalism. Educational institutions with DEI programs and cultural studies majors have no qualms about siccing the police on their students.

It’s no surprise that university administrators don’t observe the liberal tolerance they espouse in their curricula. But what’s less clear is American colleges and universities exist as training grounds for lawyers, physicians, future Wall Street geniuses and other legs in the stool of elitism. These students are supposed to be compliant because those professions require it.

Time to wake up America! In a few months we’re holding a presidential election in which an illiberal ethnonationalist will stoke white fear of replacement while his Party exploits anti-antisemitism to chip away at our tenuous liberal coalition. There’s danger, and we have little time left to get it right.

No matter how much violence a Trump loss unleashes it’ll pale in comparison to the violence that will come under a Trump dictatorship.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Van Halen’s “Ballot Or The Bullet” from their 1998 album “Van Halen III”.  The song’s title comes from a 1964 speech by Malcolm X who, while speaking about the civil rights struggle, said “We’re going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet.”

Van Halen wasn’t a political band, but they appropriated Malcolm X’s speech for this tune:

Also, Eddie Van Halen played slide guitar on this, a rarity.

Sample Lyrics:

Give me liberty or give me death
No truer words have ever been said
Well are you prepared for your very last breath?
Don’t you dare start what you cannot finish
So when we face, face the adversary
No longer are we the minority

When a house is divided, it just will not stand
Once it’s decided, a line drawn in the sand

Ah, the ballot or the bullet
The choice is up to you
The ballot or the bullet
Tell me what you gonna do
The sword or the pen
Can’t be held by the same hand

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Cartoons Of The Week – April 14, 2024

The Daily Escape:

Salt Run, St. Augustine FL – April 2024 iPhone photo by Wrongo. This is a tidal inlet fed by the Atlantic Ocean. The far shore is a protected state park and the ocean is just over the dunes in the distance.

Wrongo has been enjoying the spring weather here in Florida, the second stop on our caravan of sibling visits in the south. This view is from my sister’s home.

Many cartoons this week about OJ’s death, along with lots about Arizona’s new anti-abortion bill. Here’s the best that I found. First, a leftover about the eclipse from earlier in the week:

OJ left the building, but isn’t home yet:

OJ’s running just like back in the day:

Ukraine Will Lose If Republicans Have Their Way:

School voucher money is shrinking public school funding:

With a few exceptions, those private schools that far outpace the public ones have the advantage of being able to pick and choose their students. Also, the public gets the schools it demands.

The Arizona fallout won’t be limited to abortion:

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Why Ukraine?

The Daily Escape:

St. Ann’s Church and Shrine, Polonia, Buffalo NY, abandoned in 2012  – March 2024 photo by Abandoned and beyond Buffalo. It was recently purchased by a group of Muslims aiming to transform it into a refuge.

From Timothy Snyder:

“…It has been 459 days since the US Congress passed legislation to support Ukraine. Russia, supported by arms from Iran and North Korea, is now slowly advancing…and sending scores of missiles and drones at cities throughout Ukraine.  Russia has…destroyed one major Ukrainian hydroelectrical facility, and…is targeting two others.  The aim is to bring down the Ukrainian electricity grid.

The US Congress is once again in recess.  Although sizable majorities of Americans and their elected representatives want to support Ukraine, legislation has been blocked by the Putinist wing of the House of Representatives.”

This means that the House won’t address funding for Kyiv until mid-April at the earliest. It would be difficult to state the problem more succinctly or better than Snyder does. Where have the Biden administration and the US House been for the past 460+ days?

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) was on “Meet the Press” yesterday. Bacon favors some support for Ukraine and highlighted his partnership with Reps. Jared Golden, (D-ME), Brian Fitzpatrick, (R-PA), and Ed Case, (D-HI) on a Ukraine aid bill:

“We put a bill together that focuses on military aid — a $66 billion bill that provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan….If we do this bill, and I think we will, there’s enough support in the House to get this done. And — and I want to make sure that we have support in the Senate…”

It’s possible that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could face a vote to oust him if he moves to pass Ukraine aid in the House. Before the House left for its two-week vacation Marjorie Taylor-Greene, (R-GA), submitted a motion to vacate, which could lead to a House vote to oust Johnson. Since Greene did not file the motion as privileged, the vote can happen at an indefinite point in the future. Shortly after Greene filed the motion, she said: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“He (Johnson) should not bring funding for Ukraine to the floor…”

The US has been in a stalemate on resupplying weapons to Ukraine for six months. Zelenskyy told CBS News that Ukraine’s forces had managed to hold off Russian advances through the worst of the winter months:

“We have stabilized the situation. It is better than it used to be two or three months ago when we had a big deficit of artillery ammunition, different kinds of weapons….We totally didn’t see the big, huge counteroffensive from Russia… They didn’t have success.”

CBS said that Zelenskyy acknowledged that the invading Russian troops and their seemingly endless supply of missiles and shells is having a negative effect, that they’re not going to be able to defend against another major Russian offensive expected in the coming months. That, he said, was expected around the end of May or in June.

More: (parenthesis and emphasis by Wrongo)

“He (Zelenskyy) said what’s needed most are American Patriot missile defense systems, and more artillery…he said the nature of the funding dedicated by the American government to help Ukraine must be put into perspective.”

He then made the point that the vast majority of the funds committed to Ukraine go to defense contractors in the US:

“Let’s be honest, the money, which is allocated by the Congress, by the administration, in the majority of cases….at least more than 75% — stays in the US. This ammunition is coming to us, but the production is taking place there, and the money stays in the US…”

What’s happened to Americans? Two years ago every town in the US was sponsoring Ukrainian families. Zelenskyy spoke to the US Congress and received standing ovations. Their war of necessity with Russia dominated the evening news.

Now, we get crickets instead of news about Ukraine. It seems that we’ve become a culture where we admire, support and follow “winners only” like Beyoncé and Taylor. We like winners. Their stories are simple to follow, and their detractors are easy to get angry about.

Ukraine looked like a winner in the fall of 2023, so America was all in, but that died in the standoff in the spring of 2024. America no longer has the willingness or ability to think through complex problems like Ukraine vs. Russia, a problem that may take several more years to solve. So we kick Ukraine to the side of the road and instead talk about Princess Kate and her cancer diagnosis or about Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, his awesome huge contract and his possible connection to gambling.

You know, the easy stuff that doesn’t make your hair hurt.

We need to keep Ukraine in the forefront of our thinking. We need to realize that Russia sees the eastern NATO countries on their border like potato chips. And you can’t expect Russia to eat just one.

America has two “far enemies” (as opposed to “near enemies”). Our far enemies are Russia and China. Rather than allow them time to become near enemies, we need to deal with them where they are today. This means arming Ukraine with the best air defense systems we have and with longer range missiles that can strike at Russia’s oil, shipping and manufacturing facilities.

Its long past time for the US Congress’ wakeup call! Your dithering may cost Europe and America far more than you think.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to the late Kirsty MacColl perform her hit “Walking Down Madison”, from her 1991 album Electric Landlady. The backup group includes Johnny Marr (The Smiths) on guitar and rapping by Aniff Akinola. Wrongo has loved this song since he first heard it 33 years ago. The idea that you’re never far from having reality whack you in the face has always appealed

Sample Lyrics:

From an uptown apartment
To a knife on the A train
It’s not that far
From the sharks in the penthouse
To the rats in the basement
It’s not that far
To the bag lady frozen asleep on the church steps
It’s not that far

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Cartoons Of The Week

Welcome to a week that included TikTok, March Madness and St. Patrick’s Day!

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation to ban TikTok:

But will it ever become law?

Trump said the quiet part out loud:

Insulin remains under threat:

Yes, Big pharma is suing the Biden administration for making insulin affordable. They say his actions are “unconstitutional“. It’s important to remember that they didn’t invent insulin and it is cheap to make.

The GOP’s double standard on documents:

The mystery surrounding Princess Kate isn’t going away:

Boeing is so badly broken it’s hard to see how it recovers:

March madness has many meanings:

Wrongo’s favorite St. Paddie’s Day cartoon:

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