Biden's Advantage Is Normalcy Vs. The GOP's Extremism

 

The following post is part of an op-ed by Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times:

Biden’s biggest advantage has to do with the opposition — the Republican Party has gotten weird. It’s not just that Republican policies are well outside the mainstream, but that the party itself has tipped over into something very strange.

I had this thought while watching a clip of Ron DeSantis speakfrom a lectern to an audience we can’t see. In the video, which his press team highlighted on Twitter, DeSantis decries the “woke mind virus,” which he calls “a form of cultural Marxism that tries to divide us based on identity politics.”

Now, I can follow this as a professional internet user and political observer. I know that “woke mind virus” is a term of art for the (condescending and misguided) idea that progressive views on race and gender are an outside contagion threatening the minds of young people who might otherwise reject structural explanations of racial inequality and embrace a traditional vision of the gender binary. I know that “cultural Marxism” is a right-wing buzzword meant to sound scary and imposing.

To a normal person, on the other hand, this language is borderline unintelligible. It doesn’t tell you anything; it doesn’t obviously mean anything; and it’s quite likely to be far afield of your interests and concerns.

DeSantis is a regular offender when it comes to speaking in the jargon of culture war-obsessed conservatives, but he’s not the only one. And it’s not just a problem of jargon. Republican politicians — from presidential contenders to anonymous state legislators — are monomaniacally focused on banning books, fighting “wokeness” and harassing transgender people. Some Republicans are even still denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, doubling down on the election-related conspiracies that hobbled many Republican candidates in the midterms.

Not only do Americans not care about the various Republican obsessions — in a recent Fox News poll 1 percent of respondents said “wokeness” was “the most important issue facing the country today” — but a large majority say that those obsessions have gone too far. According to Fox, 60 percent of Americans said “book banning by school boards” was a major problem. Fifty-seven percent said the same for political attacks on families with transgender children. . . .

And yet there’s no sign that Republicans will relent and shift focus. Just the opposite, in fact; the party is poised to lurch even farther down the road of its alienating preoccupations. On abortion, for example, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, says candidates need to address the issue “head-on” in 2024 — that they can’t be “uncomfortable” on the issue and need to say “I’m proud to be pro-life.”

But the Republican Party has veered quite far from most Americans on abortion rights, and in a contested race for the presidential nomination, a “head-on” focus will possibly mean a fight over which candidate can claim the most draconian abortion views and policy aims. . . .

It’s as if the Republican Party has committed itself to being as off-putting as possible to as many Americans as possible. That doesn’t mean the party is doomed, of course. But as of this moment, it is hard to say it’s on the road to political success.

As for Joe Biden? The current state of the Republican Party only strengthens his most important political asset — his normalcy. He promised, in 2020, that he would be a normal president. And he is promising, for 2024, to continue to serve as a normal president. Normal isn’t fun and normal isn’t exciting. But normal has already won one election, and I won’t be surprised if it wins another.

Blank Tablets

 Political Cartoon is by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

The Government Is Ourselves

 

67% Of Texans Support Marijuana Legalization

The chart above is from the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs Poll -- done between January 9th and 19th of 1,200 adults, with a 2.8 point margin of error.

A Dangerous Country

Political Cartoon is by Randall Enos at Cagle.com.
 

Our Supreme Court Is Broken - Congress Must Fix It

The following post is part of an article at MSNBC.com by Richard W. Painter. Here is how he thinks the Supreme Court can be fixed:

The court’s system of self-regulation has broken beyond repair and must be replaced with a new system of supervision. . . .

Why isn’t this being fixed? Because the justices are allowed to enforce the rules themselves, with nobody looking over them. The Supreme Court is affected by the same corrosive phenomenon we see elsewhere, including in corporations, police departments, academic departments, fraternity houses and many other organizations and businesses: colleagues covering for colleagues. Such private clubs don’t function well as self-regulatory organizations.

Indeed, federal district and appeals judges are already subject to outside oversight, which includes investigations and imposition of discipline by the Judicial Conference of the United States. But the justices of the Supreme Court alone enforce the ethics rules for themselves. And their approach is to allow each justice alone to decide how, or whether, to comply with the law. Colleagues cover for colleagues.

The solution is the same as in other instances of professional misbehavior in close-knit groups of colleagues. We need meaningful supervision, with investigations of alleged wrongdoing and sanctions for those who violate rules. First, the Supreme Court needs a full-time ethics lawyer appointed by the chief justice with the consent of the eight other justices. The ethics lawyer would advise the justices, preferably in writing, about how to comply with the ethics rules in specific instances. That the justices would select their own ethics lawyer isn’t unusual — governmental organizations usually are allowed to pick their own lawyers, and one whom all nine justices agree on is likely to be good.

An ethics lawyer is only the first reform. The second is an inspector general for the Supreme Court. This person would be appointed by the chief justice with the consent of the other justices and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term and removable only for cause. The Supreme Court inspector general would, like inspectors general in federal agencies, investigate allegations of wrongdoing by justices, clerks or other staff members of the court. If justices don’t take the advice of the ethics lawyer or if they act without consulting the lawyer, that would be referred to the inspector general for investigation. The inspector general would submit reports to Congress, which would typically be made public. And where criminal statutes are implicated, the case could be referred to the Department of Justice.

The justices interpret the Constitution and laws of the U.S. in decisions binding on lower courts and that affect all of our lives. They have lifetime tenure, but we have seen that tenure combined with colleagues covering for colleagues doesn’t work. Nobody is above the law. The justices also must obey the law. The court can’t be allowed to become an Animal House of ethics, and if the justices think there’s nobody to supervise them, Congress will need to show them that they are badly mistaken.

Blaming The Victims

 Political Cartoon is by Nick Anderson in Reform Austin News.

Abbott Is A Shameful Excuse For A Governor

 

Willie Is Right!

 

About 230,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week

The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report last Thursday. It showed that about 230,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on April 22nd. Here is the official Labor Department statement:

In the week ending April 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 230,000, a decrease of 16,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 245,000 to 246,000. The 4-week moving average was 236,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 239,750 to 240,000.

 

And The Mouse Wins

Political Cartoon is by Dave Whamond at Cagle.com.
 

The MAGA Movement Is Very Unpopular

 The following post is by Bridget Bowman at MSNBC.com:

President Donald Trump is still unpopular and so is the political movement created in his image, according to a new national NBC News poll.

The Make America Great Again, or ‘MAGA,’ movement, which takes its name from Trump’s first campaign slogan, was the least popular individual or group tested in the new survey. Just 24% of Americans have positive views of the movement, while 45% voice negative views. 

These numbers come as President Joe Biden made Trump — and his movement — the centerpiece of his re-election launch video on Tuesday. 

Biden in his video that “MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away.” Biden and his fellow Democrats often use the term “MAGA” as a catch-all to describe pro-Trump Republicans who embrace the former president’s more extreme positions, including his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. 

A slight majority of Republicans — 52% — view the MAGA movement positively, as well as 53% of those who define themselves as conservative. 

Independents also rated the movement negatively, with just 12% viewing it positively, while 45% say they have negative views of the movement. 

The movement received net-positive ratings across only a few political and demographic groups, finding support among those who make up the Republican base, including Americans who are white, less educated and live in rural areas. 

More than a third of rural Americans have positive views of the movement, the highest of any geographic subgroup. And the movement received its highest mark from white Americans, with a 29% positive rating, of any racial subgroup. 

Men over the age of 50 were evenly split, with 36% voicing positive views and 37% voicing negative views. And a combined 58% of those with a high school degree or less and those who attended technical or vocational schools view the movement positively.

On the flip side, the movement received its highest negative ratings from groups that make up the Democratic base: the higher educated, younger people, people of color, particularly Black people, and those who define themselves as liberals. 

Where Is The Protection For Women's Lives?

Political Cartoon is by Ann Telnaes in The Washington Post.
 

The People Have The Power (And Must Use It)