The FVA, the Constitution, the “Ryan Syndrome,” and the Filibuster: Part II

[If one intends to review this post, but has not yet read Part I (which is a bit below), I would start there.]

I noted in Part I of this post that in the latter part of October, all 50 Senate Republicans voted against commencing debate on the Freedom to Vote Act (the “FVA”), although the measure had been specifically designed by moderate Senate Democrats to garner bipartisan support. After the vote, MSNBC Commentator and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough professed puzzlement that moderate U.S. Senate Republicans such as Mitt Romney, Rob Portman, and Lisa Murkowski — Mr. Romney and Ms. Murkowski voted to convict former President Donald Trump in his Senate impeachment trial earlier this year — voted against even debating a measure intended to ensure and increase voter participation which all Americans, certainly all American legislators, should seemingly support. Mr. Scarborough suggested that American democracy may well depend upon the relative breadth of our citizens’ voting rights, a sentiment with which I agree. Although I was also initially perplexed by the obstructionist votes of that handful of Senate Republicans for whom I still hold a modicum of respect [including Messrs. Romney and Portman (who’s actually retiring in 2022) and Ms. Murkowski), I’ve decided that my expectations were misplaced. With due apologies to two eminent psychologists that follow these pages for having the temerity to venture into their field, I would venture that these Republican moderates have succumbed to what I consider the Ryan Syndrome.

All will recall the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, U.S. WI Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan has spent all of his adult life in the Republican cocoon. By all accounts highly intelligent, well-meaning and well-liked, possessing an unsurpassed command of public policy issues, between 2015 and 2018 Mr. Ryan nonetheless went from (1) sharply criticizing former President Donald Trump’s obviously racist campaign declarations and isolationist policies to (2) rationalizing Mr. Trump’s early overreaching conduct of the presidency to (3) bowing to his caucus’ political demands arising from Mr. Trump’s popularity with the Republican base instead of placing the Congressional check on Mr. Trump’s excesses that anyone of Mr. Ryan’s ability and demeanor would have understood was necessary to protect our constitutional framework to (4) buckling under entirely by resigning the Speakership and his House seat. His reward for his Republican constancy: he sits on the Board of Directors of Fox Corporation, owner of the Fox News Channel and the Fox broadcast network. He received an appointment to lecture at Notre Dame University. He moved his family to Washington, D.C. in 2019. He is undoubtedly welcome at all Republican gatherings and continues the relationships with all of the conservatives that he established over a lifetime. He did not betray his compatriots. He still belongs.

No state has found substantive evidence of voter fraud that materially affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. Given such lack of evidence, one can reasonably infer from the concerted efforts of Republican organizations in multiple states to limit voter rights and opportunities that these organizations have determined that if all legally authorized voters cast ballots, it portends significantly diminished Republican influence. The purposes of these voting measures are political and partisan, nothing more.

Mr. Romney and Ms. Murkowski, as most are aware, are children of former Republican Governors. Mr. Portman began working on Republican congressional campaigns right out of college, in the late 1970s. For those that have spent lifetimes enmeshed in Republican party politics, it seems likely that all of their friends are Republicans. The vast majority of their social events are presumably hosted and attended by Republicans. They live in the Republican Party cocoon. I would pose that it might be one thing for some Republican Senate moderates to have voted to convict Mr. Trump on the impeachment charges brought by the House earlier this year – one gets the impression that the Republican Senators voting to convict have been cut some slack within the caucus, since all even somewhat sane Republicans including Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly intensely dislike Mr. Trump, don’t consider him “one of them,” recognize that he did indeed incite insurrection, and find him a disgrace to the country and their party – but it might be an entirely different matter within the Republican tribe for these Republican moderates to vote for a measure that the GOP believes will threaten its influence – and could cost some of their friends their jobs. Speaking of what he called the “Loyalty Foundation” in American politics, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt observed in The Righteous Mind: “The love of loyal teammates is matched by a corresponding hatred of traitors, who are usually considered to be far worse than enemies.” Particularly if one has sincere misgivings about substantive Democratic Party policies – these are Republicans, after all — how likely is one to vote for a measure that seems destined to result in the implementation of policies in which you do not believe and to end the careers of a number of your friends? Ex-Republican Mr. Scarborough has his new MSNBC buddies to talk to; who is going to talk to you if you do that? The Democrats? You’ll be a pariah.

I do not suggest that Congressional Democrats, having been raised in a corresponding cocoon, would perform any differently if the country’s demographic tendencies were reversed. In these moderate Republicans’ places, I hope I would do better, but am not sure that I would. Human frailty is reality. To protect itself, a government needs to account and compensate for it. Speaking as “Publius” in Federalist No. 51, James Madison wrote, “In framing a government … the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

I have in the past voiced support for the Senate filibuster while expressing exasperation for the manner in which Republicans led by Mr. McConnell have wielded it for purely partisan purposes. Most of the federal laws that have had an enduring beneficial effect in our nation’s history have either been passed (or at least ultimately accepted) on a bipartisan basis. I have been and remain concerned that in such a closely-divided and hyper-partisan political environment, whatever can be done by simple majority can just as easily be undone by a simple majority. In a recent email, a good friend called me a “‘rule of law’ guy,” which I consider a compliment. At the same time, he quoted French classic liberal Frédéric Bastiat, who declared in the first half of the nineteenth century: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Lacking M. Bastiat’s breadth or eloquence, what has occurred to me, as I have watched Republicans thwart voting rights safeguards that I have come to believe are our best protection against autocracy, is more prosaic: that Republicans have abandoned the principles that appear today in virtually every significant commercial contract but are scarce present in the Constitution: reasonableness and good faith. (There is only a reference to “unreasonable” searches and seizures in the Fourth Amendment. The phrase, “good faith,” does not appear in the Constitution. The document does have references to federal offices being of public “trust,” but to me that is not the same thing.) In the same manner that the Constitution’s drafters could not conceive of nationwide media, air travel, or that important men in Congress [by definition, if you were in Congress in those days, you were already important, and male ;)], would cede their branch’s prerogatives to the President, they – the same or collaborators of the men who when signing the Declaration of Independence had pledged to each other their “lives,” “fortunes,” and “sacred honor” – could not fathom that national representatives would endanger the system of government that they had risked their lives to establish over petty partisan politics; that members of Congress would need a Constitutional reminder and admonition to act “reasonably and in good faith” to protect the republic.

It is clear that Republicans will not act in good faith, even to protect our democracy. Accordingly, the Senate filibuster must be discarded, at least insofar as it prevents the passage of a law containing the voting rights safeguards set forth in the FVA. While I would prefer that Democrats find a rational way to fashion a carve-out for voting rights legislation without entirely scuttling the filibuster, if such is not feasible (How many carve-outs to a rule can one create before the rule is effectively vitiated?), so be it; then the filibuster must go. (Winston Churchill once remarked, “Conservative policy is essentially a tentative policy, a look-before-you-leap policy, and it is a policy of don’t leap at all if there is a ladder.” By exploiting a legislative mechanism to seek to limit the voting rights of those with whom they disagree, Republicans have taken away the ladder underpinning the filibuster.) One might question, given the concern I expressed in Part I of this note — that Republican state legislators in some states may well be driven to use every Constitutional loophole in order to select presidential electors that will vote for the Republican presidential candidate notwithstanding their state’s contrary popular vote totals — whether I am confident that the benefits of any voting rights bill will withstand such nefarious intent. Candidly; I’m not sure; but taking all possible steps to secure free and fair voting rights for all of our citizens seems to offer our republic’s most robust available safeguard.

On the McAuliffe-Youngkin Virginia Gubernatorial Race

At this point, it take no political prescience to predict that Republican Virginian Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has a good chance to defeat his Democratic opponent, former Virginia Governor and longtime Clinton aide Terry McAuliffe, in Tuesday’s Virginia Gubernatorial race. The polling trends currently favor Mr. Youngkin; in a state particularly influenced by national politics, Mr. McAuliffe’s fortunes cannot help but be affected by President Joe Biden’s dropping favorability ratings, that Congressional Democrats currently don’t look like they can run a two-car funeral, and the inevitable voter backlash immediately following presidential elections against whichever party then occupies the White House. I would suggest that there is, also, the visceral. Looking at pictures of Messrs. Youngkin and McAuliffe, an observation occurred to me from one of the blizzard of books I have read over the years describing the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign: that in an era when Americans were migrating from the east to the west coast, and so many seemingly marvelous new things were being advertised and brought to the American people – televisions, dishwashers, automatic vehicle transmissions, instant coffee ;), toothpastes with new and improved formulas to make one’s teeth gleam – John Kennedy – exuding vigor and a bright smile as contrasted with the old, bald men of both parties who had run the country for decades — was aligned with America’s aspirations as he proclaimed a New Frontier, that we needed to get the country moving again … while Richard Nixon was in effect left to argue that the old ways were still good.

The reaction of someone very close to me, when looking at a picture of Mr. McAuliffe, was that he “looked tired.” Mr. Youngkin – who, from a handicapping standpoint, has seemingly done a good job maintaining Trumplicans’ support without embracing former President Donald Trump in a way that antagonizes and energizes those Virginians who detest Mr. Trump – looks young and vital. I consider President Bill Clinton the best pure politician of my lifetime; one of his most-quoted observations is, “Campaigns are about the future.” Putting aside the fact that if a Virginian, I would most certainly vote for Mr. McAuliffe, to me he looks like yesterday.

The FVA, the Constitution, the “Ryan Syndrome,” and the Filibuster: Part I

A bit lost in the reporting on the Democrats’ continued infrastructure dithering was the October 20 vote by all 50 Senate Republicans against commencing debate on The Freedom to Vote Act (my acronym: the “FVA”), a voting rights measure that U.S. MN Sen. Amy Klobuchar, U.S. WV Sen. Joe Manchin, and other Democratic and Independent Senators drafted specifically to attract bipartisan support for federal electoral reform. A link to a summary of the bill set forth on Ms. Klobuchar’s Senate website (that in turn provides a link to the almost-600-page text of the bill itself, of which I confess that I have only read Title III, Subsection A, which restricts states’ right to remove their local administrators of federal elections) is attached below. Among other things, the measure would make Election Day a public holiday, provide for uniformity in voter registration, state voter registration administration and voting procedures, increase security for cast ballots, and require disclosure of “Secret Money” contributed to campaigns. It would also prohibit partisan interference or control of local election officials in the conduct of their federal election responsibilities and require states to engage in nonpartisan congressional redistricting. Seemingly noncontroversial stuff – if one ignores the decade-long nationwide Republican Party efforts at state partisan gerrymandering, and, more recently, to restrict voter access and to take legislative control over federal election results they don’t like.

Again, the Senate vote wasn’t upon the bill’s passage, but merely upon whether it could be debated.

https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/9/klobuchar-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-protect-freedom-to-vote-and-strengthen-our-democracy

After taking Constitutional Law in law school, I spent no time – zero — in the area during my legal career, so there are undoubtedly a number of legal eyes — and, I suspect, a number of eyes that who don’t have legal degrees 😉 – reading these pages who know a bunch more about Congress’ authority to regulate federal elections than I do. Its power appears fairly straightforward in some respects, in others perhaps not as obvious as media reports imply. A link to “The Scope of Congressional Authority in Election Administration,” a report issued by the United States General Accounting Office (the “GAO”) to Congress four months following the Bush/Gore 2000 presidential election, is immediately below. I don’t claim that this is the best or most current authority – merely that it is most pertinent that I located ;).

Click to access gao-01-470.pdf

Two parts of the Constitution seem of particular import:

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 [known as the “Elections Clause”]:

“The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing [sic] Senators.”

Article II, Section 1, Clauses 1-3:

“[A] President of the United States … shall … be elected, as follows: Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress …. The Congress may determine the Time of chusing [sic] the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

One doesn’t need a legal degree to see that Congress’ Constitutionally-prescribed power under the Elections Clause to regulate the elections of Senators and Representatives is broader than its stated authority to regulate presidential elections under Article II. As the GAO noted in its report, “At the time of the Constitution’s adoption in 1787, general elections for President were not contemplated. The Constitution provides, instead, for the election of the President by electors appointed by each state. The state legislatures are empowered to direct the manner in which the electors shall be appointed, and all 50 states and the District of Columbia, in turn, currently provide that presidential electors be elected by popular vote.”

In its report, the GAO cites a number of United States Supreme Court opinions regarding Congress’ power to regulate federal elections. The two arguably of most interest, Smiley v. Holm (1932) and Burroughs v. United States (1934), ironically issued by Courts whose members would later be railed against by President Franklin Roosevelt for curmudgeonly finding unconstitutional various New Deal measures, each strongly upheld Congress’ right to supersede the states’ power to administer federal elections. While the holding in Smiley, dealing with reapportionment of congressional districts, was perhaps not surprising given Article I’s straightforward text regarding Congress’ right to “amend” states’ regulations affecting congressional elections, the Court’s holding in Burroughs was textually a longer stretch. The petitioners in Burroughs alleged that given the narrower scope of authority over presidential elections granted to Congress in Article II, the federal law under which they had been convicted of conspiracy could not be properly applied to their use of funds to influence the election of a state’s presidential electors. As the GAO indicated in its Report, the Court found such a narrow a view of Congressional power “without warrant.” The GAO quotes the Court as adding:

“To say that Congress is without power to pass appropriate legislation to safeguard [a presidential] election from the improper use of money to influence the result is to deny to the nation in a vital particular the power of self-protection. Congress, undoubtedly, possess that power, as it possesses every other power essential to preserve the departments and institutions of the general government from impairment or destruction, whether threatened by force or by corruption.”

Reasonable? Certainly. In the one part of the ponderous FVA that I have read – limiting statewide election authorities’ power to override local elections officials – the FVA’s drafters went out of their way to assert that Article I’s Elections Clause grants Congress broad power over administration of “Federal Elections.” The Elections Clause actually only authorizes Congress’ power over Congressional Elections. I’ve previously suggested in these pages that the Trump presidency demonstrated that at this point in our history, it is the character of the President, not the power of Congress, that is our bulwark against autocracy. Given Congress’ more limited Constitutionally-described powers with regard to presidential elections, taken together with the fact that the Supreme Court specifically declared that the statute it upheld in Burroughs did not “… in purpose or effect … interfere with the power of a state to appoint electors or the manner in which their appointment shall be made,” how confident are you today, with the conservative literalists sitting on the Supreme Court, that the Court would uphold a federal law insofar as it was cited as authority to limit a State’s administration and assessment of the outcome of its presidential election, and reject that State’s claim that such federal law violated the state’s Constitutional right for its legislature to appoint its presidential electors in the manner of its legislature’s choosing?

This is long enough. I’ll repeat the above caveat: I was never a constitutional lawyer. I would welcome the guidance of anyone who can cite authority placing Congress’ authority to regulate presidential elections on firmer ground than suggested here, and/or the reassurance of anyone who is confident that I’m being paranoid.

The “Ryan Syndrome” and the Filibuster in Part II.

Anecdotal Reactions to Democrats’ Human Infrastructure Machinations

My frustration with the Democrats’ machinations over human infrastructure is increasing exponentially, and recently caused me to rip off the email set forth immediately below – admittedly not of the tone I generally try to maintain in these pages — to a few friends that tend to be more progressive than I am:

“Put [a]side whether or not the “Human Infrastructure” bill that Progressives are pushing, and its final size, is a good or bad thing. What they’re missing is: for the future of democracy, it doesn’t matter. Those that hatch all these conspiracy theories and the whackos that believe them aren’t going to be dissuaded by benefit structures. If Democrats had any sense, they’d pass a measure all could agree on, call it a victory (which, compared to where we’ve been, it will be), and focus on voting rights. That’s where our system will be lost or perhaps (only, “perhaps”) preserved. I’m very concerned … “

The responses were instructive:

“… The Human Infrastructure bill … matters in the sense that if the Democrats are trying to motivate all their voters they need to pass it to show the Progressives that voting with the Democrats can lead to progress on their agenda. … You are right the “wackos” aren’t going to be dissuaded by benefit structures nor will the denial of those benefit structures dissuade them. … I do agree that the final size is probably of less importance. … I agree that the voting rights bill is even more critical to our whole system of government and that’s where our system will be lost or perhaps (only, “perhaps”) preserved. The real battle will be over voting rights and the end of the filibuster necessary to protect those rights. … I am very worried.”

Another:

“My anxiety is growing (again) as well. … We are careening. Take the $1T infrastructure, take the $?T lowest common denominator of everything else and move on. Means test it. Roll back some of the Trump tax cuts as ways to reduce deficit and inflationary pressures. Seems obvious to us centrists. Indicates that “democrats” are not one party. The only unifying principle is ‘Never Trump.’ They need to boil up some statesmanship and act for the good of the country.”

Another:

“I agree completely. While sympathetic to the Progressive agenda, I’d tell them, look…the cold hard truth is that we simply don’t have the votes to pass what you want. You can piss and moan about that and not vote at the mid-terms, but be prepared for the dire consequences of that action. Plus, the orange Godzilla monster is going to follow that up 2 years later and you’ll really know what hell is.”

TLOML is in an exercise group composed of women who are all progressively inclined. She advises that a recent discussion indicates that all of these women are exasperated by progressives’ intransigence and unwillingness to face reality. They want what is doable to be done.

From this small and obviously anecdotal sample, I would suggest that Congressional Progressives are fighting for principle when the majority of those sympathetic to their views are willing to compromise in order to actually achieve … progress. While one can sympathize with Progressives’ annoyance with moderate Democrats’ objections to some parts of their human infrastructure proposal – U.S. WV Sen. Joe Manchin’s objections to certain of the measure’s climate-protection provisions, while understandable for a coal state representative, are perhaps particularly galling — it’s time for them to agree on infrastructure bills, pass them, declare victory, and move on.

To borrow the arresting phrase of a wise [at least, when he agrees with me ;)] man: Democrats need to start focusing on the prospect of the resurrection of the orange Godzilla monster. Yet, there’s scant indication, based upon their internecine antics to date, that they appreciate that their dithering may be paving hell’s way.

On the Politics of the Debt Ceiling

Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, I have been disinclined to write much about politics, being painfully cognizant that there will be ample opportunity to expound in that theater beginning, unfortunately, in January and continuing right through to the next presidential inauguration. (While I recently noted in these pages that a sizeable minority of our citizens is clearly willing to ignore truth, to cast aside democratic norms, and to establish an American Apartheid, I consider this a substantive domestic threat, no longer a political issue.) Even so, I indulge here: the President’s and Congressional Democrats’ recent thrashings, apparently attempting to get significant Republican support to raise the debt ceiling, are a waste of time and energy.

Put aside the catastrophic effect on our and the world’s economy that a U.S. default would cause – a loss of credibility from which, in my view, we would never fully recover. (Today, our defensive strength is our military apparatus; but our offensive strength is our economic power — our ability to assert our will across global financial systems). Put aside the fact that all who care are aware that we need to raise the debt ceiling to pay for obligations already incurred through measures supported by members of both parties. Put aside the fact that the debt ceiling has been raised numerous times under presidents of both parties, generally on a bipartisan basis. Even put aside that we shouldn’t have a law setting a debt ceiling: the Constitution doesn’t call for one; most advanced nations reportedly don’t have one; and politicians of both parties have long since given up any real concern about escalating deficits. We are where we are.

The Democrats should devote all of their efforts to raising the debt ceiling via their own means — through the Senate reconciliation process, a carve-out to the Senate’s filibuster rules, or by whatever other legislative maneuver best serves the purpose. As my mother would say, it is as plain as the nose on your face: The Republicans have no good faith. They have no interest in doing the responsible thing if they believe that acting irresponsibly will gain them political advantage. If the President and Congressional Democrats can’t see that by now, the only positive point one can still make about them is that they remain a better alternative than President Trump and a Senator Mitch McConnell-led Congress — the faintest, most backhanded praise imaginable.

The good news for Democrats: Independents and sensible Republican citizens offended by their nominal party’s reactionary spasms — the groups that decide elections in swing jurisdictions, and ultimately, the balance of power in our country – understand that the debt ceiling needs to be raised. Democrats can easily cast aside any Republican harrumphing; Republican claims will have no legs with pivotal voter segments. On the other hand, if through legislative hand-wringing the Democrats, despite their control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, do allow a default to occur, the decisive voting blocs will hold them responsible for the default and the ensuing consequences – in my view, justifiably.

One of former President Ronald Reagan’s favorite stories was about a psychologist who tried to cure a patient’s undue optimism by leading him to a room filled with horse manure. The President would relate that instead of being dismayed, the optimist jumped right into the manure pile and started digging. When the psychologist asked the optimist what he was doing, Mr. Reagan, grinning, would deliver the optimist’s reply: “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere.”

Mr. President, Madam Speaker, and Mr. Senate Majority Leader: when it comes to the overwhelming majority of Congressional Republicans on the vast majority of issues facing this country, there is no pony. In this case, doing what the Republicans decry won’t even have meaningful political repercussions. Hopefully, you have already started the motions to take whatever legislative steps are necessary to raise the debt ceiling.

Get it done.

[Late note: in fairness to Democrats, since this was scheduled to run, there are reports indicating that they understand their need to act unilaterally to raise the debt ceiling, and are considering a carve-out to the Senate filibuster rules to achieve the goal. If that is indeed the route they take, Republicans may find that their intransigence on this easy debt ceiling issue was too smart by half; once Democrats cross the threshold of tinkering with filibuster carve-outs, it might become easier for those Democratic Senators, heretofore reluctant to change Senate rules, to abide a carve-out to the filibuster to allow the passage of laws protecting the integrity of federal elections.]

On the Quest for an American Apartheid

Earlier this week, I entered a link in these pages to Robert Kagan’s September 23, 2021, Washington Post essay, “Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here.” There, Mr. Kagan wrote in part:

“Trump is different, which is one reason the political system has struggled to understand, much less contain, him. The American liberal worldview tends to search for material and economic explanations for everything, and no doubt a good number of Trump supporters have grounds to complain about their lot in life. But their bond with Trump has little to do with economics or other material concerns. They believe the U.S. government and society have been captured by socialists, minority groups and sexual deviants. They see the Republican Party establishment as corrupt and weak — ‘losers,’ to use Trump’s word, unable to challenge the reigning liberal hegemony. They view Trump as strong and defiant, willing to take on the establishment, Democrats, RINOs, liberal media, antifa, the Squad, Big Tech and the ‘Mitch McConnell Republicans.’ His charismatic leadership has given millions of Americans a feeling of purpose and empowerment, a new sense of identity.”

While Mr. Kagan spent much of his piece focusing on the dangers to our system of government presented by former President Donald Trump and his nationwide network of Republican acolytes, in the passage above he referenced what I consider to be the primary source of our danger: us. We are no longer, as we were taught in the Pledge of Allegiance, “One nation … indivisible.” United States citizens have two wildly divergent and deeply engrained inclinations as to what makes America. Speaking in generalizations, one segment — demographically older, white, professed Christian, sexually straight, English-speaking, and more rural in outlook — views America to be the product of traditional American ethnicities, customs, cultural experience, and memory; the other segment — younger, multi-complexioned, multi-theistic/atheistic, multi-lingual, multi-sexual and -gender, and more urban, with relatively lesser regard for traditional American experience and memory – views America as a system of government providing each individual the freedom, within the purview of the safety of the body politic, to not conform to traditional American customs and values.

What makes America … America?

If any reader of these pages is willing to review a volume s/he may well find abhorrent, I would recommend State of Emergency, written by former Republican Presidential Candidate Patrick Buchanan in 2006. Mr. Buchanan, who worked in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan White Houses, is – although reportedly called out for bigotry during his career by conservative commentators William F. Buckley, Jr. and Charles Krauthammer – both fluent and unquestionably knowledgeable about American history and policy. State of Emergency is primarily an assault on what Mr. Buchanan perceived as an unhealthy influx of Mexicans into American society. It is a book that Mr. Trump, if he knew history, would have conceived; if he could write, would have written. My familiarity with alt-right theorists isn’t that wide, but Mr. Buchanan’s candidacies were in retrospect clearly forerunners of Mr. Trump’s, and in State of Emergency he set forth what may be among the most articulate expression of the theories underlying what has become Trumpism:

“[Patriotism] is a passionate attachment to one’s own country – its land, its people, its past, its heroes, literature, language, traditions, culture, and customs. … There is a rival view … that America is a different kind of nation. Unlike Ireland, Italy, or Israel, the United States is not held together by the bonds of history and memory, tradition and custom, language and literature, birth and faith, blood and soil [Note: “Blood and Soil” was a Nazi slogan]. Rather, America is a creedal nation, united by a common commitment of all her citizens to a set of ideas and ideals. … Demonstrably, this is false. Human beings are not blank slates. Nor can they be easily separated from the abiding attachments of the tribe, race, nation, culture, community whence they came. Any man or any woman, of any color or creed, can be a good American. We know that from our history. But when it comes to the ability to assimilate into a nation like the United States, all nationalities, creeds, and cultures are not equal. To say that they are is ideology speaking, not judgment born of experience. … Should America lose her ethnic-cultural core and become a nation of nations, America will not survive.”

There are, ironically, corresponding echoes of Mr. Buchanan’s comments in Mr. Kagan’s essay:

“Most Trump supporters are good parents, good neighbors and solid members of their communities. Their bigotry, for the most part, is typical white American bigotry, perhaps with an added measure of resentment and a less filtered mode of expression since Trump arrived on the scene. But these are normal people in the sense that they think and act as people have for centuries. They put their trust in family, tribe, religion and race. Although jealous in defense of their own rights and freedoms, they are less concerned about the rights and freedoms of those who are not like them. That, too, is not unusual. What is unnatural is to value the rights of others who are unlike you as much as you value your own.

…

The events of Jan. 6 … proved that Trump and his most die-hard supporters are prepared to defy constitutional and democratic norms, just as revolutionary movements have in the past. While it might be shocking to learn that normal, decent Americans can support a violent assault on the Capitol, it shows that Americans as a people are not as exceptional as their founding principles and institutions. Europeans who joined fascist movements in the 1920s and 1930s were also from the middle classes. No doubt many of them were good parents and neighbors, too. People do things as part of a mass movement that they would not do as individuals, especially if they are convinced that others are out to destroy their way of life [Emphasis Added].”

I infer from some passages in Mr. Kagan’s column that he considers regular Trump supporters — if not the arguably more sophisticated and partisan Republican Party officialdom — credulous, and to actually believe Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud; he left at least me with the impression that he thinks that if regular Trump supporters understood the truth, they’d begrudgingly accept the will of the majority even if they disagreed with it. If that is indeed his view, I am less sanguine. I would suggest that the majority of regular Trump supporters are simply choosing to indulge in the self-delusion of a fraudulent electoral process because it enables them to rationalize the anti-democratic steps they are either taking or condoning; that in their deepest recesses, the majority do know that Mr. Trump lost, and – much more importantly – have come to viscerally grasp that if our nation’s current demographic and political trends continue unchecked, what they consider America to be (in Mr. Buchanan’s phrase, “bonds of history and memory, tradition and custom, language and literature, birth and faith, blood and soil”) will fade away.

To Mr. Kagan, “… the American experiment in republican democracy requires … what the Framers meant by ‘republican virtue,’ a love of freedom not only for oneself but also as an abstract, universal good; a love of self-government as an ideal; a commitment to abide by the laws passed by legitimate democratic processes … ”

To Mr. Buchanan, America is as he quoted Framer John Jay from Federalist No. 2: “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs …”

I’ve previously noted in these pages that William Galston reported in Anti-Pluralism that Mr. Trump himself indicated in a speech in May, 2016, that “The only important thing is the unification of the people. [T]he other people don’t mean anything [Emphasis Added].”

It has become cliché that the voter suppression measures being enacted by cooperative Republican-controlled state legislatures and the current dust-ups in various states about alleged 2020 election fraud aren’t, despite Mr. Trump’s protestations, about the 2020 outcome, but rather to limit opposition voter turnout, lay a foundation of doubt about the veracity of our electoral processes, and have in place the mechanisms (state legislative overrides; friendly election officials; sympathetic judges) to avert any 2022 and 2024 electoral outcomes that Mr. Trump and his followers don’t like. (They must have realized the need for these latter official safeguards given the determinative number of Independents and traditional Republicans that voted against Mr. Trump in 2020.) Trumplicans have come to recognize that if all legally authorized voters cast ballots, they will lose significantly more than they win – either now, or in the foreseeable future. They don’t believe that “constitutional and democratic norms,” to use Mr. Kagan’s phrase, constitute America. Their measures are intended to save their America of (paraphrasing Mr. Jay) ancestry, language, religion, manner and custom.

Most of us have some background regarding South African Apartheid, which prevailed in some form from about 1910 until the early 1990s, most virulently starting in the late 1940s. My own information was limited to an understanding that it was legalized subjugation by a small white minority (about 15% of the population) over the significant black majority (85%). One of the theories for the institution of Apartheid, according to “The Origins of Apartheid” by the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, is that white Afrikaner Nationalists “feared that the Afrikaner’s very existence was threatened by the mass of Africans that confronted them in South Africa;” and that this fear resulted in “a range of laws that were passed … to preserve this ‘God-given’ Afrikaner identity [Emphasis Added].” In “The Evolution and Fall of the South African Apartheid State: A Political Economy Perspective,” John M. Luiz wrote, “[In 1948 the manifesto of the National Party (NP)] was that of apartheid and Afrikaner empowerment … [S]oon after coming into power, the government put into operation a three-pronged strategy designed to further the interests of Afrikaner nationalism. … The government set about Afrikanerising [sic] every state institution by appointing Afrikaners to every level of the civil service, state corporations, and security forces.”

No one that reads these pages will be a bit surprised that I am most comfortable with traditional norms. Although I’ve been told by someone very close to me that I am privileged, I feel no guilt about being who I am. In my estimation, the so-called “Woke” frequently overreact, sometimes grossly so. That said, I subscribe to the view that America is a creedal nation; that it should be governed through a system that pursues the will of a majority of its citizens who are all able to vote under an impartially-administered set of fair rules, while at the same time furnishing sufficient safeguards for the civic and human rights of the minority. I fear that those sympathetic to Mr. Trump and the actions of his acolytes think otherwise. While I concede that many Trump supporters are seeking to protect what they view as America, a significant number seem unfazed by the prospect that preserving their America may involve the suppression of the will of a peaceful, multi-complexioned and -faceted majority of U.S. citizens. Although I suspect that most would recoil if confronted with the notion, they are either actively or passively on a quest to establish an American Apartheid.

Our Constitutional Crisis is Already Here

Although most who care may already be aware, attached is a link to an essay by Robert Kagan that ran in the Washington Post on September 23, 2021. I consider it at once the most important and disturbing opinion piece that I can remember. I remarked in a note a while back that I thought former President Donald Trump was “more than a bit spent”; Mr. Kagan has most assuredly caused me to rethink that notion. If you have access to the Post, I hope you will bring it up without delay; if you don’t, I most strongly urge you to find a way to to review it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Things That Make You Go, “HMMM.”

I’m channeling my inner Arsenio Hall.

Make no mistake: I haven’t lost sight of the fact that President Joe Biden, by his willingness to run for the most challenging office in the world at an age more than a decade older than most people – including me — retire, showed a level of selflessness and patriotism we’ve rarely seen in our public officials in recent years. Mr. Biden is a good man. I remain thrilled that he is in the White House. That said, for an Administration whose primary foreign policy pledge has been closer cooperation with allies, it’s been Amateur Hour.

Put aside whether our decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was correct; I don’t think so; many do. It was Mr. Biden’s call; he’s the President of the United States. What is becoming apparent is that the allies who got embroiled in the Middle East quagmire 20 years ago because of a grotesquely misguided series of decisions by former President George W. Bush felt inadequately consulted and little considered by our decision to so abruptly withdraw. This seems an unnecessary error in allied relations.

As I’ve already lamented in these pages, it was pretty darn clear to anyone who read any credible news accounts on Taliban activity in Afghanistan during 2020 and 2021 that it was pretty darn likely that Afghanistan was going to fall to the Taliban almost the minute we withdrew. In fact, it fell to the Taliban before we withdrew, and it was only under its auspices that we were able to get a lot of Americans and our collaborators out. To not anticipate that such a precipitous Taliban takeover was at least a possibility, and plan for it, I find a disconcerting oversight on the part of the Administration’s foreign policy team.

Perhaps the most glaring: The grievous insult to France recently perpetrated by the announcement of our AUKUS arrangement with Australia and the United Kingdom. I think the arrangement itself – providing nuclear-powered submarines to Australia to help it patrol waters in which China has been increasingly aggressive – is exactly the type of step we need to be taking as we adjust our foreign policy to fit current realities. That said, anybody with a shred of sense – and Mr. Biden’s foreign policy team is supposed to be comprised of professionals – should have seen that in not being advised and mollified in some fashion before it was announced that they were losing a $60 billion submarine contract with the Australians, the French would feel outraged and humiliated. French President Emmanuel Macron, in tight political competition with right wing political groups sympathetic to Russia that we do not want to see take control of France, was belittled. It is reported that Biden Administration National Security Advisor Jake Sherman was aware of all of the AUKUS machinations as they were occurring. Whether he was or not, this was a stunning unforced blunder.

In a separate vein, I am mystified by Congressional Progressives’ indications that they will withhold their support from the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package already passed in the Senate unless Democrats also pass most or all of the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” package currently under their consideration. Since no Republican support is expected for the human infrastructure package, its passage it will require the support of all Senate Democrats and virtually all House Democrats, moderates as well as Progressives. If I thought that Progressives’ thundering was merely posturing, it wouldn’t bother me; as it is, I am concerned that some of the self-righteous among them may actually be serious. If so, I would suggest that their harrumphing is akin to someone who threatens to jump off a roof unless others do what he wants. Progressives should take whatever they can get on human infrastructure, and be satisfied. It seems that too many continue to be oblivious that the majority of our citizenry – not only Republicans, but moderate Democrats and many Independents (including me) — have misgivings about the scope and extent of some of their policy aims; and that while their seats are mostly not imperiled by seeking the moon, many moderate Democrats’ seats will be at risk if the party is seen as acting too rashly, and the Democrats could end up forfeiting control of Congress to Republicans. What will happen to their priorities then? If Progressives indeed scuttle a bipartisan infrastructure bill that has widespread public support because they can’t get a number of initiatives that a significant segment of our people, correctly or incorrectly, have sincere question about, they deserve their fate.

Unless I’ve missed it, the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients remains uncertain as parties’ Congressional delegations wrangle over wider immigration reform. For years, there has been widespread support, including among the Republican electorate, for granting these young(er) people, who were brought here illegally in their youth, a path to permanent legal status. I believe that the House of Representatives has already passed a measure to safeguard DACA recipients. Every minute Democratic Senate leadership delays, a law becomes more difficult, since immigration will undoubtedly be a contentious issue in the 2022 campaign. I don’t understand why that leadership doesn’t put a simple bill on the Senate floor, requiring all Senators to vote, designed to secure legal status for these blameless individuals. Either the DACA recipients get protection or the Democrats get an emotive issue. My guess: it would pass.

Finally, a good friend asked me recently why I haven’t posted on the Packers. I never watch preseason games, and I missed the 38-3 debacle while we were vacationing, so my first look at the team was last Monday night’s victory over the Detroit Lions. Green Bay seemed a long way from a Super Bowl champion to me. Granting that one of its primary rushing threats, Za’Darius Smith, was absent, the defense was underwhelming, and I don’t think that the team can maintain a championship offense with only meaningful production from Quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Running Back Aaron Jones (who will tire without the assistance of his former backup, Jamaal Williams), and Wide Receiver Davante Adams. Hopefully, I’ll prove to be sadly mistaken. Either way, Packer games will provide a wonderful distraction from the other issues we face.

Channeling my inner Mr. Hall was a good way to end the week ;). Have a nice weekend.

Vacation Impressions

We just spent a week touring the eastern part of Wisconsin – some of which, despite its proximity to our residence in Madison, we hadn’t visited since our honeymoon, 45 years ago. It was a wonderful trip. (I’m our trip planner, and like George Peppard’s fictional John “Hannibal” Smith of the 1980s television series, The A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together.) Amid a lot of fun and interesting sights and experiences, a few impressions linger.

Whether it be as a result of the additional federal $300 weekly stimulus payment which just ended in Wisconsin, workers’ fear of contracting COVID, their assumption of new occupations during the pandemic quarantine period, or otherwise, a significant percentage of pre-COVID hospitality workers have not returned to their jobs at northeastern Wisconsin hotels and restaurants. Hotel housekeeping services are provided upon request rather than as a matter of course. Restaurant service is a little slower than one would expect in some establishments, abysmal in others. “We can’t find anyone” was a common plaint, particularly in Door County (for those from outside the Badger State: that’s the beautiful and heavily-toured part of the Wisconsin that juts northeast into Lake Michigan). In a tale of dueling mixologists: in one town, a genial dispenser of spirits bemoaned others’ unwillingness to work; in another, an equally genial bartender opined that the shortage wasn’t for lack of willing workers, but because employers weren’t willing to pay staff what they should. My general sense was that the proprietors of many of the businesses we visited were eager to pay anything remotely within reason to get additional help. Whatever its cause, we will soon see whether the hospitality staffing shortage recedes as benefit checks end and more of the vaccine-hesitant get their shots. If not, it may require a significant shift in expectations for hotel and restaurant patrons in some parts of Wisconsin and the nation.

One of our stops was in the historic, quaint, and decidedly well-to-do town of Cedarburg, just north of Milwaukee. At one point during the pandemic, the local authorities apparently instituted a mask mandate, but at this point, the town has adopted an honor system. Almost every shop had a sign such as, “No need to wear a mask if you are vaccinated,” or “Please wear a mask if you are not vaccinated.” Since TLOML is the shopper and I am simply her escort, it gave me time to chat with sales people about how they had fared when they had in a sense been required to enforce a mask mandate. One woman told me that Cedarburg “is very closely divided [politically], which made it very difficult for us.” Another: “It gave me PTSD. I actually hated to see customers come through the door. If they institute another mandate, I’m closing rather than deal with the abuse.” Another – from a charming, white-haired woman: “When I asked a well-dressed older man to put a mask on, he screamed at me and called me, ‘A F*****g Nazi.’ My heart was still beating fast an hour after he left.”

Too many of us have lost our sense of decorum. While former President Donald Trump clearly provided certain personalities the license to act out, they still have to take responsibility for their own behavior. Although I have a fiery Irish side and have made it difficult for more than one salesperson in my lifetime [sometimes with good reason; sometimes, in retrospect, perhaps not ;)], I cannot rationalize making a salesperson’s life difficult when anyone with the slightest sense of awareness should understand that the clerk is simply trying to abide by the law. Anyone that reads these pages is aware that I support vaccine and mask mandates, and seriously question the sense of those that contest them. Even so, if one is going to get angry about a mandate, go yell at those that imposed it.

Finally, we have literally traveled Interstate 94 between Madison and Milwaukee hundreds of times. There are signs along the highway indicating sights to be seen. We have never exited. On this trip, we did.

An early stop was Aztalan State Park, a National Historic Landmark depicting an ancient Middle-Mississippian village existing between 1000 and 1300 A.D. The Aztalans had an advanced culture for the time based on farming with a clear social structure. It was fascinating. We recommend it to all in our area. That said, aside from one gentleman who has made the study of ancient native peoples his hobby, there was nobody else in the park. We assumed that the lack of people resulted from it being a weekday after school started. Our companion advised us that he visited the park regularly, and there is rarely much attendance.

Our last stop of the day was Ten Chimneys in Genesee Depot, the vacation home of the Lunts, which has also been designated a National Historic Landmark. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, a married couple, are at the forefront of the American theater pantheon. Their work spanned four decades from the 1920s to 1960. Mr. Lunt was born in Genesee Depot, and built – some of it with his own hands; he was a clearly multi-talented guy — an impressive home on 100-acre grounds to which the two repaired each summer. At their estate they entertained such stage and screen luminaries as Sir Laurence Olivier, Katherine Hepburn, Helen Hayes, and Noel Coward. Mr. Lunt died in 1977, Ms. Fontanne in 1983. The complex was interesting and certainly worth visiting if one has an interest in American theater history. Clearly elegant in its day, more than a bit eccentric, now — despite extensive and effective restoration – it is a bit faded, a relic of a former age. Only two other visitors joined our tour, conducted by two docents, all six of us senior citizens.

The day’s lasting impression: the Aztalans are long gone. Despite their impressive culture and community, today only a few archeologists know or care that they were ever here. The Lunts dominated American stage in a way that perhaps no one else has. Query how many Americans still recall the couple called “the greatest husband-and-wife team in the history of American theater.” What it made me realize: how few of us will make the impression upon our times that the Aztalans and Lunts did; and how even these have faded.

Our youngest grandchild is 2. If I’m fortunate enough to live another 10 years and if he retains his faculties to a ripe old age and if he remembers me fondly, some vestige of a memory that I was even here might last to 2100. It is more probable that any meaningful memory of TLOML and me will pass when the last of our children passes. So it’s important to do what you can, while you can. Help your loved ones. In an observation perhaps more relevant for retirees with time and resources than for the younger among us having to deal with the obligations of family and career, a portion of one’s time might best be spent volunteering in one’s community. But by all means, devote yourself now to what you feel is the most important — for however long now might be. Judging by the dimming legacies of the Aztalans and the Lunts, ultimately only the Almighty will remember that most of us were here.

On Vaccinations and Masking: John Stuart Mill … and Joinville, Brazil

Given the fact that three members of our family studied Political Science during their education regimes, we have a disconcertingly extensive collection of the works of political theorists from Plato to J. D. Vance. [Given Mr. Vance’s transformation from telling observer to pandering politician, I suspect that being linked to Mr. Vance in the preceding sentence has made Plato cringe in the Hereafter ;)]. The persistent resistance of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers to employ or enable others to institute measures now clearly demonstrated to help limit the spread of COVID-19 – on the ground that it is an encroachment upon someone or other’s freedom – recently caused me to pull out John Stuart Mill’s 1859 essay, “On Liberty.”

Considered by some the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century, Mr. Mill, an Englishman born in 1806 who was among the first members of Parliament to condemn slavery in America and, author of the 1869 essay, “On the Subjection of Women,” among the first to argue for social equality between men and women, is a founding father of the notion that each person should be free to conduct his or her affairs in his or her own way. “On Liberty” is an ode to individuality. In it, Mr. Mill waxed eloquent about our need for eccentrics (he did literally talk about eccentricity). He did not believe that society was advanced by those in the conforming, complacent majority. Thus, I was curious to see if I could discern, if he was alive today, how he would assess the views of those staunchly opposing mask and/or vaccine mandates on the ground that such constitute an infringement of citizens’ “liberty.”

It didn’t take much guesswork. Early in “On Liberty,” Mr. Mill wrote:

“[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. … [T]he conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one [sic] else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. [Emphasis Added]”

I would venture that given the strong evidence that masking and vaccines have helped check the spread of a deadly disease, Mr. Mill, a Godfather of Liberty, would have no patience with mask and vaccine mandate naysayers. Some who claim to cling to the libertarian philosophy that Mr. Mill articulated over 150 years ago might still assert that such mandates constitute an infringement of their rights because the science is not completely settled. Given the data we have, I suspect that at this point such supposed reservations would hold no sway with Mr. Mill. He was also a scientist who believed that knowledge was derived from experience. In A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, he wrote in 1843:

“After a general law of nature has been ascertained, men’s minds do not at first acquire a complete facility of familiarly representing to themselves the phenomena of nature … [T]his habit, in the case of newly-discovered relations, comes only by degrees. … But in time … a prolonged habit of arranging phenomena in certain groups, and explaining them by means of certain principles, makes any other arrangement or explanation of these facts be felt as unnatural … [The philosopher’s] real reason for rejecting theories at variance with the true one, is no other than that they clash with his experience … he adopts the true theory because it is self-evident …”

While the vast majority of those opposing vaccine and mask mandates as intrusions on their “freedom” probably have no familiarity with Mr. Mill – not all of us can be this geeky; somebody has to get stuff done – FL Gov. Ron DeSantis (possessing a Yale undergraduate degree and a Harvard law degree) and TX Gov. Greg Abbott (possessing a University of Texas undergraduate degree and a Vanderbilt law degree) should be and presumably are well aware of Mr. Mill’s philosophy and of the careful distinctions he articulated over a century and half ago regarding an individual’s right to liberty. As they exert all of the powers of their offices against imposition of what are demonstrably the most effective measures for preserving the health of their respective states’ citizens, they are shameless, despicable provocateurs.

On a less ponderous note: in an early April post, I entered portions of a close friend’s email describing the manner in which he had spoofed a young woman getting her first vaccination shot by suggesting that she would receive the inoculation not in her arm, but rather in a lower bodily area in which we have all received other injections. [He also indicated that she later indicated by gesture that she did not appreciate his sense of humor when she discovered that he had been pulling her leg (so to speak ;)]. Now, it turns out that our friend was perhaps not that far afield. There is a link below to a Washington Post article by our favorite correspondent, “Most everyone gets the coronavirus vaccine in the arm. Butt this Brazilian city is shooting lower,” in which he reports that in the Brazilian city of Joinville, medical personnel providing injections have elected to wage a rearguard action. As justification for its bottom-up approach, a city spokesman has cited the Brazilian health ministry’s guidance that for vaccinations such as the COVID inoculation, the body’s ventrogluteal region is one of the “best options” for “alternative administration” of the shot. In light of this guidance, I suspect all reasonable observers will agree with the Joinville medical community that given the world’s vital need for widespread COVID protection, any twinges we have about vaccines should be put … behind us.

May you have an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/27/most-everyone-gets-coronavirus-vaccine-arm-butt-this-brazilian-city-is-shooting-lower/