"But at least as important as these [policy] changes has been the insistence on displays of tactical or procedural radicalism—the willingness to fight ruthlessly for victory, even when it entails breaking from longstanding norms and even laws that limit and constrain the behavior of elected representatives."Damon Linker, Dept. of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Norms matter. Facts matter.
Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House proved his loyalty to Trump and came to the attention of GOP House members by orchestrating an elegant way for GOP House members to justify rejecting electoral votes certified for Joe Biden.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his allies were spreading a message of election fraud. They cited dead voters, counterfeit ballots, Venezuelan tabulating machines, harvested ballots, and more. Trump sold that story. Fox and the conservative media broadcast it. GOP voters bought it. By the first days of January of 2021, GOP Representatives knew what the text messages show Fox News hosts knew, but wouldn't say. Attorney General Bill Barr and Election Security Chief Chris Krebs knew and said it. Governors in battleground states knew and said it. There wasn't any meaningful, election-result-changing fraud. It was a lie.
GOP Representatives needed a excuse to vote "in good conscience" to reject ballots. Mike Johnson came up with the pretext. They did not need to argue that the election rules were unreasonable, nor that they failed to be examined and approved by the courts of each state. Just assert that the legislatures of the state didn't write the administrative rules. Call the votes unconstitutional. Discard them.
Johnson offered a pretext. A majority of GOP Representatives went along, including my own Representative, Cliff Bentz. Johnson served a purpose. He let GOP House members vote the way their GOP voters wanted, to overthrow the election, even as the fraud story disintegrated.
It was an example of procedural radicalism. Ignore the procedural safeguards of our democracy and use some pretext to get the desired result, under cover of legality. It is a feature, not a bug. He draws liberal tears of frustration as Democrats watch Trump and the MAGA GOP ignore norms. Refuse to carry out ministerial duties like certifying an election. Assert that a Vice President can throw out votes on his own discretion. Refuse to respond to subpoenas. Ignore criminal behavior. Block military promotions. In budget negotiations hold essential services hostage. Kevin McCarthy's fatal "sin" was that he compromised with Democrats. He had the power to injure the hostage -- our government -- but didn't. That meant McCarthy wasn't trying hard enough. He was a squish. A RINO.
The public notices what happens in the House and Senate. There are limits to pretext there. The greater danger of procedural radicalism takes place as MAGA drifts down to the state and local level. If a County Clerk in one of Arizona's 15 counties, or a member of the four-person Board of State Canvassers in Michigan, uses some pretext to refuse to sign an election certification, the election system fails.
We act on the basis of trust and good faith a hundred times a day. We assume oncoming traffic will stay in their lanes. A stripe of paint is all that protects us from a fatal crash. When our groceries are rung up and we hand cash to the cashier, we assume the cashier acknowledges it. But what if the cashier looks you in the eye and says, "You didn't hand me money. I deny it. You can't prove it." That could happen, but it doesn't. We trust people will acknowledge facts.
But a new norm has taken a foothold in the MAGA GOP. Assert what you want. Let them fight you. Only a RINO holds back. This is a bleak situation, but there is a corrective. Simultaneous with MAGA's procedural radicalism is policy radicalism. The ethic of grabbing whatever one can get away with extends to abortion bans, budget cuts, taxation, immigration, Ukraine, and LGBTQ issues. Some of what the MAGA GOP wants will be unpopular.
The MAGA ethic calls for players to run up the score when winning. That will be their undoing.
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12 comments:
Facts don’t matter to most Republicans. They still believe the Big Lie, that the 2020 election was stolen, or “stollen” as Trump calls it because it’s like a pastry stuffed with bullshit that his cult eagerly swallowed. They prove Joseph Goebbels’ point, that if you repeat a big lie often enough, people will believe it – at least the crazy and/or stupid ones who don’t care about facts.
It is going to get worse before it gets better. They are terrorists in suits and quite a few have law degrees.
Imagine the role of the judiciary when norms and rules are ignored on a vast scale. Mr. Big doesn’t obey the gag order. “I find the witness not credible”says the judge. Oy.
This is a sad state of affairs! When so much is happening in the world, the environment, our country and technology, we've entered a hall of smoke and mirrors with this current House.
Their ultimate goal is a predominantly white, patriarchal Judeo-Christian nation based on their evangelical, fundamentalist and conservative Catholic Christian beliefs. Readers may also be familiar with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a national conservative group founded in 1973 to pass "model conservative" legislation at the state level. Google search for more information.
It's been smoke and mirrors since January 20, 2016, and the slide into autocratic theocracy has only accelerated, with only one side playing by the rules.
At the root of this is evangelical christianity, aided and abetted by the traditional establishment religions and, ironically, godless, soulless corporate donors. It's only with the authority of a deluded zealot that the end can justify the means.
Sauce for the gander, Volume XXVII: the modern age of "anything goes" among our leading, er, statesmen, is epitomized by the late Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. Reid's infamous resort to the nuclear option broke longstanding Congressional norms then, and set the stage from then on. Facts matter? When Reid claimed--falsely--during the race against Obama that he personally knew that opponent candidate Romney had not paid his income taxes, Reid responded to subsequently-revealed evidence of Romney's payment with, "well, we won [the election], didn't we"? Many Democrats in Congress called the 2016 (let alone 2000 and 2004) vote and "illegitimate", "tainted", or a "hoax", including current and former Speakers Jeffries and Pelosi. Some voted not to certify state electoral college results. The late John Lewis was one who boycotted the swearing-in because Trump was "illegitimately" the president-elect. Maybe the gander is Good and Correct, though, so justified in what is otherwise reprehensible....
Everybody knows that politicians lie. What's unprecedented is a major political party trying to overturn an election and persistently lying about the outcome. The GOP doesn't just lie a lot, it's predicated on a lie.
In the absence of an overarching source of morality, things continue to deteriorate. There used to be religion, but that is mostly gone now.
Look at all the college students justifying horrific terrorist atrocities, including LGBTQ students supporting jihadists who would happily kill them. Look at phrases like “my truth” and “lived experience” (I always wonder what other kind of experience there could be).
We’re living through an epistemic crisis. It’s all relative now; victory to the loudest…
Left-wingers getting canceled for celebrating terrorist atrocities? It wasn’t supposed to go that way! Call out the bias response teams and the DEI thought patrol! Enforce the right (left?) side of history!
According to Wikipedia, Mike John is a Southern Baptist. He is in a "covenant marriage," which apparently is legal in a few states. From what I read (briefly), it is more difficult to get a divorce in a covenant marriage.
Mike Johnson is also a professor at Liberty University, which was founded by Jerry Falwell, Sr. He is a lawyer who was educated at Louisiana State University. He obtained his bachelor's degree in business administration.
He was born in 1972, so he is part of Generation X.
I am not optimistic, at all.
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