A Dark New Era for Democracy
Anthony Kennedy's retirement is dour news for our democracy, with the Supreme Court now positioned to further undermine voting rights—the opposite of what this country and planet need. It is tragic that the G.O.P. has been rewarded for its power-grab in refusing to seat Obama's centrist nominee, Merrick Garland; now, the unAmerican demagogue whom Vladimir Putin helped to elect—knowing full well that he would weaken our democracy and global influence—will likely entrench the Court's reactionary extremism for decades. Look for the increasingly authoritarian G.O.P. to further rig itself into power, with potentially dire environmental consequences.
What must happen now is simple. Defeating the G.O.P. at every level—as George Will and many other prominent conservatives are calling for—is now a patriotic duty. Steve Schmidt, John McCain's 2008 campaign manager, exemplifies the courage necessary to eschew tribalism, precisely at a time (as is always the case) when tribalism is most powerful. "29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life," he recently wrote. "Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump. It is corrupt, indecent and immoral. With the exception of a few Governors like Baker, Hogan and Kasich it is filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders." He went on to emphasize that the notion—popular among Trump apologists—that "both sides" are equally to blame is nonsense:
This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of Humanity in our history. It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated... The first step to a season of renewal in our land is the absolute and utter repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities. I do not say this as an advocate of a progressive agenda. I say it as someone who retains belief in DEMOCRACY and decency.
On Ronald Reagan’s grave are these words. “I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” He would be ashamed of McConnell and Ryan and all the rest while this corrupt government establishes internment camps for babies. Everyone of these complicit leaders will carry this shame through history. [Their] legacies will be ones of well earned ignominy. They have disgraced their country and brought dishonor to the Party of Lincoln.
He concludes with the most important thing to understand about American politics:
I have spent much of my life working in GOP politics. I have always believed that both parties were two of the most important institutions to the advancement of human freedom and dignity in the history of the world. Today the GOP has become a danger to our democracy and values.
This Independent voter will be aligned with the only party left in America that stands for what is right and decent and remains fidelitous to our Republic, objective truth, the rule of law and our Allies. That party is the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, here are two pieces especially worth reading this week: "The Republican Court and the Era of Minority Rule", by Jonathan Chait, who writes: "The central drama of the Trump era is a struggle to defend American democracy against an authoritarian leader. The Republican Party’s comfort with the crude authoritarianism of its president, though, did not spring out of nowhere. It is the culmination of a party increasingly comfortable with, and reliant on, countermajoritarian power."
And a reflection from the ever-incisive Andrew Sullivan, "Anthony Kennedy and the Death of True American Conservatism", on how the Republican Party has become an enemy of true conservatism: "There is not an institution or custom or alliance or constitutional norm Trump won’t vandalize at a second’s notice. He cares little for the generations ahead of us (see the debt and the environment); nor respects the wisdom of the past (see his desire to obliterate the idea of an independent Justice Department or the NATO alliance); he is a lonely, maladjusted id, with Western civilization as a plaything in his hands. And Republicanism — in its shameful embrace of this monster, its determined rape of the environment, destruction of our fiscal standing, evisceration of our allies, callousness toward the sick, and newfound contempt for free trade — has nary a conservative bone in its putrefying body."
Other than that, and that five journalists were gunned down yesterday amid a climate of Stalinist rhetoric from the leader of the free world, happy Friday!