Well, that was embarrassing.
In the end, Biden is still likely to get his spending deal. Late Thursday, key members of the Progressive caucus signed onto his BBB “framework,” so as Politico Playbook says this a.m., “Biden gets it done in spite of himself.”
But…
The day began with the president spiking the football prematurely, declaring victory before he had the votes. Bold move. And one that threatened to be a political FUBAR for the ages, when the progs told their president “Hell, no.”
Despite massive pressure and huge political stakes, the Biden-Pelosi plan for a vote on the Bipartisan Infrastructure plan had to be scrapped. As the Wapo noted: “The renewed stalemate denied Biden the victory he had hoped to achieve as he traveled abroad Thursday.”
But, as Playbook notes, “the dispute over sequencing masked a major achievement for the president: Hill progressives now appear ready to swallow this deal — and that means it’s likely a matter of when, not if, it passes.”
Still, it was uhhhgly.
Mediaite @Mediaite
New Fox News Poll Has Glenn Youngkin Leading Terry McAuliffe in Virginia by 8 Points https://t.co/BsWULLlb1z
John Bresnahan @bresreports
.@RepEspaillat is a “No” on BIF over immigration. He’s talked to Pelosi about it, no resolution yetExit take: Democrats reminded us that they have a penchant for doing things in the hardest and most painful way possible.
The Fuq Your Feelings Crowd Pivots
If you are more than five minutes old, you probably remember the moral panic over the “banning” of Dr. Seuss. The “cancel culture,” was coming for your children’s books which we were told was, indeed, a very bad thing.
For a while there, protecting Dr. Seuss — even if his books included images that might offend some sensibilities — was the forward edge of the culture war, because FREEDOM must always trump feelings.
Do I have that right? Because it now seems so long ago — especially since the same folks are busy cancelling not just books, but words. Because they might hurt feelings.
It’s a helluva flex. As Paul Waldman writes:
Conservatives love to mock liberals as soft, wimpy, and insistent that everyone take account of their feelings. But as they whip up anger and fear over what students are taught in schools about race, something unexpected is happening to Republicans: They’re getting in touch with their own emotional vulnerability, and making policy demands based on ensuring that people’s feelings don’t get hurt.
In Texas, a state representative is demanding that school officials identify any “material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”
And, helpfully, he passes along a list of 850 problematic books.
But this is mere child’s play compared to Republicans from Wisconsin who are banning specific words.
The legislature has already passed a bill banning certain concepts related to race and gender from the state’s schools. Lest this be in any way ambiguous, the bill’s sponsor provided a list of words — including “equity", “racial justice”, and “cultural awareness” —that were prohibited under the law.
Here’s the whole list for your delectation. Breathe deep the gathering gloom…
Additional terms and concepts below that either wholly violate the above clauses, or which may if taught through the framework of any of the prohibited activities defined above, partially violate the above clauses in what is otherwise broadly defined as “critical race theory”:
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
Action Civics
Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Culturally responsive teaching
Abolitionist teaching
Affinity groups
Anti-racism
Anti-bias training
Anti-blackness
Anti-meritocracy
Obtuse meritocracy
Centering or de-centering
Collective guilt
Colorism
Conscious and unconscious bias
Critical ethnic studies
Critical pedagogy
Critical self-awareness
Critical self-reflection
Cultural appropriation/misappropriation
Cultural awareness
Cultural competence
Cultural proficiency
Cultural relevance
Cultural responsiveness
Culturally responsive practices
De-centering whiteness
Deconstruct knowledges
Diversity focused
Diversity training
Dominant discourses
Educational justice
Equitable
Equity
Examine “systems"
Free radical therapy
Free radical self/collective care
Hegemony
Identity deconstruction
Implicit/Explicit bias
Inclusivity education
Institutional bias
Institutional oppression
Internalized racial superiority
Internalized racism
Internalized white supremacy
Interrupting racism
Intersection
Intersectionality
Intersectional identities
Intersectional studies
Land acknowledgment
Marginalized identities
Marginalized/Minoritized/Under-represented communities
Microaggressions
Multiculturalism
Neo-segregation
Normativity
Oppressor vs. oppressed
Patriarchy
Protect vulnerable identities
Race essentialism
Racial healing
Racialized identity
Racial justice
Racial prejudice
Racial sensitivity training
Racial supremacy
Reflective exercises
Representation and inclusion
Restorative justice
Restorative practices
Social justice
Spirit murdering
Structural bias
Structural inequity
Structural racism
Systemic bias
Systemic oppression
Systemic racism
Systems of power and oppression
Unconscious bias
White fragility
White privilege
White social capital
White supremacy
Whiteness
Woke
**
Robert Tracinski writes about this snowflake pivot in today’s Bulwark: “Cancel Cultural Appropriation.”
Conservatives are “fighting” wokeness by copying it. In the famous mantra, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” it turns out the key word was not “feelings,” but “your.” Facts don’t care about your feelings, but they sure as heck care about ours.
The ADL writes to Murdoch (again)
Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson
Starting Monday https://t.co/MRbx5FKVAcIn a letter to Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League wrote:
“Let’s call this what it is: an abject, indisputable lie and a blatant attempt to rewrite history. As an organization committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate, we remain deeply concerned that the false narrative and wild conspiracy theories presented by Carlson will sow further division and has the potential to animate violence.”
Bonus from Liz Cheney:
Infuriating story of the day
Via Reason: “Cops Tase a Veteran's Service Dog During an Unconstitutional Arrest for Panhandling.”
The dog died after the man went to jail for exercising his First Amendment rights.
Frum sounds the alarm.
In Trump’s first term, the country was protected to some degree by his ignorance and ineptitude. He kept trying to do bad things, but it took him a while to figure out how the controls operated, where the kill-switches were located. By the time of his attempt to extort the Ukrainian president, in 2019, Trump had achieved a higher degree of mastery. But by then it was too late. Then the pandemic struck, and Trump bumped into a new wall of failure.
In a second Trump presidency, however, the burglars will arrive already knowing how to bypass the alarms and disable the locks. He’ll understand that it’s not enough to install an ally as attorney general—he must control the secondary and tertiary ranks of the Justice Department too. He won’t allow himself to be talked into another chief of staff with an independent sense of duty, such as John Kelly, who averted much harm from the middle of 2017 to the beginning of 2019. It’ll be Mark Meadows types from day one to day last. And he’ll bring with them a new generation of Republican officeholders whose top priority will be rearranging their states’ election laws so that Republicans do not lose power even if they lose the vote.
That’s the future Trump is preparing.
Be ready.
Quick Hits
1. The Self-Isolation of the American Left
Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were among the great champions of progressive ideas in the 20th century. But they didn’t exist within an insular, self-validating community whose values and assumptions were often at odds with those of the rest of society.
Increasingly, that cannot be said of modern progressivism.
Modern progressivism is in danger of becoming dominated by a relatively small group of people who went to the same colleges, live in the same neighborhoods and have trouble seeing beyond their subculture’s point of view.
2. When ‘Jesus’ Came to Q
Thomas Lecaque writes in today’s Bulwark:
No one expects to see a once-prominent actor, fallen from the limelight, delivering a crusade sermon in Las Vegas, yet these are the times we live in. Jim Caviezel is most famous for his portrayal of Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ (a film and director both widely denounced as anti-Semitic). Last weekend, Caviezel was one of a long list of QAnon-affiliated speakers at the “For God and Country Patriot Double Down” conference at the Ahern Hotel in Las Vegas. And his speech was both the most dramatic—a performance that reminded the viewer that the man can in fact act—while also being the most militant and wild talk possible. In its content, and its speaker, the speech was a microcosm of Q: still a partisan murder fantasy, with all of the religious overtones of holy war, still seeking to shepherd delusions into reality. And who could be better suited to be the shepherd of Q than the actor known for playing the shepherd of man?
3. Trump’s Entire Platform Might Now Be DOA
Chris Truax, in today’s Bulwark:
Donald Trump’s latest business venture, Truth Social, is a brand-new social media platform that is going to be a publicly-traded company via a reverse merger with a SPAC. Consequently, it sits at the intersection between finance, law, and technology. When you combine Trump’s legendary financial acumen—he has only six bankruptcies on his record—with his uncanny eye for legal talent like Rudy Giuliani and tech wizards like Brad Parscale, what could possibly go wrong?
You would be surprised.
Cheap Shots
Meanwhile, in Georgia…
Burgess Everett @burgessev
Statement from Gary Black, Herschel Walker's primary opponent in Georgia: “Herschel has threatened women, choked them, stalked them,” Black said. "He has put knives to their throats and guns to their heads, and he claims that he must be innocent because he never went to jail."And in New York…
In the 2018 midterms, only 1 out of 41 seats that flipped from red to blue was won by a Progressive. The moderates in Congress tried to tell them that their rhetoric about "defund the police" and others, was going to cost them seats in the 2020 election, and they were correct about that. But the Progressives insulate themselves from responsibility and political realities by claiming we lost because we didn't go far enough. With them it is all or nothing, our way or we sit it out type of threats. They are too extreme. As far as I'm concerned, they are the other side of the MAGA coin, and the vast majority of Americans are tired of being ruled by the extreme minorities on either side of the political spectrum. Moderates gave Biden the nomination, moderates from all parties gave him the White House. We're going to lose their support in the upcoming midterms and the 2024 election if things don't change.
For God's sake, save us from all the well-intentioned people who are Sounding the Alarm! Do any of them understand that they are preaching to the choir? Trump's first term sounded the alarm. The Jan 6 Insurrection sounded the alarm. The GOP's embrace of trump post-Jan 6 sounded the alram. The steady and dangerous march of today's GOP at the federal and state level towards authoritarism and giving themselves the ability to steal elections is sounding the alarm.
Again I ask, who among these people with resources is going to roll up their sleeves and bring together experts from a wide swath of professions - journalism, government, national security, former politicians from either party, advertising, marketing, media, social media, legal, academia - and get down to the urgent business of coming up with a national, workable strategy to keep us from losing our democracy before it is too late?
Once today's GOP regains the reins of power in the next 3 years, they will go far beyond trump's first term. They will pervert every agency of government to keep and extend their power and to punish their perceived enemies. Elections will be nothing more than window dressing, with their dear leader demanding 96% of the vote. The military and armed militias will be used against peaceful protesters. I shudder to think of the crimes that will be tolerated against communities of color.
We need a cohesive strategy and the right messaging from all quarters. Invite people from large swaths of professions to come armed with information AND ideas. Make it a week-long symposium of sorts. Come up with a plan that can be successful. We need to convince Americans who are busy with their own lives and don't follow politics, who don't pay to subscribe to the Atlantic, Wapo or NYT, or even The Bulwark +, that we must defeat today's GOP in every upcoming election, at every level, that only their defeat at the ballot box will cause them to reform.
There are millions of Americans willing to pitch in with time, energy, and money, but we need a cohesive strategy and national leadership.
We're long past the time for eloquent and moving words, and we're certainly not going to accomplish anything by preaching to the choir. The fascists in Germany were successful because once they took power, a portion of their nation embraced it, a portion believed they could profit from it, and the multitude felt the threat of prison or death was too much to bear to speak up or act out.
If it's as dire as everyone keeps saying it is, and I believe it is, then it's time to ACT. The midterm season is about to begin.
Where are those with the resources who can step up and pull us together to mount our best defense of democracy?