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Archive for July, 2024|Monthly archive page

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You’ll Be Told A Lot Of Things Over The Next Few Weeks; Try Not To Listen.

In PeaceAble, Politics on July 22, 2024 at 12:36 pm

Now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 Presidential election, we may expect to see several storylines being promoted by the parties and the press.  We should at least ignore and probably protest all of them.  And the Democrats should actively resist becoming part of them.

The first story is that Biden’s stepping down is a sign that the party is in disarray, or that there will be a chaotic, divisive, disorderly convention.  This is predicated on two other stories.  One is that the Democrats don’t want VP Harris as their candidate and will try to replace her.  This story will persist in spite of the fact that nearly all the major alternative candidates have already endorsed Harris.  The second is that essentially making Harris the candidate without a contested convention would somehow disenfranchise those who voted for the Biden/Harris ticket in the primaries.  But Harris has been a heartbeat away from the Presidency for three-and-a-half years now.  And that is because the voters put her there.

Another story, being pushed by the Republicans is that Biden should not just bow out of the election, but step down from the Presidency.  If he can no longer run for office, they say, then he must also no longer be fit to govern.  This will persist even though it is patently ridiculous argument.  Of course he is fit to finish out his term.  He didn’t leave the campaign because he can’t function; he left because he became convinced that he couldn’t win.  And those promoting this idea undercut their own argument by also saying that he shouldn’t be allowed to drop out.  Again, there could be a whole slew of reasons why a candidate may not finish a campaign they started.  One big one would be if someone assassinated them.  So, if DJT had been killed after choosing Vance as his running mate, how would the Republicans move forward?  And if Biden leaves the campaign, for any reason whatsoever, it is his decision, and the normal course of action would be to nominate the VP.

There is also the story that Harris can’t be elected because she is a multi-racial woman.  Corollary to this story is one that says the Democrats can’t pick someone like Governor Whitmer as VP because “the country isn’t ready” for an all-woman ticket.  The democrats as a party, including their more progressive wing, and the U.S. as a whole have long suffered a blatant hypocrisy around the idea of new achievements for anyone who is not a white male.  When the question arises, there is an immediate cry of “if not now, when; if not this person, who?”  Which is immediately followed by “well, of course, we don’t necessarily mean that we should pick this person now; it’s just a hypothetical.”

All of us need to reject these stories and write a new one.

The Democrats should stop worrying about running against Donald Trump.  Aside from regularly showcasing what a truly horrible person he is, and how badly he is declining both physically and mentally; they should ignore him.  They should focus more loudly and vigorously on Project 2025; on the Republican opposition to abortion, to LGBTQ+ rights, to diversity and equity initiatives; on the Republican economic platform; and on plans to dismantle or hobble the departments of Homeland Security, Education, Energy; and to destroy the FDA, the NLRB, unions generally; and their desire to make loyalty to the President (which will really be loyalty to the authoritarians and oligarchs who are propping him up) a condition of serving in government, the military, and the judiciary.

This cannot be run as simply a race between Harris and Trump.  It needs to be remade in the public’s view as a choice between two diametrically opposed visions of America’s future.  Do we want a Chisto-fascist vision of a faux democracy, ruled by white men, under a banner of Christian Nationalism, in which even the most personal, most fundamental decisions are dictated by nominally religious pronouncements; or do we want to move toward an America which is inclusive and welcoming, and which seeks just and equitable opportunities for all its citizens, and for all human beings, in the economy, in  access to health, in the enrichment of life through the arts, in the benefits of all that America has to offer.  Electing Donals Trump or the Republican party would seem to guarantee the first American future.  Electing Harris and her running mate will certainly not immediately usher in the second; but it keeps it alive as a goal that we can all continue to work on together.

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OFFICIAL AXE: THE CONSTITUTION, THE RULE OF LAW, AND PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY

In Politics on July 2, 2024 at 7:59 am

Most of what is terrible about the Supreme Court decision declaring that Presidents have immunity from prosecution will be discussed at length for months, especially as the 2024 Presidential election draws closer.  Let me suggest some important points to remember.

You will hear a lot about the rule of law, but there has never been a clear idea about what that means.  Lawyers have always gotten rich, and the rich have always found a way in the effort to twist and turn the law to mean what suits them, while those without sufficient means have been forced to make plea bargains even when there is simply a possibility that they might be convicted, regardless of their actual guilt.  Every law on the books has been written by flawed human beings, who have relied on language that is never absolute in its meaning.  The rule of law is a rule that says, “whatever the law says, guilt and punishment are a function of class, not of the law.” 

There will be much discussion, also, of the court’s “conservatives.”  Don’t be fooled by the word.  This decision is not a conservative one, it is a radical one, arrived at by justices who have expressed extreme right-wing views on a wide range of issues, and who have no interest in setting their views aside to adjudicate the Constitution, nor in recusing themselves when there are obvious conflicts of interest.  At least four of them were appointed to the court specifically so that they might wreak havoc with what had been established law and Constitutional rights.

It would be pointless, in fact, to look for the Constitutional underpinning of this decision, though many pundits may try.  The majority didn’t really even try to justify the ruling on Constitutional grounds.  The principal arguments for the ruing involve an imagined future in which Presidents will be afraid to make bold, decisive decisions and take necessary actions because they will fear prosecution when they leave office.  Yet, in more than 200 years, over the terms of 46 different Presidents, only one has ever felt the need for this kind of protection against legal accountability.  And he wants the Presidency back, with this new lack of constraints that will allow him to become a dictator.

But the most disturbing thing about this ruling is that its justification ignores a simple fundamental idea, that a bold and decisive action is not the same thing as a criminal one, and never should be.  The court has essentially argued not that Presidents need to be able to act boldly, but that they need to be able to act illegally, with abandon.  A President with immunity is a President who does not have to think carefully about their decisions, weighing not just the actions, but all of the larger implications and consequences.  Such a President need only decide that their actions suit them.

Apparently, the Court has given themselves the power to determine when a President’s actions are within the realm of their official responsibilities.  This means that any attempt to prosecute a President (in or out of office) would invariably hinge on proving that the actions were not official, and then having to argue that through the entire legal system until it eventually reaches the Supreme Court where it could simply be tossed out.  How many Attorneys General or prosecutors would be willing or able to spend that much time and tax-payer dollars on what would likely be a fruitless task?

The decision is not now absolute for all time, though it will not be easy to fix.  It is, however, more imperative now than ever that the 2024 election reject the right-wing extremists decisively.  We need to elect Democrats to keep the White House, keep control (and expand it) in the Senate, and retake the House of Representatives with a clear majority.  We also need to keep or take leadership and control of governments at the state level in a large enough majority of states to pass a Constitutional amendment, and that amendment needs to state as clearly and unequivocally as possible, that Presidential actions, regardless of their justifications, regardless of their official nature, may be prosecuted if they are perceived to be violations of the Constitution or the law.  Presidents shall never be above the law, but will have the rights and responsibilities as every other citizen, including the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, and to defend themselves in a court of law – or ask for a plea bargain.