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Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

4 Jun

Purely on the politics, the big lesson of the last 12 years is: the faster you do things the better. The vote margin doesn't matter so much as 1) getting it done 2) the thing itself being popular. The *worst* thing for the politics of legislation is long drawn out process.

Now if the thing itself is bad, then obviously rushing is bad, but that's just downstream of it itself being bad! And if you have some quasi-religious belief in bi-partisanship in and of itself, then fine, but you can't say you're doing it for better politics or better outcomes.

Which is kind of where we are with, Manchin and Sinema. To them *the process is the point.* Not the outcome itself, nor the politics, but the act of bi-partisanship.

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Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

28 May

https://twitter.com/stevenmazie/status/1398326037084262401

People that make their way to the highest levels of government in the broad center-left coalition tend to be, genuine institutionalists who truly do believe in their hearts that, for lack of a better phrase, The System Works.

https://twitter.com/stevenmazie/status/1398326037084262401

In some ways, I think that's good! There's a kind of wariness of procedural maximalism and pure cynical will-to-power struggle among many (not all!) that can serve as a useful check on some of the worst impulses in politics and governance.

But I am a bit panicked that this ethos, which is the dominant ethos among most Democrats in government at the highest levels has what it takes to actually resist and defeat the forces gathering outside the castle walls.

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Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

25 May

Always important to remember how the American criminal justice system actually works. Depending on the jurisdiction somewhere between 90 to 97% of crimes are pleaded out. Law and Order-style trials are exceedingly rare. The exception, not the rule.

The entire system *can only function* with this being the case. As Michelle Alexander has pointed out, if every defendent got a trial the entire system would collapse under the weight. All parties to the system understand this.

Prosecutors use leverage, and the enticement of lighter sentences to induce please and defense lawyers and defendants make risk judgements. One binding constraint in all of this, of course, is that resources are limited. Everyone only has so many labor-hours to spend.

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Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

11 May

Never forget that a huge reason we’re having this war over voting access is that John Roberts invented a totally new constitutional principle out of whole cloth so he could kill the Voting Rights Act for no good reason.

Here’s Richard Posner on Shelby County back in 2013:

Turned these tweets into an A block. Who says Twitter is a waste of time!

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Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

6 Mar

Based on vaccination rates and the passage of this bill, it seems like giving every parent in America the *option* of full time in-person instruction starting May 1 would be an ambitious but doable goal. Instead, the largest systems in the country aren't going to even try.

And by not even try, I mean there are literally no plans in major cities to attempt it. It's just chalked. That seems nuts to me. Maybe it's not doable? But worth the effort.

People say is it worth it with only a bit of school left? That’s a fair question. Everything having to do with this issue is a balance of risks, costs and benefits, but I think in-person public schooling is a truly vital social good.

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Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

4 Mar

I think if you're a campaign practioner or a practioner of electoral politics more broadly it's really important to be attuned to public opinion and to basically treat it as exogenous. Don't center your campaign on unpopular stuff is important advice!

Indeed, I think there are certain areas of The Discourse that way too flippantly ignore public opinion as an actual constraint on political action, believing it's not real or can be overcome with boldness or tactical audacity. And so reminders about the median voter are useful.

That said, yhe most interesting thing to me, as someone whose life's work is analyzing politics more broadly is that "public opinion" changes, & it changes in fascinating, remarkable often unpredictable ways over time. The alchemy of how that happens is why politics fascinates me

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