Biden – Sheila Kennedy

The Prosecutor And The Felon

Yesterday, Joe Biden dropped out of the Presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris.

My thoughts–in no particular order:

I love Joe Biden. He has been a transformational President– an incredibly consequential one. Much as I admired and supported Barack Obama, Biden–calling on a long career of public service, and political savvy deepened by experience–accomplished far more. His legacy will be both an important and a sterling one.

That said, he is old (younger than I am…but let’s not go there…) and his decline was becoming obvious. His continued campaigning allowed the MAGA cultists to focus public attention on that decline, rather than on the existential threat to America presented by Trump and his racist cult. They will now be deprived of that tactic.

One of the constant complaints I’ve heard about the Democratic campaign the past weeks has been that the party has failed to hammer home the multiple, significant accomplishments of the Biden administration. One consequence of yesterday’s announcement has been that it has introduced the ability of the pundits and Democratic officeholder to engage in a hagiography of sorts: people commenting on Biden’s decision have used his announcement that he is backing out as a cue to celebrate a Presidential term that has been truly transformational–and to remind the American public of the multiple accomplishments of that term.

That’s all to the good. But going forward–and assuming Kamala Harris will be the nominee–what I think we will see is, in a very real sense, a fascinating, contemporary replay of the Civil War. (Hopefully, with less bloodshed, although with MAGA, one never knows.)

Kamala Harris will pledge a continuation of Biden’s policies, and those policies are infinitely more popular than those of Project 2025, which–as someone has noted–poll like Ebola. But what MAGA will find intolerable is that Harris is female and Black, and–worse still–has a Jewish husband.

Let’s be honest: absolutely no one looks at Donald Trump, a self-engrossed ignoramus who knows nothing about government and cares about nothing but himself, and sees someone competent to occupy the Oval Office. What they see–and what the research amply confirms–is someone who gives them permission to hate out loud. MAGA is a racist cult. It is today’s Confederacy, today’s war on Black people. The only difference between the original Civil War and the one taking place today (aside from the lack of muskets and powder-horns or whatever the arms of the day looked like) is that brown people, gay people, Muslims, Jews–anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist White Christian–is now part of those “Others” that MAGA folks insist cannot be “real Americans.”

The replay of the Civil War will be a nod to the past. But Kamala Harris has been a prosecutor, and what will be a far more contemporary facet of the upcoming campaign will be the face-off between a Prosecutor and a convicted felon.

Prosecutors are charged with upholding and applying the rule of law. Those of us who are lawyers of any kind have been appalled by a series of rogue decisions by a Supreme Court dominated by justices appointed by Trump. That Court has discarded any pretense of following precedent, and for lawyers serving in government jobs–prosecutors and public defenders, counselors to government officials–the destructive effects of Trump’s judges on the legal system have been incredibly painful. The prospect of electing a convicted felon to the highest position in American government is unthinkable to anyone who understands the importance of equal justice under the law. As a former longtime prosecutor, Harris is in a position to emphasize just how unthinkable that prospect ought to be.

So–here we are. Democrats now will have a youthful, dynamic and highly intelligent candidate, versed in the law, who will represent a successful administration that has passed important and popular domestic legislation and internationally has secured worldwide respect. The Republican cult will remain in thrall to an elderly candidate who is an increasingly incoherent convicted felon who consistently reinforces his lack of both civility and sanity, and whose potential victory terrifies leaders of the world’s democracies.

Joe Biden may have saved America. He deserves our gratitude and undying respect.

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A Bonus Post Because I Can’t Help Myself

When I was a member of a very different Republican Party, it was easy to laugh at the way Democrats tended to self-destruct. Now, with American democracy and the rule of law teetering on the brink, it’s far less amusing.

It is hard for me to believe number of people who should know better who are undermining the party’s chances of winning in November by clutching their pearls and indulging in pious, handwringing pleas for Joe Biden to withdraw. Talk about “virtue signaling” while giving talking points to the Trumpers.

It’s one thing for people like those who comment here–most of whom are unfamiliar with political calendars and the arcane legal constraints on campaigns. It’s another to see presumably knowledgable pundits display their total ignorance of what is even possible.

Permit me to take you on a visit the real world: any effort to “swap out” candidates would have to take place at the upcoming Democratic convention on August 19th. While all states don’t have early voting, many do–in Indiana, early voting starts October 8th.

Even if the delegates could quickly agree on a replacement candidate–highly unlikely–there would be no time for that candidate to mount anything approaching a campaign, which requires money and messaging and field offices staffed with workers devoted to and knowledgable about the candidate. But of course, there is no single alternative acceptable to the entire party. The obvious choice would be Kamala, as Vice-President, but thanks to racism and misogyny–not to mention Republican and intra-party efforts to paint her as a floundering “diversity choice”–she couldn’t win either the delegates or the election. Of course, passing over a Black Vice-President would immediately jeopardize the essential Black vote (not to mention a significant part of the female vote.)

A two-month campaign with a divisive candidate is only part of it. The substantial funds Biden has raised couldn’t easily or rapidly be transferred to the new candidate (if at all). And much as I believe polling is badly broken, most polls do show that the only person who can defeat Donald Trump–and yes, save democracy–is Joe Biden.

Biden has been an excellent, even transformational, President. His cabinet is composed of talented, knowledgable, traditional public servants, and his Vice President is far more accomplished and adept than the nay-sayers paint her. If Biden had the oratorical skills of an Obama, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, but as a FaceBook friend noted–under a photo of Hitler addressing a rapt crowd–deciding who to support on the basis of oratory isn’t necessarily a great idea.

But even if Biden were as senile as his detractors claim, he would be monumentally preferable to the alternative.

The job of patriotic Americans in the four months between this post and the election is to defeat Donald Trump and the MAGA fascist movement. Nothing else matters. A Biden victory will allow us to deal with a corrupt Supreme Court and protect reproductive choice; a defeat–made more likely by the know-nothing naysayers–will facilitate remaking the nation in the form the authors of Project 2025 have mapped out.

There is no choice. This is our civil war, and we have to win it.

If Biden is truly impaired, he can step down after the election. Yes, that would give us a Black female President, and that would once again motivate the haters who crawled out from under their rocks after Obama was elected.

Right now, our marching orders are simple: defeat MAGA up and down the ballot, or lose America.

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Parties Versus Cults

A recent essay in the Washington Post considered the inside baseball aspects of party platforms.

“Back in the day,” when politics was far more focused on policy, I participated in local efforts to craft platforms that reflected thoughtful policy positions; as the linked article notes, those days–and their “thoughtful discussions”– are long-gone. As the essay also noted, while candidates sometimes tried to distance themselves from unpopular planks, platforms mattered. They revealed which factions really held power, and testified to the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

That was then. Policy doesn’t matter when politics is all about a cult waging culture war.

Four years ago, having scaled back their convention because of covid-19, the Republicans who nominated Donald Trump to a second term didn’t bother to adopt a platform at all. Instead, the party decided to stick with its 2016 document and “continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”

The last actual GOP platform contains all sorts of commitments that the the current crazies have abandoned.

That eight-year-old platform is a fossil of primordial, pre-MAGA conservatism — of a day when abortion rights seemed secure enough that posturing against them carried little political cost; when Republicans could agree that Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” needed to be defended against “a resurgent Russia.”

Written before our rogue Supreme Court overturned Roe, the platform pandered to single-issue anti-choice voters with a plank supporting a human life amendment to the Constitution that would make the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth. That’s going to be a bit awkward in a country where something like 70% of voters are pro-choice– and angry about the first-ever retraction of a constitutional right.

So maybe it is time for today’s Republicans to acknowledge the truth. They are no longer a party with any firm principles at all. Enduring and consistent values? Not for them.

Come to think of it, this whole exercise of writing a 2024 platform for the Republican Party could be pretty simple. Why bother with putting together another 60-page document when the truth about today’s GOP can be summed up in a single sentence?

“RESOLVED, That the Republican Party stands for whatever the hell Donald Trump says it does.”

Robert Hubbell recently reminded us just “what the hell” Trump has said lately.

Trump has promised to deny funds to any school that requires mandatory vaccines. Childhood vaccines against 16 diseases have saved hundreds of thousands of lives over the last century. Defunding schools that require vaccines will cause outbreaks of diseases that have been effectively eliminated. See HuffPo, Trump Makes Bizarre Threat About Schools And Vaccine Mandates.

Trump says that business leaders who do not support him should be fired. NBC News, Trump says business executives should be ‘fired for incompetence’ if they don’t support him.

Trump trashed Fox News for having the temerity to interview a guest—former Speaker Paul Ryan—who was critical of the former president. Trump said, “Nobody can ever trust Fox News, and I am one of them.” MSN, Trump Loses It At Fox News, Says No One Can Trust It.

Trump said that President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plans are “stunts” that will be “rebuked” if Trump is elected. See The Independent, Trump calls Biden’s student loan forgiveness a ‘vile’ publicity stunt.

Trump recently told the Danbury Institute that, if elected, “These are going to be your years because you’re going to make a comeback like just about no other group . . . And I’ll be with you side by side.” The Danbury Institute promotes fetal personhood, opposing abortion from “the moment of conception” (a position that would effectively ban IVF). See Missouri Independent, Trump says he’ll work ‘side by side’ with group that wants abortion ‘eradicated.

Granted, Trump says whatever he thinks a given audience wants to hear–his lack of any comprehensive policy commitment (or understanding of what policy is or how government operates) is one reason his initial term did less damage than it might otherwise have done. Should he win in November, he’ll have the far greater competence of Project 2025 authors to draw on.

David Sedaris said it best. Anyone who thinks there is any equivalence between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is like the airline passenger in his often-cited example:

The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

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

To vote for Donald Trump–or the Indiana GOP’s Christian Taliban–is to reject the chicken.

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Misinformation And The Economy

I recently had coffee with one of the smartest political scientists I know. Given his knowledge and access to data, I hoped he’d provide me with comfort about our upcoming election. He did share his reasons for being cautiously optimistic, but he also shared his distress over the magnitude of disinformation and the credulity of far too many Americans.

He then said something that set my hair on fire: “If Trump wins, it will be the last real election we have.” This time, he’ll be surrounded by fanatics who know what they’re doing.

We are barreling toward the most important election in my lifetime, and the “chattering classes’ are already making predictions, based largely on elements that have affected political choices in more traditional times. Primary among those is the state of the economy, so Joe Biden should be riding high. But he isn’t–thanks to the overwhelming amount of misinformation emanating from Faux News and other propaganda sites. The propaganda has convinced large numbers of citizens that what they see with their own eyes isn’t representative of the larger society.

The Atlantic recently addressed this situation in an article titled “U.S. Economy Reaches Superstar Status. No, really.”

If the United States’ economy were an athlete, right now it would be peak LeBron James. If it were a pop star, it would be peak Taylor Swift. Four years ago, the pandemic temporarily brought much of the world economy to a halt. Since then, America’s economic performance has left other countries in the dust and even broken some of its own records. The growth rate is high, the unemployment rate is at historic lows, household wealth is surging, and wages are rising faster than costs, especially for the working class. There are many ways to define a good economy. America is in tremendous shape according to just about any of them.

The American public doesn’t feel that way—a dynamic that many people, including me, have recently tried to explain. But if, instead of asking how people feel about the economy, we ask how it’s objectively performing, we get a very different answer.

The article points out that America’s current economic-growth rate is the envy of the world–that between the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, GDP grew by 8.2 percent, which was “nearly twice as fast as Canada’s, three times as fast as the European Union’s, and more than eight times as fast as the United Kingdom’s.” During the past year, others– some of them among the world’s largest– have fallen into recession, complete with mass layoffs and angry street protests. That included Germany and Japan.

The article analyzes people’s buying power over time. Since 1947, prices have increased by 1,400 percent. That sounds terrifying–except that incomes have increased by 2,400 percent over that same period. And thanks in no small measure to Biden’s focus on “growing the middle out,” several analysts have found that “from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the lowest-paid decile of workers saw their wages rise four times faster than middle-class workers and more than 10 times faster than the richest decile.”

Wage gains at the bottom, they found, have been so steep that they have erased a full third of the rise in wage inequality between the poorest and richest workers over the previous 40 years. This finding holds even when you account for the fact that lower-income Americans tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on the items that have experienced the largest price increases in recent years, such as food and gas. “We haven’t seen a reduction in wage inequality like this since the 1940s,” Dube told me.

The unemployment rate has been at or below 4 percent for more than two years, the longest streak since the 1960s.

The article has much more data–all positive–and its findings have recently been echoed by the World Bank, which says the U.S. economy is the envy of the world. As the linked story from the Washington Post reports,

While Americans’ unhappiness with high prices remains a key vulnerability for President Biden’s reelection bid, the World Bank now expects the U.S. economy to grow at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, nearly a full percentage point higher than it predicted in January. The United States is the only advanced economy growing significantly faster than the bank anticipated at the start of the year.

The excellent performance of the economy should lift Democratic prospects–but the propaganda war has been effective, especially with the low-information voters who (as still other studies confirm) are most likely to support Trump.

The only good news is that these low-information folks are also the least likely to vote. We can hope….

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A Moment Of Clarity

I have previously cited and linked to Heather Cox Richardson’s daily Letters from an American, but a recent one deserves more than a passing mention. In it, Richardson does a masterful job of clarifying the stakes of November’s election.

She begins by reminding us of the events leading up to the choice we will face, reminding readers that–once it had become clear Trump had lost the 2020 election– he’d given up “all pretense of normal presidential behavior.” Not only did he try to overturn the election, ignoring the will of the voters, “his attack on the fundamental principle of democracy ended the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power established in 1797 when our first president, George Washington, deliberately walked behind his successor, John Adams, after Adams was sworn into office.”

Trump has continued to push the Big Lie, and his loyalists in the states have embraced that lie, undermining faith in our electoral system. His theft of enormous amounts of classified materials has compromised national security.

We know all this, although the recitation/reminder is important. But–as historians like Richardson are well aware–past is truly prologue.

Trump is not the same as he was in 2020, and in the past three years he has transformed the Republican Party into a vehicle for Christian nationalism.

In 2016 the Republican Party was still dominated by leaders who promoted supply-side economics. They were determined to use the government to cut taxes and regulations to concentrate money and power among a few individuals, who would, theoretically, use that money and power to invest in the economy far more efficiently than they could if the government intervened. Before 2016 that Reaganesque party had stayed in office thanks to the votes of a base interested in advancing patriarchal, racist, and religious values.

But Trump flipped the power structure in the party, giving control to the reactionary base. In the years since 2020, the Republican Party has become openly opposed to democracy, embracing the Christian nationalism of leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who maintains that the tenets of democracy weaken a nation by giving immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women the same rights as heterosexual, native-born white men.

Richardson then underscores what most of us who follow politics know–that today’s GOP looks absolutely nothing like the Republican party of the past.

Rather than calling for a small federal government that stays out of the way of market forces, as Republicans have advocated since 1980, the new Trump Party calls for a strong government that enforces religious rules and bans abortion; books; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and so on. In 2022, thanks to the three extremists Trump put on the Supreme Court, the government ceased to recognize a constitutional right that Americans had enjoyed since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: the right to abortion.

The far-right Trumpers have paralyzed the House of Representatives.

Republican members who actually want to pass laws are either leaving or declining to run for reelection. The conference has become so toxic that fewer than 100 members agreed to attend their annual retreat that began today. “I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver,” a Republican member of Congress told Juliegrace Brufke of Axios.

Richardson ticks off some of the actions Trump has promised if he wins in November: purging the nonpartisan civil service created in 1883, in order to replace career employees with Trump loyalists; weaponizing the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense; rounding up 10 million people– “not just undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers but also those with birthright citizenship,” and putting them in camps, ignoring a “right that has been enshrined in the Constitution since 1868;” cutting Social Security and Medicare; and being a “dictator on Day One.”

She then enumerates many of the achievements of the Biden Administration, drawing a stark contrast between an incredibly consequential President who has worked within the traditions of this country and an autocratic madman.

Every American following the news can probably point to policies of the Biden administration with which they disagree. That’s par for the course in every administration. Liz Cheney probably said it best: we can survive what we consider bad policy, we cannot survive a president who torches the Constitution.

It is incredibly disheartening to realize that millions of our fellow-Americans harbor resentments and hatreds that this repulsive buffoon has exploited–grievances for which he serves as a vehicle. But I refuse to believe that those angry and limited people represent anything close to a majority. If they did, Republicans wouldn’t be so frantic to suppress the vote.

Click through, read Richardson’s entire Letter–and VOTE as if your life depended upon it, because in a very real sense, it does.

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