Today's RNC censure and Pence speech clarified that the Republican Party is at a crossroads. Back in the early 2010s, I wrote at a Drake Law symposium on the tea party/establishment split, and eventually saw the Tea Party breaking off from Rs. That was backwards /1
Trump is the heir of the Tea Party, the inheritor of the Sarah Palin base, and he managed to capture enough of the Republican party base to hold the establishment Republicans hostage. But Trump did more than just unify the wing. /2
Trump established a cult of personality around him in which personal loyalty triumphed over policy. So Trump follows Tea Party priorities on cultural issues, abortion, guns, immigration. So he has capital to use it to punish political enemies. /3
For Trump, the most important political issue is allegiance to Trump. And so he is trying to force primaries of anyone who will cross him, regardless of ideology. He's less conservative than Liz Cheney for example, but no matter. /4
Assuming Trump stays healthy and decides to run in 2024, he has to be the prohibitive frontrunner right now because of this cult of personality status. And that means there are fewer opportunities for congressional Rs to break with him. /5
Congressional and Senate Republicans need what Trump can deliver to keep their majority. Kevin McCarthy, who could well be next house speaker, sees no place for Cheney or Kitzinger in the party. What can he do? /6
That's why the Pence speech today is so significant. It seems an attempt of more mainstream/establishment/anti-insurrection Republicans to show that they matter too to the coalition, and Rs cannot win without keeping a good share of them. /7
How this breaks is hard to say. Trump is stronger and advantages Rs have structurally in U.S. politics (Senate composition, electoral college gerrymandering), give Trumpians a chance to dominate. But not if they lose 5% of Rs across the board in states that matter. /8
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Maybe this is crazy, but I could see Republicans appealing to SCOTUS, arguing that the state court ruling usurped the power of the state legislature to set the rules for congressional elections in Art. 1 s 4. Would require SCOTUS to overturn Arizona Ind. Redist. case /1
This would be a way to test the so-called "independent state legislature" theory outside the context of a presidential election and with a target that SCOTUS conservatives don't like: a Democratic dominated state supreme court in a state with a Republican legislature. /2
The argument is audacious and wrong: it is that a state Supreme Court relying on a state constitutional right does not have any power over a state legislature setting rules for congressional elections. It would rely on the Bush 1 concurrence from the 2000 election. /3
Twitter is a great leveler and can get interesting people in conversation. but the herd mentality and the cyber snark and psuedo-bullying is just a turnoff. I can take it, but it's not pleasant and some days not worth it.
And some days I'm just plain resentful that I and millions of others produce content of value to other people for the profit of Twitter, and with a fair amount of aggravation along the way.
My new oped in the @nytimes: "We must not succumb to despair or indifference. It won’t be easy, but there is a path forward if we begin acting now, together, to shore up our fragile election ecosystem." nytimes.com/2022/01/07/opi…
Let’s begin by reviewing some of the key problems. Those who administer elections have faced threats of violence and harassment. One in four election administrators say that they plan to retire before 2024.
Republican election and elected officials who stood up to Mr. Trump’s attempt to rig the 2020 vote count are being pushed out or challenged for their jobs in primaries by people embracing Mr. Trump’s false claims, like Representative Jody Hice.
And the way to think about January 6 is not what it meant for then but about the lessons it teaches for election subversion next time, as i lay out in this @harvlrev Forum forthcoming article:
@HarvLRev Josh, you should spend time as I have talking to people like @LarryDiamond Steve Levitsky, Gretchen Helmke, who study how democracies become authoritarian countries. The danger signs are all here.
I wrote five opeds and commentaries in 2021 about the risk of election subversion and what we need to do to help preserve American democracy from the risk of a stolen presidential election in 2024. It started with this pre-Jan 6 @theatlantic piece: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
And Eastman's whole point is preposterous: he put "crazy" wrong theories in a legal memo from him to be distributed to others, without even noting that the arguments are weak or don't represent his own views? No respectable lawyer does that in giving legal advice.
And even now Eastman hedges, saying the issue of the VP's authority to unilaterally reject electoral votes is not "resolved." Absurd and dangerous.