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Jonathan Bernstein Profile picture
Jonathan Bernstein
@jbview
Good Politics/Bad Politics. Also, I root for the Giants. The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2024
Jan 25, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
GOP War on Budgeting has held up extremely well over the years. It's not that they care about deficits sometimes and not others (although they do talk more about "deficits" sometimes). They *never* care about deficits and mean something entirely different when they use that word. If you read deficit as meaning that individual spending line items and tax rates are different from what they should be, with no concern at all for the overall total of [revenues - spending]...then GOP "deficit" talk makes sense.
Oct 23, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
So let's think through this.

I don't actually think it's controversial at all to say that the media can/should tell us what voters are thinking, but surely also should explain what's at stake in the election.

I think most reporters would agree with that. That is.... I think many, probably most, journalists believe that "issues" should be covered, and not just "horse race."

Moreover...
Jun 2, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I counted one (1) possible but minor piece of evidence of dysfunction in this story. The rest is all about communications strategy, which is in fact pretty irrelevant to Biden's problems right now. We've had dysfunctional WHs - Carter, Trump, early Clinton, probably W's 1st term. We're not getting evidence of that from this WH. However! When things go bad, that often becomes the story, true or not.

Hey that's what I wrote about this morning bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Aug 2, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Hey, I wrote on Harris this morning (although it's also about understanding the presidential nomination process).

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Anyway, the main reason Harris's reputation is going through a rough patch is....she's vice-president. It happens to all vice-presidents. She's in good company. The VPship turns war heroes into (perceived) wimps, and masters of the Senate into punch lines.
Jun 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Thread. Look: Robert Byrd's Senate, the 1970s-1980s Senate, is gone, dead, buried. The current Senate will not last, but keeping the current rules and practices short-term isn't preserving that past or any other; it's preserving a brief, dysfunctional, status quo. Anyone who wants a Senate that respects the values and practices of Byrd's Senate and wants to revive and preserve them needs to support change, because we don't have that now and we're headed for a new, more House-like Senate that won't have them either.
May 24, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Still seems incredibly risky, especially in relatively competitive states with elections next year. And while causation is always difficult to prove, this sure seems like one that could look really ugly in six months. I wrote about this a while back and concluded that the most likely reason they're doing this is they really believe the economic case for it. Which....well, I'm not an economist, but sure seems to me unlikely to be correct. Either way...
May 23, 2021 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Yeah.

Putting aside the historical question of how Madisonian Madison was....the "Madisonian" position at least as I see it is neither one of simple majoritrianism or rule by a specific minority.

So... The "Madisonian" perspective says that *direct* democracy is trouble because it conflates rule by the people (good) with rule only by a specific majority (bad).
May 4, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Underlining this. Democrats can't fix the GOP. And it's hard to see what can. My item this morning is why Trump is only a minor part of this.

(Plus all the links)
Apr 22, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Hmmm.....I've always agreed with the view that political arguments naturally turn to larger principles, and that's good even if the "real" motive is self-interest; having to express oneself in larger principles produces better arguments, better politics. It's not that it removes self-interest from politics entirely - nor should it. But it means that politics isn't only self-interest. If you can't come up with a plausible argument, then that will tend to hurt your cause. Not destroy, of course, but tend to hurt.
Jan 31, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The very worst thing about this is that as far as I can tell the demand for more than WS/LCS has always been small - and the current round(s) of postseason expansion are only viable because of TV market oddities involving the network sports channels and, soon, streamers. Just saying...if it was just that people really wanted 3 or 4 or 5 tiers of playoffs, and I didn't? I couldn't blame MLB for exploiting that. Tough luck for me, but such is life. But that's not what's going on!
Jan 7, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
ER I called for immediate impeachment and removal. (Plus @dandrezner @kdtenpas @TimOBrien @marcambinder etc.) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

But just to add to that a bit... I think this is a rare situation in which impeachment even knowing removal is unlikely/impossible would still be appropriate.

I've argued in the past that partisan impeachments have a number of drawbacks. But in this situation, most of those drawbacks would be null or limited.
Nov 10, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Excellent thread and good description, but I have some conceptual issues. If Republican politicians are following incentives to be on party-aligned TV and other party-aligned media; to raise money from party donors; and to win primaries - that's a story about a *strong* party, with politicians in service, we might say, to Hannity and donors.
Jun 3, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Read the whole thread, but this is the key: Trump doesn't know how to get exec branch personnel to do what he wants. He's bad at what Neustadt called "persuasion." And it builds on itself - he's easily rolled, which creates the reputation that he's easily rolled. More... Truman was wrong about Ike; Ike knew better than to just say "Do this! Do that!" and expect anything to happen, because he knew very well how political and bureaucratic authority worked. Trump is the one who really thinks that it works by saying "Do this! Do that!" It doesn't.
Sep 22, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
218 to call the current formal impeachment inquiry an even more formal impeachment inquiry? Yeah, but what's the point?

218 to approve articles? Maybe. But if all they have is 218, it gets maybe 45 in the Senate. And then what? I do think it's correct that moving ahead with impeachment would make impeachment more popular with people who don't like Trump but currently oppose impeachment.
May 25, 2019 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
This is a serious question about future presidents and deserves some thought. @YAppelbaum @fordm

Assume we're talking about a party-line vote (plus Amash) in the House, followed by a straight party vote or worse in the Senate. That's what it looks like now. (1/ ) @YAppelbaum @fordm Could hearings and investigation change that? Perhaps! But irrelevant, since those should happen with or without an impeachment context.* I think it's unlikely that the actual drafting and debate over articles of impeachment would change minds.
Mar 21, 2019 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Quick electoral college thread: Went back to the oldest Polsby & Wildavsky Presidential Elections I own - 4th ed., 1976 to see their case for the EC. It's *badly* dated. They argue mainly that the EC has tended to empower big cities and the diverse populations in large states. That's good, for them, because...
Jan 11, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is a very good and important thread about not overreacting to the whole emergency declaration thing. Read it. However! (1/ ) The important context here is that we're dealing with a lawless presidency. (2/ )
May 4, 2018 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
Hate to do it but with Rudy's "clarification" on Comey I'm afraid it's time for a dreaded THREAD about obstruction of justice. Giuliani's defense of Trump firing Comey is that "It is undisputed that the President's dismissal of former Director Comey...was clearly within his Article II power." Correct -- but that's the problem!!!!
Feb 2, 2018 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
This is a worthwhile thread, but I'm partial to a somewhat different way of thinking about it. (1/ ) What do you want if you're an MC? Positive publicity is pretty high on that list. For GOP MCs, that means positive publicity within the Republican-aligned media. (2/)
Nov 18, 2017 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Sorry, haters. I suspect I could come up with 100 better albums from 1977 than Rumours without breaking a sweat. I have been challenged! Y'all wanna mute me...no order.
1. Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bullocks
2. Ramones Rocket to Russia
3. Elvis My Aim Is True
4. Television Marquee Moon
5. Marley Exodus
6. Wire Pink Flag
7. Talking Heads 77
8. Bowie Low
9. Ramones Leaving Home