This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
If the stories about Harris and her Chief of Staff being difficult to work with and occasionally treating other staff poorly are true, that would make her similar to almost every other elected official. A powerful politician not treating staff well is a dog bites man story. However, the questions of why it is being reported and who benefits from these stories is more important.
In 2018 Trump finally found his Roy Cohn, albeit something of a bloated goyishe knockoff of the original, in the person of William Barr. Barr, who Trump nominated to be Attorney General in late 2018 and was confirmed by the Senate in early 2019, was unusual among the members of Trump’s inner political circle and most trusted enablers in that he had impressive legal, professional and educational credentials.
Adams will still have to reckon with a City Council that will likely be to his left as well as two progressive citywide elected officials, Lander and Williams, who will advocate for positions on policing, budgeting and other issues well to the left of Adams. Adams can either find his way to compromising with the political actors or can spend the next four years fighting with his own party while accomplishing little.
The planet is burning; we are only now recovering from a pandemic that killed more American than World War II; mass shootings are a fact of life that too many Americans just shrug off; basic democratic rights to, among other things, vote are being threatened, but it is an obscure, and generally misunderstood academic theory that is dominating the news. This is happening not because a majority of Americans care about critical race theory, but because those who do are overrepresented in our undemocratic political system.
Hoax is an important word in the contemporary GOP lexicon. It is the political equivalent of Charlie Brown pleading with Schroeder “Tell your statistics to shut up!”
America’s long history of political stability looks very different today as compared to say six years ago. While millions of Americans, Europeans and others were relieved to see Donald Trump defeated in 2020, in the months since then it has become clear that seeing Biden’s decisive victory last November as a restoration of political stability, once the absolute core of America’s identity, would be a mistake.
Manchin’s fantasy world also extends to a belief that the US Senate is the world’s greatest deliberative body and a serious place where well-meaning and thoughtful people with honest but legitimate disagreements work together to craft compromises and bipartisan legislation. It is difficult to believe that in 2021 any sentient American still believes that, but being sentient is, apparently, not a prerequisite for serving in the US Senate.
In the most recent conflict, it was Republican Christian voices who offered the most full throated and unequivocal support for Israel and corresponding lack of concern for Palestinians. The strongest pro-Palestinian voices, not surprisingly, came from left wing Democrats, but Jewish Democrats, including Nadler, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and Congressman Adam Schiff offered more nuanced positions balancing concerns about Israeli security with Palestinian human rights.
From Putin’s perspective, this meeting will be very different than his interactions with Biden’s predecessor. Unlike Trump, Biden is not going to trust Putin’s word rather than the findings American intelligence agencies. Similarly, whereas Russia supported Trump and sought to help him in his campaigns in both 2016 and, less successfully, in 2020, Biden has never benefited from the Kremlin’s forays into American domestic politics. In short, Russia has lost a client in the White House and that will frame the entire summit. Accordingly, in addition to the myriad issues and tensions between the two countries, for Biden and his party, there is also a sense, among many around Biden, of there being unfinished business from the 2016 election, the SolarWinds hack in 2020 and the relatively new, but enduring and nefarious, ties between the Kremlin and the American far right. Accordingly, Biden’s primary message Putin should be that “there’s a new Sherriff in town.” That is the kind of message that is best delivered in person, but that also needs to be backed up with meaningful actions.
The horrific tragedy of George Floyd’s murder may not have been a crucial turning point in America’s long quest for racial equality. It now appears that the massive protests and increased recognition of the problem of systemic racism, like so many other developments in American life, just make most of us go back to our ideological corners as the country continues to be divided and unable to solve fundamental problems.
The problem the GOP faces is not so much that Kevin McCarthy is not well liked, but that none of their attacks on Joe Biden seem to be particularly effective, so a proxy fight between Biden and McCarthy would be a win for the Democrats.
Whatever efforts this administration can make to deescalate the conflict and end this current outbreak of violence must be balanced against the unfortunate reality that there are actors on both sides that have little or no incentive to deescalate and who likely benefit, at least in the short term, from the conflict.
It is possible that it may just take more time for Trump and his supporters to fade away, but it is more likely that, even if the Democrats hold on to their majority in the House, Trumpism will further consolidate its hold on the GOP and continue to be a major and deeply damaging part of American politics for the foreseeable future.
Apparently, the allegation against Giuliani is that he was paid by Ukrainian clients to persuade Donald Trump to fire Marie Yovanovich, the American ambassador to Ukraine, who Trump dismissed in May of 2019. Yovanovich had served in the foreign service for many years and was very broadly respected for her excellent work. However, in Ukraine her strong positions in support of that country in the face of Russian aggression, and her failure to go along with Trump’s hare brained and corrupt scheme to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden, led to Trump firing her. Giuliani has denied all of these allegations while his former client, Donald Trump, with his usual eloquence, has described the investigation of Giuliani as “like, so unfair.”
Thus, the political magic of Joe Biden is that anything he proposes just sounds reasonable and moderate. In the first one hundred days of his presidency, Biden has been able to deploy that magic to move forward the most progressive domestic agenda of any American president since Lyndon Johnson well over fifty years ago. This has left the Republican Party unsure of the best strategy for attacking Biden, and therefore for the upcoming 2022 midterm election.
In the US, the court systems may sometimes function as a substitute for policy or politics, but as demonstrated in the trial of Derek Chauvin, it is a very poor substitute. By looking for justice from a legal system rather than solutions from a political system we all but ensure that the root problems will go unaddressed.
A period where there is no pressure from the American president to find a peace deal and where the American president feels no pressure, from himself or others, to deliver peace may, ironically, be precisely the best environment to begin discussions, informally and with no expectations, around what a peace deal might look like.
Americans are fond of citing the founders concerns about tyranny of the majority. However, the system as it is currently constructed not only prevents tyranny of the majority but also simply governance by the majority-or by anybody else.
The most likely outcome of not having a major bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection while several congressional committees try to pursue some more facts and information about those events is that the insurrection will quickly become just another issue that pushes Americans back into their partisan corners. Democrats will continue to see it as a major event that represented a violent threat to the lives of elected officials, but also to the core functions or our electoral and Democratic processes. However, Republicans will understand the insurrection as something that ultimately was not that big of a deal-a few people in silly costumes that got a little out of hand.
One of the most important debates in American politics today is around the senate filibuster. The filibuster is not in the Constitution, nor is it a law. Rather it is a senate rule that has changed and evolved over time. In its current form it is not so much a real filibuster as it is a requirement for cloture. In layperson’s terms, that means that currently almost any bill requires 60 of the 100 senators to vote to end debate before a vote on the bill can be taken. Practically speaking this means that all it takes to block any legislation is for the minority party to have 41 votes. As the senate has become a more deeply partisan institution, this makes it extremely difficult to pass any legislation.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, and, because of the For the People Actthat is currently in front of the senate, the future of American democracy, both depend on abolishing the filibuster. Again, because the filibuster is a senate rule it would only take all fifty Democratic senators, and a tie-breaking vote from Vice-President Kamala Harris, to end the filibuster.
As recently as a year ago, it seemed very unlikely that the filibuster would be significantly altered. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was hesitant to take such a step as were several of the more conservative Democratic senators like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and California’s Dianne Feinstein. This reluctance stemmed from a lingering vision, or perhaps fantasy, of a more cordial senate where there was cooperation across party lines as well as a fear that with no filibuster Democrats would be vulnerable the next time the Republicans controlled both houses of congress and the White House, as the Democrats do now.
In recent weeks, Biden, Feinstein and Manchin have indicated they are open to substantially weakening the filibuster. This may be doable because it is there is a lot of grey area and room for compromise around the filibuster. For example, it might be possible to increase the kinds of legislation that are exempt from the filibuster, as Supreme Court nominations currently are. There is also the possibility of returning to what is now being called the “talking filibuster.” This would require senators seeking to filibuster a bill to remain on the senate floor and talk, rather than simply vote against cloture. It would lead to delays in voting on some bills, but in most cases the vote would still be held.
The most outspoken supporter of the filibuster is probably Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has wielded it expertly in recent months as well as during the first six years of the Obama administration. McConnell understands the value of de facto minority veto in the senate and is clearly terrified of losing that tool. For a Republican Party that has not received a majority of votes in a presidential election since 2004 and whose political base is much older and whiter than the rest of America, this senate veto power means that it is not necessary to compete for more votes or to expand their support. Rather, as long as the Republican Party can hold 41 senate seats, something that is relatively easy, the GOP can stymie progressive legislation.
There is another danger in preserving the filibuster in its current form. The filibuster, if unchanged, will ultimately lead the senate to marginalize itself. The Constitution gives the senate enormous power. It ratifies treaties, confirms the cabinet and federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, and must approve of any legislation before it becomes law. However, if the senate continues to be the choke point in the legislative system where the angry white minority that is the engine of the Republican Party is able to stop any legislation, that power will begin, or more accurately, continue, to wither.
The US system of government has always oddly flexible. If one structure stops working, others will take its place. A dysfunctional senate will mean more governance through executive orders and federal agencies-in other words a stronger presidency. In a democracy, it is best when elected officials discuss and vote on legislation, but when that cannot happen, much of governance falls to unelected bureaucrats and judges. That trend, which is already occurring in the US, will continue to accelerate if the filibuster remains. Additionally, a federal government that cannot pass laws will lead to states and local governments doing more. The impact of that will depend on the state. States like California already have much more progressive laws, policies, budgets and regulations than the national government, while others like Alabama or South Dakota are more conservative than Washington.
In the last several years the notion of abolishing the filibuster has migrated from an obscure idea to an important part of the progressive agenda. The filibuster is now more precarious than at any time in decades. The stakes could not be higher. The senate can either remain a hostage to antiquated rules with their roots in efforts to defend white supremacy or it can once again be an important part of the project of American democracy, but it cannot be both.
Photo: cc/ Sebastian Vital