Before zooming out to the larger political context and lessons, here’s how I’ve reasoned through the past week’s events and how others have characterized them. crooked.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=88…
Because it looks chaotic there’s a widespread assumption that there must be a better way, and then bad-faith critics who insist they would've pulled it off seamlessly. Given that backdrop, Biden is right to be unyielding.
Oversight is totally appropriate going forward, but Democrats in Congress fell instantly into a defensive crouch, when they should’ve taken their cues from Biden.
But *both* Biden and Democrats in Congress should apply the lessons from this experience to things like Republicans spreading COVID to children, and their broader emphasis on placation and bipartisanship.
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NEW: The VA and CA elections can serve as test cases for how congressional Democrats should run next year. mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…
I’ve come around to Newsom’s “no backup plan” strategy, high risk as it is, but now he’s gotta scorch the earth around Larry Elder. crooked.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=88…
Mapping the Newsom/McAuliffe approach on to midterms will require, among other things, fully exposing the plot to overturn the elections. Good signs there from the select committee, some troubling ones from the administration.
My take on this is that our political system makes it impossible for popular liberal majorities to enact solutions to problems before they become crises, even when their leaders have power, so their only recourse is to get louder in various ways. slowboring.com/p/fake-crisis
Had we let the people with solutions govern after they won, the climate crisis would be a more manageable climate problem; minorities would not be allowed to govern in perpetuity. But we didn’t.
Now, after years of ignoring problems, they have metastasized into acute crises. And the response is to hope that a clean energy standard can survive reconciliation, consecutive minoritarian gerrymanders don’t cost us another decade, and the insurrection fizzles out. Not great!
Yup, as Jeet writes, the sudden surge of commentary on and troll-farm like activity around Hungary doesn’t just stem from the American right’s natural affinity for a bigoted, corrupt autocrat. It’s also about $$$ — and just in time for elections there. jeetheer.substack.com/p/funding-a-cr…
Why are we witnessing an absurd discourse around the idea that Hungary is a better place than the U.S. in the middle of right-wing-junket-to-Hungary season? Who will crack this impenetrable mystery?
The GOP plan was to sabotage herd immunity and blame Dems for it. For all the praise Rs received for changing tune on vaccination after a surge was already upon us, they haven't changed course: They sabotaged herd immunity, now they're blaming Dems for it. mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…
This is obviously vile behavior, but I do think Dems ought to take a page from the general playbook Republicans use to advance their goals: Jump in with both feet, then figure out how to swim. Inverting that formula tends to lead to bad places. crooked.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=88…
Republicans are also trying to blame Democrats for the insurrection, but it won’t work, because Dems (finally!) decided to cut them loose and point fingers. Now imagine if Dems had forthrightly accused Republicans of sabotage—of killing people for partisan gain.
All for a little light trolling of Republicans for defunding the police and presiding over a huge isometric violent crime spike across the country, but the people who represent the actual cops don’t seem to care who funded them.