Tag Archives: GOP

Compelling Versus Repelling

The New Republic recently had a column by Michael Tomasky comparing the Trump campaign to a long-running television show. His point was that the shtick has gotten old and boring. He compared Trump’s performances to several sitcoms that had been enormously popular, and noted that few of them had sustained that popularity for nine years–the length of time that Trump has inflicted his buffoonery on the country. He also pointed to data that indicates Americans are tiring of him.

It was an interesting comparison, and obviously, I hope it’s a correct one. But what caught my attention was his conclusion to the following paragraphs:

But again, for now, let’s just judge him as an act. His act is way tired. It’s now nine years of “Fake news” and “You won’t have a country anymore” and all the rest. In 2015, all those Trumpisms were stupid and disgusting; but at least they were new. I actually laughed when he described Jeb Bush as a “low-energy person.” He was! I could imagine then how, for voters who didn’t hate him, he was interesting and possibly amusing as a species that American politics rarely produces: someone who threw the script in the air and said whatever the hell popped into his mind.

That was bound to be something people wanted to watch, for a while. And it was just as bound to be something that became less compelling over time. It’s an act. And this is a key difference between politics and show business that Trump can’t see. In showbiz, and on TV, it’s all about whether the production values can sell the act. In politics, it turns out, the act needs more than slick production. It still needs to show some connection to people’s lives and concerns. Harris is better at that than Trump is. And her act is a lot fresher, too. And Walz’s act versus Vance’s? Not remotely close. Yes—Walz is so compelling, and Vance so repelling, that this is one election where the veep choices may actually make two points’ worth of difference.

Tomasky’s characterization of Walz as “compelling” and Vance as “repelling” isn”t just an accurate description of the two vice-presidential candidates. It’s an accurate description of the great majority of current Democratic and Republican candidates.

I understand that I live in an urban bubble, but everyone I know finds Trump repellant–and those who watched the Democratic Convention found most of the speakers at that event compelling. That contrast isn’t limited to national figures, either. It’s really hard to look at the Indiana Republicans’ statewide ticket without being repelled. (When MAGA Mike Braun is the least offensive candidate of the four, the GOP has really outdone itself.)

In addition to MAGA Mike, an empty suit who just wants to be important, you have smarmy Micah Beckwith hating on LGBTQ folks, advocating censorship, and telling voters that God directed the disreputable and looney mob that invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. (Micah says he talks to God…)

You have equally-theocratic, anti-woman, anti-gay, wrong about pretty much everything, Jim Banks, who is evidently so personally unpleasant that even the Republicans in his current Congressional district dislike him.

And you have  “no bar is so low that he can’t go lower” Todd Rokita, who has (mis)used the. office of Attorney General to wage interminable–and tiresome–culture wars as part of his incessant pandering to the most MAGA voters of the GOP base.

I certainly find these men repellant. I also find the Democratic state ticket compelling–if you haven’t had the opportunity to hear Jennifer McCormick, Terry Goodin, Valerie McCray or Destiny Wells speak, you should try to do so. But even if you don’t find them as compelling or inspiring as I do, you’ll definitely notice that they are all sane, competent and –unlike their Republican opponents–actually qualified to do the jobs they’re running for.

I really hope that Tomasky’s comparison of political and television show popularity is correct. It would be great if the American voters who have been fascinated or intrigued (or sucked in) by the first few seasons of “Entitled White Faux Christian Guys” might be getting bored with the same-old, same-old, and ready for a different show.

How about a documentary? Say, for example, one titled “This is How Government Is Supposed to Work”?

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Ron DeSantis: Poster Child For Today’s GOP

In the wake of his pathetic performance in the presidential primaries, coverage of Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, has faded from the national media. A recent exception was an article last week in The Guardian, explaining how he’s lost the support of many Florida Republicans

Ironically, that support didn’t diminish due to his appalling and seemingly endless assaults on civil liberties– some of which were enumerated in the first two paragraphs of the article.

In the end, it wasn’t culture war feuding over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, thwarting Black voters or vilifying immigrants that finally broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.

Nor was it his rightwing takeover of higher education, the banning of books from school libraries, his restriction of drag shows, or passive assent of neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that caused them to finally stand up to him.

It wasn’t even his bill scrubbing the term “climate change” from all Florida state laws. Evidently, none of those things upset Florida’s Republicans. The step too far was DeSantis’ effort to pave over the state’s parks.

It was, instead, a love of vulnerable Florida scrub jays; a passion to preserve threatened gopher tortoises; and above all a unanimous desire to speak up for nature in defiance of Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave over thousands of unspoiled acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.

Thousands of environmentalists, former allies and GOP elected officials denounced the plan. Even the Republican state legislators who have dutifully rubber-stamped anything DeSantis proposed, denounced the projects. Many pointed to the evidence of intended corruption, since the plans–devised in secret– contemplated “no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.”

Faced with that blowback, DeSantis copied Trump, pretending that he was unaware of the proposal.

Desperately trying to pin blame elsewhere for a misadventure that was very demonstrably his own, he continued: “This is something that was leaked. It was not approved by me, I never saw that. It was intentionally leaked to a leftwing group to try and create a narrative.”

Tsk tsk. Those pesky “left-wing” groups…..

The rest of the article details the fallout in Florida, and speculates that DeSantis is “losing his grip” on Florida’s voters. While that’s interesting (although not as interesting as the question “why did this awkward fascist ever have a grip”), the article was far more intriguing for its parallels with Donald Trump and the national GOP. The opening recitation of DeSantis’ priorities mimics the agenda of today’s Republican Party and Project 2025. His effort to distance himself when it became obvious that those priorities were unpopular (to say the least) mimics Trump’s insistence that he knows nothing about Projecct 2025.

Take a good look at those priorities.

DeSantis and Trump and today’s No-Longer-Grand Old Party are one big hate-fest. It isn’t simply the war on women’s autonomy. The party wants gays back in the closet. It wants Black Americans returned to a subservient status, and Brown immigrants deported. It exalts Hitler for his effort to eradicate Jewish people. And today’s GOP has an incredible, seething animosity to the life of the mind–seen in its determination to turn higher education into indoctrination, to dictate what can and cannot be taught in public schools, and its persistent efforts to prevent people from accessing books of which its White Christian Nationalists disapprove.

The devolution of the Republican Party into the party of racial grievance and nostalgia for a past that never existed has occurred gradually over a period of time. For that reason, a lot of people have failed to recognize the GOP’s transformation into a neo-fascist movement–a hodge-podge of chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and reactionary views.

What struck me about the opening paragraphs of the cited article was the enumeration of those very unAmerican goals as DeSantis has pursued them in his state–with the acquiescence (nay, the enthusiasm) of that state’s GOP.

It is telling that the break between DeSantis and the state’s Republicans came only when his authoritarianism threatened the parks they enjoy. Only then, evidently, did Florida’s “good Germans” recognize that an autocratic agenda eventually targets everyone.

A Martin Niemoller paraphrase seems apt–if a bit awkward and with a less tragic ending:

First they came for the intellectuals, and I did not speak out—because I was not an intellectual.

Then they came for the gays, and I did not speak out—because I was not gay.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for my parks—so I finally spoke up.

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Another Rutabaga Election?

The reality of the Electoral College keeps Americans fixated on the “swing states.” National parties and the media routinely dismiss Indiana as a place where voters would elect a rutabaga if that vegetable had an “R” next to its name. That belief isn’t founded on actual voter preferences; it’s a result of extreme gerrymandering. Our legislative overlords draw lines that cram Democrats into a few urban districts while ensuring that a majority of districts include a greater number of (presumably reliable) Republican voters.

I’ve posted frequently about the negative consequences of that practice, but I’ve recently stumbled across an emerging positive–the discernable over-confidence it breeds in GOP candidates.

Take a look, for example, at the campaign for Indiana’s House of Representatives in District 88. That district covers Geist, Lawrence, Ingalls, McCordsville, Fortville, and Cumberland, and was clearly drawn to maximize Republican advantage. But it also contains a lot of educated voters, and in the wake of growing MAGA extremism and the Dobbs decision, is considerably less reliably Red.

Enter a serious Democratic candidate: Stephanie Jo Yocum, who is emphasizing her support for women’s reproductive rights, strong public education, safe and connected communities, workers rights and economic prosperity for all. (You can access her interpretations of those promises on the “issues” page of her website.)

After a conversation with a member of Yocum’s campaign, I went to the websites of the incumbent Republican, Chris Jeter–a campaign site and a personal one–and was astonished to find that neither site bothered with those silly things called issues. Instead, there were photos of his family, a biography (including an undergraduate Baptist College), and his reportedly active memberships in his church and the NRA.

The absence of policy positions seemed odd to me, but I assume Mr. Jeter feels it is sufficient to be a Republican running in a “safe” district. No need to defend his positions, which–after more googling–are unlikely to be widely popular even among non-MAGA Republican voters.

Jeter earned a ZERO rating from Indiana’s ACLU, for example. That rating was based upon several votes: he voted FOR Indiana’s ban on virtually all abortions; FOR a bill discriminating against trans girls (a bill vetoed by our Republican governor); FOR onerous limits on charitable bail organizations; and FOR a bill that would have limited how public schools and employees could address concepts related to an individual’s sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation. (The vagueness of this bill would have effectively chilled discussion and instruction in Indiana classrooms.)

He also voted FOR new, onerous restrictions on absentee voting and voting by mail, and FOR a bill that would have given the Indiana Attorney General the power to request the appointment of a special prosecutor whenever county prosecutors exercise their (entirely lawful) discretion in ways the Attorney General disapproves, essentially allowing Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita to substitute his discretion for that of an elected county prosecutor.

My brief research into Jeter’s voting history told me two things: he is a Republican culture warrior, and he is relying on his district’s gerrymander rather than his performance to return him to the legislature. He evidently shares the belief that all he needs to prevail is that “R” next to his name.

My analysis of District 88 can be replicated around the state. But despite the smug assurance of the Republican operatives who drew the lines and the candidates who confidently expect to benefit from them once again, I think they are missing some significant danger signals.

Over the past several years, Republican reliance on the “rutabaga” theory of Hoosier elections has allowed the party and its candidates to become more and more extreme–to ignore the grind of actual governance and constituent service and to focus almost exclusively on waging culture war. Rather than the day-to-day business of ensuring that Indiana’s bridges and roads and parks are well-maintained, they’ve waged war on women’s reproductive rights and the LBGTQ+ community; rather than attracting business to the state by enhancing our quality of life, they’ve cut taxes for top earners and their donors. Rather than strengthening our public schools, they’ve siphoned off tax dollars and sent them to religious schools.

The basic question for Hoosier voters in November is whether we will continue to vote for the rutabagas–the empty suits and Christian Nationalists and gun extremists and “privatizers” who–thanks to the absence of competition ensured by gerrymandering– now represent virtually all of Indiana’s Republican candidates.

Stephanie Yocum’s positions are far more likely than Jeter’s to reflect those of voters in House District 88, Democrat OR Republican.

It’s really past time to retire the rutabaga vote.

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Family Values

What are “family values?”

To hear Republicans describe them, family values are a traditional, a backward-facing insistence on sexual “purity” (for women) and heterosexuality: mom in the home watching the children (no pre-school or day care), gays in the closet, no access to abortion. Occasionally, there will be a nod to the importance of dad’s fidelity, but that gets awkward these days, given GOP allegiance to a male sexual predator.

Democratic policies illustrate a very different approach to valuing families.

For one thing, Democrats emphasize job creation, so that families can adequately care for the children they may–or may not–choose to have. (On that score, the GOP’s performance has been dismal: during the DNC, Bill Clinton noted that, since 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. Fifty million were created during Democratic administrations, one million under Republicans. This jaw-dropping statistic turned out to be true, albeit slightly misleading.)

Even if you discount the importance of a robust economy to the health of the American family, a glance at the policies pursued by the parties confirms that Democrats are far more family-friendly. Nicholas Kristof recently made that case. Calling Republican efforts to paint themselves as the “pro-family” party “chutzpah,” Kristof wrote

Children are more likely to be poor, to die young and to drop out of high school in red states than in blue states. The states with the highest divorce rates are mostly Republican, and with some exceptions like Utah, it’s in red states that babies are more likely to be born to unmarried mothers (partly because of lack of access to reliable contraception).

One of President Biden’s greatest achievements was to cut the child poverty rate by almost half, largely with the refundable child tax credit. Then Republicans killed the program, sending child poverty soaring again.

Can anything be more anti-child?

Well, maybe our firearms policy is. Guns are the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers, largely because of Republican intransigence and refusal to pass meaningful gun safety laws.

It’s because of the G.O.P. that the United States is one of only a few countries in the world without guaranteed paid maternity leave. Republicans fought universal health care and resisted the expansion of Medicaid; that’s one reason a child in the United States is three times as likely to die by the age of 5 as a child in, say, Slovenia or Estonia.

Kristof also noted several of the anti-child policies advanced in Project 2025, including ending Head Start–which has been a lifeline for low-income children– and dismantling the Department of Education.

Banning abortion and requiring women to give birth whether or not they can afford to feed and clothe a child is hardly “pro family”– even ignoring the fact that when women with dangerous pregnancies cannot access adequate care, they often die, leaving existing children motherless. And Republican extremism on abortion and birth control has led to obstacles to in vitro fertilization–for some families, the only avenue to producing those children Republicans want women to keep turning out.

Kristof also recognized the importance of the economy in supporting families. If marriage rates are important–and he agrees that they are–the evidence of economic influence is compelling.

Union membership among men raises their marriage rates, for example, apparently because they then earn more money and become more stable and appealing as partners. But Republicans have worked for decades to undermine unions.

And while marriage is important, so is access to divorce. Before easy access to divorce, large numbers of women were trapped in violent marriages that terrorized them and their children. (JD Vance is on record counseling women to remain in such marriages.) As Kristof notes,

One careful study by the economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers found that the introduction of no-fault divorce in America was associated with about a 20 percent reduction in female suicides, at least a 25 percent reduction in wife-beating and an apparent decline in husbands murdering wives.

Which raises the question: can an anti-women party be pro family values?

In this policy arena–as in so many others–the fundamental difference between today’s GOP and the Democratic Party really does get back to dramatic differences in values. That’s why calls to “bridge our differences” and “achieve compromise” ring so hollow. If the debate is about the best way to achieve result X–say, feeding hungry children–then we can absolutely come to some sort of mutual agreement. But when one party wants to feed children and the other party doesn’t, compromise isn’t likely. 

Americans aren’t divided over policy; we are divided over values–and not just family values.

 
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That Electoral College

There’s been no lack of political commentary as the Presidential campaign has heated up, much of it thoughtful (and lots of it not), but I was struck with a point made in the Bulwark–a point about the systemic, structural issues that so often muffle or stymie the electoral voice of We the People.

In a commentary on the competing theories of the two campaigns, Jonathan Van Last noted that

Trump is running to get to 47 percent. Harris is running to get to 52 percent.

But there’s something deeper going on here.

The reason Trump is aiming for 47 percent is because the Electoral College makes minority rule possible for the rural party. Which incentivizes the rural party to be insular and to focus on energizing—not expanding—its coalition.

By disadvantaging the urban party, the Electoral College incentivizes it to broaden its coalition. Which means that the Democratic party of this moment must be constantly seeking to expand its reach and bring in new constituencies if it is to have a chance at holding executive power.

In other words: The Electoral College distorts the character of our parties, nudging one of them to be a majority-seeking organism and the other to be a base-pleasing organism. The character of our two parties today flows from the system architecture used to allocate power.

Which explains why Trump’s campaign is focused on maneuvering to win the Electoral College, not on trying to build a national majority. Trump doesn’t think he needs to expand his base, despite the fact that it is a minority of American voters. He just needs to energize them. America’s systemic “allocation of power” protects government by the minority. That’s what allowed Donald J. Trump to “win” the Presidency while losing the popular vote by some three million votes.

The Electoral College substantially advantages white rural voters. Research suggests that every rural vote is worth one and a third of every urban vote. Small states already exert disproportionate power by virtue of the fact that every state–no matter how thinly or densely populated–has two Senators. This system adds to that undemocratic advantage.

Trump likes to claim that our elections are rigged. They are–but thanks to the Electoral College and “winner take all” state election laws–they’re rigged in ways that unfairly benefit him. As legal scholars have reminded us, no other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like the Electoral College. 

It isn’t just the existence of the College–there’s also the way states implement it.

If we fall short in the current effort to neuter the Electoral College with the Popular Vote Compact, we should mount a national effort to address a less-understood aspect of it’s unfairness: statewide winner-take-all laws. Under these laws (which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nation’s early years, even though it was never suggested by the Founders) most states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state.

That erases all the voters in that state who didn’t vote for the winning candidate. Even if only 50.1% of voters in a state vote for candidate A, the 49.9% of voters who opted for candidate B are unrepresented–all of that state’s Electoral College votes will be cast for candidate A.

It would be far fairer to award Electoral votes proportionally. If 60% of the votes are cast for candidate A, candidate A should get 60% of the state’s electoral votes–not 100%. People in the political minority in a state would suddenly have an incentive to vote–an incentive that doesn’t exist now. Today, absent a “wave” election, a presidential vote by a Democrat in Indiana or a Republican in California simply doesn’t count.

Think about it.

Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. That’s why most are considered comfortably safe for one party or the other.  That “safety” leads to the current disenfranchisement of voters in states like Indiana. The only states that matter to either party in a national election are the so-called “battleground” states — especially bigger ones like Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other. We saw this in 2016, where Trump’s incredibly thin wins in three states (just under 80,000 votes in total over the three states) gave him the White House.

If newly hopeful Democrats can produce a “wave election” in 2024–if they can manage a trifecta at the national level–this systemic unfairness can be changed. The John Lewis Act can be passed. Gerrymandering can be outlawed. Winner-take-all laws can be addressed.

If enough of us vote Blue, we can restore small-d democratic accountability.

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