Short thread.

1. Like everyone else who's lived through the last decade, I've learned to doubt that anything Trump does, however gross, or any manifestation of Trumpism, however appalling, will make a difference.

But...maybe? 2. Maybe the disgusting comments about Puerto Rico and Hispanic Americans in general will cause some voters in Pennsylvania to turn away from Trump?

First reactions to the deal:

1. Good for the U.S. (though need to get rid of debt ceiling in 2025).

2. Good for Biden.

Re policy, domestic spending freezes no worse than the CRs that a GOP House would have produced. And over the four years spending on liberal priorities up. 2. Good for Biden (cont.)

Re politics: That it's two year deal very good. And if some on the left are unhappy, that doesn't hurt his case to moderate swing voters that they should vote for him again in 2024. Especially if there'll be a GOP House and/or Senate, which is likely.

"[Delight] runs the risk of neglect at precisely the moment when delight might be most culturally beneficial...Slaves of anxiety and fear, surrounded by reasons for pessimism, we are in need of it. I would like to say a few words in defense of delight."

libertiesjournal.com/articles/the-m… "The Marriage of Figaro is perhaps the last word on delight...By placing the laurel wreaths of artistic perfection on a comedy, Figaro is an invitation, in its details and in aggregate, to ponder the exquisiteness of delight."

Looking to the Munich Security Conference (@MunSecConf, #MSC2023), a gathering of leading policymakers, this piece, which appeared in German in @Tagesspiegel and in English at @americanpurpose, urges strength and clarity of purpose for victory in Ukraine.
americanpurpose.com/articles/keepi… "We must confess to being somewhat alarmed. Do our leaders, in the U.S. and Germany, have the sense of urgency that they ought to have? Do our leaders, in the U.S. and Germany, have the clarity of vision they might have?"

A short thread.

It's understandable that President Biden focused on domestic policy in his State of the Union speech. As a consequence perhaps, much was left unsaid about the state of the world. In the coming days and weeks, Biden should find an occasion to address these topics: 1. Iran. Not mentioned in the State of the Union. The president should express support for the brave women and men of Iran demanding freedom and democracy for their country. He could do so by sending a message to--or dropping by!-- the event Friday at Georgetown University...

A short thread:

What if we had a Republican Party that behaved like a loyal opposition?

What if leading Republicans in Congress, and prominent Republicans who'd served in the previous administration, cared more about weakening President Xi than attacking President Biden? 2. Yes, Republicans would raise questions about the Administration's handling of the balloon. They'd say they looked forward to learning more from key defense and intelligence officials about what happened and why, and that they reserved the right to criticize President Biden.

This very well reported piece is worth reading. Here's a short thread with just a few comments based on my own (much less extensive) glimpses over the past year and a half into some key aspects of how the Committee did what it did. nytimes.com/2022/12/23/mag… 1. Cheney was key.
"It was also evident to Goldston that Cheney, more than anyone else on the committee, seemed to appreciate the importance of skillfully produced hearings—because in her mind, failure was simply not an option..."

Harvard doing a good job of letting Yale take the lead in order to lure Yale into complacency. …as I was saying—64-yard touchdown, game tied.

Good point and raises big questions.

How much was the now widespread lying/extremism/conspiratorialism dependent on Trump personally?

More precisely: It was already there--but how much was its move to the mainstream Trump-dependent?

And how much does it remain Trump-dependent?

https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/1590685999549796353

To what degree would defeating Trump cause the infection of the body politic by lying/extremism/etc. to recede? Or does the poison, once released, now have a momentum of its own?

"No Trump, no Trumpism" seems too strong.

But "No Trump, less severe Trumpism" seems plausible.

Just voted early-in-person in VA.

Short thread:

1. The R and D campaign reps outside the government center were civil and pleasant (though the Dem volunteer was perhaps a bit happier to see me). The poll workers were friendly and competent. Cheered me up re state of the nation. 2. So a heartening experience--all is not lost!

But also an infuriating one, when one thinks of the slander of these citizens and volunteers by the MAGA election deniers, and the threats and intimidation we're likely to see in some places next week.

“This freedom…only survives if we recognize threats when they arise. And today, we are facing such a threat. It's a threat we have never faced before – it’s a former president who is attempting to unravel our Constitutional Republic.”

—Liz Cheney, Sep. 19, 2022, speaking at AEI “How could Donald Trump's refusal to act, his betrayal of our Republic, of our Constitution, of our principles, come with no cost?”

NEW: Timely and wide-ranging conversation on Ukraine with Tom Tugendhat, MP and Foreign Affairs Committee chair in the House of Commons--on the military situation, the response of the West, and implications for the global fight of democracy vs. autocracy.
conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/tom-tuge… I asked Tom about where things stand:

"On one level I’m heartened. There’ve been huge numbers of weapons delivered. The Ukrainians have mobilized their entire nation very effectively...The weapon supplies are coming from many allies, not all. There are a few notable exceptions."

@Acyn 1. Lincoln's 1838 Lyceum speech seems worth quoting in light of Sen. Graham's comment:

"By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint... @Acyn 2. "...but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained...While, on the other hand, good men...become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose.

1. Non-lawyer here, with a speculation on Trump's legal "strategy". Given the facts, I assume a "normal" defendant would be thrilled if he could get DOJ to agree to a misdemeanor plea and fine--"gee, it was all a misunderstanding, you've got the docs back, let's call it a day." 2. In the case of Trump, wouldn't it be hard for DOJ to say no to such an offer? And the case would be over. But now Trump risks being charged with a felony for which there seems to be a lot of evidence of guilt.

1. Short 🧵on the post-Trump GOP.

Begin by reading (if you haven't already) this very perceptive rumination by @JVLast on who could be Trump's heir, and why it might be Kari Lake or someone like her, not Ron DeSantis.

It's the second item in JVL's post.

thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/kari-lake-ro… 2. OK, now that you've read JVL.

I was struck by this not just because it's very smart and interesting, but because I'd had two adjacent (but not fully-formed) thoughts just yesterday.

The first was this: Someone was pointing out that Kari Lake supported Barack Obama in 2008...

1. There's a good account of the case against a red wave in 2022 by @Milbank in the Post. As a longtime contrarian on the inevitability of a 2022 red wave, I'd add one point, the one that struck me first: The decoupling of the generic congressional ballot from the Biden approval. 2. The simplest way to see this? Look at the Biden approval and generic congressional ballot charts at fivethirtyeight.com. The Democratic congressional vote follows Biden down (though less dramatically) in the second half of 2021.
projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-…

1. Kind of an obvious point, but it's striking Trump has not made the most obvious claim someone in his shoes might make: That the documents were harmless--mementos, reminders of glory days, curiosities, etc. (Even some classified docs could after all fall in this category.) 2. If you think about other situations somewhat like this, the subject's "normal" response is surely: "Well, maybe technically some of this belonged to the government--but it's harmless stuff, there's nothing really sensitive, if it was classified it shouldn't have been, etc."

1. Here, as a public service, is the text of Liz Cheney's closing ad as a thread:

"As Election Day nears, I want to talk to citizens across our great state and all across our country.

America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth.

2. "The lie that 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence...

1. "It brings to mind a famous French rhyme from a 19th century burlesque song:

Cet animal est très méchant;
Quand on l’attaque, il se défend.

Which Nabokov once translated as:

This beast is very mean: in fact,
It will fight back, when it’s attacked."

thebulwark.com/whats-behind-a… 2. This ditty was a favorite of Pat Moynihan's, which I recall him quoting often in 1976, when I worked for his NY Senate campaign in the summer and served as a teaching assistant of his in the fall (yes, Pat taught a lecture course at Harvard while running for the Senate).

"Republican Voters against Alito"?

A short 🧵

As of the count right now, ~450k votes were cast in the KS Republican gubernatorial primary, and ~275k votes in the Democratic primary.

The NO-YES breakdown on the abortion referendum is ~535k to ~375k.

So for simplicity's sake... 2. ...assume everyone who voted in the D primary voted NO on the referendum. There are then an additional ~260k non-Democratic NO votes.

Now many of those come from the ~185K voters who voted in the referendum but in neither primary. Looking ahead to November, that suggests...

1. Short Orwell 🧵.

By the way, how great is Orwell? Here are excerpts from the short book review, from January 1939, containing the famous "restatement of the obvious" line: 2. From George Orwell's review of Bertrand Russell’s 'Power: A New Social Analysis,' January 1939.

"If there are certain pages of Mr. Bertrand Russell’s book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth...