tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609860471626742922024-02-19T11:30:55.121-05:00Syncopated PoliticsSyncopated Politics
Not The Usual Drumbeat ®
Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comBlogger335125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-49678109277236049362023-02-27T19:41:00.002-05:002023-02-27T19:41:14.246-05:00How Do I Know My Youth Is All Spent?<p> How Do I Know My Youth Is All Spent?</p><p>by Michael Liss</p><p></p><blockquote>In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire…. We’ll have term limits for Congress. And mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old. —Nikki Haley, age 51, announcing her candidacy.</blockquote><p></p><p>Yes, she did. Nikki Haley went there. Of course, her ostensible target is America’s best-known octogenarian (the guy with the malaprops and the Ray-Bans), but it could not be ignored that Former President Donald Trump tips the chronological scales at 76. Twenty months from now, shortly after the 2024 election, Joe will either be a jubilant 82-year-old; a grim, packing-the-china 82-year-old; or a wistful I-could-have-won-if-I-ran 82-year-old. Trump will be a 78-year-old Donald Trump—with title, without title, still a Donald Trump. In November of 2024, barring anything traumatic, these two will be whatever luck, genetics, and environmental factors cause them to be. If one of them also happens to be President-elect, then their issues will become our issues through 2028. That is something to ponder.</p><p>Haley may have been a bit blunt, in the process angering not only Former Guy, but perhaps potential supporters in Congress (roughly 1/3 of the Senate is at least 70), but the discussion of whether Dad should still be driving at night (or riding on Air Force One) is not an unreasonable one. We aren’t some sleepy principality somewhere, ruled by a hereditary monarch whose most impactful decisions involve whether we should subsidize domestic clock-making. This is a challenging world, and Dad needs to be up to it. There’s a terrific Ron Brownstein interview in The Atlantic of Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network. Rosenberg notes, “But with China’s decision to take the route that they’ve gone, with Russia now having waged this intense insurgency against the West, the assumption that…[Western democracy] is going to prevail in the world is now under question…. [I]t’s birthing now… a different era of politics, where we must be focused on two fundamental, existential questions. Can democracy prevail given the way that it’s being attacked from all sides? And can we prevent climate change from overwhelming the world that we know?”</p><p>Those are big questions to answer, and most of us, unless our politics occupy a fringe, should be deeply invested in the answers. They are also truly multi-generational, with the biggest stakeholders being the younger cohorts. My Boomer generation can offer something in the way of experience and expertise, but we’ve had a lot of time to work on solutions, and our results speak for themselves—we absolutely must give multiple seats at the table to younger voters. And, at some point, and that point may have already been reached, my Boomer Generation needs to follow Nancy Pelosi and to give way entirely. “Senior leadership” does not automatically mean “Senior” leadership.</p><p>History tells us that, until very recently, we have always implicitly understood that age does matter. For 140 years, the gold standard of Presidential old was William Henry Harrison, who didn’t listen to his mother, failed to dress warmly at his Inauguration, spoke for two hours (take that, Bill Clinton), and died of pneumonia 31 days later.</p><p>Harrison was empirically old (68), although not old enough to qualify for Nikki Haley’s competency test. Was he that rare? Actually, he was. From Lincoln in 1860 to FDR, not a single first-time taker of the Oath of Office was over 56. For those of us who used to be 56 and are now edging closer to 68, we can be honest enough to affirm that’s a big difference.</p><p>Why? Presidents are a little like baseball pitchers; while there are freaks of nature (Nolan Ryan, Justin Verlander), it’s very difficult to sustain velocity as you age, and velocity can’t be entirely replaced by craft. Reagan still had his fastball at 69, but by the time his second term came to an end, his remaining abilities were in question.</p><p>Biden himself was the equivalent of the “Crafty Lefty” who came out of the bullpen to retire one menacing batter. Part of many Democrats’ and swing voters’ reticence about his potential 2024 candidacy isn’t a function of his policy chops—he’s done a credible job as POTUS. It’s a deeper concern over his political ability to take on an entire line-up of free-swinging right-handed hitters. The Party is going to need leadership in 2024. It’s also going to need in it in 2025-28. Biden can’t realistically play the role of elder statesman if he’s still sitting in the Oval Office, and he certainly can’t do it if he runs and loses—he will take the blame, justifiably, for insisting on running a second time.</p><p>It is not impolite or disloyal to discuss this. More than any President in our memory (except, perhaps Gerald Ford for entirely different reasons), Biden was and continues to be seen as a transitional figure. The voters hired Joe to be much like what Europeans call a “caretaker” leader—someone who, in the moment, seems uncontroversial and…temporary.</p><p>That leaves Biden in an odd place. He doesn’t now have, nor has he ever had, a large natural constituency. There’s a reason why virtually every Presidential hopeful (and Biden “hoped” for half a century) remains nothing more than a quadrennial candidate: there’s something missing from their makeup, and the public senses it. Think back to the also-rans in the 2020 primaries, and you will see a lot of future also-rans. Also-rans generally only become President because they are first selected as Vice Presidents. And Presidents don’t choose running mates who are more charismatic and more electable than they are. Certainly, President Obama didn’t.</p><p>It’s just not easy to transition from second banana to the most powerful person in the country, and, more lately, the world. Unless you are truly exceptional (and why would you be if you are Veep?), you tend to be seen as a placeholder. History shows this in several ways—in who filled the job, as well as in their party’s and the public’s estimation of them. The Vice-Presidential stigma doesn’t always wear off.</p><p>The 19th Century brought us VPs John Tyler (for William Henry Harrison), Millard Fillmore (for Zachary Taylor), Andrew Johnson (for Lincoln), and Chester Alan Arthur (for Garfield). Not only didn’t any of these four get elected, on their own, to a succeeding Presidential term, but none of the four even got their Party’s nomination to run for it.</p><p>The 20th Century brought a different variant: the Vice President who succeeded to the office of the Presidency through the death or retirement of the President, got their party’s nomination, but then won only one full term on his own. Teddy Roosevelt succeeded McKinley, then won on his own, retired, and jumped back in four years later. His third-party candidacy handed the election to Woodrow Wilson. Truman came back to defeat Thomas Dewey in 1948, but then was gently, but firmly, shown the door for 1952, in part because of concerns about his age (66). Lyndon Johnson, who won a landslide victory in 1964, was then unable to control a fractious Democratic Party for 1968, and announced he wouldn’t run again. George H.W. Bush lost convincingly to Bill Clinton after 12 years of fairly aged GOP control. Add Gerald Ford, who filled the balance of Richard Nixon’s term, and then lost to Jimmy Carter.</p><p>None of the five saw a successor from the same political party. The only Vice President who succeeded to the Presidency, won a term on his own, and then saw his Party retain control was Calvin Coolidge, who became President when Warren Harding died, won in 1924 in a landslide, then kept his promise not to run again—he thought 10 years too much, although the public certainly would have given him the last four. Fellow Republican Herbert Hoover replaced him.</p><p>What about Presidents (whether directly elected or by death of their predecessor) who lost a bid for re-election, but tried a second or third time, as Trump is attempting?) There are only four, and only one (Grover Cleveland) had success in his come-back: Martin Van Buren defeated William Henry Harrison (that guy) in 1836, lost to him in 1840, and got roughly 10% of the popular vote in 1848. Millard Filmore, who replaced Zachary Taylor in 1850, was not renominated in 1852, left his party to run as a “No-Nothing” in 1856, and got 21% of the popular vote and Maryland’s 8 Electoral Votes. Cleveland defeated James Blaine, then lost to Benjamin Harrison (grandson of William), but managed to beat him in a rematch. The last of the four was Teddy Roosevelt, who lost in his disruptive 1912 campaign. Of the four, only Van Buren was over 60 at the time of his last campaign.</p><p>There really are no historical precedents that are fully applicable now. Trump will be older than Ronald Reagan was in his second term. Biden will be older than the State of Delaware. Trump wants to emulate Grover Cleveland, but Cleveland won the popular vote all three times, and Trump has lost it in both his elections and is deeply unpopular with a substantial portion of the electorate. Biden would be only the second Vice President to win the Presidency twice—the first was Nixon, which is not the best omen.</p><p>None of that necessarily means much of anything, if Biden and Trump both get their parties’ nominations. Here, perhaps we should thank Nikki Haley for putting something on the table that others have been hesitant to broach publicly. She’s framing it as a matter of age and competency, and those are critical points, but what she’s really getting at is that both men, for entirely different reasons, command too much support to be ignored or disrespected without consequence, but not enough to give them, and the ticket they head (including down-ballot) a clear edge in enthusiasm.</p><p>If Haley really moves the public debate, there are a lot of party professionals, both Republican and Democratic, who would be grateful because they would love to move on. There are even more voters who would gladly see neither man run in 2024. The polling data* and focus groups show it. Younger voters in particular want change—they are tired of the same old arguments that have no relevance to their futures. And while partisanship continues to rise, with local and state elections becoming increasingly nationalized, both candidate quality and the message emanating from the top is still critical to driving turnout.</p><p>What’s next? We can’t know yet. Holding the Presidency, as Biden does, gives him the possibility of creating indelible images. Biden’s secret trip to Kyiv, with its extraordinary cloak-and-dagger aspect, is a fantastic example of that. The story of him on the armored train passing through and into a war zone to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Zelenskyy demonstrates to the world (including our Western European allies) the power of simple ideas like freedom, and steadfast resistance to aggression. That the visit angered Putin and his supporters in the GOP is just a side benefit.</p><p>Incumbency is both blessing and curse. Its power of incumbency is not really transferable. Only Biden can use it, and if he steps aside, it loses potency. But with incumbency comes the terrible risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, to which both Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter can attest. Sometimes, the world just flies apart, and no amount of deftness will fix it right away, whilst everything you can think to do seems cursed.</p><p>Twenty months is a lot of time for things to go wrong, not just on the national and world stage, but also in the life of two men who were born in the 1940s. It’s also, as Nate Silver recently pointed out, not a lot of time. As much as we like to think in terms of plot twists in movies and television, they make for great screenwriting in part because they just don’t happen that often. There’s every possibility that, by Labor Day 2024, we will be locked into the same old arguments, with the same old guys. Going nowhere on the big issues and hoping, perhaps, for a Deus ex Machina.</p><p>That’s not going to work with those two existential questions posed by Simon Rosenberg: “Can democracy prevail given the way that it’s being attacked from all sides? And can we prevent climate change from overwhelming the world that we know?”</p><p>Much of the public knows this, and more will. We can’t wait to refocus the discussion for two years, much less see it stalled for six. The thing about time is that it often seems an inexhaustible quantity, until it’s gone.</p><p>Right now, it’s going.</p><p>*Some of the best non-partisan polling data comes from AP-NORC. Contact my friend Marjorie Connelly at connelly-marjorie@norc.org to be added to their list. </p><p>*About the title: It’s the first line of the song “My Get-Up-And-Go Has Got Up and Went,” sung by Pete Seeger and the Weavers.</p><p>How Do I Know My Youth Is Spent appeared first on @3quarksdaily.com on February 27th, 2023</p><p>You can find my work on 3Q at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</p><p>This piece, https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/02/how-do-i-know-my-youth-is-all-spent.html</p><p>And on Twitter @SyncPol and Mastodon @SyncPol@historians.social</p><p><span style="background-color: #313543; color: #dde3ec; font-family: mastodon-font-sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: nowrap;">l</span></p><p> </p><p> </p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-69839534151628429842022-12-26T17:13:00.001-05:002022-12-26T17:13:23.614-05:00The 2022 Annual Ditty--Every Groan Of It<p><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Get Me To The Polls On Time</b></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">There's just a few more hours.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Until they slam the door.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">A few more hours</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Before they say no more.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">I’m voting Midterms in the morning!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Ding dong! Kornacki’s gonna shine.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Pull down the lever!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Let's break the fever!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">But get me to the polls on time!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">I gotta be there in the mornin'</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">If not, then has to be by nine.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Please don’t delay me;</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">The future will hate me</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">But get me to the polls on time!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">If they are Tweetin’</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Turn off the screen.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">One more commercial</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">And I’m gonna scream!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">For I’m voting Midterms in the morning</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Swoosh, whirr, the scanner’s gonna whine.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Don’t stop the countin’</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">My guy’s lead’s been mountin’</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">And get me to the polls,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Get me to the polls,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">For Gawd's sake, get me to the polls on time!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">I'm voting Midterms in the morning</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Ding dong! Let’s do it one more time.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Suppress and depress me</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">You won’t prevent me.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">But get me to polls on time!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">I gotta be there in the morning</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">ID’d and lookin' in me prime.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">If I seem tired, </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">But not undecided</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Just get me to polls on time!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Oz isn’t worthy</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">So shoot him down;</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">He’s from New Jersey</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Or someplace out of town.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">So, I’m voting Midterms in the morning!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Ding dong! Vict’ry’s surely mine.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Lake’s got the Trump base</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Oh, what a nutcase</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">So get me to the polls,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Get me to the polls…</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">For Gawd's sake, get me to the polls on time!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Herschel’s still babbling ’bout a bowl game.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Johnson’s a raving antivaxx.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Marco’s awak’n</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Empty suit await’n…</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Throw out the bums</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Say no to quacks.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">I’m voting Midterms in the morning!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Ding dong! Kornacki’s gonna shine...</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Hail and salute me</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Then haul off and boot me...</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">And get me to the polls,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Get me to the polls...</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">For Gawd's sake, get me to the polls on time!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Happy and Merry to all. </span></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-776541976658872782022-09-20T21:30:00.003-04:002022-09-20T21:30:55.507-04:00Last Person Standing--The Presidential Succession Act Turns 75<p> </p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-align: right;"><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.</blockquote></blockquote></span><span style="text-align: right;">—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, April 12, 1945.</span></div></div></blockquote><p> It was all so fast. Just moments earlier, FDR was sitting for an official portrait, reading the newspapers, writing a few notes. Now, after 12 years of turmoil, World War and Depression, he is gone, work unfinished. Within hours, his successor, Harry S. Truman, is sworn in, and, for the first time, is told of the Manhattan Project. The awesome moral responsibility for the use of nuclear weapons falls on his shoulders, and a bullseye appears on his back.</p><p> The fact is that Vice Presidents are pretty much non-entities, supporting actors in a one-man play, unless and until they suddenly become the most important person in the world. History shows us that this occurs far more often than simple mortality tables might suggest. By one estimate, being President is about 27 times more dangerous than being a lumberjack.</p><p> The authors of the Constitution understood this, but, after vigorously debating the extent of Executive Power and the interrelationship of the three branches of government, and creating the future monster known as the Electoral College, they flickered out a bit when it came to figuring out Presidential succession beyond the elevation of the VP. Instead, they kicked the can to Congress in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, to declare which “Officer” would act as President if both the President and Vice President died or were otherwise unavailable to serve during their terms of office “until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”</p><p>Congress got right down to this searching for the Devil in the details, found him, and finally (and begrudgingly) settled on a compromise in which the Senate’s President pro tempore would be first in line, followed by the Speaker of the House. Cabinet Members were ruled out (especially the then-Secretary of State, the annoying, ambitious, and possibly disloyal-to-Washington Thomas Jefferson), as was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.To that, Congress added another feature that was really quite interesting: Regardless of who would serve, the appointment would be temporary, and, within two months, a new special election would be held, and the newly elected President would then serve a full four-year term beginning in March of the following year. The bill passed, was signed by George Washington into law, and became what is known as the Presidential Succession Act of 1792.</p><p>Mistakes were made, both in the Constitution and in the 1792 Act. These were some of the best political theorists we have had, but they were inventing an entirely new form of national government, without the benefit of much practical experience. First, the Constitution called for the Vice President to be the person who came in second in the Electoral College vote. This made perfect sense from a competence standpoint. Unfortunately, it showed itself to be an utter disaster when, in 1796, it paired winner John Adams with loser (and passionate rival) Thomas Jefferson, and then, in 1800, Jefferson again with his one-time-ticket-mate and then mortal enemy Aaron Burr. Congress and the country fixed this one in 1804 with the 12th Amendment. Second, the Special Election idea was interesting, but, by giving the winner a new four-year term, it could permanently make Congressional elections off-cycle. Third, and this was tantalizing: the 1792 Act might have incorporated an idea that was actually…unconstitutional.</p><p>Yes, there’s a legitimate argument, supported by Madison himself, that “Officers,” as referred to in Article II, meant “Officers of the United States” (meaning of the Executive Branch), and did not include “Officers” of the Legislative Branch. If that argument was valid, then the 1792 Act’s inclusion of the President pro tempore and Speaker violated the Constitution itself. Given that the same two positions are included in our current law on succession, I’m going to leave to your imagination what might occur if a few good Supreme Court textualists take note of that constitutional issue at a convenient time.</p><p>Constitutional or not, we used the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 for almost a century, fortunately never once having to wonder whether the President pro tempore or the Speaker was really an Officer. Things did happen: Presidents died in office and were replaced by Vice Presidents, and Vice Presidents died in office, and were replaced by—no one. In just the period between 1841 (the premature death of William Henry Harrison) and 1881, VP slot was vacant for almost 18 years. There were also close brushes with mortality, physical and political: John Tyler, almost a year after assuming the Presidency, was on the USS Princeton when the largest naval gun in world exploded, killing at least six, including his Secretary of State Abel Upshur and Navy Secretary Thomas Gilmer. Andrew Johnson, the hated heir to Abraham Lincoln, was Impeached, and, during his Senate trial, his chief antagonist was Benjamin Wade. Wade also happened to be President pro tempore—and would become the next President, if Johnson were convicted.</p><p>Clearly, there were a few bugs in the system that had to be addressed. The 1881 assassination of James Garfield (and his excruciating 80 days of suffering) gave momentum in Congress for a reexamination of the original 1792 Act. The debate lasted several years—the original bill was introduced by Massachusetts Senator George Hoar in 1882—and a lot of the issues raised still have resonance. Among them were whether the special election called for in the 1792 Act still made sense, and the conflict of interests stemming from having the House and Senate initiate and then vote on Impeachment and removal, to the personal benefit of their most powerful members. A further problem related to what was informally known as “bumping” (a Cabinet Officer who assumed the Presidency after the President pro tempore or Speaker refused it could later be “bumped” if either of them, or a subsequent President pro tempore or Speaker changed his mind).</p><p>Ultimately, Hoar’s bill dropped special elections and moved succession in the absence of a Vice President from Congress to the President’s Cabinet: first to the Secretary of State, followed by other Secretaries in order of their Department’s creation: Treasury, War, Attorney General, and so on. Doing so, it was felt, would lessen the political incentive for removal by the only bodies that had that authority over both President and Vice President. Finally, there was the added benefit of continuity: having the President’s Cabinet provide his successors increased the likelihood that his policies would survive him, at least for the balance of his term. A shaken country perhaps did not need an entirely new government and an entirely new governing philosophy.</p><p>Still, in a bow to Congress/Congressional oversight, conditions were included that were intellectually sound, but could have unintended consequences: the “candidate” would have had to have been already confirmed in his Cabinet post, not be under impeachment by the House, and otherwise be qualified to be President. While these and other provisions were being debated, Grover Cleveland’s Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks died after less than nine months in office, underscoring the obvious: Sooner or later, there could be a double vacancy, and the potential for real disruption. The time for change was now, and, in December 1885, the bill was passed by Congress, to be signed into law by President Cleveland in 1886.</p><p>Not unexpectedly, the lived experience remained the same. Presidents continued to die in office (McKinley, assassinated and replaced by Teddy Roosevelt, and Warren Harding, replaced by Calvin Coolidge). Vice Presidents as well—Garret Hobart (McKinley’s first) and James Sherman (Taft’s). In 1919, Woodrow Wilson suffered a catastrophic stroke, but clung to the Presidency through the balance of his term. His Cabinet and his Vice President knew he should go, but without a formalized process for removing him, they also knew their efforts would appear to be tantamount to a coup. Wilson “governed” through his wife and personal physician.</p><p>That was the background when Truman was suddenly elevated to stand in the shadow of a giant. A country at war, about to be introduced to the possibility of the greatest mass casualty events ever, needed consistent, continuous leadership that credibly reflected its founding values. Truman was dissatisfied with the 1882 Act in several ways and wanted a change.</p><p>His proposals, many of which were ultimately adopted in the 1947 Act, reflected his own experience and preferences. He was a man of the Senate, having served there for 10 years prior to his election as VP. He trusted both the legislative process and the men who engaged in it. He was less comfortable with his own Cabinet (he had asked Roosevelt’s to stay on during transition) and clearly preferred elected people to appointed ones. To Truman’s way of thinking, someone who stood before the voters, even if it was just in his Congressional District, had more legitimacy than an éminence grise.</p><p>Truman’s democratic (small “d”) inclinations also led him to believe that a President should not have the authority to select his immediate successors. He pressed for four things: (1) Flipping the priority to elevate the two elected officials (President pro tempore and Speaker) ahead of his Cabinet Members, (2) placing the Speaker as first in line, ahead of the President pro tempore, (3) including the “bumping” provision so that those two legislative leaders would essentially have a permanent “option” on the Presidency, and (4) calling for a special election to replace the “Acting” President, as the 1792 law did.</p><p>To Truman’s credit, he stuck to his position even after Democrats lost both the House and Senate in the 1946 Midterms, meaning he was willing to sacrifice his own policy aims for what he thought was the greater good. While the special election idea failed, Truman’s other priorities were largely accepted. The Senate passed the Act 50-35, the House 365-11, and the 1947 Act remains controlling law. What it didn’t do was deal with the “Wilson” problem, leaving that for future Presidents to write private, Constitution-free memoranda to their Vice Presidents and Cabinet (which they did, prolifically).</p><p>The 25th Amendment plugged the Wilson gap by providing a structure for dealing with both temporary and permanent disabilities of a President. It also, finally, set out a process for replacing a Vice President. It was a great, bipartisan achievement, accomplished, in part, by Senator Birch Bayh’s critical insight not to overreach where it wasn’t necessary. The best way to see the 25th is as an essential bolt-on. It does not deal with possible constitutional (and practical) objections to having the Legislative Branch play a dual role, both in Presidential and Vice-Presidential succession, and it leaves “bumping” untouched. In short, the process is still open to bare-knuckled politics.</p><p>More and more, that seems to be the primary problem. Our world is growing more dangerous in both the biggest and smallest of ways. A dictator may threaten nuclear war, a targeted attack might largely decapitate leadership, or a President and Vice President, along with Cabinet and senior staff, might be in the Situation Room sharing a deadly disease. For what it’s worth, Kiefer Sutherland is not eligible, being a British and Canadian subject.</p><p>Neither is Harry Truman, or enough people with Harry Truman’s values. The worst shortcomings of the 1947 Act and the 25th Amendment are that, in practice, bad outcomes are possible, even with the best of intentions, and worse outcomes are likely, either through bad planning or bad faith.</p><p>First, the requirement in the 25th for a legislative officer to resign from Congress in order to assume the duties of the Presidency can distort outcomes. Being Speaker is a really good job. Being President is better, but perhaps not if the President you are replacing has but a few months left in his term or is just temporarily incapacitated. If the idea is that the Speaker is invested with special powers that would promote governing excellence, then why not let that person resign as Speaker for a defined period, perhaps two terms, while allowing him to keep his Congressional seat?</p><p>Second, the job of President pro tempore has become ceremonial, with the slot given to the longest continuously serving Senator from the majority party. Very old Senators become President pro tempore. The current one is the retiring Pat Leahy (82) and he’s the spring chicken of the lot—past ones have included Chuck Grassley (88, running for reelection, and, if he wins, likely to assume the role in the 118th Congress); Robert Byrd, who served into his 90s; the centenarian Strom Thurmond; and 80-somethings Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye. To give you an idea how desiccated this group is, should the Democrats, miraculously, manage to hold the Senate in 2022, the new President pro tempore would be (take a breath) Diane Feinstein. I think we would all agree this screams out for reform. Either select spritelier Presidents pro tempore or move the position further down (or even out) of the line of succession. The very last thing you want is an elderly, unfit President pro tempore taking the job because if he or she doesn’t, an opportunity to flip party control is lost.</p><p>None of the structural and drafting issues, even the potential constitutional one, would be nearly as problematic if we hadn’t so thoroughly discarded Harry Truman’s values. There just aren’t enough politicians who care about integrity. This has inevitably led to hyper-partisanship and Parliamentarianism. Non-consequential votes are difficult; on big ones, it’s nearly impossible to draw any meaningful support from the other side. Even things that would ordinarily pass through a demilitarized “voice vote” are now jammed by political peacocks looking to grab a bit of airtime. If Congress can’t manage the naming of a post office without acrimony, how can we expect it to handle something as critical, and possibly historic, as a Presidential transition?</p><p>A legitimate government comes to power fairly and doesn’t lurch in the absence of a mandate by the voters. While I respect Truman’s preference for elected officials over appointed ones, his “Legislature first” approach makes lurching quite likely.</p><p>The facts are staring us in the face. From Truman’s “Do Nothing” Republican-controlled 80th Congress to our 117th, there have been 26 Congresses that have featured a Speaker of the opposition party and 16 in which the opposition party controlled the Senate. Divided government happens, and, by placing the Legislature so high up in succession, you are inviting chaos—and no-holds-barred partisanship.</p><p>There are two ways to deal with this, neither of which has much likelihood of succeeding in this Congress. The first would be the simplest—return to the 1886 Act and Cabinet-only succession. This wouldn’t eliminate Legislative gamesmanship (a hostile Senate could slow-walk Presidential nominees, for example), but it would simplify things and make it more likely the President’s policy choices and approach to governance would be continued. It’s never, ever going to happen. The second would be to give the Secretaries of State and Treasury priority over the Speaker and (help!) President pro tempore, and eliminating “bumping.”</p><p>Of course, even if you could get Congress to agree and the President to sign a bill incorporating the latter, control of the House would be critical, because the only way a candidate would be considered eligible is if he were not under impeachment by the House. Mark me as cynical, but, should a Presidential vacancy occur in the absence of a VP, I have very little doubt that a motivated House of Representatives would find some high crime and misdemeanor perpetrated by both the Secretaries of State and Treasury, and vote on party lines to Impeach. This does not mean the Senate would convict, but it would take both Secretaries out of the line of succession, leaving the Speaker to take charge.</p><p>Isn’t this all farfetched? Are we really going to have a Presidential vacancy and Vice-Presidential vacancy at the same time? Doesn’t the 25th provide for a replacement when necessary? It does, but the “Harry Truman” problem arises again—and not just in West Wing fiction. There’s a structural bottleneck, should partisan fever take hold: The President gets to nominate, but both Senate and House must bless the choice with a simple majority vote. The 25th does not mandate good faith, nor does it require that both chambers take up the nomination in a timely fashion. Should the opposition party control either the House or the Senate, and if their caucus is unified, either could demand that the next VP be of their Party, or someone of the President’s party, but of their choosing.</p><p>Should this all be fixed? Of course—the world is much more complex and dangerous than ever, and it’s the duty of Congress and the President to try to provide the least disruptive and most credible transition of power in time of crisis.</p><p>Can any of this be fixed? With good will and honest bargaining between the parties, anything is possible. I’ll acknowledge that last sentence does smack of fiction.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><i>I want to thank Fordham University Law School for two superb programs which spurred my interest in Presidential successions. The first was held back in 2017 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the adoption of the 25th Amendment: “Continuity in the Presidency: Gaps and Solutions. Building on the Legacy of the 25th Amendment.” The second was given earlier this month: “The Presidential Succession Act at 75: Praise It or Bury It?” Professor John Rogan organized it and was kind enough to provide me with the links to the presentations themselves and the materials. There are some superb (and challenging) articles that are well worth your time, and I would start with Professor John Feerick’s on page 45 of the PDF. Dean Feerick worked with Senator Birch Bayh on the drafting of the 25th Amendment and was able to share firsthand information.</i></b></div></div></blockquote><p>This was first posted on 3quarksdaily.com on April 25, 2022</p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2022/04/last-person-standing-the-presidential-succession-act-turns-75.html</p><p>You can also follow me on Twitter @SyncPol and see over 70 articles I've written for 3quarksdaily </p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss </p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-86319913147456400482022-08-18T19:58:00.001-04:002022-08-18T19:58:30.128-04:00Last Person Standing: The Presidential Succession Act Turns 75<p>by Michael Liss</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQExCjTHFUaoRUFEOWcyItMuKjHa6yWC076RzSph5iposB-712LUVH7p8eZOW4o7_d-RAtpLQ7_mQ4GQo0yed2JgEbXyL8_cxfhC2_dsY57n9ofFJSCLXo4mjLia9O9DKswQazEdQzn3fz9h17LfJeSukR-Z9yf0VG0CvpJhc1T6HS0pgq8snF_S0O/s800/image_72192707.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQExCjTHFUaoRUFEOWcyItMuKjHa6yWC076RzSph5iposB-712LUVH7p8eZOW4o7_d-RAtpLQ7_mQ4GQo0yed2JgEbXyL8_cxfhC2_dsY57n9ofFJSCLXo4mjLia9O9DKswQazEdQzn3fz9h17LfJeSukR-Z9yf0VG0CvpJhc1T6HS0pgq8snF_S0O/s320/image_72192707.JPG" width="234" /></a></div></div><br /><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><span style="text-align: left;">I</span></div><p></p></blockquote><p>I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.</p><p>—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, April 12, 1945.</p><p>Cartoon by Jim Barstow, originally published in General Electric News, October 2, 1949.</p><p>It was all so fast. Just moments earlier, FDR was sitting for an official portrait, reading the newspapers, writing a few notes. Now, after 12 years of turmoil, World War and Depression, he is gone, work unfinished. Within hours, his successor, Harry S. Truman, is sworn in, and, for the first time, is told of the Manhattan Project. The awesome moral responsibility for the use of nuclear weapons falls on his shoulders, and a bullseye appears on his back.</p><p>The fact is that Vice Presidents are pretty much non-entities, supporting actors in a one-man play, unless and until they suddenly become the most important person in the world. History shows us that this occurs far more often than simple mortality tables might suggest. By one estimate, being President is about 27 times more dangerous than being a lumberjack.</p><p>The authors of the Constitution understood this, but, after vigorously debating the extent of Executive Power and the interrelationship of the three branches of government, and creating the future monster known as the Electoral College, they flickered out a bit when it came to figuring out Presidential succession beyond the elevation of the VP. Instead, they kicked the can to Congress in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, to declare which “Officer” would act as President if both the President and Vice President died or were otherwise unavailable to serve during their terms of office “until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”</p><p>Congress got right down to this searching for the Devil in the details, found him, and finally (and begrudgingly) settled on a compromise in which the Senate’s President pro tempore would be first in line, followed by the Speaker of the House. Cabinet Members were ruled out (especially the then-Secretary of State, the annoying, ambitious, and possibly disloyal-to-Washington Thomas Jefferson), as was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.</p><p>To that, Congress added another feature that was really quite interesting: Regardless of who would serve, the appointment would be temporary, and, within two months, a new special election would be held, and the newly elected President would then serve a full four-year term beginning in March of the following year. The bill passed, was signed by George Washington into law, and became what is known as the Presidential Succession Act of 1792.</p><p>Mistakes were made, both in the Constitution and in the 1792 Act. These were some of the best political theorists we have had, but they were inventing an entirely new form of national government, without the benefit of much practical experience. First, the Constitution called for the Vice President to be the person who came in second in the Electoral College vote. This made perfect sense from a competence standpoint. Unfortunately, it showed itself to be an utter disaster when, in 1796, it paired winner John Adams with loser (and passionate rival) Thomas Jefferson, and then, in 1800, Jefferson again with his one-time-ticket-mate and then mortal enemy Aaron Burr. Congress and the country fixed this one in 1804 with the 12th Amendment. Second, the Special Election idea was interesting, but, by giving the winner a new four-year term, it could permanently make Congressional elections off-cycle. Third, and this was tantalizing: the 1792 Act might have incorporated an idea that was actually…unconstitutional.</p><p>Yes, there’s a legitimate argument, supported by Madison himself, that “Officers,” as referred to in Article II, meant “Officers of the United States” (meaning of the Executive Branch), and did not include “Officers” of the Legislative Branch. If that argument was valid, then the 1792 Act’s inclusion of the President pro tempore and Speaker violated the Constitution itself. Given that the same two positions are included in our current law on succession, I’m going to leave to your imagination what might occur if a few good Supreme Court textualists take note of that constitutional issue at a convenient time.</p><p>Constitutional or not, we used the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 for almost a century, fortunately never once having to wonder whether the President pro tempore or the Speaker was really an Officer. Things did happen: Presidents died in office and were replaced by Vice Presidents, and Vice Presidents died in office, and were replaced by—no one. In just the period between 1841 (the premature death of William Henry Harrison) and 1881, VP slot was vacant for almost 18 years. There were also close brushes with mortality, physical and political: John Tyler, almost a year after assuming the Presidency, was on the USS Princeton when the largest naval gun in world exploded, killing at least six, including his Secretary of State Abel Upshur and Navy Secretary Thomas Gilmer. Andrew Johnson, the hated heir to Abraham Lincoln, was Impeached, and, during his Senate trial, his chief antagonist was Benjamin Wade. Wade also happened to be President pro tempore—and would become the next President, if Johnson were convicted.</p><p>Clearly, there were a few bugs in the system that had to be addressed. The 1881 assassination of James Garfield (and his excruciating 80 days of suffering) gave momentum in Congress for a reexamination of the original 1792 Act. The debate lasted several years—the original bill was introduced by Massachusetts Senator George Hoar in 1882—and a lot of the issues raised still have resonance. Among them were whether the special election called for in the 1792 Act still made sense, and the conflict of interests stemming from having the House and Senate initiate and then vote on Impeachment and removal, to the personal benefit of their most powerful members. A further problem related to what was informally known as “bumping” (a Cabinet Officer who assumed the Presidency after the President pro tempore or Speaker refused it could later be “bumped” if either of them, or a subsequent President pro tempore or Speaker changed his mind).</p><p>Ultimately, Hoar’s bill dropped special elections and moved succession in the absence of a Vice President from Congress to the President’s Cabinet: first to the Secretary of State, followed by other Secretaries in order of their Department’s creation: Treasury, War, Attorney General, and so on. Doing so, it was felt, would lessen the political incentive for removal by the only bodies that had that authority over both President and Vice President. Finally, there was the added benefit of continuity: having the President’s Cabinet provide his successors increased the likelihood that his policies would survive him, at least for the balance of his term. A shaken country perhaps did not need an entirely new government and an entirely new governing philosophy.</p><p>Still, in a bow to Congress/Congressional oversight, conditions were included that were intellectually sound, but could have unintended consequences: the “candidate” would have had to have been already confirmed in his Cabinet post, not be under impeachment by the House, and otherwise be qualified to be President. While these and other provisions were being debated, Grover Cleveland’s Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks died after less than nine months in office, underscoring the obvious: Sooner or later, there could be a double vacancy, and the potential for real disruption. The time for change was now, and, in December 1885, the bill was passed by Congress, to be signed into law by President Cleveland in 1886.</p><p>Not unexpectedly, the lived experience remained the same. Presidents continued to die in office (McKinley, assassinated and replaced by Teddy Roosevelt, and Warren Harding, replaced by Calvin Coolidge). Vice Presidents as well—Garret Hobart (McKinley’s first) and James Sherman (Taft’s). In 1919, Woodrow Wilson suffered a catastrophic stroke, but clung to the Presidency through the balance of his term. His Cabinet and his Vice President knew he should go, but without a formalized process for removing him, they also knew their efforts would appear to be tantamount to a coup. Wilson “governed” through his wife and personal physician.</p><p>That was the background when Truman was suddenly elevated to stand in the shadow of a giant. A country at war, about to be introduced to the possibility of the greatest mass casualty events ever, needed consistent, continuous leadership that credibly reflected its founding values. Truman was dissatisfied with the 1882 Act in several ways and wanted a change.</p><p>His proposals, many of which were ultimately adopted in the 1947 Act, reflected his own experience and preferences. He was a man of the Senate, having served there for 10 years prior to his election as VP. He trusted both the legislative process and the men who engaged in it. He was less comfortable with his own Cabinet (he had asked Roosevelt’s to stay on during transition) and clearly preferred elected people to appointed ones. To Truman’s way of thinking, someone who stood before the voters, even if it was just in his Congressional District, had more legitimacy than an éminence grise.</p><p>Truman’s democratic (small “d”) inclinations also led him to believe that a President should not have the authority to select his immediate successors. He pressed for four things: (1) Flipping the priority to elevate the two elected officials (President pro tempore and Speaker) ahead of his Cabinet Members, (2) placing the Speaker as first in line, ahead of the President pro tempore, (3) including the “bumping” provision so that those two legislative leaders would essentially have a permanent “option” on the Presidency, and (4) calling for a special election to replace the “Acting” President, as the 1792 law did.</p><p>To Truman’s credit, he stuck to his position even after Democrats lost both the House and Senate in the 1946 Midterms, meaning he was willing to sacrifice his own policy aims for what he thought was the greater good. While the special election idea failed, Truman’s other priorities were largely accepted. The Senate passed the Act 50-35, the House 365-11, and the 1947 Act remains controlling law. What it didn’t do was deal with the “Wilson” problem, leaving that for future Presidents to write private, Constitution-free memoranda to their Vice Presidents and Cabinet (which they did, prolifically).</p><p>The 25th Amendment plugged the Wilson gap by providing a structure for dealing with both temporary and permanent disabilities of a President. It also, finally, set out a process for replacing a Vice President. It was a great, bipartisan achievement, accomplished, in part, by Senator Birch Bayh’s critical insight not to overreach where it wasn’t necessary. The best way to see the 25th is as an essential bolt-on. It does not deal with possible constitutional (and practical) objections to having the Legislative Branch play a dual role, both in Presidential and Vice-Presidential succession, and it leaves “bumping” untouched. In short, the process is still open to bare-knuckled politics.</p><p>More and more, that seems to be the primary problem. Our world is growing more dangerous in both the biggest and smallest of ways. A dictator may threaten nuclear war, a targeted attack might largely decapitate leadership, or a President and Vice President, along with Cabinet and senior staff, might be in the Situation Room sharing a deadly disease. For what it’s worth, Kiefer Sutherland is not eligible, being a British and Canadian subject.</p><p>Neither is Harry Truman, or enough people with Harry Truman’s values. The worst shortcomings of the 1947 Act and the 25th Amendment are that, in practice, bad outcomes are possible, even with the best of intentions, and worse outcomes are likely, either through bad planning or bad faith.</p><p>First, the requirement in the 25th for a legislative officer to resign from Congress in order to assume the duties of the Presidency can distort outcomes. Being Speaker is a really good job. Being President is better, but perhaps not if the President you are replacing has but a few months left in his term or is just temporarily incapacitated. If the idea is that the Speaker is invested with special powers that would promote governing excellence, then why not let that person resign as Speaker for a defined period, perhaps two terms, while allowing him to keep his Congressional seat?</p><p>Second, the job of President pro tempore has become ceremonial, with the slot given to the longest continuously serving Senator from the majority party. Very old Senators become President pro tempore. The current one is the retiring Pat Leahy (82) and he’s the spring chicken of the lot—past ones have included Chuck Grassley (88, running for reelection, and, if he wins, likely to assume the role in the 118th Congress); Robert Byrd, who served into his 90s; the centenarian Strom Thurmond; and 80-somethings Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye. To give you an idea how desiccated this group is, should the Democrats, miraculously, manage to hold the Senate in 2022, the new President pro tempore would be (take a breath) Diane Feinstein. I think we would all agree this screams out for reform. Either select spritelier Presidents pro tempore or move the position further down (or even out) of the line of succession. The very last thing you want is an elderly, unfit President pro tempore taking the job because if he or she doesn’t, an opportunity to flip party control is lost.</p><p>None of the structural and drafting issues, even the potential constitutional one, would be nearly as problematic if we hadn’t so thoroughly discarded Harry Truman’s values. There just aren’t enough politicians who care about integrity. This has inevitably led to hyper-partisanship and Parliamentarianism. Non-consequential votes are difficult; on big ones, it’s nearly impossible to draw any meaningful support from the other side. Even things that would ordinarily pass through a demilitarized “voice vote” are now jammed by political peacocks looking to grab a bit of airtime. If Congress can’t manage the naming of a post office without acrimony, how can we expect it to handle something as critical, and possibly historic, as a Presidential transition?</p><p>A legitimate government comes to power fairly and doesn’t lurch in the absence of a mandate by the voters. While I respect Truman’s preference for elected officials over appointed ones, his “Legislature first” approach makes lurching quite likely.</p><p>The facts are staring us in the face. From Truman’s “Do Nothing” Republican-controlled 80th Congress to our 117th, there have been 26 Congresses that have featured a Speaker of the opposition party and 16 in which the opposition party controlled the Senate. Divided government happens, and, by placing the Legislature so high up in succession, you are inviting chaos—and no-holds-barred partisanship.</p><p>There are two ways to deal with this, neither of which has much likelihood of succeeding in this Congress. The first would be the simplest—return to the 1886 Act and Cabinet-only succession. This wouldn’t eliminate Legislative gamesmanship (a hostile Senate could slow-walk Presidential nominees, for example), but it would simplify things and make it more likely the President’s policy choices and approach to governance would be continued. It’s never, ever going to happen. The second would be to give the Secretaries of State and Treasury priority over the Speaker and (help!) President pro tempore, and eliminating “bumping.”</p><p>Of course, even if you could get Congress to agree and the President to sign a bill incorporating the latter, control of the House would be critical, because the only way a candidate would be considered eligible is if he were not under impeachment by the House. Mark me as cynical, but, should a Presidential vacancy occur in the absence of a VP, I have very little doubt that a motivated House of Representatives would find some high crime and misdemeanor perpetrated by both the Secretaries of State and Treasury, and vote on party lines to Impeach. This does not mean the Senate would convict, but it would take both Secretaries out of the line of succession, leaving the Speaker to take charge.</p><p>Isn’t this all farfetched? Are we really going to have a Presidential vacancy and Vice-Presidential vacancy at the same time? Doesn’t the 25th provide for a replacement when necessary? It does, but the “Harry Truman” problem arises again—and not just in West Wing fiction. There’s a structural bottleneck, should partisan fever take hold: The President gets to nominate, but both Senate and House must bless the choice with a simple majority vote. The 25th does not mandate good faith, nor does it require that both chambers take up the nomination in a timely fashion. Should the opposition party control either the House or the Senate, and if their caucus is unified, either could demand that the next VP be of their Party, or someone of the President’s party, but of their choosing.</p><p>Should this all be fixed? Of course—the world is much more complex and dangerous than ever, and it’s the duty of Congress and the President to try to provide the least disruptive and most credible transition of power in time of crisis.</p><p>Can any of this be fixed? With good will and honest bargaining between the parties, anything is possible.</p><p>I’ll acknowledge that last sentence does smack of fiction.</p><p>I want to thank Fordham University Law School for two superb programs which spurred my interest in Presidential successions. The first was held back in 2017 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the adoption of the 25th Amendment: “Continuity in the Presidency: Gaps and Solutions. Building on the Legacy of the 25th Amendment.” The second was given earlier this month: “The Presidential Succession Act at 75: Praise It or Bury It?” Professor John Rogan organized it and was kind enough to provide me with the links to the presentations themselves and the materials. There are some superb (and challenging) articles that are well worth your time, and I would start with Professor John Feerick’s on page 45 of the PDF. Dean Feerick worked with Senator Birch Bayh on the drafting of the 25th Amendment and was able to share firsthand information.</p><p>And below is a link to articles in the Fordham Law Review that resulted from the 2017 symposium on the 25th Amendment:</p><p>http://fordhamlawreview.org/issuescategory/december-2017-vol-86-no-3/</p><p><br /></p><p>This essay was first published on 3quarksdaily.com on April 25, 2022 </p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2022/04/last-person-standing-the-presidential-succession-act-turns-75.html</p><p>You can find a number of my original essays there at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</p><p>And look for us on Twitter at @SyncPol</p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-63831351423198648192022-07-10T15:37:00.000-04:002022-07-10T15:37:00.026-04:00Your Rights: Disappearing<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">By Michael Liss</div><p></p><blockquote><p>"Judge [Ketanji Brown] Jackson is an extraordinary person with an extraordinary American story[,] … [as well as] impeccable credentials and a deep knowledge of the law…, but I am unable to consent to the nomination. —Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE)</p></blockquote><p> </p><p>At least Ben was polite about it. The rest of Judge Jackson’s hearing was absolutely awful. If you watched or read or otherwise dared approach the seething caldron of toxicity created by the law firm of Cotton, Cruz, Graham & Hawley (no fee unless a Democrat is smeared) you’ve probably had more than enough, so I’ll try to be brief before getting to more substantive matters.</p><p> First, as to KBJ’s chances, the jury is still out. Sasse’s fan dance means the Judiciary Committee will split 11-11, so a parliamentary maneuver will be required to move her nomination to a vote by the Senate as a whole. She just got Joe Manchin on board (leaving Sinema as the only possible Democratic holdout), and she might, maybe, get a vote or two from a Republican.</p><p>We should acknowledge that standing up and out of the latrine that Cotton & Co. just dug is a little difficult for many Republicans, even the ones who are about to retire. I mean, who could possibly say yes to a smut-peddling, criminal-coddling, CRT hugger who doesn’t even have a grasp of basic anatomy? The country should be grateful that Republicans finally were able to unearth the truth (having erroneously aided in confirming her to the federal bench twice before). Good grief. It wasn’t always like this.</p><p>From Gerald Ford’s nomination of John Paul Stevens in 1975 to Barack Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan in 2010, there were 14 new nominations, eight of which (Justices Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, Breyer, and Roberts) got a minimum of 78 votes and three more (Rehnquist, Kagan and Sotomayor) at least 63 votes. Presidents generally received deference in their selections unless those selections were particularly controversial (Robert Bork, the only rejection) or unprepared (Harriet Miers, withdrawn by President George W. Bush after getting advice from senior Republicans). Those who use Bork as an all-purpose excuse might want to go back and look at the timeline of confirmations. His nomination was sandwiched by Scalia (98-0) and Kennedy (97-0).</p><p>I’m not going to replay the Garland-to-Gorsuch-to Kavanaugh-to Barrett trail of tears, but suffice to say McConnell’s adroit duplicity coupled with Trump’s naked embrace of the idea of “Trump Judges” working for Trump deepened the bitterness beyond repair. We have now come to this: An extremely well-qualified nominee whose confirmation will in no way change the ideological composition of the Court can’t get a fair hearing, much less a dignified one.</p><p>What’s the purpose of this, when we know the Inquisition Five (Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett) will remain in control of SCOTUS regardless?</p><p>Part is just politics, both personal and the GOP’s. On the personal side, Cruz, Cotton, and Hawley have the temperament of rattlesnakes to go along with limitless ambition. As to Graham, he needs to check his meds—drooling with anger doesn’t look good for the cameras. All four want time on conservative media to tout their credentials for 2024, and they aren’t the only ones. Rest assured, when the nomination comes to the floor, others looking for a microphone (Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott) will get their shots in as well.</p><p>Of course, the individual motivations of Senators are just a part of the story. Grandstanding is always in season in the Senate. What is also going on is that the GOP thinks it’s found a face on which it can plant a whole trope for the Midterms and 2024. (Although the posters may have taken them down for now, Twitter was nearly immediately plastered by @GOP with a picture of Judge Jackson, her initials replaced by the letters “CRT.”) Judge Jackson is soft on crime, easy on child pornographers, and wants Critical Race Theory taught in Pre-Ks. Hate Judge Jackson. Fear Judge Jackson. Bingo, there go the suburbs returning to a Republican embrace.</p><p>Let’s assume the GOP’s analysis and messaging turns out to be accurate, and they stomp the Democrats in 2022 and 2024. And, let’s assume that The Five continue to bless us with their unique blend of Judicial Activism combined with a hunger (and the power) to raze past precedents and return to the Eden of Faith, Family, and Fatherland. Just what kind of a paradise are they offering?</p><p>Last month, I highlighted several matters before SCOTUS that were attention-grabbing, like the challenge to Roe v. Wade and New York’s 107 year old gun law. This month, it appears I need to add a few others. Loose Republican lips keep reminding us of their priorities.</p><p>First, let’s put the little nasty out there. Senator Mike Braun of Indiana criticized the Supreme Court’s 1967 holding in Loving v. Virginia, which declared state laws against racially mixed marriages unconstitutional. Braun’s office tried to claim he was (a) misunderstood, while (b) wrapping the whole thing in a Federalism argument, but it’s out there. A lot of conservatives really dislike Loving, in part because it leads into the even more frightening (and likely soon to be reversed) Obergefell v. Hodges (same sex marriage).</p><p>I know, it’s 2022, and we shouldn’t be relitigating this, but, here we are, so, here’s a little background on Loving: Racially mixed marriages have always had an uneasy existence in the United States. By the late 19th Century, as many as 38 states had laws prohibiting them, and beyond whether it was legal, the social opprobrium was intense. In 1958, police entered the home of a young couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, arrested them in their bedroom, and charged them with violating a law that made racial intermarriage a felony punishable by up to 5 years in jail. A judge offered them a deal—leave Virginia for 25 years (not a typo) and he would spare them being sent to prison. It kind of boggles the mind some 60 years later, but, hoping to remain together, and not behind bars, they accepted, and moved to DC. Several years later, they wanted to return to Virginia to be closer to family, but Virginia’s law was still on the books, as similar ones were, in roughly 20 other states. They wrote to Robert Kennedy, then Attorney General, and he put them in touch with folks who would give them legal representation.</p><p>The challenge to Virginia’s law wended its way through both state and federal courts, landing in the Supreme Court, where, on June 12, 1967, SCOTUS unanimously ruled: “We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.”</p><p>This is the ruling that keeps Mike Braun up at night.</p><p>But, enough about Senator Braun. He’s not even on the Judiciary Committee. Let’s move to someone who is, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. She got a lot of conservative street cred out of asking Judge Jackson just what a woman was, but she had her own Supreme Court ruling to dislike, 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut. There, the Court held that Connecticut’s ban on selling contraception to married couples violated a constitutional right to privacy. Oh, my, do conservatives hate Griswold (and the 1972 Eisenstadt v. Baird, which extended it to unmarried people). Griswold, to them, is the entry drug for all types of privacy arguments—on contraception, on abortion, on any type of personal relations, gay or straight, sexual or not. Privacy is a very dirty word. First, they insist there is no right to privacy in the Constitution (they are good textualists). If the Framers had intended for someone to have a right of privacy in his or her home, they would have stated something akin to “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Second, privacy arguments are just excuses for sinning. People do things in the privacy of their own homes, things Republicans don’t approve of (and surely don’t engage in). Early to bed after a cold bath and 30 minutes with the Good Book is the Republican way of life, and should be everyone’s.</p><p>A cynic might say I’m exaggerating the threat, and Blackburn is just playing politics. After all, poll after poll shows Americans overwhelmingly support contraception, and most definitely believe that there is a right to privacy in their own homes. Unfortunately, among the folks that count—The Five and Justice Roberts—virtue is particularly high, and support for either the general idea of privacy or the specific one regarding contraception is considerably more…tepid. We know Thomas and Alito are actively hostile; Roberts has never been comfortable with the logic; Gorsuch only said, during his confirmation hearing, that Griswold was a 50-year old precedent, and Kavanaugh and Barrett were equally opaque, but none of those three have had any difficulty overturning other 50-year old precedents (and Roe, by the way, is 50). Watch out for uncomplimentary references to Griswold in the upcoming decision(s) reversing Roe and Casey. I suspect that Senator Blackburn will be pleased that immoral behavior will be discouraged. For those who feel webcams in pharmacies might be a little bit too much, I suggest stocking up on whatever supplies are necessary, and check the expiration dates while you are doing it.</p><p>Since the states are laboratories of democracy, it seems that this is an excellent segue to a third matter that has popped up over the last few weeks, the Independent State Legislature Doctrine. This one regards your right to vote, and is a doozy.</p><p>We all know that the Supreme Court’s hostility to voting rights has increased with each new conservative Justice added, but there’s more to quashing voting rights than just averting your eyes on discriminatory tactics. Several of the Justices have begun to embrace an even more innovative technique: claiming that State Legislatures have the sole right to determine the time, place and manner of your voting. Before you go any further, focus on “sole right” because the Justices mean what they say—the sole right not merely to make policy and be free of virtually all federal oversight (SCOTUS insists on deferring when voting rights are involved), but the sole right to be free of both a Governor’s veto and the highest state court’s determination of state constitutionality. The application of ISLD makes the State Legislature the first and last word on voting. The party that controls the State Legislature can do anything it wants to perpetuate itself in power. You can even make the argument that state constitutional provisions guaranteeing voting are null and void, since only the Legislature has the authority in the first place.</p><p>Too kooky, right? Rights without a forum to vindicate them? Nope. Four Justices have explicitly embraced at one point or another the ISLD: Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch in the 2020 election litigation involving the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s authority to interpret a state constitutional right to vote, where it came to extending absentee voting because of the pandemic, and Kavanaugh in a Wisconsin case from the same period. How about Barrett? We don’t know, as she didn’t rule on the election cases, being new to the Court, but we do know that Roberts expressed some approval for ISLD in a dissent in a 2015 Arizona case.</p><p>Where did this come from? The theory has been around for a while, but it is firmly contradicted by precedents, some over 100 years old. It was raised again in the rather extraordinary challenge by North Carolina’s Republican-dominated State Legislature to the state courts’ redraft of its Congressional map, which the court found violated the state’s constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering. In that case, Moore v. Harper, although the GOP was turned aside, both Alito and Kavanagh expressed interest in the ISLD.</p><p>You don’t need to be a mathematician or a seer to think that, sooner or later, the right case could come along, and a motivated conservative bloc, joined by Barrett or Roberts or both, will situationally apply this theory to align with their voting preferences. Let’s hope it doesn’t change an actual result. That could be the biggest blow to democracy since…January 6, 2021.</p><p>Sometimes we look at politics as just a form of entertainment, a game of back and forth, of tactics and slogans, and we believe that not all that much will fundamentally change when the flag passes from one team to the other.</p><p>“Sometimes” are over. To turn your eyes away to what is happening is to give consent. Judge Jackson didn’t. She looked straight ahead, and hung in. We should follow her example.</p><p></p><p>Your Rights: Disappearing was first published on 3quarksdaily.com on Monday, March 28, 2022 https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2022/03/your-rights-disappearing.html</p><p>You can find my work on 3Quarks at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss and on Twitter @SyncPol</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-25497020871299557002022-05-02T08:34:00.000-04:002022-05-02T08:34:04.670-04:00Your Rights In The Rearview Mirror<p> <span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.82px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. –Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 78</span></p><article class="post-209294 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-mondaymagazine tag-chief-justice-john-roberts tag-supreme-court pmpro-has-access" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-8882105_14="195" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-8882105_29="5228" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-8882105_14="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-8882105_29="1" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-8882105_14="100" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-8882105_29="100" id="post-209294" style="border-bottom: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 7px; position: relative;"><div class="entry-content" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s my oldest memory. I am three, standing harnessed between my parents, in a brand-new two-seater 1959 Jaguar convertible roadster. We are on an empty gravel road someplace in Virginia and my Dad decides to let his new baby fly. I can see In front of me the windshield and, below, a gray leather dashboard that has two things of great interest…a speedometer and a tachometer. The motor hmmmmmms as he takes the car through the forward gears, the tachometer first rising and then falling, the speed increasing. The big whitewall tires are crunching the rough road; cinders are flying; we hit 60 MPH, then 70, then 80; and I’m clapping my hands and piping out “Faster, Daddy! Faster!” My mom goes from worried to furious “Slow down, Ernie, slow down!” As he passes 90, I look down for a moment and she’s slapping her yellow shorts. I peek at the rearview mirror and see a huge cloud of dust. 95, 100, and finally 105. Then without warning, and without using the brakes, he starts to slow, gradually downshifting; the speedometer and tachometer fall; and that’s where my memory ends.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I have been thinking about writing a Supreme Court piece since the conservative bloc’s muscle-flexing on Texas’s SB-8 abortion law, and, each time I do, the memory of that beautiful sportscar flying down the road keeps gnawing at me. The thrill of it, the uncertainty, the obvious danger. My Dad’s going through whatever decision-making process he did to start, continue, and end.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We’ve got a new Sheriff in town, a new driver for that beautiful car. Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett are taking the wheel and the throttle. Just where is their ultra-conservative vision taking us, and at what cost?<span id="more-209294" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ian Millhiser had a really interesting <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/2/19/22934915/supreme-court-justices-not-honest-amy-coney-barrett-notre-dame-abortion-voting-rights" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e80004; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">piece in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Vox</em></a> a couple of weeks ago. In response to a speech by Justice Barrett at Notre Dame Law School, he pointed out the dichotomist (and convenient) status she claimed for herself. Judges, she said, fell into two categories, “Pragmatists” and “Formalists.” Pragmatists went beyond the narrow limits of what Judges should do to arrive at what they saw as more equitable solutions. Pragmatists were sloppy, results-oriented, and failed to show intellectual rigor.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Formalists (like her) adhered closely to the original text, to history and tradition, and acted discreetly, without descending into Judicial Activism. Formalists embraced modesty, Judicial Restraint, Original Intent. Formalists were the true heirs of the Framers.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let’s examine that for a moment. To my way of thinking, “Original Intent” has more than a little bit of alchemy to it. Certainly, I agree when the language of the Constitution is clear, that’s the law of the land. You change that only through the Amendment process. This is the “original deal” we all agreed to, and it should not be subject to the whims of any transitory majority.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Beyond that, though, Original Intent exists wherever a conservative Justice says it does, after careful consultation with their James Madison Edition Ouija Board. Amazingly enough, Madison’s disembodied spirit always agrees with the side that the “Originalist” wishes to favor. This is nonsense. As farsighted as the authors of the Constitution were, they couldn’t possibly have had a frame of reference for many of the issues we face today. They knew they were just driving in the piles and adding the girders—The rest of government would have to be filled in by their successors. In part, this is why they added Article I, Section 8, which gives Congress power “[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As to Judicial Restraint and its buddy <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Stare Decisis</em>, admirable as the concept may be, it is something that, in practice, on controversial issues, primarily exists for Senators on the Judiciary Committee to ask prospective Justices about at their confirmation hearings. “Judge Hornswoggle, my constituents are very concerned about an issue that I cannot ask directly about and really don’t want the answer to, so can you say “Judicial Restraint” three times with your fingers crossed behind your back.” Of course, potential nominees would never consider misleading Senators as to where they stand, and are deeply respectful of past precedent.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So, does Barrett and the rest of the Gang of Five believe in any construct other than their own ideological and political preferences? Millhiser clearly doesn’t think so. They are “flexible” whenever they happen to be considering anything they don’t personally agree with. That happens to encompass a considerable amount of President Biden’s agenda, including vaccines and other public health measures, his Green agenda, and his right to set his own policy on immigration. That’s only the start of it. Add voting rights, the role of religion in public life, guns, gays, and of course, abortion. On each and every one of them, these folks have either already acted or are poised to act in a way that would make genuine Formalists cringe.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We can begin with the 2021 5-4 decision in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson</em>, which Barrett joined in full. We are all familiar with the Texas ban on abortion after six weeks, and the unusual way (through bounty hunting) the authors of the statute created to avoid judicial scrutiny. That is the headline, but it’s the process that allowed SB-8 to stand, and that Texas “Secret Sauce” that ought to be as much the story.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Before I go any further, I should point out the obvious. <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Roe v. Wade</em> still stands, as does the fetal viability standard set in a subsequent 1992 case, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</em>. They stand, but, after <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Whole Woman’s Health</em>, any State where a majority of the Legislature and Governor don’t agree with those precedents can feel free to ignore them, using the Texas model. When is a constitutional right not a right? You are looking at one right now.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not, in this essay, arguing here for the continuation of <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Roe</em> or <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Casey</em>. nor do I have any expectation whatsoever that a hard-right SCOTUS will do anything short of a headshot to both precedents when the Court rules later this year in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em>, the Mississippi 15-week abortion ban.</p><div class="eaa-wrapper eaa_post_between_content eaa_desktop" id="eaa_post_between_content" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px -20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="eaa-ad " style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I said above that my objection is to process, and, in the law, process matters a lot. Process, how you arrive at your desired conclusion, the consistency of the reasoning you apply, the precedents you observe, and the degree of authority you assume, are critical. In <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Whole Woman’s Health</em>, the route the conservative bloc took tossed established process aside to achieve a desired result. Not only did they refuse to enjoin what is clearly a violation of existing law before ruling on it, but they blessed an end-run that essentially strips federal courts of their 200+ year primacy in determining what is a constitutional right.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We have had cynical and even intensely partisan rulings from SCOTUS before. But few have been as profoundly corrosive, as intellectually corrupt, or as damaging to the reputation of the Court as this one is.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Justice Roberts knows it—it’s why this long-term opponent of abortion rights joined the minority on this, so seemingly shocked was he by the blatant disregard for proper order. Quoting from an 1809 Opinion by Justice Marshall in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">United States v. Peters</em>, “If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery; and the nation is deprived of the means of enforcing its laws by the instrumentality of its own tribunals.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why would I get so riled up at this, and why should you, regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue? To start with, the bounty-hunter approach can be used in as many venues as have one-party governments with an itch to scratch about a particular constitutional right. Your rights, the ones you personally value but might not carry the approval of a majority of your State, can also come under assault.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A lot of conservatives acknowledge the theoretical danger of a Blue State doing this with guns or environmental issues, but are muted in expressing their concerns. Their reticence may be viewed as an even more damning evaluation of this Supreme Court. Many perceive the risk as theoretical only, since they expect SCOTUS to rush in to protect the rights that they and their fellow conservatives value, even while they leave other disfavored rights out on the ice to die. Here’s the problem with even that: Why should any American have to see their constitutional rights suspended, no matter how unpopular in their community? Constitutional rights shouldn’t be something you routinely have to litigate to vindicate. Despite Justice Barrett’s insistence that she’s a Formalist, there’s not an atom of Formalism to this approach.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On the other hand, there is a hurricane-force “Pragmatism” that doesn’t just show on deeply divisive issue like abortion. The emboldened conservative wing has far greater ambitions, and is expressing power where it can. This has been particularly true in the area of Biden Presidency policy-making. There, the Court has inserted its own judgments for that of Executive Branch, claiming the legislative framework that created individual agencies (through which the Executive works) lack the specific power to impose regulations with which SCOTUS does not agree. In this, they are, again, ignoring the existing precedent of affording <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chevron</em> deference to administrative action because they do not agree with the policy.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It is reasonable to say the five are thirsty for the opportunity to put their own mark on American history, to right whatever they see as historic wrongs on programs and policy making. Take a deep breath; here are a few other cases to keep your eye on over the next several months:</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">303 Creative LLC v. Elenis</em> is similar to the old “I won’t bake a cake for a gay couple” case we had several years ago. Under Colorado law, it’s illegal for a business to discriminate against LGBTQ customers. The plaintiff here claims it violates her religious beliefs to require her to serve gay customers. Conservatives have been increasingly insistent that those who profess religious reasons can occupy a space free from many regulations the rest of us must observe. This decision could formalize more carve-outs to civil rights legislation.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College</em>: Yet another lawsuit against affirmative action, in this case brought on behalf of Asian students who believe their admits are depressed because of Harvard’s outreach to other minorities. The Plaintiff here, Students for Fair Admissions Inc., is an organization dedicated to ending affirmative action wherever it can find it, and to providing logistical support and funding for litigation against targeted schools. It’s a fairly good bet that the new conservative supermajority will be sympathetic here, while ignoring every other type of admission preference.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Biden v. Texas</em> is a fascinating case where a “Trump Judge” in Texas insisted that President Biden did not have the power to change former President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy. I’d watch this one closely. The idea that a President has no right to alter a predecessor’s policy or policies is something that should be treated as a hand grenade by SCOTUS. The logical, practical ruling would be to side with President Biden, even if the conservatives on the Court prefer Trump’s approach. To do otherwise could demand that SCOTUS determine the validity of any policy changes after a Presidential transition. As even this Court doesn’t want to show that much blatant favoritism, I think Biden will get the right to make his own decisions, but it’s not a certainty. Look for a tortured opinion built on Rube Goldberg logic if it breaks against him.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen</em>: Potentially a blockbuster on gun rights, this case challenges New York’s 108-year-old (not a typo) gun-control law that puts limits on concealed carry. Oral arguments last November seemed to presage a more limited ruling, preserving a State’s right to some limited areas in which it could restrict guns, but the ambitious agenda of the five most conservative Justices, plus their expressed affinity for firearms, makes this one a wild card.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let me make one final point. No matter how much we tell ourselves that we live in a free country, our government has grown immensely powerful. It flies down the road at potentially unsafe speeds, relying on humans to make key decisions that have real-world impacts. Not all of those humans are reasonable, not all impartial, not all possess a greater emotional maturity than a three-year old urging his Daddy to go faster. But even so, elected officials get to make those choices, and, so long as they are lawful, judgment on their judgments belongs to the people, not to the courts. What the courts owe us is consistency, fairness, and impartiality.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I happen to have Hamilton on speed dial, and on this we agree:</p><blockquote style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 54px; position: relative; quotes: "" ""; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.82px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Considerate men, of every description, ought to prize whatever will tend to beget or fortify that temper in the courts: as no man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must now feel, that the inevitable tendency of such a spirit is to sap the foundations of public and private confidence, and to introduce in its stead universal distrust and distress.</p></blockquote><p style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Your Rights In The Rearview Mirror first appeared on 3quarksdaily.com on Monday, February 28, 2022</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">You can find my other posts for 3Q at </span><span style="font-size: 19.36px;">https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">And follow me on Twitter @syncpol</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> Michael Liss</span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><div class="eaa-wrapper eaa_post_after_content eaa_desktop" id="eaa_post_after_content" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="eaa-ad " style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: auto; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div></div><footer class="entry-footer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; font-family: "Open sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 2.09231em; margin: 14px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"></footer></article><nav aria-label="Posts" class="navigation post-navigation" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.8125em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 12px 0px; width: 752px;"><h2 class="screen-reader-text" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; clip-path: inset(50%); clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); color: #333333; font-family: "Libre Baskerville" !important; font-size: inherit; font-weight: normal; height: 1px; margin: -1px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: normal !important; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute !important; vertical-align: baseline; width: 1px;">Post navigation</h2><div><br /></div><div class="nav-links" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 0.8em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="nav-previous" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.7px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div></nav>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-84288442965389701222022-04-14T10:03:00.000-04:002022-04-14T10:03:25.660-04:00Lincoln's Imperfect Perfection<p>by: Michael Liss</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYSZ_zgFXD5S7_gAdPbtYMVXfPmHaj3BGzvbTJ74iErlPj78Frg-je7IsHgCf8KWJJpvNcAN7WNQjujpFrpWBUJa02qyXvftxilNyvOXy3VWiQ3tghFq6r16Y3iL3vnJ0d03DDukintScX70li3y3FFDkUdWdhJ1tiqXg-johZqE9Ohuchx8uMUIJo/s1791/032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1374" data-original-width="1791" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYSZ_zgFXD5S7_gAdPbtYMVXfPmHaj3BGzvbTJ74iErlPj78Frg-je7IsHgCf8KWJJpvNcAN7WNQjujpFrpWBUJa02qyXvftxilNyvOXy3VWiQ3tghFq6r16Y3iL3vnJ0d03DDukintScX70li3y3FFDkUdWdhJ1tiqXg-johZqE9Ohuchx8uMUIJo/w421-h245/032.jpg" width="421" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">In the Bushido code, the samurai were said to have identified with the cherry blossom particularly because it fell at the moment of its greatest beauty, an ideal death.</span></div><p></p><p>It is one of the remarkable coincidences of history that the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination often comes at the very peak of the cherry blossom season. In many respects, he, too, died at the moment of greatest beauty—right after he had delivered his “with malice towards none” Second Inaugural Address, right after he had seen Richmond and was mobbed by grateful freedmen, right after Lee had surrendered to Grant, right after there were no more battles he could win. </p><p>The historian Richard Hofstadter once wrote, in his essay Abraham Lincoln And The Self-Made Myth that “The Lincoln legend has come to have a hold on the American imagination that defies comparison with anything else in political mythology.” </p><p>That legend, which Hofstadter likens to a Christ-like assumption of the sins of mortals, followed by their redemption through his martyrdom, is one half of the consensus historian’s construct about how we think about the Civil War. The other half is best embodied in Robert E. Lee, graying, aristocratic scion of a famous family, kind as a master, brave and brilliant as a reluctant warrior. </p><p>This iconography creates a fascinating, yet discordant picture. Jefferson Davis is nowhere to be found—he’s a cold and crabbed man who lacks the élan and nobility to exemplify what the South “really” was. And Grant is invariably portrayed as stolid, relentless, a winner because of overwhelming force, not greater virtue. Even the scene at Appomattox plays into this. Lee, unwilling to expose his men to further losses, agrees to surrender. He approaches, at the agreed-upon time, in his best dress uniform, mounted on his magnificent horse, Traveller. Grant, stoop shouldered, wearing a private’s tunic, dusty from the field, boots muddy, arrives a half an hour later. They talk briefly of old times, and Grant offers generous terms and honors, which Lee graciously accepts. Lee, with great dignity, rides off to his men. </p><p>It’s a wonderful image that allows both sides (and, as I have been reminded a number of times by people a little more Southern than my Bronx birthplace, there are still two sides) their respective heroes, and their respective fantasies of what might have been—a peaceful, respectful reconciliation. But, the war doesn't end this way without a final sacrifice, and Lincoln is it. Just a few days later, John Wilkes Booth makes his way to Lincoln’s seat at Ford’s Theatre, fires the shot that ends Lincoln’s life, and elevates his legend. That the assassination took place on Good Friday, and during Passover (Rabbis of the time likening it to Moses being permitted to see, but not enter, the Promised Land) gives it an even more powerful emotional tug. </p><p>Not everyone mourns. Lincoln is not an immensely popular figure among the powerful. He is opposed by both Northern Democrats (he’s just won reelection against his former General of the Army of the Potomac, John McClellan) and by many of the more committed abolitionists in his own Republican Party. Lincoln is too hot for some, too cool for others. Both the steadfastness of his purpose, and the gradualism of his approach have made him many enemies. Northern Copperheads have never stopped hating him, and the Radical Republicans want a far more punitive response than Lincoln’s call for reconciliation and “binding up the nation’s wounds.” </p><p>In the South, reaction was often careful. A few think it’s a miraculous turning point, some of the Southern newspapers exulted, and Jefferson Davis reportedly said “If it be done, it would be better that it be well done.” But many others (Lee amongst them) worried about not just the anger of the North, but also the loss of Lincoln as a buffer—they know he stands between them and a vengeful Congress. And they hate Lincoln’s Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, a border-state Democrat, despised and feared as a traitor to his own people. </p><p>But the common people have a different reaction than the more calculating political class. Perhaps they felt Lincoln was one of their own; literally millions gather to see his train, look at him as he lay in state, and mourn. They seem to understand something that eludes the merely ambitious—they stand with him as he stood with them. One of the most remarkable tributes came from the residents of Lahaina, in the Hawaiian Islands; the people <i><b>“weep together with the republic of America for the murder, the assassination of the great, the good, the liberator Abraham Lincoln, the victim of hell-born treason—himself martyred, yet live his mighty deeds, victory, peace, and the emancipation of those despised, like all of us of the colored races.”</b></i></p><p>What about Hofstadter’s “Lincoln Myth”? Does the reality match the image of fallen saint? Last week, I asked what kind of man was Lincoln—what did he really believe? What is it about him that allowed him to transcend his own of-the-period but anachronistic attitudes? How could a man who, in 1858, in the Charleston debate, state “I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality” yet nevertheless inspire the gratitude “of those despised, like all of us of the colored races.”</p><p>I think he had two unusual qualities, hard to find in any person, much less in any politician. The first was his essential tolerance. In contemporary discourse, we have bastardized the term. Some use it in a pejorative way, with “tolerance” a synonym for “indulgence”—the habit of ascribing all bad behavior to moral weakness enabled by liberal guilt. Others describe it as a universal virtue that must be applied to everyone—they command us to understand “root causes” regardless of actual conduct. Lincoln, I think, embodied a different type of tolerance, one so subtle that it is almost impossible to accurately describe. His was the tolerance of common courtesy, of accepting differences without embracing them. He did not demand that you look like him, think like him, worship like him, or vote like him as a predicate to earning his respect for your basic human rights. </p><p>The second was even more rare. He truly knew himself. In Hofstadter’s words “Lincoln was shaken by the Presidency.” He was humbled by his duties, oppressed by his responsibilities, taxed to the extreme by the enormity of the job. This immensely gifted man, of extraordinary intelligence and remarkable character, was “shaken by the Presidency.”</p><p>If there is a Lincoln Myth, there is also a Lincoln Reality—a man of remarkable tolerance, and an acute and humbling sense of his own limitations. And one, having given every last ounce of devotion to doing an impossible task as best as he could, falls like the cherry blossom, at the peak of (imperfect) perfection. </p><p>This was first published on April 14, 2015. Renewing it today because Lincoln remains eternally relevant.</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-24320873591126177362022-03-30T21:30:00.000-04:002022-03-30T21:30:00.822-04:00Biden, Breyer and Babka<p> by Michael Liss</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1qZLdfZgLcUHa9qxjMPCluGiXOtyP948L8dAhs5Dk-eg1aPDFaN-JfvWSqxd8vyOPD9vyNRlbnjkpTOp9OaWPXs8sv_ILM_71NQw8LqLaBHskdhUZRtegmbJjA7NOka8yczSeOGKZ7OczeZ3hKqgdULPlgLRqynvTYK3HEo2trXbBk0focRZXNvKR/s1536/IMG_0855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1445" data-original-width="1536" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1qZLdfZgLcUHa9qxjMPCluGiXOtyP948L8dAhs5Dk-eg1aPDFaN-JfvWSqxd8vyOPD9vyNRlbnjkpTOp9OaWPXs8sv_ILM_71NQw8LqLaBHskdhUZRtegmbJjA7NOka8yczSeOGKZ7OczeZ3hKqgdULPlgLRqynvTYK3HEo2trXbBk0focRZXNvKR/w514-h301/IMG_0855.jpg" width="514" /></a></div><br /><p>I come to praise bakeries past and present. And older men and women faithfully carrying out their duties to their grandchildren. Of bakeries, once too many to count in my city, but, like old loves, we remember Glaser’s (closed every August so the family could return to Germany), Gertels (each cake caused a local sugar shortage), and Lichtman’s (the Times called it “The Da Vinci of Dough”). Still with us, Moishe’s and Andre’s, Veniero and Ferrara’s, and for the breads of your dreams, Orwashers and Eli’s.</p><p>I could go on. In fact, I could go on for some time, but there’s a Supreme Court nomination and the Midterms looming, and duty comes before carb-loading. To be more precise, in this essay, it comes both before and after carb-loading but, be patient with me while I take the strings off the boxes and plate the pastry.</p><p>As a President gets top billing, even over the dearly departed French pastry shop on First with the spectacular petit fours and crusty rolls that launched a thousand crumbs, it’s time for me to turn to Joe. However, I will not be insulted if you skip the meal and go directly to dessert. You will find it below the fold.</p><p>When I think of Biden, I can’t get out of my mind a quote attributed to Lincoln: “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”</p><p>America did decide; it saw the fire, saw two deeply flawed candidates, and picked Joe. Like every other President since John Adams, Biden stepped into his predecessor’s shoes, and his predecessor’s challenges. Adams had the impossible task of replacing Washington. Lincoln a secession crisis. FDR inherited the Great Depression; and Truman, WWII. Ike got Korea and McCarthyism; JFK, the Cold War; LBJ and Nixon, Viet Nam; and so on. What’s more, regardless of where they start, few get through their own terms without a fresh crisis or two.</p><p>Then, there’s Joe Biden. A raging inferno (or something substantially more scatological) is what he stepped into. From pandemic to poisoned politics, Joe went in with both feet.</p><p>Them’s the breaks. If you want the job, you have to be prepared to clean up on aisles three, four, and five simultaneously, as well as deal with anything new walking in the door, including, in his case, a failed but still smoldering insurrection. Joe got elected, and it was his turn.</p><p>You have probably read somewhere that Biden is the worst President of all time, an unbroken litany of awful. He’s a terrible speaker. He doesn’t give press conferences. When he does, he talks too much. He called the esteemed Peter Doocey an SOB, which sent so many commentators into space that Elon Musk is looking for royalties. One prominent conservative (out of concern for his feelings, let’s just call him Rumpelstiltskin) offered, “I still haven’t stopped shaking after last night’s attack on the free press.” Can we find this man and send him some bath (and smelling) salts?</p><p>Biden, irrespective of his myriad flaws (of which there are myriad myriads), is basically a decent man with a conscience, and so he personally apologized to Mr. Doocey, which of course, showed how weak he is. Biden is also weak with the Chinese, who are about to take over the world. He’s weak on the Southern border, where massive caravans of evil-doers lurk in Fox-built Potemkin Villages, ready to surge towards the Rio Grande at a moment’s notice. He’s weak on the Ukraine crisis, where GOP Shadow Cabinet Secretary of State Tucker Carlson is making his thoughts and prayers known to his viewers while angling for an Order of Lenin. He’s weak on inflation, because the American Rescue Plan helped too many workers, which creates upward pressure on wages. Finally, he’s weak on the cost of fast food, and Granny is now skipping her blood pressure pills to get her Big Macs.</p><p>Into this mess, the Gods just delivered to Joe a golden apple. Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, has announced his resignation. Before I dive into the politics of this, just a few words about Breyer. He’s an old-fashioned man in the best sense of the word, considerate, tempered, deliberate, and courteous.</p><p>Breyer also believes in what ought to be the central mission of the Court, to view the law impartially and in a non-partisan way. In a lecture at Harvard Law, he spoke of the challenges: “The justices tend to believe that differences among judges mostly reflect not politics but jurisprudential differences. That is not what the public thinks.”</p><p>Breyer is right, the public doesn’t think it. When the content of the lecture was made public, he was (not so gently) mocked as antique and worse—but there is an aspiration there that expresses the highest possible function of the Court. It must be seen as a fair arbiter, an honest broker, and not merely an arm of one party and one ideology. It can lean in one direction or another, but the moment it is perceived as just muscle, it loses its place of respect.</p><p>So, why does Breyer’s resignation provide an opportunity for Biden, since it will not change the ideological makeup of the Court? For one thing, it lessens the angst of many Democrats over Breyer’s staying, and having Mitch McConnell select yet another Justice. It also reminds Democrats of the essentialness of sticking together, working towards a better result, and focusing, as the Midterms loom, on recruitment, voter registration, messaging–and tangible accomplishments. Democrats need this, and Biden needs it. Current political polling is gruesome, redistricting and Democratic retirements are making things much harder, and there remains the looming threat that states with GOP-led governments will flip the votes they can’t suppress. Democrats are simply going to have to fight, and fight hard, for every seat, from the school board to the Presidency.</p><p>There is also a reason beyond just political rhetoric. The public needs to see the implications of the choices they make, and this Supreme Court is going to make it clear just what those choices mean. In a matter of a few months, this Court will hand down a series of decisions which are going to frighten some people to the core. Rights many thought they had, principles that have stood for longer than many of us have lived, will evaporate. This isn’t just about abortion and who gets to use what bathroom, as many folks think. It has the potential to reorder the relationship between the individual and the state, rearrange the interrelationship of the three branches of government, elevate those who claim faith-based objections over the rest of us, encourage vigilantism with regard to enforcing personal morality, and strike at things that many of us believe are no one’s business but our own. This Court needs a youthful, intellectually and temperamentally vigorous champion of the rights that we are about to see lessened or even extinguished. Breyer, as accomplished as he is, would not be that person. Perhaps Biden’s nominee will be.</p><p>Of course, there is the little matter of getting that nominee confirmed, and the GOP outrage machine is already at a roar because Biden reaffirmed his promise to select a Black woman. Having just gotten past their annual holiday ritual of reciting a single Martin Luther King quote, they are now left to decide amongst themselves if any at all dare cross party lines and admit that any Biden choice might actually possess, in abundance, the “character” to which Dr. King was referring. My cynical take is that, if McConnell thinks he can’t get either Sinema or Manchin on board, he will let a couple of his folks off the leash, but only after Biden’s nominee is thoroughly roughed up as inadequate and illegitimately selected.</p><p>Whoever the nominee is, however brutal the process, it’s just going to have to run its course, because Biden can’t put out every fire. Likely he can’t put out most of them. He needs to choose where to leverage his office best.</p><p>If I were he, I might start by going to a bakery (he can call me for a specific suggestion). Last month, at the request of my wife and (adult) children, I made a pilgrimage to one I hadn’t been to since before the start of the pandemic. It was at some distance, but the need for high-quality cake was becoming paramount. Go, I was told, and bring back the essentials of life. Multiple texts flowed in from the interested parties: Marble cake, sponge cake, cookies with cherries on them, kichel, cookies with sprinkles, chocolate cigars, cinnamon cigars, cupcakes (vanilla cake with vanilla icing, with sprinkles and not). Along with the shopping list, I must also bear in mind that our children have their own places, and so the quantity purchased should be reflective of the need to satisfy multiple households.</p><p>I grabbed multiple bags (and a pith helmet), and set off on my trek. Machete in hand, I hacked my way through the forest, and stealthily approached the store. My heart sank for just a moment when I saw the gates up and little light emanating from within. Seriously? Then I remembered the gates were always up and it was always dim inside. I passed the window, noting what and what was not on display (possible a cupcake crisis), opened the door, and there, in all its thoroughly unrenovated state, was my personal El Dorado.</p><p>I was masked, of course. Behind the counter, in the same cheerfully unrenovated state as I had last seen her, was the tiny, energetic woman who had been waiting on me since the time I was pushing strollers through the door. For brevity and privacy I’m going to call her Mrs. B (B for Babka). In all my visits, I have never heard anyone use her first name. It was always Mrs. B, regardless of the status and age of the customer. “Good morning, Mrs. B, how are the rolls?” “Hello, Mrs. B, can I have four slices of rye?” “Mrs. B, is the cheese danish fresh?”</p><p>Mrs. B was not a woman to exaggerate. If something wasn’t good, she would tell you. She and I had a routine down, unchanged by time. Since I came infrequently and ordered a lot, we took it slowly, and as customers came in, I would tell them to go ahead of me. This invariably stretched out the visit (something that never bothered me), but this time we had a snag—in fact, two snags. First was an insuperable issue: No sponge cake. There was something, that, to my eye, looked like sponge cake, but she wouldn’t sell it to me. “No good,” she pronounced. As to marble cake, there was no fresh marble cake in the store, but she could get some. Could I wait?</p><p>Of course I could wait. Imagine me not waiting, what kind of a father and a husband would I be? So Mrs. B got on the phone to the owner, who told her 45 minutes, and I agreed.</p><p>I knew it wasn’t going to be 45 minutes. I was pretty sure the owner was coming from Brooklyn. But it’s never a sunk cost to wait in a bakery for the marble cake of my wife’s dreams. Besides, I was enjoying myself. Mrs. B was a gas. More customers, more me telling them to go ahead, more “Hello Mrs. B, do you have a little seven layer cake today?” Occasionally, people would come in, sit in the metal folding chair for a few minutes to catch their breath, observe the world around them, and maybe buy half a seeded rye. With some customers (the more bilious ones), Mrs. B stuck to business, but with others, she was cracking jokes, smiling, making a little gossip with the change. Think New York version of Floyd’s Barbershop in The Andy Griffith Show.</p><p>All through this, Mrs. B started to fill the non-cake portion of my order. Pounds and pounds of cookies, packed into boxes. Kichel in a giant plastic bag. Jokes, plenty of them. Occasionally, I’d step outside to breathe without the mask on, and update my wife. 45 minutes passed, no cake, and Mrs. B started to get worried about my health. Maybe I had low blood sugar? She kept passing me cookies (to keep up my strength, no doubt.)</p><p>She talked about her life. She had grandchildren and great grandchildren. How many, I asked? “You don’t count,” she said. “Bad luck.” Her oldest son, a doctor, was retiring at 70. (Yes, you can start doing the math). She’d been working in the store since 1955 (more math). Emigrant from Poland, although she didn’t have much of an accent, which suggested she came as a child, which would have had to have been before September 1939 (even more math). About Mr. B, no word, and I didn’t ask.</p><p>The more time I spent, the more she reminded me of my grandmother, who lived to her late 90’s. Short, tough, sharp, funny, not giving in to age. Whatever the world had thrown at her, she’d managed.</p><p>An hour in. I paid her for the non-marble cake portion; it might have been approximate, since Mrs. B uses a lined piece of paper and a heavy black pencil. Thought about finding an ATM. Updated my wife. Walked back in, and Mrs. B let me in on a secret. She watched Fox. She didn’t think COVID was dangerous—her son the doctor had told her that the hospitals were recording other types of deaths as COVID because insurance paid more. This information did not cause me to go screaming out the door. When you are waiting for the essential marble cake, these things seem of very little import.</p><p>Time stretched on, so she passed me some babka. Not on my list, but OMG, seriously good chocolate babka. Behind my mask, I couldn’t stop grinning. A Fox-watching Covid-doubting 90-ish woman who cracks jokes and feeds you—there is no way you are arguing with her. Certainly not while she’s laughing a child’s laugh, like the sound of a brook, and you are laughing with her.</p><p>75 minutes in, the Boss, and the sheet of marble cake arrives. It is magnificent. How much do I want? Enough for one box? Two? I go for three…just about 6½ pounds of it. Mrs. B. smiles at me, smiles at her boss, and we ring it up. As always, in cash, and as always, I told her to put the change in one of her charity boxes. An old-fashioned store like this doesn’t leave a jar for tips, it leaves tins for education, for the poor, to plant a tree, etc.</p><p>We were done. I filled my bags with goodies, thanked Mrs. B one more time, and headed for a bus….way too many pounds to handle walking back. Scents of lemon and cherry and chocolate emerged. Plus an unmistakable babka bouquet that was not to be ignored (of course I bought one, it would have been wrong not to). While I had not succeeded in getting everything on everyone’s list, the core of the mission had been accomplished. The family would be fed. Hunter-gathering at its best.</p><p>You might reasonably ask why I’ve gone on this long about a trip to a bakery. It’s because it was all so incredibly unrushed, so filled with the littlest of details and of small, brief, human interactions. It was all so normal, so decent, when both are in short supply.</p><p>I have a feeling that Joe Biden gets the idea of simple neighborliness. If he does, if he can find a way to help return us to something closer to a community, then a lot of the drama infecting so many facets of our lives might move to the fringes, where it belongs. With that, perhaps we can find value again in what was given to us, including the idea that we are one country with a common legacy and destiny of freedom.</p><p>Justice Breyer says America is “an experiment that’s still going on,” based on its Constitution and founding principles. “My grandchildren and their children, they’ll determine whether the experiment still works. And of course, I am an optimist, and I’m pretty sure it will.”</p><p>I’m an optimist as well. I’ll leave it at that, for now.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Biden, Breyer and Babk</i>a first appeared on 3quarksdaily.com and you can find my work there every four weeks at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div></blockquote><p><br /></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-25217130002933911112022-03-01T08:20:00.003-05:002022-03-01T08:20:59.456-05:00The Demands Of Citizenship: JFK At Vanderbilt <p>The Demands Of Citizenship: JFK At Vanderbilt</p><p></p><blockquote>But this Nation was not founded solely on the principle of citizens’ rights. Equally important, though too often not discussed, is the citizen’s responsibility. For our privileges can be no greater than our obligations. —John F. Kennedy, May 18, 1963, Nashville</blockquote><p></p><p>May, 1963. JFK is in a centrifuge, buffeted by a series of challenges from abroad and at home that would have taxed anyone. Underneath the glamour and optimism of Camelot was a roiling mess of seemingly intractable problems, including the global threat of an aggressive, expansive Communism, and domestic unrest related to the irrefutable moral logic of the Civil Rights Movement set against implacable, and often violent, resistance.</p><p>All of this, the triumphs and the troubles, are, for the first time, playing out in black and white (and occasionally in living color) on television screens across America. We have clearly moved into a “see it now” age: in just the decade of the 1950s, the percentage of households with sets went from about 9% to about 87%. Soft censorship (reporter circumspection and editorial oversight) still existed, but the vast majority of people were getting their news visually, and sometimes that news contained graphic and unforgettable images.</p><p>Kennedy clearly understood the power of the new medium. He wrote a short essay for TV Guide in November 1959, in which he discussed his concerns about television’s potential for demagoguery, but also said it gave an opportunity to the viewing public to judge for itself a candidate’s sincerity—or lack of it. If that was a prediction, it was a pretty good one: Ten months later, in what was a decisive moment in the 1960 election, he was debating Richard Nixon, and winning, in part, on style points.</p><p>Charisma or not, glamour or not, it’s arguable JFK wasn’t quite ready for the Presidency when, at 43, he became the youngest man ever to be elected. His prior service in both the House and Senate had been unremarkable, and he had no executive experience. He made mistakes, some of them big ones. The Bay of Pigs fiasco, as well as expanding the American presence in Viet Nam are the most notable, but his often-fractious relationship with Congress, particularly in his first two years, didn’t help.</p><p>What Kennedy did have, in abundance, beyond just charisma, was the capacity to communicate (which is not necessarily the same thing as eloquence), the ability to express optimism, and the willingness to accept responsibility when he failed—in short, to lead in both good and bad times. Paired with that were personal qualities that gave substance to the image, most notably his intelligence, firmness of purpose, and coolness under fire, as his deft handling of the immensely dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis displayed.</p><p>What would eight years of JFK have looked like? None of us, fans, critics or somewhere in between, can know. Part of the enigma that was JFK stemmed from what the historian Robert Dalleck referred to as his “unfinished life.” We can project upon that life what we would like.</p><p>What we do have is the historical record of what he did, and what he said, if not always his inner thoughts. For those, we have to find opportunities to peek behind the curtain of the carefully choreographed. Such a moment may have come when he accepted an invitation to speak in Nashville to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the founding of Vanderbilt University.</p><p>I had forgotten about this speech until Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, and a JFK scholar, posted a link to a portion of it on Twitter. The image is a bit grainy and the sound quality isn’t perfect, but there’s something about it that is worth taking notice of.</p><p>JFK’s demeanor is serious and a bit subdued, and his words, while interesting and thoughtful, reflect that. It is not particularly eloquent; it doesn’t soar or stir the heart the way some of his more famous orations did. It is actually a bit flat (direct, but flat) when talking about Civil Rights, as if Kennedy is implicitly acknowledging that he knows there are no magic words to make the issue go away. Still, in its linkage of duty and rights, of the critical nature of education in a democracy, and of the greater obligations to society due from those who have more, there is clarity and real power.</p><p></p><blockquote>I speak to you today, therefore, not of your rights as Americans, but of your responsibilities. They are many in number and different in nature. They do not rest with equal weight upon the shoulders of all. Equality of opportunity does not mean equality of responsibility. All Americans must be responsible citizens, but some must be more responsible than others, by virtue of their public or their private position, their role in the family or community, their prospects for the future, or their legacy from the past.</blockquote><p></p><p>“Some must be more responsible than others.” This is such an interesting observation, especially when viewed through a contemporary lens. Nowadays, we no longer seem to speak this language at all. Our arguments about the obligations of the “uber-haves” are inexorably (and seemingly exclusively) connected not to service but to money, things like taxes and preferential legislative treatment. As to the “intellectual elites,” too many of us are tied up in self-congratulation that turns to entitlement. Our public-spiritedness is limited to those things from which we will benefit—schools and athletic facilities (until our kids graduate), libraries, museums and cultural centers that we patronize. Sometimes, what we give is not a gift at all—it’s a license to demand preferential treatment when public policy choices are being made.</p><p>Kennedy would never have accepted this. His sense of duty was, like many of his generation, more acute and personal. Roughly 70% of the members of Congress were veterans, and if you were a man and not a Vet, you needed a very good reason for it. Kennedy himself was a war hero, and he had lost an older brother, Joe Jr., in World War II when the experimental “drone” he was flying exploded prematurely. Service wasn’t just an abstraction, like mere patriotic words. Rather, JFK’s conception of service was a giving of yourself to an ideal, to your community, to your fellow citizen, to your country.</p><p></p><blockquote>You have responsibilities, in short, to use your talents for the benefit of the society which helped develop those talents. You must decide, as Goethe put it, whether you will be an anvil or a hammer, whether you will give to the world in which you were reared and educated the broadest possible benefits of that education.</blockquote><p></p><p>Kennedy pivots from the general to the specific. How must this audience of educated citizens serve.</p><p>Of the many special obligations incumbent upon an educated citizen, I would cite three as outstanding: your obligation to the pursuit of learning, your obligation to serve the public, your obligation to uphold the law.</p><p>Again, JFK voices a concern that has a very contemporary feel to it. Defend education from those who will try to dumb it down and tear it down.</p><p></p><blockquote>If the pursuit of learning is not defended by the educated citizen, it will not be defended at all. For there will always be those who scoff at intellectuals, who cry out against research, who seek to limit our educational system.</blockquote><p></p><p>Kennedy was speaking to a seemingly perpetual reality; the potent emotional argument, articulated in Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 Anti-intellectualism in American Life, that education was actually something pernicious. Science was bad, the humanities a sign of weakness, the educated snobbish, detached, and, when put in charge of anything, technocratic. In short, the egghead was neither a doer nor a person of conviction, but rather a shadowy figure, possibly insidious, corrosive of manly virtues, and thoroughly lacking in common sense.</p><p>Kennedy explicitly rejects this, asserting that knowledge is essential to democracy:</p><p></p><blockquote>[T]he ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all, and [] if we can, as Jefferson put it, ‘enlighten the people generally … tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day.’</blockquote><p></p><p>Kennedy wasn’t done calling upon his audience:</p><p>[T]he educated citizen has an obligation to serve the public. He may be a precinct worker or President. He may give his talents at the courthouse, the State house, the White House. He may be a civil servant or a Senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser. But he must be a participant and not a spectator.</p><p>If Kennedy had lived to see social media, would he have thought the constant online commenter (or author of an article such as this) a “participant”? I don’t think so. Service is not sport; it is giving something, with the only payback expected a sense of satisfaction. Service is communitarian in the best sense of the word. Service is not good intentions without action, it is commitment at a cost, and a cost willingly paid.</p><p>I would hope that all educated citizens would fulfill this obligation—in politics, in Government, here in Nashville, here in this State, in the Peace Corps, in the Foreign Service, in the Government Service, in the Tennessee Valley, in the world. You will find the pressures greater than the pay. You may endure more public attacks than support. But you will have the unequaled satisfaction of knowing that your character and talent are contributing to the direction and success of this free society.</p><p>“You may endure more public attacks than support.” How incredibly (and tragically) prescient. I don’t think we need much more commentary than that.</p><p></p><blockquote>[F]inally, the educated citizen has an obligation to uphold the law. This is the obligation of every citizen in a free and peaceful society—but the educated citizen has a special responsibility by the virtue of his greater understanding.</blockquote><p></p><p>Kennedy is not talking about jaywalking here. He is getting at something bigger, the struggle between the federal government and those states resisting desegregation. It’s an interesting framework—Kennedy is not trying to inspire, as Lincoln did at Gettysburg, by referring to Jefferson’s majestic words in the Declaration of Independence: “all men are created equal.” Instead, he is connecting citizenship to respect for the law.</p><p>He knows that law is the adhesive force in the cement of society, creating order out of chaos and coherence in place of anarchy. He knows that for one man to defy a law or court order he does not like is to invite others to defy those which they do not like, leading to a breakdown of all justice and all order. He knows, too, that every fellowman is entitled to be regarded with decency and treated with dignity. Any educated citizen who seeks to subvert the law, to suppress freedom, or to subject other human beings to acts that are less than human, degrades his heritage, ignores his learning, and betrays his obligation.</p><p></p><blockquote>Certain other societies may respect the rule of force—we respect the rule of law.</blockquote><p></p><p>For Kennedy, essentially a gradualist with an eye towards the 1964 election (and the need for Southern votes), it is perhaps the only framework he can use with conviction. However a person feels about minorities and minority rights, Americans are committed to the rule of law, and the world judges us on whether we are capable of holding to that standard. In May of 1963, we weren’t there.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The Nation, indeed the whole world, has watched recent events in the United States with alarm and dismay. No one can deny the complexity of the problems involved in assuring to all of our citizens their full rights as Americans. But no one can gainsay the fact that the determination to secure these rights is in the highest traditions of American freedom.</p><p>In these moments of tragic disorder, a special burden rests on the educated men and women of our country to reject the temptations of prejudice and violence, and to reaffirm the values of freedom and law on which our free society depends.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>And, with that, Kennedy, having made his last points, moves to generic closing remarks. I don’t think he needed to do more.</p><p>We do. I wonder, if you took the text of this speech, scrubbed the references to Vanderbilt and the Tennessee statesmen, and republished it under another name, how people across the political spectrum would react. I suspect it would anger many, and for all the wrong reasons.</p><p>Professor Sabato has a pinned JFK quote on his Twitter account:</p><p>“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”</p><p>We are in those times.</p><p>The full text of the address may be found at the website of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.</p><p>This essay was first published on 3quarksdaily.com on December 6, 2021</p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/12/the-demands-of-citizenship-jfk-at-vanderbilt.html</p><p>please follow syncopatedpolitics on twitter at @SyncPol</p><p> </p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-42641008204798943092022-02-15T17:37:00.001-05:002022-02-15T17:38:39.475-05:00A Ballad For America?<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Do we Americans really have a shared, founding mythology that unites us in a desire to work together for the common good? </span></div><p></p><p>I wrote that, last month, in “The Coupist’s Cookbook,” and was challenged in an email by a friendly but dubious reader. </p><p>Do we have a common history, a type of universal “origin story”? Does that make for a compact, of the type the signers of the Declaration of Independence acknowledged, when they pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor”? Aren’t we the heirs to that bundle of benefits and burdens? Finally, to explore further the implication of my correspondent’s email, if that “deal” no longer applies, how do we coexist and maintain a government in which we can freely express ourselves and choose, and change, our leaders?</p><p>I don’t have easy answers. I’ve written roughly a dozen pieces for 3Q in the last few years about Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR. Although those great men have to have believed in it, and I believe in it, I don’t know that it’s at all communicable or even comprehensible to someone of a different age, different political views, or different education. With no other place to look, I reached back to my parents’ generation, which seemed to do all these civic things so much better, and found something in, of all places, a song.</p><p>In 1939, the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal Program with a mandate to fund live performances for an audience without much disposable income, and to provide jobs to a Depression-decimated artistic community, mounted a production of a new Broadway revue, Sing for Your Supper. The finale was a patriotic appeal in the form of a duet—“Ballade of Uncle Sam” (music by Earl Robinson, lyrics by John La Touche). </p><p>Sing for Your Supper ran for 60 performances, closing only when a timorous Congress, concerned about possible “infiltration” of the arts by Communists, cut off funding for the entire FTP program. Producer Norman Corwin then offered “Ballade of Uncle Sam” to CBS, which liked the sound and the sentiment. It had Robinson rearrange it as a solo and chorus piece, and renamed it “Ballad for Americans.” The legendary singer and actor Paul Robeson was hired to perform it.</p><p>“Ballad for Americans” had its first airing (live, of course, with the CBS Studio orchestra and chorus) on November 5, 1939. The impact was instantaneous and extraordinary. There are stories of the phones and phone switchboard operators at CBS being overwhelmed by callers. Enthusiasm was so great that they repeated the performance on New Year’s Eve. The public couldn’t get enough, so, in February 1940, Robeson and the American People’s Chorus recorded it (on 78s) for Victor Records, and, a few months later, Der Bingle himself (Bing Crosby, the most popular singer in America) cut his own version for Decca Records. Then, in one of the more ironic moments in American politics, it was played at two Presidential nominating conventions—Republican and Communist. </p><p>Why the popularity? What raised it from being a pleasant, niche ditty that you might see performed at a high school graduation, to a phenomenon? Some of it can surely be ascribed to the times. The Germans had invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and then, on May 10, 1940, began a march through much of Western Europe with incredible (and menacing) speed. In the Far East, Japan had been flexing its muscles continuously in China, Manchuria, and Korea since the early 1930s. Conflict with the United States seemed inevitable. Finally, at home, a strong strain of isolationism tied FDR’s hands, while economic recovery sputtered. By 1940, American GDP had barely recovered to December 1929 levels. Optimism was difficult. </p><p>“Ballad For Americans” filled a space in people, gave them a sense of belonging, linked them to the heroic past, and told them they could be part of the future. Even now, dated though it clearly is, it retains a certain potency. Take 10 (or 20) minutes away from whatever political distractions you engage in and listen to it. I’ve included links to both the Robeson and Crosby versions; both use nearly identical lyrics (later performers would often include contemporary references), and both run almost exactly 10 minutes. The difference is in shading and delivery, but both carry a message of pride and hope.</p><p>Bing’s is the smoother of the two, a bit more lushly arranged and orchestrated, and includes Crosby’s vocal tricks like his croon/warble and his deft way of sliding into the sound of others. It’s also a little more emotionally light, closer to Crosby’s public image of accessibility. His voice softens some of the tougher portions, taking the sting out of phrases that might otherwise draw fire. If there’s a weak spot, it’s in the accompanying Ken Darby Singers—they almost sound too professional, too bright. Still, it’s an admirable presentation and even a little bold for Crosby, given some of the content. </p><p>The Robeson version is the one I grew up with, the one I sang to with my parents and sister. The recording quality isn’t quite as good; you can hear the technical limitations, particularly with the brass. That quickly becomes irrelevant when you are presented with the immense power of Robeson’s vocal presence. His bass-baritone, placed more in a call-and-response setting than Bing’s, and with a chorus that sounds a little more real-person, creates a dialog that builds relentlessly in both volume and emotional depth. If the opening seems a little hokey to you, be patient with it and put aside your cynicism. Robeson and the chorus have their own story to tell, and one of the bits of magic they manage to pull off is to sing it as if they were speaking from personal experience. </p><p>I prefer the Robeson recording, with his insistent, pile-driver of a voice, but both Robeson and Crosby put the message over beautifully. Look at some of the Robeson/Crosby lyrics and you can see that the basic premise is simple: An unnamed stranger appears to a crowd, and they all have what amounts to a conversation about themselves and their pasts. There are predominant themes that are distinctly American virtues: First, we are not an aristocracy, our history is made by people both great and modest, so our efforts are communal, and our victories communal. Second, we succeed despite having to climb a mountain of skepticism (“Nobody who was anybody believed it, Ev’rybody who was anybody, they doubted it.”). Third, our goals have civic and political virtue—independence and what it brings (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, That all men are created equal.”). Further, we self-correct—we don’t just free the slave, we recognize injustice (“Man in white skin can never be free, While his black brother is in slavery.”) And we grow, we always push forward—the pioneers, the Gold Rush, expansion West, railroads, giant cities, taking on big challenges in war and peace. For all that, there are still naysayers, yet we still persevere and seek our own path (“And they are doubting still, And I guess they always will, But who cares what they say, When I am on my way—”).</p><p>It’s a potent set of images, and the crowd comes together, connects. But, who is the stranger? Where does he come from? What does he do? He tells them he does everything, every type of job: “Engineer, musician, street cleaner, carpenter, teacher…” He’s the everybody who is nobody, the nobody who is everybody: “[T]he ‘etceteras’ and the ‘and so forths’ that do the work.” This strains credulity, so they call him on it: “Now hold on here, what are you trying to give us? Are you an American?” He’s an American. Not only does he do everything, he’s also of all races and religions and national backgrounds. He is them, and they are him. They are a community. So it should be, because he, and they, and America itself still have things to do. They will keep the faith, as “her greatest songs are still unsung.” And, as always, they will do it all together, and will overcome:</p><p>Solo: Out of the cheating, out of the shouting. Out of the murders and lynching</p><p>All: Out of the windbags, the patriotic spouting, Out of uncertainty and doubting, Out of the carpetbag and the brass spittoon, It will come again. Our marching song will come again!</p><p>It can be done because they possess a character that is “[d]eep as our valleys, High as our mountains, Strong as the people who made it.” The last question is resolved. The stranger, the crowd, and even the audience are all Americans, with a destiny of communal greatness. They need only choose it, and work for it. </p><p>I don’t know if this satisfies my reader, but, if we are to find our way back from this chasm we are in, there is going to have to be something in those ten minutes to still hold onto. For now, this is the best answer I can offer. </p><p>Epilogue: Bing Crosby was named Most Admired American in 1948, but “Ballad For Americans,” like Paul Robeson himself, eventually got caught in politics. He continued to speak (forcefully) for the cause of freedom at home and abroad, and campaigned on behalf of Henry Wallace and his Progressive Party in 1948. Opposition to him intensified in the later 1940s, causing the loss of local performance venues, and, in some places, “Ballad For Americans” became an unwanted stepchild, with scores in school districts tossed or ripped from larger songbooks. Robeson himself became a lightning rod for protests and violence. In August 1949, his potential headlining at a benefit concert for the Civil Right Congress in Peekskill, New York, led to a postponement after the audience was attacked with rocks and bottles by locals. A second concert, on September 4, 1949, that included Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, went off without incident, until it ended, and then both audience and performers had to run a gauntlet of protests along the road home. Up to 140 people were injured while law enforcement mostly stood by. In the 1950s, Robeson was blacklisted and his passport revoked, stilling, for a time, at least his artistic voice. His passport was eventually restored, after the Supreme Court’s 1958 ruling in <i>Kent v. Dulles</i> that the right to travel is an inherent element of “liberty” that cannot be denied to American citizens. After that, Robeson mounted a comeback abroad, but time, and the pressure, took their toll on him, and he suffered a series of health crises. He lived roughly the last 15 years of his life in comparative seclusion, first with his wife Essie and then, after she passed, with his son, and then his sister, never performing in public again. He died January 23, 1976. In death, he was embraced in ways often denied him in life: an award from the United Nations General Assembly for his work on Apartheid, entrance into the College Football Hall of Fame (he had been an All-American at Rutgers), a Lifetime Grammy, and, a little improbably, in 2004, his face on a 37-cent stamp. </p><p>In The Essential Paul Robeson, there’s a track of him performing Othello’s final soliloquy. The first few lines seem somehow appropriate for this great and tragic personality.</p><p><i>Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know’t. No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak, Of one that loved not wisely but too well.</i></p><p>A Ballad For America? first appeared on 3quarksdaily.com on November 8, 2021</p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/11/a-ballad-for-america.html</p><p></p><p><br /></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-29106993348273435452021-12-24T07:56:00.000-05:002021-12-24T07:56:18.174-05:00The Annual Really Bad Ditty (Apologies to G&S)<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">He Has A Little List</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Former Guy]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As one day soon to power I’ll rightly be restored</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've got a little list — I've got a little list</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those who dared oppose me my memory’s quite good</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They never will be missed — they never will be missed!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's a thousand nasty newsies who fabricate my flaws —</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And weak-kneed pols with tiny hands instead of manly paws</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That Kinzinger, I’ll get him soon, with Cheneys young and old, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ones who come to shake my hand, yet fail to bear much gold —</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And those who doubt my privilege claims, of them I must insist —</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Chorus]</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He's got 'em on the list — he's got 'em on the list;</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[FG]</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s that penciled-neck guy Schiff, and Raskin’s ugly face</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maggie Haberman’s a monster — I've got her on the list!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the people who watch Maddow, every one without a trace</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They never would be missed — they never would be missed! </span></p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The invertebrate who praised me, at every single try</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But failed me in the end, Mike Pence you are that guy</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s not forget Chris Wallace too, that RINO journalist</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't think he’d be missed — I'm sure he’d not be missed!</span></p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Chorus]</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He's got them on the list — he's got them on the list;</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I don't think they'll be missed — I'm sure they’ll not be missed!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[FG]</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And all my Judges far and wide who fail to heed my bid</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No lifetime terms to keep — I've got them on the list!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wayward fellows, foolish men, of them I’ll soon be rid —</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed</span></p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those weak-kneed Govs and staffers, of a compromising kind</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Forgot the only rule that really counts is one that’s in my mind </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ducey, Kemp, and Meadows, what side could they be on? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And never mind that nasty Nancy–I’m sure you know she’s -gone</span></p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See, it really doesn’t matter who goes upon the list</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For they'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Chorus]</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You may put 'em on the list — you may put 'em on the list;</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!</span></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-83669495924214588392021-12-24T07:53:00.000-05:002021-12-24T07:53:32.977-05:00The Coupist's Cookbook<p> </p><header class="entry-header" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: "Libre Baskerville" !important; font-size: 24px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.21429em; margin: 0px 0px 7px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: capitalize; vertical-align: baseline;">The Coupist’s Cookbook</h1><br /></header><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by Michael Liss</strong></p><blockquote style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 54px; position: relative; quotes: "" ""; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.82px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.82px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog…</em></p></blockquote><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-202486" class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_202486" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; float: right; margin: 14px 0px 27px 27px; max-width: 100%; width: 360px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-202486 size-medium" height="310" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px" src="https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-360x310.jpg" srcset="https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-360x310.jpg 360w, https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-1024x881.jpg 1024w, https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-768x661.jpg 768w, https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-1536x1322.jpg 1536w, https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-2048x1762.jpg 2048w, https://3quarksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/default-300x258.jpg 300w" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%;" width="360" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-202486" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.8125em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5675em; margin: 14px 0px; padding: 0px 3.59375px; text-align: center;">Mary Hoare, “The Three Witches from Macbeth: Double Double, Toil and Trouble,” Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection</figcaption></figure><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It could have worked. It almost did. It may in the future.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A lovely little coup attempt by Former President Trump and his posse. A little violence. A sprinkling of eager state and local “public servants” who planned to please the then-President by spinning gossamer tales of phantom voters and secret shredders. Brigades of lawyers, a few absolute kooks, but others both well-placed in government or in influential positions, and deadly serious. This last group included 17 State Attorneys General who looked in their mirrors each morning and saw “Future Really Important Republican Persons” staring back at them.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let’s not back away from the obvious. January 6th wasn’t a single, isolated moment of acting-out by an angst-driven set of peaceful patriots driven mad by the loss of their idol. It was the punctuation mark on an intense stretch of unrelenting pressure by Trump and his allies to crush the democratic process. That the Ship of State eventually stayed afloat, that people, including many Republicans, pushed back enough to block Trump’s power grab, is to its and their credit. But, to quote Star Trek’s Scottie when the Enterprise was under assault, “I dannae if she can take any more, Captain!”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The more we learn, the worse it gets. Let’s start with 45. I don’t know whether Donald Trump actually believes much of what he says, but, late in life, he’s found a role he can play where accountability doesn’t exist. He knows his followers love a good show. He knows the media, even the so-called liberal media, would rather cover someone colorful and newsworthy than old, boring Joe Biden. And, through all of it, it doesn’t matter what the 1/6 Committee, or investigative reporters, or state prosecutors might find. He knows he’s untouchable. Others may pay a price, but not Trump.<span id="more-202485" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Trump cast of bad guys is extensive, but part of Trump’s genius has always been the ability to attract third- and fourth-rate talents, elevate them to positions of power, and encourage them to commit acts of vandalism. Most of these folks should never be let near any government role whatsoever, but they have one thing in common—they measure success by how loyal they are to Trump and how much damage they can do on his behalf. He values them based on the same criteria.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Of course, you can’t run a government just with malevolent yes men. Politics, at times, can resemble professional hockey. Goons are great for messing up the other team’s stars, but you need a few skill players as well. Another part of Trump’s talent, given far too little attention, is that he’s also always been able to hire competence. Those folks come in two flavors—the smart guys on the make who seek to use their positions with Trump as vehicles for their own priorities, and those who come on board out of a sense of duty to something higher (like the country and the Constitution). If left alone, they will make the trains run on time, while Trump is free to indulge himself elsewhere and provide the deliverables to his constituency.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For the latter group, which included people of real ability and prior accomplishment, they found their time on the inside particularly hard on their self-esteem. Trump detested each and every one of them and let them know it. Some of this sprang from his contempt for actual expertise. But more often than not, it was strictly of the moment: He hated being told no on anything, whether it was policy or politics. Those who wouldn’t bend to him were “weak,” where “weak” often meant lacking enough courage to obey, even if obeying meant doing something stupid or illegal.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Of all Trump’s servants, William Barr may have been the most useful, and Trump compensated him richly for his talents. In return for politicizing the office to a degree not seen since John Mitchell, Barr became Trump’s Oliver Cromwell. Both men agreed on a vision of a closed-fisted Imperial Presidency, backed by a raft of conservative “Trump Judges” who were energized to engage in some judicial activism. Barr made that happen.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What Barr accomplished in just a little under two years will influence policy for decades. Barr loved it. He enjoyed being lionized by conservatives and relished the “Liberal Tears.” What he wasn’t expecting was that serving Trump was an unlimited obligation, regardless of previous payments. Barr gave Trump something (he announced an investigation into possible election fraud on November 9th), but he didn’t deliver what the boss demanded—a result that would support reversing the election results.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We don’t know all of what went on between these two men behind closed doors, but we do know Trump was furious, just as he would be furious with Mike Pence a couple of weeks later. He owned these men; how could they not deliver? Barr, to his credit (and perhaps with an eye towards how history would view him if the coup failed) refused to budge, and instead announced his resignation on December 4th, effective December 23rd.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was a real setback for Trump. The DOJ endorsement of fraud would have been a great get, providing more legal grounds for Trump judges to side with him, and help move some conservative heavyweights to get involved, when they were queasy about coups. Still, Trump was undeterred, and returned to his playbook: every person is susceptible to the choice (or threat) of pain and pleasure. With Barr leaving, It was the turn of Jeffrey Rosen (now elevated to Acting Attorney General) to occupy the hot seat.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The term “unenviable position” was probably invented for Rosen. A respected attorney with substantial prior government experience, he had also done a fair amount of working the phones for Trump’s benefit while Assistant Attorney General. Trump fell upon him immediately, even before Barr left, demanding loyalty, and insisting Rosen do what Barr had refused to do—claim fraud and deploy the DOJ to support Trump’s reelection. This was a bridge too far for Rosen, who must have felt the DOJ’s Barr-spurred prior investigation was dispositive. Rosen also had to be doing a little calculating as to his personal position. Barr could leave and be in demand, if he chose. Rosen had bounced back and forth between government work and his former law firm, Kirkland & Ellis. Would private practice still welcome him if he pushed unfounded claims of election fraud?</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rosen wasn’t Trump’s only iron (or person) in the fire. Trump had been pressuring and sweet-talking state and local officials since right after the election. It’s probably impossible to tabulate the number and nature of the attempts. What we do know of includes calls to Governors Kemp of Georgia and Ducey of Arizona; strategy sessions with Bryan Cutler, the Republican Speaker of the Pennsylvania House; and inviting Republicans leaders from Michigan’s State legislature to the White House for a little chat. Trump got a lot of lip service and he got recounts, but he didn’t get the movement he needed—one state of several to agree to ignore election results and try to put up Trump Electors. If one did, others would follow.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">His problem was that, while Republicans were more than ready to suggest Democratic vote fraud, they hadn’t yet moved, as a group, to the idea they could just disregard the voters because they wanted to. And they were unable to buy into the wilder claims of fixed voting machines because those same machines had returned many of them to office and contributed to a good showing by House Republicans. Trump had miscalculated the incentives (at least to that point).</p><div class="eaa-wrapper eaa_post_between_content eaa_desktop" id="eaa_post_between_content" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px -20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="eaa-ad " style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Procedural clocks were running down as well. Electors had to be certified by the states and sent to Congress by December 14th. In a Hail Mary, on December 11th, 16 State Attorneys General joined a suit by Texas AG Ken Paxton, trying to overturn election results in other states. Their bizarre logic was that their states had voted for Trump, so Biden states were unfairly depriving them of their choice. To Trump’s dismay, “his” Supreme Court failed to back him on this. The Electoral Votes were certified.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like working for Trump at this point. He was consumed with retaining power by any means necessary. He surrounded himself with enablers and kooks. Rudy, Sidney Powell, and Mike Flynn floated both wild conspiracy theories and grotesque strategies, including declaring Martial Law and having the military seize voting machines.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In the last two weeks of December, new advisors led Trump to a new strategy. Trump would continue pressure on state and local officials (his Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, headed to Georgia on December 22nd to twist some arms), but, more importantly, the President himself would bear down on two men, the unlucky Jeffrey Rosen and the heretofore unfailingly loyal Mike Pence.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These new approaches arose, because, as always, Trump had been able to find the right, utterly unprincipled folks to benefit him. The Pence strategy—that the Vice-President had the authority under the 12th Amendment to select among competing slates of Electors, was the product of a spectacularly disingenuous memo by a conservative heavyweight, John Eastman. You could write volumes about Eastman, but his analysis, essentially a Rube Goldberg contraption that required a lot of coordination among Republicans at several levels, was just possible enough that it should make you lose a great deal of sleep.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Rosen strategy amounted to either pushing him aside, or forcing him to do Trump’s bidding. This may have been possible because Trump had finally found his man at the DOJ, the then-acting head of the Civil Division, Jeffrey Clark. Clark was perfect for the job—he was an utter partisan devoid of any scruples, and he had a price that Trump would be all too happy to pay: Rosen’s job.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Clark went over Rosen’s head and started communicating with Trump, in one instance bringing in Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania for a meeting. He also got busy drafting a letter to Georgia, indicating that the DOJ saw evidence of fraud, and urging the Georgia Legislature to hold a special session to pick a new slate of Electors.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But Rosen (and his Deputy, Richard Donoghue, who was also getting pressure) resisted this, and other schemes, including a proposed DOJ filing with the Supreme Court challenging the results in six swing states. Think about that for a second—a Department of Justice (any Department of Justice) mobilized to serve the purely political interests of the President, including making completely unfounded claims. Rosen said no.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The year was almost over, the January 6th counting of Electors was drawing nearer, and Trump’s people were getting more desperate. What might have been called pressure before were now morphing into naked threats. The message to Rosen and Donoghue was clear: the DOJ will do Trump’s bidding…or there will be consequences. Clark let it be known that Trump would replace Rosen with Clark himself in order to have the DOJ move forward on Trump’s allegations and prevent Biden from being Inaugurated. Meadows (who knew his time in power was drawing to a close) was advancing one bizarre theory after another to get Rosen to change his mind. And Trump, astoundingly, was still working the phones pressuring local officials (“just do it”)—and Mike Pence.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a lot we don’t know about the last week before the January 6th rally and riot. What we do know is that Trump went public with his frustration with Pence on January 5th (presumably hoping that Pence would hear the growls of Trump’s base and change his mind). We also know that Trump sent Clark to Rosen with a message—that Rosen would be out and Clark in as of January 4th, unless Rosen played ball and signed onto the letters and Supreme Court filing. For Rosen still said no, and Clark told him his last day would be January 3rd.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rosen wouldn’t yield. First, he demanded to hear Trump’s message in person, and then he called in the cavalry. It was made clear to Trump that a Rosen firing would lead to mass resignations. This was buttressed by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who told Trump the plan wouldn’t work. After what no doubt was a considerable amount of screaming, Trump relented. Rosen stayed, and, as a result, there would be no letter to Georgia or filing with SCOTUS.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Time was almost certainly up. There was yet another effort to convince Pence, but it was futile. Nonetheless, Trump was not done, and he was certainly not done testing people’s resolve. He still had muscle left. I am not going to replay the sacking of the Capitol by Trump loyalists on January 6th, because there is still far too much we don’t yet know, including the level of participation from the White House and from inside Congress itself. One thing seems clear—any White House hopes that the violence would give it more time to contest the election were dashed by Nancy Pelosi’s iron-spined ability to get the House to reconvene the same day. Despite the cravenness of many House Republicans, Joe Biden would be inaugurated two weeks later.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Was this all just a Beer Hall Putsch? Or was (and is) this just a failed precursor for the real thing three years from now? One thing we know for sure is that Republicans have been enacting a dizzying variety of voter-suppression laws. Another is that public-spirited election officials at the state and local level have been doxed and threatened, and many are leaving as a result. A phalanx of Trump acolytes, many of whom believe that a vote for a Democrat is essentially fraud to begin with, are running for the very offices that administer elections, including Secretaries of State. Some will be elected. Trump’s hold over the Republican Party remains tight and apostates are ruthlessly culled. The incentives that last time drove many to stick with their obligations to the voters and the law are being eroded, almost daily. It’s not hard to see a future where it’s just easier to flip the election to Trump, regardless of whatever the voters say. Eastman’s Rube Goldberg monster has moved from farfetched to plausible. To coup may no longer seem inexcusable in polite company.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">None of this would be possible if the public were strongly to reject it, but, more and more, they seem to doubt the very foundations of government. I’m leery of polling results that seem outlandish, because respondents are not always answering the questions that the pollsters think they are asking, but clearly centrifugal forces are pulling the country apart. Trump’s core message of nihilism and anger resonates not just with Republican voters, but also incites an increasing number of Democrats, who are coming to believe that Republicans will do anything to win. In that kind of an atmosphere, people can convince themselves to go along with just about anything.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Democracies like ours rest on two things—the willingness of the public to accept the essential founding mythologies of a people united in at least a desire for the common good, and the certainty that, no matter how bad an election result might be, there’s always a next time.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not getting warm fuzzies.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Coupist's Cookbook was first published on 3quarksdaily.com on October 11, 2021 and you can find the link <a href="https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/10/the-coupists-cookbook.html">here</a></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You can also find some of my other work for @3QD <a href="https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss">here</a></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.8px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-24416833635861539112021-11-12T09:54:00.000-05:002021-11-12T09:54:17.554-05:00Of Rocks and Runs<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>By Michael Liss<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPEiUwhVXd36GYv1NDkDjwQPVp0zptCyvVWP74TCNVB998eFcy0GiQUcjJ81szBQ5V9o6hEYgUSp18FbWaekeQfG8nlu-dZmVuz8u-3TZ50UHamrU-ERtYfsBQcEu40G3dE7CfRH5eVw/s1347/IMG_2086.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1015" data-original-width="1347" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPEiUwhVXd36GYv1NDkDjwQPVp0zptCyvVWP74TCNVB998eFcy0GiQUcjJ81szBQ5V9o6hEYgUSp18FbWaekeQfG8nlu-dZmVuz8u-3TZ50UHamrU-ERtYfsBQcEu40G3dE7CfRH5eVw/s320/IMG_2086.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I live on an island. It happens to be a rather densely populated island, with a surface that seems largely covered by steel, masonry, glass, and architectural curtain wall, with nary a coconut or palm tree in sight. Still, it’s an island.<p></p><p>We island dwellers engage in R&R differently than our suburbanite friends and family. There are no golf courses, no country clubs, no massive “Friday Night Lights” facilities. Still, we don’t lack for sports. The newest craze is “Dodge the Electric Bike,” which improves agility and hand-to-eye coordination, particularly when the deliveryman is going the wrong way on a one-way street.</p><p>For myself, I like to run. If one wants to call it that. I’m certainly not particularly good at it, but I’ve been running/jogging/plodding since shortly after the end of the Peloponnesian Wars. I’ve torn through countless pairs of running shoes, each with an idiosyncratic wear pattern that is a not-so-subtle reminder that a major factor in my lack of speed is also a pronounced lack of grace. To demonstrate that I have no self-consciousness about this, I’ve run in a fair number of New York Road Runners races. Yesterday’s Fifth Avenue Mile was my 49th, and, I’m happy to report, I’m slower than ever.</p><p>I don’t care. I like doing it anyway. Running gets me outside; running (temporarily) satisfies my sitzfleish deficiency; and it has probably kept me off statins. During the darkest part of the pandemic, it helped with sanity, like a lightning rod grounds electrical charges. Get into your shorts (or tights, depending on the season); fill your pockets with whatever is needed out there; take two masks (believe me, you will want the second after you finish); and go.</p><p>Running offers the gift of both solitude and community. Run by yourself; find a rhythm; and the hills seem easier, the miles shorter. Run with friends; and enjoy the communal vibe, the gasps and groans, and the mutual suffering. Running transforms us into patrons at a senior-community diner, engaging in what could be called an ambulatory organ recital. Knee, hip, calf, thigh, back, foot, nose (allergies), all can be complained about in an overall atmosphere of physical vigor, giving you the best of both worlds. You get a nice workout with permission to feel miserable about it.</p><p>You can’t run every day down Fifth Avenue, and one mile is barely a warmup, so, where else on my island do you go? That might involve some fudging, like over the Queensboro into Long Island City, or up the East Side promenade to the Randall’s Island pedestrian bridge. Westsiders have Riverside Park and a path along the mighty Hudson that goes from the Battery up towards the George Washington Bridge. And we all have “Summer Streets,” which twice or three times each August closes off Park Avenue to cars from 72nd down to the Brooklyn Bridge, where the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island can’t help but stir some ancestral memories.</p><p>Still, the heart always leads back to Central Park. The air is cleaner. No cars, except for a handful of service vehicles (and the occasional ambulance). No stoplights. Lakes and fountains, statues, a castle, a blockhouse designed for defense against the British in 1812. Thirty-six bridges, some cut out of living rock. Rowboats and skating. Fauna as well: the occasional raccoon, the misplaced (and therefore thrilling) bird of prey, ducks and geese, horses, five billion squirrels, and (naturally) the odd rat.</p><p>But I do not come to praise the flora or fauna. Instead, I want to behold the simple rock. Central Park has a runner’s joy: hills and more hills, and each rise and dip comes with its own set of rocks.</p><p>So, I’m going to speak of rocks, and rely on your tolerance, because I’m a complete layman and have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. The great John McPhee summed it up beautifully when he wrote in Annals of the Former World, “The structure of Manhattan is one of those paradoxes in spatial relations which give geologists especial delight and are about as intelligible to everyone else as punchlines delivered in Latin.”</p><p>Amen to that. I was foolish enough to think that doing some research, reading a few papers, would at least give me some passing fluency in describing what had occurred tens or hundreds of millions of years ago and had come to be under my feet. That was wrong. After many hours of reading, I came away with the same sense I have when contemplating a six minute Fifth Avenue Mile…a “not in my wildest dreams.”</p><p>To give you an idea of the mountain I was trying to climb, I found this reference in a scholarly work by Charles and Mickey Mergurian: “This unit is composed of brown-to-rusty-weathering, fine- to medium-textured, typically massive, biotite-muscovite-quartzplagioclase-kyanite-sillimanite-garnet-graphite-pyrite schist and migmatitic schist containing interlayers centimeters to meters thick of mica granofels and layers of calcite±diopside±tremolite marble and calc-silicate rock.”</p><p>Looks like it should be some German compound word, right? When I saw it, I thought about reaching out to Tom Lehrer (who apparently lives in Manhattan) to put the whole thing to music, but Wikipedia says he’s retired. Instead, I’m going to try to make a tiny bit of sense out of things by doing a Google Earth and pulling back (or away) a few thousand feet.</p><p>South of 125th Street, Manhattan is a contradiction in plain sight. At the bottom of the island, we have the massive, lumbering edifices of the Wall Street area. Then the verticality of the island takes a rest, and for three miles, gently wends its way uptown through a variety of low-slung neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, and Little Italy, all the way through the Twenties. In the Thirties, height and bulk return spectacularly, with the Empire State Building, continuing on up north to the Chrysler Building, from there to gleaming office towers, and then to the insane Billionaire’s Row, whose temples to excess shoot up more than 1400 feet from 57th and 58th Streets, just a few hundred yards from the bottom of Central Park.</p><p>Why would 60 blocks-worth of prime space be dedicated to tenements, small commercial buildings and the like? This isn’t merely because of some desire to keep those three miles quaint, it’s a function of an uneven topography under the streets. The island elevates gently from sea level, south to north, a total of about 280 feet over a length of 13.4 miles. The famed Manhattan bedrock (mostly Manhattan schist) doesn’t just sit there like a flat paved road. Rather, it undulates. If you try slightly cupping your hand, tilting it downwards, and curling up your fingertips at the bottom, it gives you a rough idea of what is going on. The last joints of the fingertips are lower Manhattan, where the bedrock rises up from the seabed to give builders solid ground to plant redwoods. Come off that, just North, and for those 60-odd blocks, the bedrock drops away and the open space (the cup of your fingers) is filled with geological debris, looser rocks and dirt brought by a glacier (or, arguably, two glaciers). It’s just not sturdy enough for monumental structures. Move north of 30th, and you are back in the meaty portion of your hand, where the bedrock is closer to the surface, and ambition soars. Of course, two centuries of development leave what’s underneath the blacktop to our imaginations. That is, until you travel a couple of football fields from the rich and powerful and hit Central Park. There, wherever Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s design called for leaving well enough alone, you see huge rocks and outcroppings, eroded but still mighty, often glittering with bits of mica, up to 500 million years old.</p><p>Put on your running shoes and come with me for a light jog. The Park stretches from 59th Street to 110th, and from Fifth Avenue to what would be Eighth. If you stay on the interior paved road, the distance is 6.02 miles, just about perfect for our purposes. Start on the West Side just south of Tavern on the Green, go counterclockwise, and you will pass the massive Umpire Rock (formerly known as “Rat Rock” for its formerly plentiful colony of rats). Umpire Rock is really old, and as good an indicator as any of what lies beneath the surface. Not only is the primary rock among the oldest in the Park, but the rock itself was scored and shaped by a glacier that covered much of Manhattan about 30,000 years ago.</p><p>Move to the East Drive into the 60s and then uptown through the 80s, and this mostly uphill area (may) be the beginning of something called Cameron’s Line, an actual fault from the Ordovician Period which was formed as part of the continental collision known as the Taconic orogeny. As one might imagine, this smashing, wrenching, folding and crushing event and the later Alleghenian one were extraordinarily violent, and the thought that somewhere (and perhaps several places) along your run you might be stepping on a stupendous fault line that helped create a continent (and certainly our island paradise) is quite striking.</p><p>Let’s keep going north past the Reservoir until we hit 106th Street and we get to the area of some irony to runners. Here is where the original plan of Olmstead and Vaux stopped, and I think if you asked many of us (and the casual tourist biker looking to circumnavigate the Park), we’d have been just fine if their ambitions ended right there. Alas, they didn’t, and, in 1859, they asked that the area between 106th Street and 110th be added. In the beginning, you can be beguiled by this, as the road bends somewhat downhill towards the lowest elevation in the entire park, the man-made Harlem Meer. But soon you realize you are dealing with a monster, first a prolonged upgrade as you head south along the top of the West Drive, followed by a final piece of wending mercilessness as you near the top of The Great Hill. About 20 years ago I was running up the East Drive and found myself abreast of a group of middle-aged Frenchmen who were in for the Marathon. For about a mile, they talked easily to me about their training, what they were doing in New York, and the places they had gone. The chatter ground to a halt, punctuated by occasional curses (in more languages than French) as we tackled the Hill of Death.</p><p>We’ve made it to the West Side, scrambled over a pair of West Side hills, run past the Reservoir, and between 84th and 81st Streets come to two interesting formations, one natural, the second man-made. Immediately to our right between the road and Central Park West is the highest elevation in the park (about 140 feet), Summit Rock. In this area was Seneca Village, home to an African-American community that existed there from about 1820 to its annexation and ruthless clearing in 1857. To our left is Belvedere Castle and the Great Lawn, which, prior to 1929, had been a second reservoir for the city. Both locations contain traces of rock that apparently originated in the New Jersey Palisades, across the Hudson River.</p><p>We have about a mile to go, and I’m going to take a detour, off the road and onto the bridle path. This is my single favorite stretch of the Park. I like the irregular surface, the switch from gravel to sand to soil and back. I like the way it cuts through and around the man-made structures; and I particularly like the trip along the Park’s west wall running parallel to Central Park West. Here, the street is well above the path, and you run through rock-cuts, under man-made bridges, and past berms, sometimes seen, sometimes not. It’s here where I plan to be every Thanksgiving morning, as the parade assembles and starts its march down to 33rd Street, and above you are the tops of the balloons struggling in the wind and sounds of marching bands.</p><p>Then, you go over a last uphill, where the surface changes to sand and gravel, and you end at Tavern on the Green, just where you started, and just where the New York Marathon comes to an end.</p><p>We’ve made the loop, and that brings me back to where I began this piece, and a little personal news. Two weeks ago, while running to the Park to train for the Fifth Avenue, I took a header on a street that had been freshly milled for resurfacing. Hands, elbows, face, and particularly knee and ribs took the jolt, and I broke my glasses. I limped home, bloodied and battered. By that evening, I realized there would be no more running for a while—even if I could cover my knee, my ribs hurt too much to move out of a slow walk. All joking aside, this particular excuse for expected poor performance was a little too real. I was morose, until a week later, at 11:23 p.m., when I got this wonderful text from my daughter: “Guess what I just did? I signed up for the Fifth Avenue Mile. And I’m so excited.”</p><p>So, on Sunday, September 12th, I gingerly made my way over to Fifth Avenue, with a final reminder from McPhee that Manhattan is nothing more than a compressed and folded loaf of rock between two rivers, worn by erosion. And Fifth Avenue, on the high middle of that loaf, is running up the center of the trough of a syncline. Loaves and synclines, when you put it that way, eh, I can do this.</p><p>In the event, we ended up with five—me, two of my running buddies, my daughter, and one of her friends, who was also running in her first race.</p><p>By some cosmic kismet, three of us, running in three separate heats, ran exactly the same time. And my daughter…she blew us all away.</p><p>Now, that is a runner’s high.</p><p>Of Rocks and Runs was first published on September 13, 2021 on 3quarksdaily.com </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>You can find the link here: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/09/of-rocks-and-runs.html<p></p><p><br />And, for more, see https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-89939166612302923072021-10-12T20:54:00.000-04:002021-10-12T20:54:20.288-04:00Sunrise at Monticello <p>We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists.</p><p>—Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eDMnTGuzWMFqGDaBmosEZuQvvmzMFPKP6LluCZWrdNTSmly0GsZLDvG-vY5GN0eoLbLTxlnenRYgBNi5xD_MCUwmMK-aZISEKQ9v3ZVVF6SiH81Uj60dIvKI_J5nUERz2EJfmtULkO0/s1240/Thomas-Jefferson1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="1040" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eDMnTGuzWMFqGDaBmosEZuQvvmzMFPKP6LluCZWrdNTSmly0GsZLDvG-vY5GN0eoLbLTxlnenRYgBNi5xD_MCUwmMK-aZISEKQ9v3ZVVF6SiH81Uj60dIvKI_J5nUERz2EJfmtULkO0/s320/Thomas-Jefferson1.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br />Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800. White House Collection/White House Historical Association.<p></p><p>Inauguration Day, 1801. John Adams may have beat it out of town on the 4:00 a.m. stage to Baltimore, but the podium filled with dignitaries, none more impressive than the man taking the Oath of Office. Thomas Jefferson, Poet Laureate of the American Revolution, former Secretary of State, outgoing Vice President, was standing there in all his charismatic glory.</p><p>As politicians have done, presumably from time immemorial, he pronounced himself awed by the challenge (“I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking”), imperfect (“I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment”), and an obedient servant (“[r]elying, then, on the patronage of your good will…”). He made the obligatory bow to George Washington (Adams being absent both corporally and in Jefferson’s spoken thoughts), and called upon the love of country that stemmed from shared experience: “Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind.”</p><p>How very Jeffersonian. Inspiring, embracing, collaborative, worthy of his fellow citizens’ admiration and even love. Looking back over 200 years, allowing for the archaic language, and even the sense that this was not his best work, you can still hear in it the echoes of what drew people to him.</p><p>Jefferson was more than a symbolic change in direction from the Adams (and Washington) years. He was the physical embodiment of what he later came to describe as the Second American Revolution. The public had cast aside the old Federalism, stultifying and crabbed, with a narrow vision of what democracy meant, and had chosen to move towards the bright light of freedom.</p><p>You have to love the story. It fits with an image of Jefferson that many have clung to over the decades. Jefferson was more than a stick figure of stiffly posed portraits, policies, and speeches. He was a full-blooded, passionate person: Jefferson the gourmand; Jefferson the suave raconteur; Jefferson having a grand old time in Paris and at Monticello. He was the courtier abroad, and the master of house and estate at home—his days filled with fine wine, good conversation, books, music, and enchanting women.</p><p>This historical version of Jefferson (the image popularized by biographers like Dumas Malone) requires a bit of a filter on the part of the teller—a bit of time spent walling off, explaining away, or even denying some of the less appealing aspects of his life. It is neither wholly accurate, nor how many of his contemporaries viewed him at the time. They saw his flaws, some imagined, many real.</p><p>This is not the place to retread that ground. I began this series three months ago talking about partisanship and the emergence of political parties, and Jefferson is the preeminent political party leader of our first half-century. That is the framework I want to use: Jefferson as the co-creator of the Democratic-Republican Party, Jefferson as its first U.S.President, Jefferson (along with Madison) as the molder of an ideology and the prime instrument for amplifying it. So, while not dismissing Jefferson’s myriad defects of character and judgment, I am going to use Garry Wills’ characterization in his book, Negro President (“My Jefferson is a giant, but a giant trammeled in a net, and obliged (he thought) to keep repairing and strengthening the coils of that net.”).</p><p>When John Adams got on that pre-dawn stagecoach, the door that closed behind him was also closing on his Federalist Party’s grasp on the Presidency. It’s one of history’s ironies that the last Federalist President wasn’t really a Party man at all. Adams had no interest and certainly no talent for politics the way we understand it. Instead, he had this oddly appealing, yet monumentally impractical, sense that a President should use his best judgment, regardless of the political implications of it. The problem with Adams’ idea as a construct for future Presidents was that Presidents need their Parties to enact legislation, to carry a coherent, unified message, and otherwise to have their backs. The problem the movers in the Federalist Party made for themselves in rejecting Adams, a fellow Federalist, is that they misunderstood the essential connection that the voters make between President and Party. We know this intuitively now…an unpopular President hurts his own team down-ballot. Hamilton (and Timothy Pickering, James McHenry and Oliver Wolcott, his loyalists in Adams’ Cabinet) could not, in their arrogance, recognize that, by undercutting and demeaning Adams, they weren’t showing themselves superior beings worthy of even more power and influence. They were just giving the electorate, such as it was at that time, an opportunity to view them as pompous, aloof, and autocratic.</p><p>In fact, the Federalists were pompous, aloof and autocratic. They had largely held their ground in the 1798 Midterms in part because the public approved of Adams’ handling of negotiations with France the previous summer. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Party were unable to see the cause and effect. Adams, they thought, was an apostate to High Federalist dogma—so, never mind that what he had done was both diplomatically and politically effective, it was not what they had counseled, and was thus, by definition, bad.</p><p>Still, their continued control of the SIxth Congress and the White House gave them time to recalibrate, and wiser political heads would have recognized the opportunity and acted on it. The American Revolution wasn’t just a liberation from England and King George III. It was also (at least for white men) a liberating moment from the tyranny of being ruled by fiat by the elites. On this, the Republicans offered a clear choice—individual rights as set forth in the Bill of Rights, including the right to dissent, should be sacrosanct. High Federalists were horrified by the idea of too much freedom—what would the common man know about policy? Why should anyone, regardless of his station in life, be permitted to critique them when they were exercising their superior judgment?</p><p>To use a modern construct, you don’t say these things out loud, but the Federalists not only did, but used coercion to act on them. They continued to push for Hamilton’s “New Army” even after the threat of outside invasion had subsided; they initiated more prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Act; and they used disproportionate force in snuffing out “Fries Rebellion” by German immigrants in Pennsylvania. They seemed to have a talent for making new enemies.</p><p>What they had missed, what they hadn’t really understood, was that the country was moving into a new century and a new way of thinking. Governments were not permanent; not every well-educated and well-bred man would share their beliefs; and opposition was not treason. Positions of influence often needed to be earned in the marketplace of elections. High Federalists would shudder at the thought of submitting themselves to the judgment of the unlettered and unwashed, but the old paradigm was dead.</p><p>Jefferson did understand this, as did Madison, and other politically talented Republicans. Despite Jefferson’s affected stance of being above it all, he actually threw himself into the campaign, if only secretly. Jefferson’s anonymous words found their way into sympathetic publications; his money enabled the dissemination of all types of information (some true, some, decidedly less so); and Jefferson’s private counsel somehow was transmitted to his closest associates.</p><p>The Presidential Election itself was close. While Adams and his Federalist ticket (he ran with Charles C. Pinckney) were clearly the losers, Jefferson wasn’t immediately the winner. The public, in addition to broadly supporting Republican candidates, also gave a clear edge to the Jefferson-Burr ticket. The problem was that both men ended up with 73 Electoral Votes, and, before the adoption of the 12th Amendment, that meant they were tied…for the Presidency.</p><p>While everyone “knew” Jefferson was at the top of the ticket, the same Constitutional clause that had made Jefferson Adams’ Vice President in 1796 now threw the race into the House of Representatives. There, the Federalists finally woke up and began to act like a Party when they realized they held the balance of power. Jefferson or Burr? Burr was more credible than he might appear today, because this was 1801, before he ruined himself by dueling with Hamilton and then later going off on a wild, arguably seditious ride to form another country in the Southwest. Jefferson, through intermediaries, expected Burr to withdraw. Burr stayed coy…he did, after all, have the same number of votes (and, he might have reminded Jefferson, was instrumental in snatching New York for them, right under the eyes of Hamilton).</p><p>This left Jefferson apoplectic. Why should the defeated Federalists choose anything? He began to talk of it as a legislative “usurpation” and even to whisper about armed resistance if the House went for Burr.</p><p>Jefferson or Burr? Pick your poison? Or, more accurately, what could be bartered in exchange for the Oval Office? Burr, to his immense credit, refused to offer what the Federalists really wanted, and what Adams had previously asked of Jefferson—job security for at least some of their appointees in the next Administration and a pledge not to dismantle Adams’ robust Navy. Burr then absented himself from Washington altogether, going to New York for a daughter’s wedding.</p><p>If Burr wouldn’t commit, but also wouldn’t withdraw, what then? Through 35 ballots and feverish, behind-closed-doors discussions presumably fueled with alcohol and cigars, strange bedfellows, odd alliances, half-promises, murmured commitments, and some actual integrity, a Federalist Congressman from Delaware, James Bayard, voted for Jefferson and made him President. What induced Bayard to get on board, especially as he was thought to have favored Burr personally? Two things, one known, and one unknown. The known is that Burr finally relinquished his claim to the Presidency prior to the 36th vote (Bayard considered him a fool for doing so). The unknown is just what, if anything, Jefferson (or, more likely, people acting with Jefferson’s authorization) promised Bayard and the Federalists.</p><p>On February 16th, it was over, and the House chose Jefferson, which certainly seemed the intent of the public. Adams prepared to go home. As outgoing Presidents do, Adams was leaving a mixed bag of issues and gifts for his successor. His most valuable present was his late-in-term diplomatic triumph/treaty with the French.</p><p>As an astute reader of last month’s post pointed out, the story of the rocky relationship between the United States and its erstwhile ally merits far more attention than I have given it. Suffice to say that the conduct of the French towards American shipping ranged from merely predatory actions to those that might reasonably be thought of as acts of war. Resolving this, deftly and with tact, as Adams did, was of particular value to Jefferson and Republicans in general. Their Francophile leanings had led them to be tolerant of French overreach and critical of Federalist attempts to protect American interests. With this threat neutralized, Jefferson could avoid direct confrontation at the outset of his presidency and instead focus on cutting an immensely beneficial deal for the Louisiana Territory.</p><p>But Adams (and the Federalists) also gave Jefferson both a headache and a political opening. The lame duck session of Congress produced the Judiciary Act of 1801, which, for all its questionable antecedents, was critically important. The Act created 16 districts, which, in turn, were organized into six circuits, sparing Justices of the Supreme Court the necessity of riding circuit. It also, not so coincidentally, created 16 Judicial vacancies, which Federalists urged Adams to fill promptly. These before-he-got-on-the-stagecoach “Midnight Appointments” were a source of rage for Republicans, who had no intention of letting Federalist judges get in the way of their ambitions for Jefferson’s first term.</p><p>Jefferson knew this when he rose to speak. It, and the topic of Federalist holdovers would be the first test of his political skills, his newly assumed dual role as President and Party leader, and perhaps even his integrity.</p><p>The public had chosen. In the second contested election this country had experienced, the voters selected the Republicans over the Federalists. They weighed two different ideologies, two different futures, and picked the one they preferred, opting to change course. As for Jefferson, and whatever promises he may have made to secure his election, it’s fair to say that “We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists” was the highwater mark of bipartisanship in his Presidency.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sunrise at Monticello first appeared on 3Quarksdaily.com on Monday, July 18th, 2021. You can find writing by Michael Liss here, on syncopatedpolitics.com and for 3Q.</p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</p><p>And, follow us on Twitter @SyncPol</p><p><br /></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-27557956608520126032021-06-25T08:17:00.002-04:002021-06-25T08:17:50.333-04:00The Founders Fight: Adams Goes Home<p>By Michael Liss</p><p></p><blockquote>Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions. There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest…</blockquote><p></p><p>–Alexander Hamilton, 1787.</p><p>March 4, 1800. John Adams, Second President of the United States (and first President to be defeated for reelection) was leaving Washington on the 4:00 a.m. stagecoach to Baltimore, the first stop on his way back home to his beloved home and his wife Abigail. He would not be in attendance when, later that day, his successor (and former Vice President), Thomas Jefferson, would take the Oath of Office and deliver his Inaugural Address.</p><p>It was considered by his contemporaries (and most of us would agree) a sour note to end a Presidency. As Washington had voluntarily given up the office when he could have been President-for-Life, a peaceful transition of power was a demonstration of continuity and the stability of a young nation’s experiment in democracy. Adams had lost, fairly so under the rules of the day, and many felt he needed to express public acceptance, particularly at a time when the verdict was not merely a change of person, but also of political philosophy.</p><p>There are many explanations for Adams’ behavior, one of which is that Jefferson might have made it known that Adams would not be welcome, but the one that fits best is that, in the absence of a real tradition, Adams was following his heart. He’d had enough of Philadelphia and the new swamp that was Washington, of politics and political infighting, of being judged too harshly for his failures and praised too little for his accomplishments. Like every President since who has lost, the sense of rejection was unavoidable. In Adams’ case, more so because Jefferson and he had once been close, and because some in Adams’ old party, the Federalists, had pointedly withheld support—Alexander Hamilton foremost amongst them, but even some of his old friends. It was time for him to leave.</p><p>Adams’ Presidential legacy? It’s complicated. He did one thing extraordinarily well—he managed, while playing a weak hand, to steer the country between the two mightiest powers in the world, England and France, ultimately striking tolerable bargains while fending off harsh criticism from both his own Federalist Party and Jefferson’s Republicans. In connection with that, he correctly perceived that America would need a formidable navy to protect it (Adams called the warships “Wooden Walls”) and pushed for it relentlessly, with some success.</p><p>This should not be dismissed. While the British tended toward actions such as ignoring their obligations under the Jay Treaty (which was irritating, but not necessarily fatal), the French were particularly treacherous. They began seizing American merchant ships while playing a diplomatic bait-and-switch game. In what became known as the XYZ Affair, three emissaries of French Foreign Minister Talleyrand demanded a bribe of 50,000 pounds just to arrange a meeting. Among other reasons given, the ruling revolutionary Directory and Talleyrand claimed to be disturbed by some of Adams’ criticism of French behavior, and their pain could only be assuaged by…cash. Adams ordered two-thirds of his negotiating team home (leaving behind his old friend Elbridge Gerry (that Elbridge Gerry—the one who gave gerrymandering its name) to provide an unofficial back-channel and give him on-the-ground information. He also did something else that showed uncommon, and even self-sacrificial tact—he temporarily withheld from Congress the official dispatches describing the bribery request. While it would have certainly helped his domestic political standing, Adams knew release of the information would almost certainly lead to demands for full-scale war. Adams also knew the United States was not ready for that, no matter how distracted the French might otherwise have been. Instead, the two sides engaged in harassing one another in the Quasi-War, with Adams’ new Navy gaining some important victories. This, plus pressures on the French to focus on the British, convinced Napoleon that a negotiated settlement would make more sense, and talks between the sides renewed in 1800. Ultimately, an agreement was reached (word, naturally, reaching the United States just after the 1800 election), and its success later helped Jefferson (again, naturally) consummate the Louisiana Purchase.</p><p>What Adams did not do well, he often did exceedingly badly. First and foremost of his failures was in practicing politics. He was awful. Last month I wrote that Adams really was an 18th-Century man. His idea of governance generally and of the Presidency in specific, was driven by what the historian Joseph Ellis has called “a long-term collective interest for the public that could be divorced from partisanship.”</p><p>It’s a lovely concept, and something that has an emotional appeal for centrists even today—a President who genuinely works for all Americans. Yet, just as we are now reminded over and over that politics infects the perception of any issue, it was just as true the day George Washington left office. The old General had stature like none other, but even he could not hold back the tide of groups of men aligning themselves to pursue their parochial interests at the expense of national ones. Parties, and their oft-times narrow interests, will inevitably dominate.</p><p>What was beyond the reach of Washington at the end was certainly impossible for a John Adams. Equally clear were the cracks in the Hamilton-led Federalist Party. Too many Americans of influence instinctively rejected the more autocratic philosophical underpinnings of the Federalists’ view of individual liberties. The French Revolution and writings like the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” inspired many to reject not just monarchs, but monarchical tendencies, well-intended or not. Many of the newly-minted Democratic-Republicans thought they were choosing freedom, and even if they didn’t aspire to elevated principles, they surely were seeking the freedom from being governed.</p><p>In fact, the Republican caricature of Federalists as monocrats and potential autocrats had more than a little truth to it. This was especially true of “High Federalists,” and Adams’ Cabinet was filled with High Federalist holdovers who were beholden (and reported) to Hamilton. Hamilton had an abiding love for centralized authority—when he was close to the central authority.</p><p>A lot can be made of the policy differences between Adams’ Cabinet and Adams himself—although, ultimately, he often followed their advice. Of just as much consequence was the animosity and even contempt some of the members had for Adams. Faced with that, he did something no other President, while in office, had done before or has done since….he literally went home, and stayed there. For seven months, between March to September 1799, Adams was in Peacefield, working in comparative solitude. As bizarre as that might seem to some (and it was noticed by his contemporaries), in a time when there were no long-standing traditions to adhere to, and public opinion was formed more by preference than norms, Adams went his own way—literally. He walled himself off from the hostility of some of his Cabinet, his Party, and perhaps even the public.</p><p>The great Presidents have egos strong enough that they are capable of surrounding themselves with able advisors with creative minds and a willingness to provide contrary views. They also have the capacity to absorb criticism while not being deflected from their primary purpose. Lincoln and FDR had those qualities. Adams had an extraordinary intellect and an ample ego, but a thin skin.</p><p>That thin skin got him into trouble more than was necessary and certainly contributed to his most egregious political mistake, one that mars his reputation to this day, his signing of the four laws that have come to be known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.</p><p>Politics is essential, but it can bring out the ugly in people. In November of 1860, in “The American Experiment,” the New York Daily Tribune asked, “Is it possible for a Government to be permanently maintained without privileged classes, without a standing army, and without either hereditary or self-appointed rulers? Is the democratic principle of equal rights, general suffrage, and government by a majority, capable of being carried into practical operation, and that, too, over a large extent of country?”</p><p>In 1860, with the nation on the brink of Civil War, that question seemed particularly timely, but if you had asked it in 1800, I think the answer would have been even less clear. Breaking free of England did not mean breaking free of the passions, ambitions, and sometimes expedient behavior of men. With the biggest man of all retiring to his figs and his vines, the center did not, and could not, hold. Ellis suggests that the center did not even exist. There may be something to that when you consider that many of the very same people who were “in the room” during the Revolution and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution fundamentally disagreed on what the entire exercise meant.</p><p>Too many people of influence simply did not recognize that the system they adopted had room for both an elected-but-time-limited government with real authority, and a perhaps-fierce-but-essentially loyal opposition. In the 21st Century, we talk about breaking norms, but, at the beginning of the 19th Century, there were no norms. Disagreements turned venomous; long-time friendships not only frayed, but broke apart; some of the press was unbelievably toxic; and an astonishing number of people committed acts that, objectively, could have been considered genuinely treasonous.</p><p>If Lord Acton was correct about power corrupting, the Federalists, perhaps sensing they were losing the argument, decided to flex their muscles. With comparatively little debate, they passed the Naturalization Act, the Alien Friends Act, the Alien Enemies Act and the Sedition Act. Immigrants (particularly those from France and Ireland, who were hostile to England, and therefore to Federalists) were targeted in the first three. The Sedition Act cast a much broader net…it was to be a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government or its officials. The Senate passed them on, of all dates, July 4th, apparently thinking them an appropriate way to celebrate the day. Adams wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about any of the four, but, after urging from Federalists and his wife Abigail, who usually had impeccable political instincts, he signed them all.</p><p>It was a monumental mistake that perhaps a man who really understood how to play the game would have sidestepped. He could have vetoed it, showed himself as a man of principle, someone who really would put the Constitution over narrow personal or party interests.</p><p>Unfortunately, Adams didn’t have the ear for it, and an already angry country got angrier. Suffice to say, the partisan press was not cowed. In response, Federalist prosecutors filed a total of 18 indictments against those who spoke unkindly of the “government or its officials,” making many local heroes, or at least martyrs for the cause. In one particularly embarrassing moment, a New Jersey publisher who was a bit of a lush was prosecuted for referring to the size of Adams’ backside—and acquitted by the jury. Adams did have a capacious one, and truth was a defense.</p><p>Beyond the theatre, there was also a more formal and cerebral response that would have an impact well beyond the moment. Jefferson (as in, “Vice President Jefferson”) consulted with Madison, and both got busy authoring legislative responses—Jefferson’s the Kentucky Resolutions and Madison’s the Virginia Resolutions. Madison’s was widely circulated in the national press. Far more the Constitutional scholar than Jefferson, he made cogent arguments that led inevitably to the idea that individuals have rights (in this case freedom of speech and the press) that, if infringed upon by the government, must ultimately be vindicated in the federal courts through what would be called Judicial Review. As for Jefferson, much less the institutionalist and far more the revolutionary, he initially drafted his Kentucky Resolutions explicitly to include both nullification and secession. The Kentucky Legislative leadership excised nullification from the final bill, and Madison quietly persuaded Jefferson to step back from the secession portion. Still, Jefferson’s approach toward defining the relationship between the states and the federal government was echoed by those who joined the Confederacy in 1861.</p><p>There were other, more immediately practical political considerations as well. The Anti-immigrant portion of the bills was, unsurprisingly, noticed by immigrants, and helped bring large numbers of Irish in New York and Germans in Pennsylvania over to the Republican side.</p><p>The truth was that the Federalists were losing the argument across the country, and the Alien and Sedition Acts were just one cause among many. Election Day proved that, and more. Adams actually ran more strongly than down-ballot Federalists. Two years later, Federalists were crushed in the Midterms—Jefferson had veto-proof margins from 1802 on. Federalists never elected another President, and, beyond holding some pockets of strength in New England, were never a serious factor again on a national level.</p><p>What did it all mean? That is hard to say. Jefferson later referred to his victory as the Revolution of 1800, but Republican ascendency, despite its Philosopher King, wasn’t as much about a unifying set of principles as it was a rejection of whatever it was that the Federalists stood for. As Jefferson would later come to realize, Republicans really weren’t united on much beyond not being Federalists.</p><p>A few final ironies. Adams’ bad luck carried through to the end, but he had the pleasure of signing the Treaty of Mortefontaine, which formally ended the Quasi-War. Alexander Hamilton’s irrational dislike of his fellow Federalist Adams led him to author a scalding repudiation of the President, which, coming late in the campaign, did virtually nothing to hurt Adams, but enraged many Federalists and all but destroyed Hamilton’s reputation. And, finally, with but a month to go in his term, Adams nominated John Marshall, our greatest Chief Justice. Marshall stayed on the bench until 1835, almost certainly the last Federalist of national importance.</p><p>Now, John Adams was going home, have served his country imperfectly, and often crankily, but well and with honor. He climbed up into the stagecoach, and found he was sharing it with Theodore Sedgwick, the just deposed Speaker of the House. The two men had been allies at one point, but now cordially and thoroughly disliked each other. The good news, for Adams, was that Sedgwick would be getting off—in Massachusetts.</p><p>The Founders Fight: Adams Goes Home was first posted on June 22, 2021 at 3quarksdaily.com</p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/06/the-founders-fight-adams-goes-home.html</p><p>You can find us on Twitter @SyncPol </p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-89529254532026677802021-06-22T14:26:00.000-04:002021-06-22T14:26:15.156-04:00The Founders Flounder: Adams Agonistes<p>by Michael Liss</p><p></p><blockquote>My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. —Benjamin Disraeli</blockquote><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" dir="rtl" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><p>John Adams was not the kind of man who easily agreed, and it showed. Nor was he the kind of man who found others agreeable. Few have accomplished so much in life while gaining so little satisfaction from it. </p><p>When you think about the Four Horsemen of Independence, it’s Washington in the lead, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and, last in the hearts of his countrymen, John Adams. You could add to that mix James Madison and even the intensely controversial Alexander Hamilton, and, once again, if you were counting fervent supporters, Adams would still bring up the rear.Adams knew it as well. He understood both his flaws and his place in the firmament. He wrote to his friend Benjamin Rush: “The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.”</p><p>Nevertheless, after eight years of being George Washington’s loyal (but largely unheeded) Vice President, he had just enough support to be elected to succeed him in 1796. As much as he wrestled with his own ego and even his insecurities, he (and Abigail) thought he had earned it, and he had.</p><p>He was stepping into a monumental mess. Adams’ core problems coming into office were in some respects similar to any newly minted President. Like it or not, you inherit the issues the previous Administration couldn’t resolve, and, in Adams’ case, George Washington had left a doozy—the very real and constant threat of hostile acts of the two most powerful countries on Earth, England and France. Washington had a vision of an expanding America, one that would grow to dominate the continent. The reality, in 1796, was that the British and French (along with the Spanish) controlled large chunks of North America, and, more importantly, dominated the Atlantic Ocean. American ships were constant targets, and the feebleness of the American response wasn’t as much a policy failure as it was an expression of the simple fact that we were a young nation with then-limited resources. Both parties had their (opposing) ideas on how to fix that (the Federalists aligning with the British, the Republicans with the French), but that didn’t change the reality (or potency) of the foreign threat.</p><p>Adams also inherited an unresolved and intensifying political issue: The Federalists and the Republicans didn’t just pick a foreign partner as a tactical judgment. They also were expressing a preference for a form of government. Subsequent generations of politicians (to this day) ritualistically claim that their vision is the Founder’s vision, but that can’t possibly be true: The Founders themselves lacked consensus as to the substance of what had been agreed. Moreover, as men sorted themselves out into Federalists and Republicans, the disagreements became more personal, more hostile, more poisonous. In a proto-democratic climate where a vocabulary for opposition hadn’t been developed, it became an easy step for many to see even close former associates as now treasonous. Each could say the other had abandoned the ideals of the Revolution.</p><p>In broad strokes, Jefferson and Madison’s newly created Democratic-Republican Party rejected the Federalists and Washington’s concept of government. Washington (and Adams) understood the compact made in 1787 as one of consent of the governed (the people and the states). The public works within a framework of choice as to whom to lead, not the scope of leadership’s authority after that choice is made. The next election, they may choose someone else, but the grant of authority is the same.</p><p>Jefferson’s vision, upon close inspection, not only views the initial “consent of the governed” to be an impermanent one (he proposed that each generation should review and renew the Constitution), but also seems to be more than a little situational—he wanted a form of government that would advance his (and Virginia’s) interests.</p><p>The problem with Washington’s approach was that it was more monarchal than the public was ready to support for any President—except for George Washington. The problem with Jefferson’s (and Madison’s) is something that remains relevant today: If one really does support the idea of diffused political power in most things (not just self-interested ones), how does a country move as one to meet a national challenge? Jefferson’s implicit answer (demonstrated vividly later, during his own Presidency, when he imposed and enforced the massively unpopular Embargo Act) is, in its own way, very monarchal: When the issue interests him specifically, the grant of authority is always great enough to ensure that he’s in charge.</p><p>It’s easy to look at the ambiguities and contradictions of both sides and ascribe them solely to political opportunism, but that’s probably unfair. Jefferson really did believe that we threw off the British for greater freedom not just from King George III, but Kings everywhere. He admired the French Revolution for this very reason—ordinary people upsetting the traditional order to assert their individual liberties. Washington and, like him, Adams believed that their monarchical tendencies were benign—a President should float above petty political disputes and do what’s best for the country. Since Washington was the physical embodiment of personal sacrifice and leadership, most of the citizenry trusted in his intentions even when they did not agree with his policies. Neither Adams, nor anyone else, could possibly pull that off. Even Jefferson acknowledged that succeeding Washington might be the most thankless job in the world. You can’t replace Babe Ruth.</p><p>All that being said, Adams was peculiarly unsuited to the moment. He was, in one critical way, an 18th Century man, where Jefferson was a modern one. Presidents who lacked the awesomeness of a Washington needed a political party behind them—the infrastructure, the legislative support, the critical mass of ideas and talents willing to serve. From Jefferson’s time on to today, Presidents are both heads of political parties, and creatures of them. Adams didn’t get it, and wouldn’t have wanted it.</p><p>Contrast this with Jefferson, who resigned as Washington’s Secretary of State to form, with Madison, an opposition political party. In doing so, he was playing the long game, on the one hand “retiring” to his beloved Monticello and pretending to be above it all, on the other, constantly (privately) scheming with Madison to build a potent political organization. Jefferson was also quite the behind-the-scenes gossip, particularly in using others to peddle derogatory material about Washington himself.</p><p>It was a quintessentially modern move, and one as to which it’s hard not to be at least a little cynical. On the one hand, given his political differences with Washington, Jefferson’s resignation might be seen as an act of conscience. On the other, his ambitions were limitless, and it’s altogether possible that, by 1793, he saw time slipping away: Washington would serve at least another three years, his favorite was the hated Hamilton, and Adams was Vice President and would surely have a strong claim to the Presidency. We love to see Jefferson as a romantic (Joseph Ellis, in his biography American Sphinx, calls him “light, inspiring, optimistic”). That he was does not preclude the possibility that he also every inch the politician, with a thirst for the top spot. Staying within the Washington orbit probably would have blocked his path, whereas he was the undisputed political leader of the Republicans.</p><p>So, when Washington dropped his “Farewell Address” bomb in September 1796 (only 10 weeks before the Election!), Jefferson cashed in his bet. As always, he affected a disinterest, claimed to be completely content with his bucolic-yet-enlightened life at Monticello, and accepted the nomination. The short sprint to the Presidency ensued (with neither man campaigning—the custom of the time was that it was too crass) and Adams edging Jefferson by just three Electoral Votes.</p><p>John Adams had reached the pinnacle, and it was all downhill from here.</p><p>First, fate dealt him a bad hand—the original text of Article 2, Section I of the Constitution instructed the Electors to cast two votes for President, then “In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President.” John Adams was to be President. Thomas Jefferson, his former friend, now fierce political and ideological opponent, his Vice President.</p><p>To our contemporary eyes, this seems insane. Imagine a Trump-Clinton Administration or a Biden-Trump. It’s fairly clear the drafters of the Constitution didn’t quite grasp the possibilities of political parties, and, if you contextualize it that way, it makes a certain amount of sense. The Electors would look for sane, competent men (at least initially from the Revolutionary generation), and why not have the runner up (not unlike in a beauty pageant) serve out a Presidential term if the President were unable? The fact is that the Framers worried about partisanship, but had not yet fully grasped that it would be delivered through political parties.</p><p>This created almost insuperable difficulties for Adams. While no one had a better idea of the limitations of the Vice Presidency than he, he was stuck with Jefferson in a different way than Washington had been. Jefferson was no fool—he was now a heartbeat away from the Presidency, did not serve at the pleasure of the President, and there was absolutely no reason for him to resign or support the Administration. They were stuck together (or, more accurately, Adams was stuck with Jefferson).</p><p>Adams being Adams, and remembering the old days, when the two were close friends, then made a remarkable suggestion: He let it be known that he planned to send a delegation to France (not England) to see if a peace treaty could be worked out. And, he wanted it to be a bipartisan delegation. Would Madison and Jefferson head it up?</p><p>You can’t help but admire Adams for making this gesture, which went against the advice of and even enraged much of the rest of his Cabinet. Not only was he inviting in the enemy, he wanted to talk to the French instead of continuing the Federalists’ Anglo-centric policy.</p><p>Whatever its generosity and even bravery, it was doomed to fail. Adams still didn’t understand partisanship and didn’t quite grasp that Madison and particularly Jefferson were now party leaders. As too many politicians have demonstrated down through the years, the pursuit of power often causes one to make the decision to keep an issue alive, rather than participate in its solution. Madison said “no”; Jefferson, in his more circuitous way, the same. All Adams had accomplished was irritating his own “side.”</p><p>There would be more rejections for Adams in the weeks to come. For some reason, perhaps out of misplaced loyalty to Washington, perhaps because of familiarity, he failed to pick his own men for his Cabinet. What he did not know, and wouldn’t come to realize for two years, is that those old hands did not see themselves as members of his team. Rather, they worked for, and took their orders from, the “retired” Alexander Hamilton. Their advice to Adams would be directed by Hamilton. That did not, automatically, render it incorrect, but, since Hamilton had different motivations than Adams, it often reflected Hamilton’s priorities instead of Adams’.</p><p>Spurned by Jefferson and Madison, held at arms-length by the very people upon whom he should have been able to rely for support and advice, Adams found himself in no-man’s land. One of the great mysteries of the first few months after his election was why he didn’t move decisively to change this. The answer may lie partially in his background: for all his accomplishments, as an advocate, a representative, a negotiator, a political theorist, he had never actually led. He had no executive experience, either in war or peace. But the rest was surely his temperament. He ranted privately, to Abigail, to John Quincy, to a handful of friends, but accepted it.</p><p>It was a fateful decision. As Adams prepared to face the twin and even existential threats of a foreign policy crisis and a political one, he was in a singular place for an American President, mostly alone. This created opportunities, but would, in the long term, leave him a man without a home, and with few moments for joy.</p><p>He had been warned, by Washington himself, on Inauguration Day: ‘Ay! I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which one of us will be happiest!’”</p><p>We will pick that one up next month.</p><p>The Founders Flounders: Adams Agonistes was first published on 3Quarksdaily.com May 24, 2021 on https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/05/the-founders-flounder-adams-agonistes.html</p><p>And, you can follow SyncopatedPolitics on Twitter @SyncPol</p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-55481955301834779672021-05-29T17:40:00.000-04:002021-05-29T17:40:25.052-04:00The Founders Flounder<p>by Michael Liss</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAsWn9IbxJ16NZUJCK524UuQTdt_6k-CN2ufitE6cG1sJDDVS13nAUnTC9F8e3sTazxKN37R_0bz8a08gJhKCSZ-w8p-Ln3vbBBmJfg0dOjLAfp3mtBEuF9LLUSCo2VU_XDEAWLcsO8Y/s2048/NPG-NPG_75_52Adams_d1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1744" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAsWn9IbxJ16NZUJCK524UuQTdt_6k-CN2ufitE6cG1sJDDVS13nAUnTC9F8e3sTazxKN37R_0bz8a08gJhKCSZ-w8p-Ln3vbBBmJfg0dOjLAfp3mtBEuF9LLUSCo2VU_XDEAWLcsO8Y/w170-h200/NPG-NPG_75_52Adams_d1.jpg" width="170" /></a></div><br />There was a time when we had no political parties.<p></p><p>It was brief, like the glow of a firefly on a warm late summer evening, but it occurred. There were no political parties at the time of the American Revolution, or when the newly freed colonies joined in the Articles of Confederation. None at the time they went to Philadelphia to hammer out the Constitution, and none when it was ratified (although the supporters of it were called Federalists and Alexander Hamilton eventually organized them as a party). For the first three years of the new government, until May of 1792, when Thomas Jefferson and James Madison founded the Democratic-Republican Party, the Federalists were the only political party in the land.</p><p>When we 21st Century Americans, out of desperation, look to the Constitution for a way out of intractable and pernicious partisanship, we often look in vain for the answers because they really aren’t there. The Constitution was not intentionally designed to compensate for party-based partisanship. Rather, it was a balancing act between regional forces, between economic interests, between small and big states, between slave and free, and between political philosophies. The Framers needed to find enough compromises to get the states to agree to the new framework. No interest got everything, but all got something, because they had to. Why join otherwise?</p><p>Obviously, the Framers were aware of political parties (England’s Parliament had its Whigs and Tories). They were also aware of the dangers of partisanship (most notably, Madison in Federalist No. 10). But they hadn’t yet made the leap to only negotiating governance through the synthetic framework of a multiparty system, nor to the idea of candidates for Chief Executive differentiating themselves by party identification. The model for a President was in front of everyone—George Washington.</p><p>They also, as would soon seem obvious, didn’t really have an agreement on what we think of as a core question: just how much reach the national government should have. Madison’s exquisitely designed mechanism assigned (tolerably well) responsibility and created a modality for action, but it didn’t, and couldn’t, resolve the fact that any system of government creates winners and losers. He assumed compromise would be necessary and hoped that the dynamic equilibrium he created would foster it. Federalist No. 10 tells us he wasn’t naïve, but he still had hopes.</p><p>Finally, the Founders assumed that men (and they were all men) would, in the aggregate, find it within themselves to act simultaneously in their self-interests, their state and regions’ interests, and in the national interest.</p><p>They could be a bit optimistic because they had just done this: put aside enough of their parochial interests to act in a Burkean manner and make a Grand Bargain. In retrospect, this confidence might seem to have been misplaced, but it was not inherently irrational. Whatever their political differences, they understood one another. The best type of leadership would come from people like them: men of education, of property, of experience in leading other men. The fears they had about representative democracy came less from concern about their fellow aristocrats, and more from the rabble. Sensitive to those concerns, Madison and his fellow drafters created plenty of distance between actual authority and the rank-and-file voters.</p><p>Still, it was all just a theory that men could govern themselves. These men hadn’t even lived in a Constitutional monarchy. They were just a bunch of colonies under the thumb of the most powerful nation on Earth, one that did not faint at the use of coercion to get its way. Meaningful representation had been denied them; they had been taxed, imprisoned, even forced to quarter their own captors. The colonial assemblies they did have had little real influence. Now they were “free,” but what did that really mean? It’s hard to govern, and to accept governance, when no prior guidebook has been internalized.</p><p>At the very beginning, the nation had the enormous advantage of having George Washington as its first President. It is not possible for us to grasp the hold Washington had on the population when he began his Presidency in 1789. His prestige was enormous. His blessing was necessary for the Constitution; he gave eminence and legitimacy to the Office of the Presidency that it created; he was, in many respects, the benevolent King that George III had never been. Yet those assets came at a price: Washington would be a strong Chief Executive heading a strong central government, when so many in the country thought the Constitution said otherwise. And, because he was technically unaffiliated (although presumed to have views similar to Hamilton), he couldn’t be attacked as a factional leader. In fact, he couldn’t really be openly criticized at all because of the reverence with which the people treated him. This meant you could only oppose the government’s actions in the abstract, or by going through proxies.</p><p>It didn’t take all that long for those proxies to become well-defined. By the middle of Washington’s first term, Hamilton (as Secretary of the Treasury) was continuously facing off against Jefferson (as Secretary of State). These two men found virtually nothing that they could agree upon, especially in the key areas of foreign policy (with Hamilton’s wanting closer relations with England, and Jefferson’s tilting towards his beloved France) and the authority of the Federal government (Hamilton was for a great deal, while Jefferson barely recognized it).</p><p>In the beginning, Jefferson was at a considerable disadvantage because Hamilton had a huge head start in both organization and patronage. By creating the Federalist Party, Hamilton accomplished three major goals: giving it the imprimatur of leading the country, creating an infrastructure at the state level for expressing influence and attracting votes, and distributing patronage. Jefferson, in contrast, effectively had on golden handcuffs—while he could argue his case inside the Cabinet, he couldn’t publicly oppose the government of which he was a part.</p><p>Enter, James Madison. Madison had undergone something of a political conversion. Where he was once concerned about the central government’s (and the President’s) not having enough power to be effective, now he pivoted and professed to understand the Constitution he had largely written as having much more of a states-rights emphasis. Madison was an unexpected example of what happened to many American leaders when faced with the reality of the new government. A theoretical framework was just that, and, if the end product took them in an undesirable direction, they had no problem reading their own preferences into its vast ambiguities. Madison then partnered with Jefferson (quietly at first, more openly when the Democratic-Republican Party became public) in opposition to the Federalists. As inspirational and charismatic as Jefferson could be, it was Madison who did much of the spadework of putting together the party apparatus.</p><p>Where was John Adams in all of this? Absent for much of the period from 1777 to 1788, working on behalf of his country. First, in Paris with Benjamin Franklin to negotiate an alliance with France and later the end of hostilities (a more mismatched pair it was hard to imagine), then with Jefferson trying to establish legal recognition and diplomatic relations with foreign nations, and finally in London, in the critical job of first Ambassador to the Court of St. James.</p><p>It is one of those ironies of history that neither Adams nor Jefferson attended the Constitutional Convention, and so played at best an indirect role in drafting the Constitution. If they had been there, then perhaps they would have suggested a viable work-around for something that would bedevil them both in the future.</p><p>John Adams felt the pain first, as the nation would honor his service by giving him the worst job in government, “the most insignificant office that even the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.” Adams became George Washington’s Vice President. Then, as now, the job contained its expectant undertaker’s aspect—the Vice-President should be ready to serve when duty called. And then, as now, the Vice-President played a role in breaking ties in the Senate. Finally, then, as now, that’s all there was.</p><p>Adams being Adams, he thought his Senate role should include speaking (actually, a lot of speaking). And, Adams being Adams, obnoxious and disliked, he quite quickly wore out his listeners, who then voted to silence him. Apparently, the decisive moment occurred when he allowed himself to argue, endlessly, that a President should be called “His Majesty” or “His Highness.”</p><p>It’s hard to imagine this prickly, opinionated, deeply flawed, but utterly loyal and truly great man being muzzled at a time when even his eruptions might have added something of value, but Adams was. His position in the Administration became even more marginalized because his silent presence in the (substantially smaller) Senate was often actually needed—he cast a tie-breaking vote over 30 times. This meant he was unable to attend Cabinet meetings regularly, and he found himself outside of Washington’s inner circle (the President feeling that the job was largely legislative and that too-close consultation between him and Adams might therefore violate separation of powers).</p><p>As to Washington himself, he found himself frustrated and angered by the emerging partisanship and, perhaps, to the emerging resistance to his decisions. The country was still weak; its political institutions were new and fragile; it was still somewhat diplomatically isolated; and England and France were still potentially hostile behemoths. He had always intended on serving only one term, but the old General could see that the enemy was not only at the gates, but might also be within.</p><p>The great lesson that Washington had learned in fighting the British was that time mattered more than even geography. As long as he could field an army, the American Experiment would go on. He was confident in his own abilities, less so in those of the men who surrounded him. They didn’t look ready to him.</p><p>At this critical juncture, he decided to stand for re-election, knowing the challenges ahead might be even greater than those already faced. He was largely right—the Jay Treaty, his Proclamation of Neutrality, and his forceful ending of the Whiskey Rebellion were in the future, as was Jefferson’s resignation from the Cabinet to pursue his own ambitions. But he was still George Washington, still first in the hearts of his countrymen (if not all of the politicians who aspired to higher office). It was a quirk of the pre-political party Constitution that the two highest Electoral College vote-getters would be President and Vice-President—there was no consideration given to a ticket. This was to lead to some serious mischief in the two elections to follow, but, here, there was only a harbinger. Washington was essentially unopposed and re-elected unanimously. Adams, however, found himself in a tighter-than-expected race for the Vice-Presidency. The newly minted Democratic-Republican Party fielded a candidate against him, New York’s Governor George Clinton. Clinton won his own state and a few southern ones, including North Carolina and, of course, Jefferson and Madison’s Virginia. In Congress, there was a very tight split between supporters of the Administration and those opposed.</p><p>That split, and others, would manifest themselves constantly over the next few years, and Washington’s frustrations would grow. Even his own Teflon began to fray a bit, as more of the Administration’s opponents would start to whisper that he wasn’t really in control any more, and was perhaps growing a bit feeble. He was still a giant, though, as Madison was to find out when he opposed the Jay Treaty and was routed.</p><p>As for Adams, he remained locked in circumstantially required silence, tagged with the blame for policies he had little influence over. Because of his thin skin, he was an easy target, perhaps even easier than the hated Hamilton. Jefferson, on the other hand, grew more and more voluble in opposition, less and less disciplined in language. The two sides began to think of each other not merely as disagreeing on policy, but fundamentally mortal enemies who must be defeated.</p><p>Washington the Hedgehog had grasped that, and more. In 1792, despite an abundance of talent, we weren’t really ready for the implications of the choice of government we made in adopting the Constitution. The next four years were to prove more of the same. We wouldn’t be ready in 1796, as the war between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans—and between former collaborators and friends, Adams and Jefferson—got even hotter.</p><p>All this Washington knew as he prepared to leave office. The unhappiness he expressed in his Farewell Address said it well, but only hinted at something that was obvious: the chalice he would be handing over to his successor, whomever that might be, was not exactly filled with the smoothest of wines.</p><p>More on that—on the battle between the two parties and between former collaborators and friends Adams and Jefferson, the role of the French, the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Judiciary Act of 1801 and Adams’ appointment of “Midnight Judges,” Jefferson’s extraordinary road to the Presidency (on the 36th ballot), and the “Second Revolution”—next time.</p><p>The Founders Flounder was first published on Monday, April 26th, 2021 on 3quarksdaily.com https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/04/the-founders-flounder.html</p><p>To see some of our other work, you can find links at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/michaelliss</p><p>and please find and follow on Twitter @SyncPol</p><p><br /></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-78444535814313626372021-05-03T14:56:00.002-04:002021-05-03T14:56:43.769-04:00Dewey Really Does Beat Truman<p> By Michael Liss</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_pSD5JNK6rf9P0DChdWgh6m7qREtw_km3L46S9-puiwBJOCZB2CEdAcILY2bKF9JI66SnYXEu3N4n6lpddBx7aQgsFYSRh23Cyw6tXDH_ntBjWY3KNWWGbjqyxB5R9zo1kHs-dlXcKI/s300/nypl.digitalcollections.510d47e0-00f2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.001.r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_pSD5JNK6rf9P0DChdWgh6m7qREtw_km3L46S9-puiwBJOCZB2CEdAcILY2bKF9JI66SnYXEu3N4n6lpddBx7aQgsFYSRh23Cyw6tXDH_ntBjWY3KNWWGbjqyxB5R9zo1kHs-dlXcKI/s0/nypl.digitalcollections.510d47e0-00f2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.001.r.jpg" /></a></div><br />Let’s talk about voter suppression. Not about whether it’s good or bad or legal or moral (you can get more than enough of that virtually 24/7), but about what practical implications it might have.<p></p><p>I have looked at the 35 Presidential Elections from 1880 to 2020 to see how tight they were, and where modern forms of voter suppression might have impacted past results.</p><p>I made a few assumptions. The first was to limit it to just suppression, and not include potential crossover votes. To make that a bit clearer, if you have an election that ends up 50-50, I propose to simply eliminate votes from one side, not add to the other. I set the bar at two suppressed votes per hundred (I’m going to call that a “Suppression Penalty”), which I think is conservative, given the extent of some of the new laws being passed. Applying that 2% Suppression Penalty, would it have changed the results of some of the closest and most controversial elections of the past?</p><p>Obviously, this is a crude method. Some states engage in suppression, others do not, and different forms of suppression will have disparate impacts. But I thought the exercise was worth it, as ever-increasing sophistication in targeting, along with a sense of anything goes, will encourage more use of the tactic.</p><p>140 years brings a lot of variations in races. Looking closer at the 35, at least 13 could be characterized as blowouts, including both Reagan wins, FDR’s, LBJ-Goldwater, Bush I-Dukakis, and Hoover-Smith. Another 11 were decisive, even if not routs. In this category, three William Jennings Bryan losses, both Clinton wins, both Obama wins (even though he carried Florida by only .88%, there was no real viable pathway for Romney, given his performance in other key states). In this Obama/Romney mold, I would also put Nixon-Humphrey. There is some historical evidence that Democrats were coming home to Humphrey late in 1968, but he ran out of time and the final numbers aren’t that close.</p><p>That leaves us with 10 elections of some interest: Trump-Biden and Trump-Clinton, Bush-Gore, JFK-Nixon, Truman-Dewey, Wilson-Hughes (1916), Benjamin Harrison-Cleveland (1888), Cleveland then regaining the White House against James Blaine (1884), James Garfield over Winfield Scott Hancock (1880), Bush II-Kerry (2024), and Ford-Carter (1976).</p><p>2016 and 2020: Given the recency of the Trump-Clinton and Trump-Biden elections, there is no reason to spend a lot of time on them, besides pointing out the obvious—we would be in Trump’s second term if the Republican State Legislators had managed to pass the bills they now enacted or have proposed in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. Those three states represent 37 EVs, and, without them, the election would have been thrown into the House, giving Trump the win. As to 2016, Clinton’s relative underperformance elsewhere, as against expectations, put her in a position of having to win all three of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (her fourth option, Florida, had a Trump margin of over 100,000 votes). It’s a bit ironic to note that, if the Democrats were good at Voter Suppression, and the same 2% Suppression Penalty had been applied to Trump’s vote, the Big Dog might still be hanging around the White House</p><p>2000: Of the other more modern elections, Bush-Gore is, of course, the most notorious. What is not often noted is that Gore won four states, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon (a total of 30 EVs) by very small margins (New Mexico’s was 343 votes). If they had switched places, with Gore getting Florida, but Bush getting the four, Bush would still have won. Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon total 25 EVs, so a swap of Florida’s 25 EVs for those three wouldn’t have changed anything. If Gore had won Florida, but Bush had won New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Iowa, or, alternatively, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Oregon, there would have been an EV tie, and into the House we would have gone. Imagine the fun we all would have had.</p><p>1976: Ford-Carter belongs in somewhat the same category as Humphrey-Nixon, but this election was closer. Ford was making big strides through the early Fall. Ohio was excruciatingly close—about an 11K margin for Carter out of more than 4 million votes cast, and the Suppression Penalty would have flipped the state, but that would have still left Carter with the win, and it was Ford who won the other closer states. The next closest win for Carter was in Wisconsin, but, applying our 2% Suppression Penalty would still have left Ford about 14,000 votes short.</p><p>2004: Bush II-Kerry is controversial, because of the suspicions (unproven) regarding Karl Rove’s fixing of the state’s votes. But the margin in Ohio was 118K for Bush, and the only other path for Kerry would have been to take from Bush New Mexico, Iowa and Nevada (although the spread in Nevada was outside the Suppression Penalty), keep the faithless Elector who voted for John Edwards, and then tie Bush 269 to 269. But that would have just pushed it to the House, where Bush would have won. Kerry needed Ohio, and, based on reported numbers, he wasn’t close enough.</p><p>1960: Another race similar to Bush-Kerry, in that it floated on something unprovable, was JFK-Nixon in 1960. We all sort of wink and nod about shady activities in Illinois, but what is forgotten is that Republicans’ affection for claiming vote fraud isn’t new…nor, in 1960, did they limit themselves to Illinois. There was also LBJ’s home state of Texas, where JFK won by about 46K. In all, Republicans claimed fraud in no fewer than 11 states. The election was brutally close (assuming the numbers were true). Six states had differences of less than 1%, and only one of those went Republican, Nixon’s home state of California. Hawaii was astonishing—JFK won there by a total of 115 votes. If you look closely at the results, and imagine a Suppression Penalty, there are multiple ways Nixon could have won…but, of all the elections we have had in the last 100 years, I doubt there was a tougher team in the trenches than JFK and LBJ.</p><p>1880: James Garfield-William Scott Hancock had several features that are worth mentioning, even though the result probably could not have been flipped. It was the first Presidential Election in which the voters of every state were permitted to vote directly for Electors; previously, there had been a few states (South Carolina, naturally) that had their State Legislatures pick them. There was also a third-party candidate, James Weaver, of the Greenbackers. Weaver got no Electoral votes, but may have siphoned off some Hancock votes in Indiana. The popular vote difference was the smallest in history, just 1898 votes. Scott, in losing, did something that had not been accomplished before—he united the Southern States, with the Solid South becoming critical to election planning for the next century. The race in California was extraordinary—the two men were separated by just 95 votes out of 160K cast. New Jersey was also close—2010 votes out of about 142K, but Hancock won both states. If you examine the state-by-state totals, it’s hard to see how Hancock could have flipped the end result.</p><p>1884: Four years later, Grover Cleveland managed a narrow victory over James Blaine when Cleveland took his home state of New York by 1,149 votes. Applying the Suppression Penalty, he clearly would have lost the state, and the Presidency. Adding more than a little spice to this election were the accusations that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child (which he did not deny) and the stunningly stupid remark of a New York minister, Doctor Samuel Burchard, who said Democrats were the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” (a comment that did Blaine no good among the Irish and Italian workmen in New York).</p><p>1888: Turnabout is fair play. Without the motivating insult, Cleveland lost his bid for reelection in 1888 when he lost New York to Benjamin Harrison. His loss, by 14,373 votes out of almost 1.3 million cast, is just outside our Suppression Penalty. It was also reflective of a close race nationally, although not close enough for a different outcome.</p><p>1916: Woodrow Wilson-Charles Evan Hughes. One of my favorites. Hughes was a unique figure in American life. He was first Governor of New York, then resigned to take a seat on the Supreme Court, resigned from SCOTUS to accept the 1916 Republican Presidential nomination, lost to Woodrow Wilson, then became Secretary of State under Harding and Coolidge, and then, in 1930, returned to the Supreme Court to become Chief Justice (where he bedeviled FDR). One wonders what he did in his spare time. It is the 1916 election that interests me here. Hughes actually didn’t “run” for the GOP nomination. He was selected by the party bosses in whatever smoke-filled room they smoked in because Republicans were desperate to avoid a repeat of the crack-up of 1912, with the party splintering along conservative and Progressive lines. Hughes was perceived as both a relative moderate and not particularly ideological. He also let it be known he’d accept if offered.</p><p>The race was close. Wilson was not a particularly accessible figure, and World War I was raging in Europe. Given that the Republicans were considered the majority party at that time, it was presumed that Wilson’s election in 1912 was an accident, and Hughes would regain the White House for them. Hughes had some flaws—he was quite anti-labor, and fairly militaristic at a time when the country seemed more attuned to Wilson’s attempts at neutrality. But the election may have turned on a gaffe—when Hughes went to campaign in California, he did not meet with Hiram Johnson, then Governor, formerly TR’s running mate.</p><p>On Election Night, the expectation was that Hughes would win, and early returns (and early editions of New York newspapers) indicated as much. Wilson took New Hampshire by 56 votes, Hughes, Minnesota by 468 out of nearly 400,000 cast. As the rest of the country sorted itself out, it came down to California, and the Hiram Johnson snub may very well have been the decider—Wilson won by 3773 votes, while the Prohibition candidate, James Hanly, took 27,713.</p><p>1948: One more, put last not because of chronology, but just because I like politicians with a little juice in them. Truman-Dewey, 1948, and the comeback that people thought impossible. Truman, of course, was an accidental President, chosen as FDR’s running mate because FDR knew his health was deteriorating and he did not want the incumbent Vice President, the very liberal Henry Wallace, to succeed him.</p><p>1948 found the nation in flux, newly empowered and newly challenged. Some wondered whether Truman was really up for the job. He had struggled in 1946, and perhaps the country was tired of Democrats. In the Midterms, the Republicans crushed Democrats virtually everywhere. They won 55 House seats, 12 Senators, flipped control of both chambers, and set about making Truman’s life a little bit harder. The most popular man in America, by a huge margin, was Dwight Eisenhower, and both parties sought him as their nominee. Everyone else, from the President on down, seemed puny. Ike, after assaying the field of battle, as Ike was inclined to do, declined to run and asked that his supporters cease their activities on his behalf. Eventually, the Republicans turned to Thomas Dewey, who had run a credible (if stolid) race against FDR four years before.</p><p>Democrats, as is and has seemingly always been, were a mess. Truman was not popular, particularly with the more liberal wing of the party. Henry Wallace was, and decided to go off on his own and helped create and lead a new Progressive Party. Southern Democrats were getting concerned that Truman was too sympathetic to civil rights, and walked out of the Democratic Convention over a platform plank supporting them. They formed the States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats) and nominated Strom Thurmond for President. They all knew they had no chance of winning outright, but thought that, if they could deny Truman the victory and throw it into the House, they could extract concessions on Jim Crow from one of the sides.</p><p>No one thought Truman had a chance. Early polls showed him way behind; virtually every newspaper and pundit wrote him off. Republicans settled on a strategy not unlike Dewey himself—distant, boring and filled with platitudes. Truman, on the other hand, had a ball cutting loose. He ripped into the GOP-led 80th Congress, criticized Dewey, and generally gave Republicans Hell. Expectations amongst the pundit class didn’t change, but the voters began to. Truman’s crowds were jazzed up. Dewey’s began to thin, and those who came seemed unenthusiastic.</p><p>On election night, Truman took the early lead, which was initially dismissed, as columnists wrote (and, in some cases, filed) their “Dewey Beats Truman” stories. But Truman had closed the gap, and in more than one way. His institutional disadvantages—the Progressives and the Dixiecrats—turned out to be less problematic than expected. Wallace’s ticket got only 2.4% nationwide. The Dixiecrats took just four states, a wound for Truman, but not a fatal one.</p><p>The final Electoral Vote was 303 Truman, 189 Dewey, and 39 Dixiecrat, but, if you look more closely at the numbers, you can see Dewey came agonizingly close. Truman took Ohio’s 25 EV by just 7,107 and California’s 25 by 17,665—even a 1% Suppression Penalty would have flipped the states. Add Illinois 28EVs, and its margin of 33,612 and adjust for a Suppression Penalty of 1.5%, and we really would have had a President Dewey.</p><p>Thomas Dewey is elected President in 1948, and a butterfly flaps its wings. With Dewey running again in 1952, no Ike. No Ike, no Nixon as Vice-President, no Nixon as Veep, no Nixon in 1960 (possible Nelson Rockefeller and the GOP goes in an entirely new direction). Maybe no Nixon in 1968, no Agnew, no Ford, no Rockefeller as Veep. And, no Nixon, no Roger Stone. No Roger Stone….wait, that’s too far.</p><p>Dewey Really Does Beat Trump first appeared on 3quarksdaily.com on March 29th, 2021</p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/03/dewey-really-does-beat-truman.html</p><p>You can find us on Twitter at @SyncPol</p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-78125100908350667892021-04-16T09:50:00.000-04:002021-04-16T09:50:14.322-04:00Down The Rabbit Hole With Schubert and Hawley<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFENhIqG2hiyAIZREmmbN7hf_-IirJ2rZe8FZF5bgwfLUjuMzLP5ofEDxHohBoHewDqM-7ZMe2536BRP3btX-d9mExgV_oo4L5D0n-DgQwK5fxqFIOfoA5V07iFA2sZV8vNo35HKwmgNM/s2048/IMG_1741.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1287" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFENhIqG2hiyAIZREmmbN7hf_-IirJ2rZe8FZF5bgwfLUjuMzLP5ofEDxHohBoHewDqM-7ZMe2536BRP3btX-d9mExgV_oo4L5D0n-DgQwK5fxqFIOfoA5V07iFA2sZV8vNo35HKwmgNM/s320/IMG_1741.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />BY MICHAEL LISS<p></p><p>The Machine has me in its tentacles. Some algorithm thinks I really want to buy classical sheet music, and it is not going to be discouraged. Another (or, perhaps it is the same) insists that now is the time to invest in toner cartridges, running shoes, dress shirts, and incredibly expensive real estate.</p><p>Swinging over to the relative peace and quiet of my email box, I find an extraordinary number of politicians bidding against one another for my attention. It’s a little like Christmas come early: “Now, Stringer, now, Helen, now Andrew and Adams! On, Williams on, Loree! on, Kallos and Weprin! Every single one of them vibrates with intensity, assuring me that he or she is ready to serve me, my family, my community, and the world. Oh, and, by the way, brother, can I spare a dime?</p><p>I need my dimes right now. I’m not moving to a deluxe apartment in the sky, and I’ll buy more dress shirts when the world gets back to normal and I ditch this pandemic-related beard. So, back to Schirmer’s Selected Piano Masterpieces (Intermediate Level). I know my sin. My daughter and I were talking about the accompaniment in Schubert’s Lieder and I (foolishly, without going into a private viewing mode) did a quick search. This was more than two weeks ago, and The Machine will keep at me until it is convinced I absolutely, positively, won’t give in. Machine, if you are reading (and I know you must be), please trust me, I can’t play the piano, and I definitely can’t sing. I’d be happy to post something to YouTube to prove it. Or ask my friends to confirm—after all, you know who they are.</p><p>I invited this. I knew I wasn’t in a secure area; I wanted a quick answer to something; I browsed; and, in doing so, reaped the whirlwind. A good friend who works in tech reminds me, regularly, that the use of social media and search engines tag me, and free access to them is not free when I’m the product. I just pay the price when I hear from folks who sell Schubert and toner and footwear.</p><p>I am not alone. Short of heading to Walden Pond and completely unplugging (leaving one’s phone behind, of course) we all live with some version of the same Machine. Do we really have a choice? Not so long as some of the Titans of Tech keep a chokehold on the market and on the legislation regulating the market. You see politicians scurrying about, holding hearings, voicing outrage, and generally doing the ineffectual but noisy things they are famous for, but you don’t see them going after the core of the problem—the immense profitability that springs from knowing things like my (now regrettable) interest in Schubert. There’s just too much money in it, and, unlike some of our brethren in Europe, many of whom are philosophizing over the societal costs (see this thoughtful piece in 3Q), we tend to be situationally pro-free-market here, and fond of putting dollars over social harmony.</p><p>So, what are our elected leaders doing? Mostly worrying about themselves and looking for grievances. They know places like Facebook aren’t just about selling consumer goods, they are also about selling ideas and causes, and creating and sustaining access points to exchange them. Politicians and political parties profit from this, either literally from fundraising, or emotionally, through either inspiration or provocation.</p><p>It was inevitable that smart candidates hired smart techies to get across their message. Obama ran a very sharp digital ground game built around his message of hope and change, and that helped energize more tech-savvy younger voters. But it was truly a seminal moment when Cambridge Analytica obtained data from Facebook and, with direction from Steve Bannon, used it to test out populist and conservative messages, and identify potential voters who might be interested in them. Bannon’s linking up with former President Trump was a genius-level move that combined Cambridge Analytica’s sophistication with Trump’s unparalleled emotional connection with his base, supercharged by use of Twitter.</p><p>Trump is the embodiment of politics on steroids, and once one slugger goes to the needle, the rest will follow. Other candidates, party organizations, and issue groups did. We are now surrounded with Mini-Trumps using many of the same techniques. Democrats haven’t entirely closed their eyes to this either, and they, too, are getting more sophisticated and less cautious.</p><p>This is an extraordinarily dangerous trend because, in what has increasingly become a winner-take-all system, the morality of the means seems far less important than achieving the ends. There are a lot of lies out there, deliberately spread for their emotional impact, capturing the thoughts of whole groups—and many of those groups make their homes on places like Facebook. Some of those turn to advocating for dangerous and even lethal behavior.</p><p>One might reasonably ask why this was not foreseeable to the leadership of the social media giants. After all, what they were doing was akin to renting out their restaurant to a group of anarchists or Klan members, and providing them with a list of potential customers. In fact, we know it was foreseeable, and know there were debates inside the industry. They were buried, because the profits were just too great.</p><p>Not to be too harsh, but the horse was well out of the barn before the insurrection of January 6th. Frightened by what it had enabled (and, quite cynically, perhaps reasoning that an autocratic government’s imperiousness might be a lot worse for the bottom line), social media looked to temporary bans, de-platforming, and purging. But none of that comes without controversy, both political and philosophical.</p><p>We ought to look at this from three different vantage points: free speech implications, private property rights, and potential consequences. I can’t think of a better person to build that discussion around than one of my least favorite politicians, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO).</p><p>Many know Hawley as the young, lean guy in the good suit who raised a fist in the air to encourage the rioters to storm the Capitol on January 6th. He’s Ivy-educated, considered a political prodigy, and has his eyes firmly set on the Resolute Desk.</p><p>Following that “iconic” picture, some grandstanding, and some intensely inflammatory remarks, Hawley found himself shunned not only by some in the Senate, but also by former supporters back home, including a major financial backer. He also lost a book contract with Simon & Schuster and temporarily went silent on Twitter. The Senator was furious, headed for every conservative talk show and conference he could find, and made grievances his breakfast, lunch and dinner.</p><p>Senator Josh’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad experience is a perfect teaching example. From my perspective, it is thoroughly earned. But, when you clear away all the fire and brimstone, does he have a legitimate complaint?</p><p>To an extent, he does. He certainly should be able to exercise his First Amendment rights, and, short of calls to violence and libel, those rights are fairly broad. We don’t demand people be truthful, or honorable, much less to agree with us, to have those rights. If you are going to shut down Hawley (or any other person, no matter how fringe), you need more than just revulsion as a justification.</p><p>Where is the justification? I do not see it. We shouldn’t censor based on content, unless that content falls within some sort of public safety imperative. If Josh Hawley wants to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shout insults about Democrats he’s got every right to do so.</p><p>Hawley frames some of his grievances in that way—that mean Leftists and their allies in the media are trying to stifle him. But when you dig a little deeper, you realize there’s an additional dynamic involved. Social media platforms are private businesses. Shouldn’t the owners/managers of businesses be permitted to choose who they serve, so long as they don’t violate anti-discrimination laws? Josh Hawley went to Harvard Law School—surely he knows that attorneys turn down clients when they don’t think it’s a good match. By the same token, shouldn’t those same businesses be permitted to decide what they display (in this case, content) just like any business can choose its stock? We wouldn’t force a bookstore to carry Hawley’s book; why should we force Twitter to transmit his Tweets?</p><p>There is an obvious answer here, which is that the tech behemoths exercise monopoly power, akin to that of many public utilities. Those utilities are required to serve any customer who wishes to use them, so long as the customer is willing to abide by basic rules. So, too, Cable broadcasters are subject to “must carry” regulations regarding local television stations. Why not extend those types of consumer protections to the social media industry?</p><p>It is an intriguing question, particularly if you favor criteria that are broadly tolerant of freedom of speech and assembly. Let’s take a leap of faith and say that both business and politicians are willing to make good-faith efforts to find solutions to prune back some of the deeply fringe and scary, while protecting access more generally. What does that look like?</p><p>If, for example, Hawley doubles down and insists that the election was stolen, Hugo Chavez is alive, and 24 million Democratic votes came from a Zombie factory in Haiti, shouldn’t he be permitted to do that? If he wants to advocate for peaceful Civil Disobedience to the Biden Administration, shouldn’t he be permitted to do that as well? The red line can’t be bizarre and divisive theories and excessive self-aggrandizement. It has to be more—words that are a potential danger to the public at large, such as those targeting an individual or a group, promoting self-harm, or inciting violence.</p><p>Of course, a platform that is completely open to whatever Josh Hawley wants to say, whenever he wants to say it, is not really what he wants, or, to put it more precisely, it’s not all that he wants. What Hawley craves is an environment in which there are no consequences for anything he says or does. He is angered that he’s been judged and feels he’s above the scrutiny being given to him. The open rejections by his previous supporters sting, and the loss of the Simon & Schuster contract is a loss of face. He is defiant, getting louder, more obnoxious, more disruptive, but he’s too smart not to realize he’s been diminished in the public eye. Hawley may be a force for decades; he may even, in this insanely partisan environment, become President, but he’s never going to recover the central promise of his early years. He’s shown himself, and it’s not pretty. The market for his product has been radically altered.</p><p>This is where the Hawley experience is so valuable to us—the idea that exercising freedoms that are Constitutionally guaranteed may still lead to consequences. Mike Lindell, the “My Pillow” guy, complained recently that he’s lost $65 million in business. Putting aside the pun that I’m not going to cry myself to sleep over that, why should he be immune? If a business owner puts up a sign asking people to wear a mask, or not to bring a gun into his store, and he loses some customers because of it, that’s a choice he’s made, understanding the risks. It is, coincidentally, the choice I am making as well, by publishing this piece under my own name. A potential client might find it and disagree with it enough to decide not to hire me.</p><p>This result is not inherently unjust, although it may, at times, seem disproportionate. I don’t see how regulating social media platforms changes that. Yet, I don’t think that really is the problem. The amplification of anger, paranoia, and an urge to violence is. It’s eating at our civil society, and perhaps even our civilization.</p><p>Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology notes that people have been focused on the moment when the “intelligence” of machines exceeds humans. That’s not what we should be fearing: “There’s this much earlier moment when technology actually overwhelms human weaknesses.” In testimony before Congress, he asked what might be the critical question of our time: “How can we solve the world’s most urgent problems if we’ve downgraded our attention spans, downgraded our capacity for complexity and nuance, downgraded our shared truth, downgraded our beliefs into conspiracy theory thinking that we can’t construct shared agendas to solve our problems?”</p><p>Harris is right. The Machine is not only messing with our heads, but also with our glands. That red light that’s flashing on a screen up ahead isn’t just another pitch for sheet music, or shirts, or political causes. It is a “road washed out ahead” sign,.</p><p>We’d better take heed of it.</p><p> Down The Rabbit Hole With Schubert And Hawley first appeared on March 1, 2021 at 3quarksdaily.com</p><p>You can find it, and links to other pieces at </p><p>https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/03/down-the-rabbit-hole-with-schubert-and-hawley.html</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-71640655314492455742021-03-30T07:29:00.000-04:002021-03-30T07:29:11.775-04:00The Third Transition: Trump to Biden and the Return to Politics <p> By Michael Liss</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>Some may belittle politics, but we know, who are engaged in it, that it is where people stand tall. And although I know it has its many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. And if it is on occasions the place of low skullduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes, and I wish everyone, friend or foe, well, and that is that, the end. —Tony Blair, ending his last PMQ, June 27, 2007</blockquote><p></p><p>Yes, that was Tony Blair, the man everyone loves to hate, but in those few short words, he managed to capture the highs and lows of a democratic system. Politics can be rough and tawdry, but debates can be substantive, goals high, and accomplishments, perhaps not as high, but still advancing the good of the many. In the end, you fight like cats and dogs, but you shake hands, accept the verdict, and prepare yourself for the next battle.</p><p>This belief, that there is always next time, is predicated on three key assumptions—that, in our system, there is, in fact, always a next time, that even winning coalitions will screw up enough to ensure that the next time may be viable, and that the loser (if the incumbent) will cooperate in the orderly transition of power.</p><p>That is the theory, and, for most of our history, that has also been the reality. Winning coalitions stay winning because they deliver policies that a majority support. They fray when internal discipline breaks down (usually because of unsatisfied desires or ambitions), and/or when they become so sclerotic, doctrinaire, or just wrong that enough of the public rejects them. Lincoln’s election in 1860 reflected a reality that the disparate needs of North and South could no longer be reconciled within the status quo. FDR’s trouncing of Hoover was the rational judgment of the voters that Hoover had simply failed, and would continue to fail. Trump’s victory in 2016 was a reminder of not only Hillary Clinton’s flaws as a candidate, but also Barack Obama’s shortcomings as a President. As much as I admired Obama, he didn’t do enough for enough people to earn transferable loyalty during a time when, as my friend Bill Benzon notes, the tectonic plates were moving. The voters really do choose.</p><p>2020, for all of its insanity, was more of the same. In a closely divided country, enough voters decided to do as voters have occasionally done, judge the incumbent, and find him wanting. The difference this time wasn’t that the incumbent was unhappy about the decision (losing is no fun), but that he acted on that unhappiness, in ways never before seen.</p><p>We can’t ignore the obvious. Donald Trump attempted a coup. He rejected and fought against the verdict of the voters in several states. He did so despite multiple recounts and more than 60 court rulings against him. The weakness of his legal claims wasn’t just demonstrated by his terrible batting average, but by the fact that he was unable to retain competent counsel. Rudy, Lin Wood, Jenna Ellis, and the Kraken-Lady seemed pulled out of a grainy 1930s Tod Browning horror movie.</p><p>“Legal” avenues weren’t Trump’s only tool in the toolbox. There were also both proffered spoils and punishments to those in positions to make decisions as to the validity of ballots. It’s a tribute to those folks, particularly Republicans, that they managed to hold the line under intense pressure, including credible threats to their lives and the lives of their families.</p><p>Finally, there was the lethal January 6th riot at the Capitol. There is little question that Trump encouraged it with his own words, and apparently watched it live on TV with some glee. A full investigation of how it took place will likely not only reveal errors of omission and commission, but also some near-catastrophic risk-taking, including on the part of some highly placed individuals. If the country ever learns it all (and I suspect it won’t), we will have to grapple with some very uncomfortable truths, some of which will be destabilizing.</p><p>The entire episode, from the challenged results to the violence, demands an impartial investigation and, where appropriate, legislation. We likely won’t get either. It’s clear that the GOP has no interest in finding out things they do not care to know, and certainly none in crafting legislation that might limit mischief at the state level in how votes are recognized.</p><p>Can we do without them? It’s a terrible mistake to take no lessons from this. Yet, we should also recognize that there are two equally important things going on in parallel that will have more impact on us in the short term: Joe Biden’s attempt to bring back competence and traditional politics into governing, and the GOP’s struggle with itself.</p><p>Let’s talk about Republicans for a moment, as part of Biden’s two-party-politics goal (beyond mere opposition) will be nearly impossible until the GOP finds a way to reconcile its internal differences. There are three semi-viable wings (true Never-Trumpers are not one of them) to the GOP. The first consists of the emotionally committed Trump Acolytes and the segment of “Leadership” Republicans aligned with them. The second are the situationally committed-to-Trump Republicans, who, out of either opportunism or fear (or both—think, Marco Rubio), stay inside the Trump Tent. And the third (and presently weakest group) are the Republicans who would love for this long national nightmare to come to an end and go back to the good old days, where the GOP was the sane, pro-business, socially conservative, interventionist-on-foreign-policy Party. As an inexact shorthand, we can call these folks McConnell Republicans (Reagan Republicans are largely extinct in most areas of the country.)</p><p>That there were 140 House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise, who simply refused to accept that Biden was validly elected tells you that the combined strength of the Acolytes and Situational Trumpists represents a decisive bloc. No one is moving the Acolytes. They are pledged to Trump and will remain with him as long as he wishes. It’s the Situational Trumpists who are more in play, or at least were.</p><p>McConnell’s public passivity is surprising. He obviously detests Trump (after years of enabling him) and blames him for loss of control of the Senate. But he (at least so far) hasn’t seized on any opportunities to take the now-out-of-office Trump down a peg. The Capitol riot seemed to be the ideal entry point—McConnell could have immediately gone out front in insisting on a bipartisan investigation, and he could have used that as leverage for concessions from President Biden. This might have not only unified his group, but provided cover/herd immunity for some of the cowed Situational Trumpists. Instead, he’s caught up in claiming Trump can’t be impeached, and he’s now committed to obstructing an investigation that might have liberated him. That McConnell has chosen this path tells us he’s not ready to strike—he’s not hearing enough willingness from his fellow Republican Senators to risk a fight with Trump. He also must have doubts about McCarthy, who just made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago and shows no inclination to curb his uncritical obedience.</p><p>McConnell’s problems don’t end with Trump. He also has Ted Cruz and the new It-Boy of sedition, Josh Hawley, looking for any microphone to grab. And he has to worry about Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy-spouting, violence-encouraging bigot who may be a rising star in the GOP. To deal with Greene, he needs McCarthy’s cooperation, but McCarthy may prefer mollifying one (or 25 or 50) kookie Members of Congress to further his own ambitions to be Speaker.</p><p>The irony is that Greene is probably a bigger problem for McConnell than she is for McCarthy. McConnell wants to recapture the Senate in 2022, and few of his at-risk Senators want to have to defend her. AOC and The Squad may be the Democratic boogie man with which Republicans look to scare swing voters, but Greene won’t help any, if they’re looking to expand the base. Nor does she add value. She’s certifiable, and the GOP already has the certifiable vote locked up.</p><p>What it comes down to is that Republicans haven’t quite figured out who is in charge, and so haven’t set upon a coherent strategy to engage with Biden. In the absence of this, they are incapable of being constructive in any way. Whether this will hurt them in 2022/24 is unclear, but, for now, they look both churlish and childish.</p><p>So, what about the Democrats, beyond the usual fuzziness? Here is where Joe Biden’s talents are in full display. He played the Trump coup thing well, staking out his ground, but not going hyperbolic. While Trump ranted, Biden was calm and Presidential, effectively counterpunching.</p><p>He is building a government right now, and doing it at an extraordinarily high speed. One of the unexpected benefits of Trump’s active obstruction of transition (including placing new political employees in key jobs after the election), is that Biden’s team is assembling what it wants, rather than even attempting to mollify holdovers.</p><p>Biden had nearly all Cabinet and sub-cabinet nominations ready, and was shrewd enough to make them highly qualified, as well as largely non-controversial and hard for the GOP to oppose. In addition, The New York Times’ David Sanger reported that, beyond the positions involving confirmations, staffing had already been decided for over 1,000 high-level appointees. This group, chosen for technical expertise, was promptly sworn in by Biden, en masse, by Zoom.</p><p>As to political Trump staffers, they were told to clean out their desks, or placed on administrative leave or transferred to a “Rubber Room” destination where they can’t do any harm. Trump’s politicization of virtually everything he could get his hands on (often spearheaded by John McEntee, the 30-year-old Director of Personnel, who made it clear that loyalty to Trump was an essential qualification) marks those people as being likely both obstructionist and corrosive. Some of the dismissals may result in legal action, but the Biden team thinks that it is essential to implement policies and have them gain traction, without Trump’s people getting in the way.</p><p>Moreover, Biden is doing what he can with a pen, signing Executive Orders to reverse Trump policies that were also enacted by Executive Orders. On the international front, Biden has signaled to our traditional allies that they won’t be bashed anymore, and to Trump’s foreign friends that the rules of engagement have changed. The one area where Biden is sustaining a portion of Trump’s policies is with China, which is clearly trying to muscle its way to Top Dog status.</p><p>All this is making Republicans completely nuts, when they can take a moment out from trashing their own folks for apostasy on the Trump front. They seem to be left with only two responses—grievance about how meanly they are being treated on social media, and procedural complaints about Trump’s looming Impeachment trial. “Where’s the bipartisanship,” they ask, defining bipartisanship as a continuation of all Trump policies and an ending of any investigations.</p><p>This isn’t going to cut it. Republicans have to decide who owns them. They can let themselves work only for Trump, objecting to all Biden initiatives because that’s what Trump wants. Or they can try to redeem a portion of what they placed in blind trusts when Trump was elected and participate in government in a constructive way.</p><p>Whichever path they take, they will still have victories. There are backstops in place: the filibuster, the occasional leverage moderate Democrats may give them, and the Trump-stuffed Supreme Court. What they won’t possess is the White House, and, after four years of tolerating every Trumpian overreach without complaint, they have empowered his successor to act unilaterally in ways that will deeply upset them.</p><p>It doesn’t have to be this way. Joe Biden is a compromiser. He wants a deal. He will give them more than they have a right to expect, and certainly more than Trump ever offered Democrats. Together, Biden and the GOP could pull politics out of “the place of low skullduggery” and make it “more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes.” But Republicans have to be willing to play.</p><p>After a half century in public service, Joe Biden surely knows who he is. It’s up to Republicans to decide who they are. Let’s hope they choose wisely.</p><p>Postscript: On Sunday January 31st, ten Republican Senators, Susan Collins, Rob Portman, Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Rounds, Mitt Romney, Todd C. Young, Shelley Moore Capito, Jerry Moran, and Thom Tillis made a COVID Stimulus bid of $600 Billion, to counter Biden’s $1.9 Trillion proposal. The GOP bid strips out things Republicans don’t like, like aid to states and cities and raising the Federal Minimum Wage. Tactically, it’s interesting, as ten GOP votes would enable passage of the bill without Reconciliation. Several of the ten had harsh criticism for Biden “going it alone” but they must know they have made him an offer he likely must refuse. They must also have had permission from McConnell to do it. Of course, it’s politics. Now, does it cause further negotiations, or just talking points?</p><p>The Third Transition: Trump to Biden, first was published on February 1, 2021</p><p>You can find is at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/02/the-third-transition-trump-to-biden-and-the-return-of-politics.html</p><p>Please also look for us on Twitter at @SyncPol</p><p><br /></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-5942115816916235152021-02-21T19:38:00.000-05:002021-02-21T19:38:18.828-05:00A Tale Of Three Transitions: Part II, Hoover To FDR (On 3Q)<p> By Michael Liss</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5dFkMANF_zTbOwGw5NxYuy3x4bpYF2rZWCrV3khnOjyfnl-9sJocjlVdK0rccvf5xwBkbngP7YE6sg4KzS0Wc0U21mI_Ka5qekJOTOBxrJUNmFEgUDpHxya98OJefFSqKleth-mA9aEM/s1024/02895v.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="838" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5dFkMANF_zTbOwGw5NxYuy3x4bpYF2rZWCrV3khnOjyfnl-9sJocjlVdK0rccvf5xwBkbngP7YE6sg4KzS0Wc0U21mI_Ka5qekJOTOBxrJUNmFEgUDpHxya98OJefFSqKleth-mA9aEM/s320/02895v.jpg" /></a></div><br />Adlai Stevenson, in the concession speech he gave after being thoroughly routed by Ike in the 1952 Election, referenced a possibly apocryphal quote by Abraham Lincoln: “He felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”<p></p><p>Stevenson got over it sufficiently to try again in 1956 (he stubbed a different toe, even harder), but the point remains the same. Losing stinks. Having to be gracious about it also stinks. So, it’s not unreasonable to assume that having to be gracious about it when you are the incumbent stinks even more, but that’s the job. The country has made a choice, and (let us keep our eyes firmly planted in the past for now), it is incumbent on the incumbent to cooperate, even if it is not required that he suddenly adopt the policies of his soon-to-be successor.</p><p>Last month, I wrote about the fraught transition from Buchanan to Lincoln, which ended with secession and, shortly after Lincoln’s Inauguration, led to the Civil War. Lincoln, and all that he represented, was clearly anathema to Buchanan, who, when he got up the nerve, acted accordingly. This month, I’m turning to the potent clashes of ideology and ego that went into the transition between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.</p><p>Hoover was once one of the most admired men in the world. He had earned that through his service in World War I, first by aiding thousands of American tourists stranded in Europe, then, as Chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, by helping to feed millions of people. He returned home in 1917 to take a role as Food Administrator for the United States, and, without much statutory authority, accomplished logistical feats on food supply and conservation. Woodrow Wilson sent him back to Europe to head the American Relief Administration, where he led economic restoration efforts after the war’s end, distributed 20 million tons of food to tens of millions across the continent, rebuilt communications, and organized shipping on sea and by rail. His efforts were so extraordinary that streets were named after him in several European cities.</p><p>All this before he was 45, and, being someone who did not lack confidence, he set his eyes on the White House in 1920. Both parties were interested in this man of extraordinary ability, but, in a political misstep that perhaps sprung from a touch of hubris, he announced that he would accept the Republican nomination if they adopted a platform reflecting his priorities. The party bosses who ruled in that time chuckled at his naiveté and exhaled a bit at their escape from the possibility of Hoover running as a Democrat. After a series of inconclusive votes at the 1920 GOP convention, they ducked into a smoke-filled room and picked the estimable Warren Harding of Ohio, with Calvin Coolidge to be his running mate.</p><p>As a consolation prize, Hoover accepted a role as Commerce Secretary, building out that department during a term in office that stretched more than seven years and through two Presidencies. In 1927, Coolidge tapped him to organize relief efforts in the Midwest after a gargantuan flood of the Mississippi covered 25 thousand square miles of normally dry land. He did superb work, once again putting his name in the public view.</p><p>Hoover won the 1928 Republican nomination, then went on to crush Al Smith (the first Catholic candidate) in the general election. His victory was comprehensive: 444 Electoral Votes to 87 (Smith didn’t even carry his home state of New York) and a Popular Vote margin of over 6.4 million. He was an extraordinarily popular man the day he took office.</p><p>Roosevelt’s path to the 1932 nomination took an entirely different route. Hoover had truly been a self-made man. FDR, not. Born to the gentry, educated at Groton, Harvard, and Columbia, he served (with Hoover) in Wilson’s Cabinet as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In one of the stranger ironies, he approached Hoover in 1920 to run as a ticket, with Hoover for President. After Hoover declared himself a Republican, Roosevelt pursued and got the Vice Presidential nomination behind James Cox.</p><p>In 1921, FDR contracted polio, and the arduous rehabilitation seemed to add a certain dogged toughness to his sunny personality. He gradually returned to public life, giving nominating speeches at the Democratic Conventions in 1924 and 1928, and allowed himself to be convinced to run for Governor of New York in 1928 (he expected, correctly, that Democrats would be routed). Despite the national tide, Roosevelt won by one percent. As Governor, he pushed for things like unemployment insurance and farm aid that would later be helpful in the 1932 campaign. He was a frontrunner at the 1932 Democratic Convention, eventually winning the nomination on the fourth ballot, after he was endorsed by John Nance Gardner, then Speaker of the House, soon to be the (far less powerful) Vice President.</p><p>Hoover initially misjudged Roosevelt, thinking him the easiest of the potential Democratic nominees to beat. He saw Roosevelt as unserious and ignorant of policy and thought the nascent New Deal dangerous. Hoover lacked the inner eye that the best politicians have—he was unable to judge himself and recalibrate when necessary. His early speeches, often dense, were filled with self-praise for a recovery simply not experienced by most people on the ground. In late October, after being urged by supporters to get tougher, he laced into Roosevelt in a stemwinder at Madison Square Garden (“the grass will grow in the streets of a hundred cities”), declaring that the New Deal, would in effect, destroy the American way of life. Hoover’s closest advisors believed the tide had turned, and that California was certain and even FDR’s New York was within their grasp.</p><p>They were all deluding themselves. The 1932 Presidential Election was nothing if not decisive. Election Day brought Roosevelt 472 Electoral Votes to Hoover’s 59, and a popular vote margin of over 7.1 million. Looking closer at some of the states, you can see that there were huge swings from Hoover to FDR, some as much as 20%. California was particularly cruel, as FDR flipped the state, with a nearly one million vote differential from 1928. By midday, Hoover, on his way back to his home on the Stanford campus, knew he’d lost. He conceded, by telegram, at about 1:00 AM New York time.</p><p>If transition effectively begins the minute the result is clear, what’s truly fascinating is how little stock Hoover put in what was clearly a brutal personal repudiation. It’s not that he claimed fraud or tried to undermine the results. He just believed that the public was foolish, that his policies were the only rational response to the Depression, and (more quietly but equally firmly) that FDR was a lightweight unable to fill his shoes. In Hoover’s mind, his duty was clear: convince (or manipulate) FDR into adopting those Hooverian policies until 1936, when the genuine article could be restored to his rightful place in the White House. His closest advisors agreed; the public was too emotional to think clearly.</p><p>As in Buchanan’s transition to Lincoln, FDR’s Inauguration was still four months distant. In Hoover’s mind, those were four months where he could make his case to the public that they have erred, instruct FDR in the finer points of his policies, and tarnish FDR’s halo just a bit before he even got started.</p><p>Hoover saw an opportunity almost immediately with the issue of Britain and France’s debt payments to the United States. Hoover had previously suspended those payments and, for a variety of reasons, wanted that policy continued. He knew this was unpopular domestically, and, if he could get FDR on board supporting his policy, he could tag him with it. An exchange of telegrams raised the issue, and a meeting was set for November 22, 1932 at the White House.</p><p>What is so interesting here is how the two men seemed to size each other up instinctively. Hoover simply didn’t trust Roosevelt. Standing instructions were that any calls or meetings would require a stenographer and at least one “second.” There was a reason for this beyond Hoover’s almost irrational dislike of the man. Roosevelt was very skilled at being aimiable, but noncommittal, a talent which ended up being amply on display.</p><p>Hoover prepared obsessively before the meeting. After a few obligatory courtesies, the President launched into an hour-long soliloquy on international economic issues, while FDR sat quietly, pleasantly smiling and nodding. Hoover’s intention here, beyond further taking Roosevelt’s measure, was to use the appearance of access (a “joint board”) in return for FDR’s giving Hoover a free hand to set policy. Hoover thought he had FDR hooked, but the following day learned that Roosevelt had rejected the idea. Roosevelt’s message was clear: Hoover was still President for the next few months and should set his own course, as FDR would when he took office.</p><p>Hoover tried again in December, attempting to interest FDR in appointing a delegation to a World Economic Conference in London. Roosevelt demurred, and Hoover struck back by releasing the telegrams between the two men, hoping to make Roosevelt look bad in the press.</p><p>There were deeper issues than just public relations. As 1932 was drawing to a close, the political situation in Europe was deteriorating rapidly, with the Nazis gaining in influence. FDR wanted to discuss foreign policy, and Hoover’s Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, wanted to discuss it with him. The problem was that Hoover didn’t want the exchange of information to take place, and, despite all of Stimson’s requests, even to Hoover’s patriotism and sense of duty, he refused. Finally, a telegram to Hoover from Walter Edge, the Ambassador to France, broke the impasse by conveying Edge’s threat to resign unless talks were permitted. Word was sent to Roosevelt to ask Hoover respectfully for the meeting, giving the President the opportunity to gracefully agree.</p><p>On February 15, 1933, matters took a darker turn, as an assassin, Giuseppe Zangara, fired at Roosevelt, who was sitting in an open limo with Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. A woman in the crowd grabbed Zangara’s hand just before he shot. He missed FDR, but fatally wounded Cermak.</p><p>Hoover was shaken by this, and quickly telegraphed FDR his concern, but he was not done with legacy-building. On February 18, he hand-wrote a long personal missive to FDR and had it delivered to his hotel in New York. The letter, perhaps a tad too pushy for the moment, warned Roosevelt of an impending catastrophe which could only be averted by his declaring for, and adopting, whole, Hoover’s policies. FDR sat on his response for 12 days before politely rejecting Hoover’s advice.</p><p>Literally days before the Inauguration, the economic situation was growing increasingly dire, and as it did, Hoover’s outreach to FDR grew more intense. The pitch was always the same: Roosevelt must publicly renounce the New Deal in order to instill confidence. While this standoff was taking place, the banking crisis was getting more acute on almost a moment-by-moment basis. Hundreds of banks had already failed, in many cases taking their depositors’ life savings with them. Now thousands more were ready to follow. Hoover had refused to step in, saying that the market would sort out winners and losers, and the strongest banks would survive. Desperation grew for a bank holiday—a nationwide closure for a period of time, so that outflows would cease long enough to determine which banks could survive (with propping up, if necessary) and which would need to fold. The Federal Reserve Board went on record asking Hoover for one, and the old Congress, on its last days, stayed open to process a request from the President. One state after another declared bank holidays or restrictions on withdrawals, but, without a national policy, these efforts weren’t enough. Hoover wouldn’t do it—all he would consent to was to forward a request by Roosevelt and his team, and to send yet another letter to Roosevelt asking him effectively to renounce the New Deal.</p><p>FDR wouldn’t bite, and he was right. In just a few days, he would be sworn in, and could set policy (and accept responsibility) as he chose.</p><p>Hoover tried one more time. He scheduled a tea the day before the Inauguration, which quickly veered from the ceremonial to the substantive, as Hoover had brought along the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Board Chair for additional leverage. The meeting deteriorated rapidly, as Hoover pressed FDR to agree to make a joint announcement on a bank holiday. It was a fascinating endgame. The meeting broke up with more than a little anger, but Hoover kept at it, phoning FDR well into the night to ask him to agree. In the meantime, the Federal Reserve Board, frustrated with Hoover’s insistence that FDR must sign on, regardless of whether he had any statutory authority, drafted a letter to the President with a proposed proclamation. Hoover wouldn’t sign it. To the end, he wanted the bank-holiday policy to appear to be FDR’s.</p><p>Why? What possible reason could Hoover have had to extend the crisis? Stimson believed that Hoover had given in to his anger at being ousted and could not bring himself to do the right thing. It’s also reasonable to think that Hoover utterly despised FDR, who possessed in abundance the political gifts that Hoover never had.</p><p>Yet, to just look at the last few moments of a failed Presidency is to miss something larger. What had happened to the humanitarian Hoover of 1917-20, who worked tirelessly to ameliorate the suffering of literally hundreds of millions of Europeans? Where was Hoover in 1929, after the Crash, and in 1930-32, with massive unemployment, collapsing purchasing power, devastated farms? Why did he not act?</p><p>There is a tendency now to think of him as true to a cohesive economic philosophy, principled although wrong. But even this falls short: Hoover unquestionably deepened the Depression by doing things that a true free-market capitalist would never have done: He signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which inevitably led other nations to retaliate. Hoover also raised taxes, supported a tight money policy (when money was already desperately scarce), and walked away from the banking crisis. It’s not hard to see an astringent logic to Hoover’s approach—wash out the weaker hands; let the strongest survive; let the system right itself. Yet, there is also a disturbing undercurrent of the scold in Hoover—he’s the type who thought a lecture, a cold bath, and going to sleep without supper brought out the spine in a man. It was not just the transition, his dislike of FDR, and his bitterness at losing. The uncomfortable conclusion one can draw is that Hoover didn’t act in 1933 for the same reasons he didn’t act in 1930: because he didn’t want to, and, as President, he had the luxury of compelling his country to endure his particularized philosophical and personal morality.</p><p>The political historian Richard Neustadt wrote that “Presidential power is the power to persuade.” At this fraught moment in American life, the public was persuaded by Roosevelt. His extraordinary gift for communication, for speaking in a language that was both intimate, yet conveyed seriousness, was something that Greatest Generation people would remember more than a half-century later. Above all, Roosevelt wouldn’t just speak, he would act. His team would relentlessly experiment, sometimes hitting, often missing, but with a purposefulness from which the country drew strength. The public found the choice between the two men easy to make.</p><p>On March 4, 1933, literally just hours after his last call to FDR to convince him of the error of his ways, Hoover joined Roosevelt in an open car as it made its way to what should be the last stop of all Presidential transitions, the podium at the Capitol. There, in a moment of political grace, the outgoing President is given the opportunity to remind us of the gesture of George Washington, and publicly and voluntarily yield to his successor. In this final act, Herbert Hoover played his part. Franklin Roosevelt then rose, and rose to the occasion, delivering an Inaugural Address punctuated by a single phrase: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The 100,000 in attendance cheered him, and the hope that he brought.</p><p><b>Special thanks to fellow @3QD author Bill Murray, who sent me Professor Eric Rauchway’s “Winter War” after reading my piece on FDR’s Fala Speech. He rekindled an interest in Presidential transitions, and particularly this one, with its unique intellectual and political struggle between winner and loser.</b></p><p><b>A Tale of Three Transitions: Part II, Hoover To FDR first appeared on Monday, January 4, 2021 at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/01/a-tale-of-three-transitions-part-ii-hoover-to-fdr.html</b></p><p><b>You can follow Syncopated Politics on Twitter @SyncPol</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><br /></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-65817713432529429982021-02-01T20:54:00.003-05:002021-02-01T20:54:51.508-05:00A Tale of Three Transitions: Part I, Buchanan to Lincoln<p>By Michael Liss:</p><p>Editors Note: This is part 1 of a series of three on Presidential Transitions. It is followed by a second on Hoover to FDR, and the last is Trump to Biden. </p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><div>November 6, 1860. Perhaps the worst day in James Buchanan’s political life. His fears, his sympathies and antipathies, the judgment of the public upon an entire career, all converge into a horrible realty. Abraham Lincoln, of the “Black Republican Party,” has been elected President of the United States. <p>Into Buchanan’s hands falls the most treacherous transition any President has had to navigate. The country is about to split apart. For months, Southerners in Congress, in their State Houses, in newspapers ranging from the large-circulation influential dailies to small-town broadsheets, had been warning everyone who cared to listen that they would not abide an election result they felt was an existential threat to their Peculiar Institution. Lincoln, despite what we now consider to be his notably conservative approach to slavery, was that threat. </p><p>The task is made more excruciating because the transition, at that time, was longer—not the January 20th date we expect, but March 4th. Four long months until Lincoln’s Inauguration. Thirteen months between the end of the regular session of the outgoing Congress and the first scheduled session of the incoming one, unless the President calls for a Special Session. Each day, the speeches become more radical, the threats blunter. Committees are formed in many states to consider secession. By December 20, South Carolina leaves the Union. It is followed in short order by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and, on February 1, 1861, Texas. The Upper South (Tennessee, North Carolina, and all-important Virginia) holds back, as does Arkansas. Unionist sentiment is strong enough to keep them from bolting, but the cost of their loyalty is that nothing aggressive be done by Washington to bring back the seceding states. In reality, that means an acceptance of secession for those that cannot be wooed back. </p><p>Buchanan is not the man for the job.</p><p>Nearing 70, ill, perceived as both politically and morally weak, rumored to be behind the unpopular Dred Scott decision, he is reviled in much of the North as a Doughface who allowed himself to be ruled by the Southerners in his Cabinet, and despised in the South for his querulousness. That he was not on the ballot (he had pledged himself to one term in his Inaugural Address) merely spared him the likely humiliation of being decisively rejected by the electorate.</p><p>Be that as it may, Buchanan is also still the President of the United States, with a Washington newspaper (the Washington Constitution) to act as house organ, patronage to distribute, policies that could reward or punish, and, most importantly, control over the Army and Navy. Would he use his powers to keep the Union alive?</p><p>Where does Lincoln fit in as President-elect? What is fascinating about this period is that, while Lincoln is an essential figure, even a precipitating one, he is also a mostly quiet actor. The custom of the day is for candidates and the newly elected (but not yet seated) to maintain a dignified silence. Lincoln largely sticks to that, even when asked to offer either soothing words, or tougher ones. He is convinced that his policies have been well-aired during the campaign, and any statement he makes would be either misinterpreted or hyperbolized. When informed of the many efforts made by well-meaning men of both regions and all parties to find some compromise short of war, his attitude is more one of acceptance than of encouragement. He would offer the South the assurances he had always offered, but never bargain away what he, and the Republican Party, had just won.</p><p>That leaves the field to the primary actors of this period, Buchanan and the Cabinet members he relies on, the Fire-Eaters in the South who crave an independent nation, and an ever-shifting group of men of various political persuasions and even motivations, who desperately search for some way out of the present crisis.</p><p>There were really four phases to Buchanan’s approach; the first pre-election, the last three governing his conduct as President. </p><p>His pre-election choices may very well have increased the odds of the very disaster he was facing. Buchanan did not support his fellow Democrat, Steven Douglas. The two men disliked each other, having been rivals for the nomination before, and Douglas’s advocacy of Popular Sovereignty made him unpopular among slaveholders and the Doughfaces who voted with them. There was a potent internal conflict going on inside the Party that mirrored the one going on in the nation at large. While there were many issues driving North and South apart—tariffs, internal improvements, the value (or superiority) of an agrarian lifestyle over sheer economic growth—only slavery packed the emotional heft that would lead men to take up arms.</p><p>In June of 1860, at the Democratic Convention in Baltimore, these conflicts came to a head. Southern Democrats would not accept a Douglas nomination, and, encouraged by Buchanan and egged on by the Fire-Eaters, many bolted, set up a rival convention, and nominated Vice-President John Breckinridge. As if three parties were not enough, a fourth, the compromise-inclined Constitutional Union Party then emerged, and nominated Tennessee Senator John Bell. </p><p>It was soon realized that this split would likely be fatal to the South’s chances, as Bell would draw off support in the upper South and Border states. There were discussions between the Breckinridge and Bell camps and outreach to Douglas to combine forces, but that would have required Douglas to withdraw, and, quite understandably, he was unwilling to do that, so the talks fell apart.</p><p>We can speculate about what a two-man race might have looked like, but it should not be assumed Lincoln would have lost. In nearly sweeping the North, he actually took enough states by absolute majorities to win the Electoral College. Whatever the outgoing President may have wished for, the prize was Lincoln’s, and cleanly won.</p><p>Buchanan was faced with a critical decision—accept Lincoln’s win and plunge into trying to ameliorate the damage, or remain passive and resentful. His first problem was to ascertain reality. In this chaotic time, few people were able to ignore the noise and gain a clear-eyed view of what public opinion really was. Hindsight tells us that both sides sorely underestimated the willpower and ability of the other. </p><p>Buchanan meets with his Cabinet for the first time on November 9, and there the battle lines are clearly drawn. His Secretary of the Treasury is Howell Cobb of Georgia, former Speaker of the House, and future President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States. Secretary of the Interior is Jacob Thompson, who, while still in the Cabinet, is soon to be appointed by the state of Mississippi as a “secession commissioner” to North Carolina, charged with convincing that state to secede. Secretary of War John Floyd, is a former Governor of Virginia, later accused by Grant in his memoirs of scattering the Army to places where they could be more easily captured, and redistributing military supplies from Northern locations to the South. In this phase of Buchanan’s response, it is clear he is more influenced by Southerners inside the Cabinet and out. Buchanan is, in a sense, a Unionist, but his policy, at least at this point, is one of appeasement and at least tacit acceptance of secession. Cobb remains in the Cabinet until December 6, Floyd resigns December 29, and, astoundingly, Thompson is not forced to resign until January 8, 1861. </p><p>Buchanan proposes a national convention of the States, as authorized by Article V of the Constitution. There, he suggests, a compromise could be worked out to satisfy the South, and, if the South is not sufficiently appeased, it would be justified in separating. Reaction to this is mixed—Lewis Cass of Michigan, then Secretary of State, and Jeremiah Black of Pennsylvania, (then Attorney General, later Secretary of State) approve of the idea, so long as it is coupled with a willingness to enforce federal law; Cobb and Floyd refuse to commit; while Thompson and Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey of Connecticut support it.</p><p>November 10, the Cabinet meets again, and here is where the power of Southern members exerts itself. Buchanan has been working on a state paper of sorts, combining three concepts: acceptance of Lincoln’s election by the South, rejection of secession, and the implication that some sort of federal force might be necessary to enforce basic law, such as the defense of army posts/forts and collection of tariffs. The Southern members argue violently against it, and Buchanan, unfortunately, withdraws it.</p><p>It is important to realize what a critical turning point this is. What Buchanan is proposing is the minimum of what any President should insist on. There is no right of secession in the Constitution—it is not a transitory, voluntary compact where any state may leave if it’s unhappy with an election result or even just a law. Certainly, a seceding state has no right to use force against federal property and expect no response. For the Southerners to insist on such a course should have required their immediate resignations, yet none is offered and Buchanan doesn’t demand them. It is a critical early failure of leadership, and one that has broad ramifications. </p><p>What Buchanan does do is a lot of nothing. He doesn’t reorganize his Cabinet, and he doesn’t push for a national convention. One can understand his fears in ejecting the Southerners and possibly further inflaming the Fire-Eaters, but what he fails to grasp is that they are likely beyond appeasement. By retaining them, by accepting the reality of secession and allowing them to influence policy to the nation’s detriment, he is broadcasting this weakness.</p><p>In light of this position, just how successful could a national convention be? The forces of Unionism and the interests of the North (even without taking into account that of the electorate that had just picked Lincoln) would have nothing left with which to bargain. The abstract concept of “Union” holds much less sway than many (including Lincoln) believe. You need at least a “whiff of grapeshot” to be taken seriously. The result is no national convention, and not the slightest hint of Southern acquiescence. </p><p>A month after Lincoln’s election, Buchanan, and the country, continue to drift toward oblivion. For some bizarre reason, the Administration’s newspaper, the Constitution, continue to publish wildly inflammatory and disloyal articles and editorials. Still, even with them, Buchanan’s timorousness manifests itself in paralysis. It is not until Christmas that he informs the editor he is withdrawing support. </p><p>What is Buchanan doing all this time, besides wringing his hands? Not following the advice of General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, who suggests reinforcing federal facilities in several Southern states. Not taking a firmer hand with his Southern advisers. Not putting the prestige of the President’s office behind a national convention. Instead, he continues to work on his state paper, thinking that perhaps words would help. In mid-November, he turns that work over to his able Attorney General, Jeremiah Black. Black’s draft, however, is continually watered down to meet the objections from the Southerners (and Buchanan) until it is ready. The end product only goes so far as to say there is no right of secession. Beyond that, it kneecaps itself by saying that, if all federal officeholders in a seceding state refused to obey the law, there is no explicit Constitutional power in Congress (or in the Executive) to compel them to obey. Any attempt to do so, in effect, would be an act of war by the federal government on the seceding state. </p><p>This construct is soon tested in South Carolina (it’s always South Carolina). Despite continual entreaties to Buchanan to reinforce the forts around Charleston Harbor, he remains too concerned that firmness would ruffle feelings. He focuses on his annual Address to Congress, while the South Carolinians prepare to take the forts. Almost daily arguments break out in the White House about how to respond, with Buchanan seemingly open to whomever is the last person to make an argument. In the meantime, Floyd is communicating privately with South Carolina Governor Gist, informing him of Buchanan’s plans and reassuring him the forts will not be reinforced. Buchanan, of course, does nothing besides fret and polish his language. In a moment of extreme historical irony, he invites Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis to view his draft and suggest changes. </p><p>The Address is completed by December 2nd. Inside the Cabinet, the Union men are losing issue after issue. Lewis Cass is arguing the forts have to be maintained. Buchanan brushes him off (Cass is later to resign over this). Black asserts that, if Buchanan cannot support the offensive use of force to defend the forts, he must at least assert that the soldiers there have a right to defend themselves. Black also insists that, should a state secede, Congress has the power to take “necessary and proper” actions to deal with it. Buchanan turns him down on both.</p><p>The final Message to Congress is a monument to bad governing. Buchanan does agree that there is no right to secede, but, on point after point, he sides with Southern interests. In an extraordinarily polarized era, Congress (which still includes the vast majority of Congressmen and Senators from soon-to-secede states) finds much to hate. It’s a contradictory paper, asserting certain federal rights, but insisting that the government, and particularly the Executive Branch, has no power to enforce those rights—a quintessentially Buchanan position. </p><p>There is more. Buchanan can’t rise to the occasion. He barely gets past his opening before launching into a denunciation of the North. “The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects.” He praises the Dred Scott decision, and goes on to offer what compromises he believes essential for the North to make to woo the South back, if it will come back. You would be hard-pressed to find a single balanced, constructive moment in all 6600+ words of it. </p><p>Whatever this is, it is not leadership, and it is not Presidential. Buchanan just doesn’t have it in him. He punts the responsibility to Congress, yet advises that it, too, has little authority to act. Congress, hopelessly divided, and without Executive Power, can do nothing substantive. </p><p>The stalemate only begins to break when Southern politicians decide to return home. With Cobb, Floyd and Thompson’s departure, Buchanan’s Cabinet gains new spine, but the two months lost are critical. It’s not one state anymore, but seven, and by February 4, 1861, they are already forming a government. Buchanan’s window for action to resolve the matter without violence is almost certainly closed. By the time Lincoln is Inaugurated, General Scott, and Secretary of War Holt must arrange for guns to line Pennsylvania Avenue and cross streets placed under guard. </p><p>Each incoming President steps into the shoes of the one who is leaving. That places an enormous burden on the outgoing one; they must be caretakers in the best sense of the word—they owe it to their successors, and the American people, to leave as strong a country as they can. History’s verdict on how James Buchanan discharged that particular duty has been harsh, but well-earned. </p><p>The original of Buchanan to Lincoln was published on 3Quarksdaily.com on December 7, 2020. You can find it at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/12/a-tale-of-three-transitions-part-1-buchanan-to-lincoln.html</p><p>And please join syncopatedpolitics.com on Twitter as SyncPol</p><p><br /></p></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-5477991594777484592020-12-29T18:59:00.005-05:002020-12-29T18:59:49.367-05:00The 2020 Annual Ditty: The Donald <p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">We Are Glad </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">(with profuse apologies to Shakespeare and King Henry V)</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">We are sad The Donald is so unpleasant with us;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">His presence a double bogey we won’t say thanks for:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">When we marched our voters to the polls,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">We did, perchance, escape the sand, take the match</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">And strike his bilious frown as just the hazard.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Told him he hath offended both friend and stranger</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Packed all the courts so rule of law will be disturb'd</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Ah, Censorious faces. Now we understand him well,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">How he lorded o'er us and denied his wilder days,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Admitting not what sore use he made of them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">We ne’re before deeply valued this poor seat of POTUS;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">And therefore, in ’16 took the chance, and gave ourselves</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">To trust in process; as 'tis ever common</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">That men are elevated when in The People’s House.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">But tell the Donald we will keep our States,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">We won them true and will spurn his tweetings</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">We need not rouse ourselves so chance begins anew</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Or plod like duffers unable to make the shot </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Yea, show the Donald bold to look on us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">And tell the putrid prince this mock of his</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Hath turn'd his hopes to rubble; and his soul</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Be held sore charged for his wasteful vengeance</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">That shall fly with them: for many a thousand victims</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Shall this his mock mock out of dear husbands and wives;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">And even some yet ungotten and unborn</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">That shall have cause to curse the Donald's scorn.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">But this lies all within the Founders’ will,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">To whom we do appeal; and in whose name</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Tell you the Donald, we are coming on,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">To cleanse the ground as we may and to put forth</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">A rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">So get you now to Pence, and tell the Donald</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">His jest will savor those but of shallow wit,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">When thousands jeer more than did laugh at it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">We give you now safe conduct. Convey it well.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Let's hope for a better 2021</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Michael</span></p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-86274056096285149572020-12-23T20:15:00.001-05:002020-12-23T20:16:41.331-05:00The Night Several Days After Christmas <p> Twas the night before New Years, when outside my flat</p><p>The Pols were stirring, but I said “no, no, not that.”</p><p>Screens were a’ flicker, with cheer and not Fox,</p><p>In hopes that the ball would shimmy, and glisten, and drop.</p><p><br /></p><p>The children were rolling their eyes as I peek,</p><p>Just a few surveys, and op-eds that I seek</p><p>And M in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,</p><p>With Iowa’s numbers tucked in the nap.</p><p><br /></p><p>When out from the street there arose such a clatter,</p><p>I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.</p><p>Away to the window I flew like a flash,</p><p>Newspaper truck with deliveries, perchance?</p><p><br /></p><p>The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow</p><p>Reflected the pale visage of Michelle B. below.</p><p>I rubbed my eyes, when what should appear,</p><p>Michelle became Sarah, and eight tiny reindeer.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ah, I cried, not her, I pled,</p><p>McCain, you idiot, go back to bed.</p><p>More rapid than sled dogs his coursers they came,</p><p>And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!</p><p><br /></p><p>"Now Perry! Now, RonPaul! Now, Rickster and Mitten!</p><p>On, Huntsman! On, Newter! On, T-Paw and Hermen!</p><p>You’ve had your fun; you’ve run your race!</p><p>Now dash away! Dash away! Save your face!"</p><p><br /></p><p>And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof</p><p>The prancing and pounding of a rather large hoof.</p><p>As I drew in my head, and was turning around,</p><p>Out the elevator came Christie came with a bound.</p><p><br /></p><p>He was dressed in a suit, red tie with a flag</p><p>And his shoes were bright polished, he carried a bag.</p><p>A bundle of stickers he had on his back,</p><p>And he looked like a lawyer, just opening his pack.</p><p><br /></p><p>His eyes-how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!</p><p>He said, not to worry, it won’t be Perry!</p><p>I said, “how ‘bout Newt?” He gave me a grin</p><p>“Not Newt, and not Ron, after I begin.”</p><p><br /></p><p>“You picked Mitt, I replied, endorsed him well.”</p><p>“So I did,” said he, “It made him feel swell.”</p><p>He had a broad face and quite a big belly,</p><p>That shook when he giggled, like a bowlful of jelly!</p><p><br /></p><p>Chris spoke no more words, but went straight to his work,</p><p>Pasting stickers on doorways then turned with a jerk.</p><p>And emptying the bag of his precious load,</p><p>And giving a nod, down, down the elevator he rode!</p><p><br /></p><p>My kids, hearing sounds, called out my name.</p><p>“Dad, please come back, have you no shame?</p><p>I turned on my heel, Mitt’s up by three I declare</p><p>D, stop that, they beg, you’ll go mad, we don’t care.</p><p><br /></p><p>Watch football, they said, not the Jets, they will lose.</p><p>Pick college, Northwestern, something to soothe.</p><p>So I turned my thoughts to the upcoming bowls</p><p>Hawkeyes and Gamecocks? What are the polls?</p><p><br /></p><p>Join us on Twitter @SyncPol</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60986047162674292.post-18269052094753378952020-11-10T22:25:00.000-05:002020-11-10T22:25:12.504-05:00Biden Wins: America Passes the Marshmallow Test<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">By Michael Liss</span></div><p></p><p>Put a small child in a room with a single marshmallow. Tell him that, if he can wait for five minutes, he gets a second one. Leave the room, and see what he does. Can he sit there, staring at that scrumptious-if-a-tad-rubbery mound of goo and powdered sugar and just fight off the urge to grab it, tear it to bits, and, like the Cheshire Cat, leave nothing but a smile?We, the voters, did it. We passed. Joe Biden will be our next President. America voted for stability and cohesiveness, for deferral of the pleasure of an adrenaline rush in return for a better outcome. We will, on January 20, 2021, be a better country for it. </p><p>We need to be better. Love him or loathe him, few could argue that President Trump was not a perpetual disrupter. Time may bring the perspective for more dispassionate analysis of his policies, but, right now, perhaps for just the next year or two, we need a different path.</p><p>There is an enemy at the gates we must confront and subdue. To do that, it’s increasingly clear we need an intense effort on the medical side, acceptance of public health measures, and system-wide cooperation. If we don’t get COVID-19 under control, we will not only let death walk amongst us unchallenged, but wreck our economy and our children’s future.</p><p>This is simply a truth. What is also a truth is that this is something Trump could not master. No virus ever succumbed to bluster, just as blunt force trauma is not universally effective as a negotiating strategy or in encouraging civic virtue.</p><p>As is appropriate in our system, eventually the voters get to choose. It is clear that Trump wanted to make the 2020 election about him, and he did. But in doing so, he assumed he could, once more, defy the laws of political gravity. Presidents are not just judged on demeanor and policy, but also how they handle crises. We did choose, and enough of us rejected his self-promotion as a sort of swashbuckling Albert Schweitzer to show him the general direction of the door.</p><p>This all seems a little unreal, both in the moment, and in hindsight. Against all odds, Joe Biden proved to be a serendipitous choice to face off against Trump’s unique skill set. I wasn’t thrilled with Biden’s entering into the nominating process. I thought him too old and too dated on policy, and I was desperate for Democrats to find new blood and resolve the disputes between the moderate and progressive wings of the Party. What’s more, while I wrote last September that Biden’s service had earned him the right to compete and that, like Lincoln, he was, in David Brooks’ phrase, “a very poor hater,” I questioned whether he could win the General Election with a candidacy that was based mostly on affect.</p><p>This was a fair concern. Biden was weak in the early primaries and, on the debate stage, he took attention from the other, more articulate and vigorous moderate candidates like Klobuchar, Harris, and Buttigieg. I feared his continued presence would splinter their support, while leaving Bernie and Warren clear shots at the nomination. This wasn’t what I wanted—the Left had passionate spokespeople; the Center needed a strong front-runner.</p><p>Then, a miracle and a nightmare. Representative Jim Clyburn stepped in with a critical endorsement, right before the South Carolina Primary, and Biden stomped the field. Centrist candidates dropped. A few days later, on Super Tuesday, Biden did it again. Then, hospitals (and mortuaries) in the Northeast began to fill up with victims of a disease that no one really seemed to understand.</p><p>Hindsight, as the virus now rips through states that were initially spared, is easy. Trump first saw COVID as a distraction from his central messaging, which was a steroidal mix of traditional Republican orthodoxy on economic and social issues, and a Pat-Buchannan-inspired, closed-fist approach to enforcing them. What is truly fascinating about Trump’s appeal (and what is indecipherable to Democrats) is how many of his supporters approach him as they would an all-you-can-eat barbeque. Take as much of the stuff as you like, skip the things you don’t, and go away happy. Trump, the long-time entertainer and casino-owner, instinctively understood it. Give the customer a thrill, and leave the moralizing to others.</p><p>Like it or not, it’s fair to say that, without COVID, Trump would have swaggered to reelection, while Democrats dithered and second-guessed one another about their search for the perfect mate. In light of Trump’s eternal quest for grievances, if I were he, I think I’d shake my fist at the sky. Jim Clyburn may have given him a weak-at-the-time opponent, but fate, and his own hubris, made that opponent formidable. Joe Biden won, convincingly, and Donald Trump lost, convincingly. As Larry Sabato tweeted,</p><blockquote><p>This was NOT an especially close election. #PresidentElectBiden won 306 EVs plus a 4-5 million-votes plurality. You want close? Look at 1960,1968,1976,2000, among others. NETWORKS—Stop feeding this false storyline.</p></blockquote><p>What’s next? Well, first we have to get through the thicket of Republican challenges and the toxicity of their language. Trump owns the GOP and few of its elected officials can chance not echoing the claims he makes. Both Lindsey Graham and Ron Johnson have promised investigations. There will be avid forum shopping to find Trump-favorable judges to issue Trump-favoring rulings, perhaps all the way up to the Supreme Court. But many Republicans privately acknowledge that this is being done largely to soothe Trump’s ego, and in their desire to delegitimize Biden and rough him up. The voters may have spoken, but nothing beyond common decency requires Republicans to acknowledge it, and there’s a shortage of that right now.</p><p>The noise may continue, but our Presidential-succession magic act will as well. A President at the end of his term goes into a box, a wand is waved, and another one comes out. Joe Biden will be inaugurated and the nuclear football will be passed to him. There are whispers that Trump will simply refuse to leave the White House. It won’t matter. Presidential power comes from the office, not from the place. Joe Biden will be President, and Donald Trump will not.</p><p>So, if you are Joe, what do you do when you actually get to sit in the big chair? You start by remembering that the Presidency is a unique blend of pastoral and policy initiatives. You do what he’s already signaled he is going to do: Aim right at COVID-19 with a laser focus, and give assistance without looking first as to whether or not the state voted for you. That’s an immediate break from the past, and a healing one. While you are doing that, rejoin the WHO as a sign that we will be reentering the world. Push out those Executive Orders to reverse Trump’s vandalism. Don’t waste time arguing about them, just do them.</p><p>Find a way for Kamala Harris to be relevant, and pick a quality Cabinet—people of ability with the intellectual capacity to be adaptive. Joe faces multiple crises at the same time, and he needs every type of help he can get. That kind of Cabinet starts with a superior Secretary of State, yet another signal to the world that America is ready to re-engage with them, applying a combination of open-mindedness and strength.</p><p>While Biden appointees are doing the spadework on the policy side, Joe truly is Commander-in Chief of the pastoral. Preach bipartisanship and comity on every issue. Make a legitimate effort to negotiate with Republicans over legislation—give them a chance, and some goodies.</p><p>Will Republicans accept this? Doubtful, at least at first. McConnell expects to resume his role as master obstructor, and Donald Trump is not going away, and will put their feet to the fire if there’s even a hint of “fraternizing with the enemy.”</p><p>This is where Joe’s backslapping may have to be with a slightly firmer touch. The limits of Executive Power have just been redefined by Trump, and those goalposts won’t be moved back all that easily. McConnell has created a minefield of conservative judges for any Democratic President, but many of them came out of the Federalist Society’s farm system, and have professed a belief in an Imperial Presidency. Of course, we expect some of them to be selective in their application of that belief, but most go-it-alone Biden moves will stand. A strong Chief of Staff and legislative aides can make that point to McConnell and McCarthy, while letting Biden float above the fray.</p><p>Then, after Joe has conquered the virus, and brought about world peace, there’s the Democratic Party. In an election where their candidate won the Presidency, their performance everywhere down-ballot ranged from poor to appalling. This, only two years after they had a terrific Midterm Election. There are reasons for this: Democrats have a blurred message, say a lot of scary stuff, and don’t seem to stand for very much beyond fighting with one another. Abby Spanberger (7th CD, Virginia) had it right when, on a conference call, she called leadership out for undercutting moderate incumbent Democrats, many of whom were Freshman in just won-for-the-first-time seats. This is something that needs to be fixed. If Democrats don’t get their act together, 2022 will be a bloodbath.</p><p>Biden should never get involved in intramural struggles between ideological wings, but he can help deliver a better farm system with well-chosen appointments that will elevate future candidates. And he can frame a message through his own policy choices. For far too long, Democrats have mouthed “we care,” without concrete proposals to show that care. Biden actually does care, and he should make it a priority.</p><p>And the GOP? There is a fantasy held by some liberals, and even some Never-Trumpers, that some type of evil spell has been cast upon the Party, and, when the King is dead, the curse will be lifted and they (and political life) will return to regular order. This is a fairy tale. I do believe many elected Republicans would prefer not to join in the excesses of the Trump Era, but they have, and they continue to do so. Trump has managed to create an entirely new army of voters (with whom he communicates constantly) to meld with the business and Evangelical wings of the Party. Voters mean winning elections, and those who put their integrity and principles in a blind trust for the duration are now faced with an uncomfortable truth: They have lost the Presidency, but not Trump. They still work for him. The Republican Party you see now <i>is </i>the Republican Party.</p><p>What’s the next chapter? First, the obvious. Trump will never genuinely concede, will never participate in any transition, and will do as much damage (and feather as many nests with public assets) as he can. Then, Joe, Kamala, and Company will get down to work. What people should realize right now is that a President’s success is every American’s success, and his/her failures are everyone’s failures. So, if you are a Democrat, and Joe is too moderate for your tastes, root for him to win anyway and support someone else in the 2024 primaries. And, if you are a Republican, indulge yourself in criticism, oppose him where you need to, but hope he can make some headway against our problems.</p><p>In closing, I’m going to quote from an email I got from a Millennial reader.</p><blockquote><p>All those with political power have demonstrated over the course of my entire life is their ability to get more and more vicious towards the other side—a dynamic, which, by 2020, has developed to the point of abject refusal to entertain the humanity and legitimacy of those you don’t agree with. And there are already too many people my age who have learned that lesson—to quote a former colleague of mine from a conversation a year ago, ‘some people are too evil to humanize.’ When the election was called yesterday afternoon, I was relieved Trump would no longer be President. After Biden’s acceptance speech, though, I began to be just a little bit hopeful that those in power might begin the process of disarming the conflict and governing together for the whole country.</p></blockquote><p>May it be so.</p><p>Biden Wins: American Passes the Marshmallow Test was first published on November 9, 2020 at </p><p>https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/11/biden-wins-america-passes-the-marshmallow-test.html</p><p>Please join and follow Syncopated Politics on Twitter @SyncPol</p>Moderate Moderatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08087980676992832997noreply@blogger.com