Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN
Trumpism is a product of
our longing to relive the past. But your business can’t thrive in
yesterday.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
NOV 19, 2024
Every day, people ask me: How did we
get here? It’s complicated, but let’s start by stating that too many of us were
too comfortable, fell asleep at the switch, and stopped paying attention.
Millions of people of all political persuasions were looking for simple,
black-and-white solutions to complicated, persistent, and systemic problems.
Those kinds of answers simply don’t exist; even more important, they never did.
In times of stress, anxiety, and
confusion, it’s so easy to fall into the nostalgia trap: people imagine and
pretend to recall the way we never were.
And, of course, no one ever exploited this angst and unhappiness better than
the Orange Monster. Fed-up and frightened folks desperately want to stop
progress in its tracks because they’re threatened by it. They don’t trust the
present, they hate the prospect of change, and they fear what the uncertain
future holds for them and their children.
The imagined past looks so much better
in the rearview mirror.
We find ourselves longing for, and
trying to return, to the old and familiar ways because our daily lives have
become too complicated, and we’re constantly confronted with too many choices,
alternatives, and offerings with no guarantees. This isn’t just a matter of
decision fatigue or analysis paralysis or of some kind of FOMO; it’s more a
process of denial, blame shifting, and conscious avoidance of the harsh
realities of our lives today. Al Gore long ago called these “inconvenient
truths” and, if anything, they’ve only multiplied over the past few decades.
Nostalgia can be a very powerful narcotic and a way to put a shiny and
seductive gloss on the tough times of the past. Nostalgia is like a grammar
lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!
It doesn’t really matter what
particular evil you care to blame: technology, social media, “woke” colleges
and universities, helicopter parents, guns, corrupt billionaires, crooked
politicians, or that always reliable villain: constant change. The fact is that
millions of us – leaders, managers, politicians and entrepreneurs – simply
stopped listening. We were fat, happy, and contented, willing to blame all the
ills of society on someone else. And our basic business strategies, especially
after the torment and terror of the pandemic, were to cling to the past,
rely on our brands, reputation and history with clients, and seize on custom
and tradition as excuses to avoid change. No one was excited about moving
forward; we just wanted to get back to the pre-pandemic times. Forget it.
You can never catch up with the past. And no one is successful in the past.
Old standbys are just old, and the
fact that your customers are familiar with you and your products and services
has offered a very shallow moat and little long-term protection. If you simply
keep coasting and pretending that business as usual is good enough to have
customers coming back for more, you don’t understand that we’re facing an
upheaval not simply in the political arena but in all our businesses. This
upheaval will require all of us to act quickly and dramatically to respond to
the new challenges. There is no room for incrementalism.
For too many years, we’ve heard and
religiously repeated the tired cliche that “familiarity breeds contempt.” But
the way in which we have always understood this expression was incomplete and
missing a few essential words. The more accurate and complete reading is that
“familiarity first breeds comfort and then eventually, and often abruptly,
contempt.” The only ultimate cure for the accumulating anger and mounting
despair that threatens to pull the rug out from under your foundation and your
future is to get ahead of the curve and change your approach and your behavior
before you have to – before it’s too late. This is a lesson that the Democrats
unfortunately and painfully learned in spades this year.
For decades in our state and federal
governance, we have settled for a bad trade. We held our noses, closed our
eyes, ignored obvious and unavoidable signs, and bet on a bunch of old and
tired blowhards, do-nothings, and bozos in Washington, D.C., basically because
they were familiar, because we were comfortable, and because we thought we knew
what we were getting by placing our country and our democracy in their grubby
and incompetent little hands. That contentment has now curdled, as it always
does, on both sides of the political aisle and more broadly across the whole
country into unhappiness and disgust.
When I look at the sorry state of the
antiquated and awful leadership of our political parties, it’s hard to feel
much of anything but shame for the shambles that their inaction, ineptitude,
and studied ignorance have now left us in. We were repeatedly warned even by
the head MAGAt himself. We were well aware of the likely prospects, and we also
knew that we’d never ourselves hire any of the incompetent and sorrowful
“stewards” we had placed in charge of our democracy to work in our own
businesses.
So, you could say that we’re only
beginning to get what our apathy and passivity have brought about and that the
unfortunate fact is that we largely deserve it. We waited too long to wake up
and now our country is about to pay the price. Don’t delude yourself into
thinking that this new attitude and consumer activism is going to be bound by
the borders of the political arena. Time’s up and it’s coming for you and your
business as well. Time has an ugly way of turning your assets into liabilities
and it’s relentless. As David Bowie said: “Time may change me, but I can’t
trace time.” Translation: If you don’t get started on the critical changes now,
you’re in for a rude awakening and a rough ride.
The Democratic election debacle may be
bad news for our country, but at least it provides some object lessons and some
important guidance for the rest of us in what not to do and how not to act if
you want your company to succeed.
1.
Look and listen to what the world is telling you. Don’t
ignore the bad news.
2.
Don’t try to please everybody – it’s not possible and it’s
a waste of time and money.
3.
Don’t take your customers or your partners for granted.
Reassure and reward them.
4.
Change for the better before you have no choice.
5.
Change is expensive, but not changing is a choice you can’t
afford.
6.
Don’t try to do cheaply what you shouldn’t do at all.
Today’s consumers and customers know the difference.
Monday, November 18, 2024
Biden should order background checks of Trump’s Cabinet picks
Biden should order background
checks of Trump’s Cabinet picks
The FBI has conducted background
investigations of White House nominees since at least the tenure of President
Dwight Eisenhower’s time in office.
Nov. 18, 2024, 4:29 PM CST
By Frank Figliuzzi, MSNBC Columnist
We had fair warning. Last
month, The New York Times reported that
then-candidate Donald Trump’s advisers were telling him to skip FBI background
investigations for his high-level selections for nominees. Last week, CNN,
citing “people close to the transition planning,” reported that Trump doesn’t plan to submit the names of
at least some of his Cabinet-level picks for FBI vetting. Whether you’re
Republican, Democrat or independent, and regardless of whether you’re energized
or enraged by Trump’s controversial picks,
you should be concerned about the possibility of a vetting process that’s
really no process at all.
Whether you’re energized or enraged by
Trump’s picks, you should be concerned about the possibility of a vetting
process that’s really no process at all.
The FBI has conducted background
investigations of White House nominees since at least the tenure of President
Dwight Eisenhower’s time in office. Even so, there’s no law clearly mandating
presidents or presidents-elect to submit their nominees and appointments to the
FBI for investigation. In 1953, Eisenhower issued Executive Order (EO) 10450,
calling for investigations of prospective federal employees. Yet, executive
orders don’t have the full effect of a
law and are only binding on the executive branch. Worse,
Eisenhower’s executive order is subject to interpretation. Consider Section 2,
“The head of each department and agency of the Government shall be responsible
for establishing and maintaining within his department or agency an effective
program to ensure that the employment and retention in employment of any
civilian officer or employee within the department or agency is clearly
consistent with the interests of the national security.”
There’s lots of wiggle room there. Section
3 of that executive order reads, “The appointment of
each civilian officer or employee in any department or agency of the Government
shall be made subject to investigation … but in no event shall the
investigation include less than a national agency check (including a check of
the fingerprint files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation).” That means that
Trump, who claims he’s using private firms to
conduct background inquiries, might get by with having whatever firm that is
simply checking FBI fingerprint files. Yet, despite there being no mandate, the
intent here was a government inquiry involving the FBI.
Subsequent presidents, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, revised
Eisenhower’s edict to mitigate intrusive inquiries into sexual orientation in
the granting of security clearances, but still missing is a specific mandate
for FBI investigation of White House nominees. And again, an executive order
isn’t quite a law. Clearly, the intent in these executive orders has always
been for a government agency, particularly the FBI, to conduct these inquiries,
but we have an incoming president who thumbs his nose at rules and
intentions.The Presidential Transition Act of
1963 directs the FBI to conduct such background checks
“expeditiously” for “individuals that the President-elect has identified for
high level national security positions.” But what if he never formally identifies and
submits his picks to the Department of Justice and the FBI? In his last administration,
Trump overrode security adjudicators who denied clearances for his
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and many
others, after FBI background checks resulted in national security concerns.
This time, he appears poised to dispense with the FBI checks and potentially
with the Senate confirmation process by making recess appointments.
That leaves us with two pertinent
memorandums of understanding (MOU) which should enable President Joe Biden
and/or the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to
quickly do something to preserve national security and the Constitution’s advice,
and consent powers conferred on our elected lawmakers.
This time, he appears poised to
dispense with the FBI checks and potentially with the Senate confirmation
process by making recess appointments.
First, Biden should rely upon the existing
MOU between the Department of Justice and his office, as well
as the Presidential Transition Act, to investigate the people Trump says he
wants to put in office. The MOU sets out procedures for requesting background
investigations of nominees “at the request of the president.” It doesn’t say
the president-elect, it says “president.” That’s you, Joe. As for the
transition act, it reads as applying to people “…the President-elect has
identified” for high-level positions. Well, the president-elect has already publicly
identified those people. And Biden should respond.What happens if a nominee
refuses to cooperate, won’t provide his consent to be investigated or won’t
fill out any forms? The MOU has a remedy for that: “The DOJ and FBI may
consider a request from the President for a name check or BI without the
consent of the appointee if justified by extraordinary circumstances.” I’d say
with some of these nominees named by Trump, and the fact that Trump may forego
FBI vetting of them, we have extraordinary circumstances.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has its
own pertinent MOU with the Counsel to the President.
That document says the committee “shall have access to” the FBI reports on
nominees for attorney general, FBI director or summaries for “all other DOJ
nominees and non-judicial nominees.” Emphasis on all other and non-judicial.
We know senators want the details of
the House Ethics Committee inquiry into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump's pick
for attorney general. An FBI background investigation would certainly include a
request to review that report, as well as the DOJ criminal investigation, now
closed, into Gaetz. The Senate Judiciary Committee should make a bipartisan
request for an FBI background check of Trump's picks now. Regardless of party
affiliation, if senators relinquish their advice and consent authority or
confirm a nominee without benefit of knowing the risk they pose, then they set
a precedent for never again exercising their constitutional powers.
You’d be right to ask, “What’s the
point?” After all, Trump is unlikely to read, let alone act upon, any
derogatory information developed in FBI reports. The point would be to force
Trump’s hand. Drop the reports on his desk and let him go forward with nominees
who potentially are either found through investigation to be unqualified, at
risk of compromise, or even a national security threat. Let Trump order White
House security clearance adjudicators or his hand-picked agency heads to grant
security clearances to seemingly unqualified candidates. Let the Senate affirm
nominees after they’ve read details about the kind of people who may lead the
DOJ or serve as the director of national intelligence.
Don’t take it from me. Here’s what
Founding Father Alexander Hamilton said about
the Senate’s advice and consent role, and the need for checks and balances
against a president’s nominees. “…the president would be 'ashamed and
afraid' to bring forward unmeritorious candidates, whose only qualifications
would be [hailing] from particular states, or being personally allied to the
president, or 'possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render
them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.'”
Biden should be neither ashamed nor
afraid to thoroughly investigate Trump's picks, given the signs that Trump may
not. Through executive order, he should mandate that the FBI conduct background
investigations on Trump’s picks and instruct the FBI to begin the process now.
The U.S. Senate should use its power to request the same of the FBI.
The clock is ticking.
Frank Figliuzzi is an
MSNBC columnist and Senior National Security and Intelligence Analyst for
NBC News and MSNBC. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at
the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage
investigations across the government. He is the author of "The FBI Way:
Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence."
Trump Demands A Blood Sacrifice
Trump Demands A Blood Sacrifice
Nov 18, 2024
If you’re a GOP Senator, few nominations in your career
will carry the historical weight—or the stench—of Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy
Jr., Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard. Once the master of the Senate, Mitch
McConnell has been reduced to a bitter old man muttering ineffectually about
“no recess appointments” in a last, sad burble before he drowns in the toxic
legacy he so carefully curated.1
Behind closed doors, even the Trumpiest of Senate Republicans pray for the
reprieve of a Trump tantrum that sends Congress into recess, sparing them the
political horror of voting for any of these four rodeo clowns.
And why not? The other names bubbling up from Trump’s Team of
Lackeys are worse than you think—dangerous, unqualified, and breathtakingly
unfit—but less visible.
Yet Trump, in his monarchical fervor, doesn’t just want the Senate to confirm
this gallery of grotesques; he demands it. He wants their names in blood, their
votes on the record. He wants them on their knees, not as co-equals, but as
collaborators in his crusade to shatter the guardrails of democracy.
This isn’t about
governance; it’s about submission.
It’s a spectacle designed to crush what’s left of Senate resistance, while
Trump’s sycophantic media enablers sanitize these choices into just another
“Washington appointment fight.” The stakes—democracy, stability, the rule of
law—are drowned out by the daily horse race coverage.
Trump’s bet? The media will do what it has always done: focus on the noise and
ignore the existential threat Trump poses. Yes, Trump won the election; no,
nothing about who and what he is changed with that victory. It says more about
the parlous state of the American Republic than about him.
And so far, he’s right.
The Senate’s quiet, nervous whispers are mainly off the record, while the
public statements of even his critics carry the same spineless refrain: “Well,
the President has a mandate, and we will advise and consent…” Translation?
“Please, sir, don’t send the mob to burn me alive.”
There’s a plan here; it
is sinister, not stupid. Trump’s picks aren’t just about trolling the libs or
owning the deep state. They’re the foot soldiers in a very deliberate campaign
to dismantle the Constitution, weaponize the government, and monetize the
wreckage.
Breaking the
Constitution
Trump’s obsession with
unchecked power—think Louis XIV but dumber—clashes directly with America’s
constitutional framework.
His solution? Smash it. For decades, the GOP has claimed to be the party of the
Constitution while gazing wistfully into the middle distance as Trump openly
declares his intent to undo it.
Trump doesn’t see the
Constitution as a guiding document but as an obstacle to his impulses. Why
shouldn’t he? The post-Constitutional ethos of the Red Caesar clique—Thiel,
Yarvin, Deneen, and their ilk—defines the mindset and philosophy of his
enablers, and it’s frankly Trump’s fantasy world. In this place, power is
reposed in the hands of a post-modern king by the new tech royalty. Shame about
those serfs.
After skirting consequences for everything short of cannibalism and incest (the
jury’s still out on the last), Trump knows the law will never touch him.
Between a corrupt Judge Cannon and an utterly impotent Merrick Garland, he
knows he’s legally impervious. Why should constitutional limits bother him?
Expect immediate,
aggressive challenges to checks on executive power, especially concerning the
military. Today’s Constitution-breaking experiments will become tomorrow’s
playbook.
Trickle Down Terror
Authoritarians know one
thing: fear is the glue that holds their empires together. Trump’s strategy is
clear: create an atmosphere of uncertainty and dread. Special counsels,
regulatory investigations, tax audits, committee subpoenas, secret probes —it’s
all fair game in the coming chaos. It will start with his name-brand enemies,
and the era of trickle-down terror will begin.
His deportation fantasy
of rounding up 25 million “illegals” isn’t just about immigrants; it’s about
normalizing the use of military power against civilians. Anyone who thinks the
slow-witted but snappily dressed Pete Hegseth will say, “No, Mr. President.
That’s against the law,” is living in a dream world. He’ll eagerly endorse it.
As election attorney and LP General Counsel Mario Nicolais wrote: “Once the military is mobilized to act with force within our
own country's borders, Trump will use it in any way he sees fit against
‘threats’ he proclaims.”
Once those doors start getting kicked down, it’s not a stretch to imagine that
power being turned on political opponents. Mission creep is a feature, not a
bug.
Weaponizing the
Government
In Trump’s world,
loyalty isn’t just expected; it’s enforced. By weaponizing the DOJ, FBI, DHS,
the Intelligence community, and the IRS, Trump will create an unholy program of
vengeance, fear, and reward.
Despite knowing full well why he was investigated for the various Russia
matters, the Flynn/Comey matter, January 6th, stealing classified documents,
state and Federal election fraud, and his corrupt Ukraine shakedown scheme
Trump persisted in bleating about the weaponized Deep State.
It must have been a mysterious cabal of Deep State Trump
haters, not his behavior, right?
It’s because every lie about the government being weaponized against Trump was
pure projection.
Some have had trouble processing why Trump would pick Matt Gaetz, a singularly
unqualified hack and low degenerate, as Attorney General. Not this writer.
His task? Punish enemies, protect Trump, and purge anyone who dares stand in
the way. Like all autocrats, Trump craves control over domestic intelligence
and law enforcement.
Gaetz will be the blunt instrument Trump wields with glee. Even if he’s stuck
with a recess appointment, he’ll launch a dozen special counsel investigations,
stack the DOJ with Trump stooges, throw open the FBI counterintelligence files
to Tulsi Gabbard (and thence, Russia), and deploy the FBI and DOJ against
anyone who
One thing Matt probably won’t do at DOJ is investigate teenage
sex trafficking.
Unless they take Venmo, of course.
The Death of Expertise,
Part Duh
Trump’s contempt for
expertise isn’t just personal; it’s cultural. Trump hated having people around
him in the first Administration who knew things. It’s not just
a disdain for intellectuals, scientists, and legal expertise; it’s his jealousy
of those with more intellectual horsepower than the average household
appliance. Remember, Trump is barely literate, lacks all intellectual curiosity,
and is a stranger to the world of ideas. He has feral cunning, but little else.
He has weaponized America’s addiction to algorithmically-reinforced stupidity,
elevating the loud and the trollish over the competent and the principled.
Appointing incompetent hacks to critical positions isn’t a bug; it’s a feature.
Modern fascism really, really depends on a large cohort of people who Can’t
Read Good and Don’t Want to Read Good. It’s easy to convince them
that their lives are somehow expertise, knowledge, and principle are their
enemies.
This is why RFK is the perfect Trump pick for the Department of Health and
Human Services; he combines crackpot pseudoscience antivax woo with outright
malice. The cost in lives won’t even register on his broken moral radar, but
the pwnage of experts will be priceless fodder for the MAGA media cloud.
When first hundreds, then thousands of American children die from his “just
asking questions” attacks on vaccines, the obvious, objective benefits
of vaccines in eliminating deadly childhood diseases will be nothing but
regrets.
One smart pharmaceutical executive I’ve known for decades said, “Watch who goes
in below him. They make RFK look like Edward
Jenner.”
Departments that require expertise will instead get zealots, dipshits,
arsonists, and sycophants—ideal for dismantling their functionality while
spinning populist fairy tales about bringing “common sense” to government.
Monetizing the
Presidency
Corruption isn’t just
incidental to Trump; it’s core to his crapulous ethos.
The grift of his first term was merely a preview. Protected by the Supreme
Court’s enabling decisions, Trump’s second term will be a master class in
turning the presidency into a cash cow for himself and his cronies.
Do you think Jared will settle for just $2 billion from the Saudis this time?
Think again. Trump will want much, much more than having
foreign governments just pay for overpriced rooms at his hotels? Hardly. Leave
the money on the nightstand.
The merger of political power and personal profit will be so blatant that it
will make his first term look quaint.
Breaking Systems
Trump thrives on chaos.
Breaking governmental, institutional, and societal systems isn’t a side effect;
it’s the entire disease. Every shattered norm is an opportunity to consolidate
power, punish enemies, and profit. Every broken social contract between the
citizens and the state makes it harder and harder to return to the Before
Times.
Expect a cavalcade of destructive, dumb, and impossible recommendations from
the unconstitutional Department of Government Oversight as Elon Musk and Vivek
Ramaswamy — whose primary goal will be to punish Trump’s enemies and enrich his
allies, like Elon himself —make endless, splashy pronouncements about how we
can easily cut government by 75, 85, maybe 95%.
Just be ready for some pain.
Oh, not pain for them, silly rabbit.
The pretense that this agency will somehow cut costs will come at a price for
millions of Americans; the only improved efficiency here will be in the
transfer of wealth to companies and allies of Trump and the deprivation and
cruelty it will deliver to veterans, the elderly, and the poor.
The Senate Won’t Stop
This.
They’ll barely even try.
Trump’s picks will largely sail through their incompetence and malice
rationalized as “the will of the people.” Gaetz and Gabbard may go down if Sen.
John Thune knows what’s good for him, but I’ve long stopped betting on the GOP
to do the right thing, even in their self-interest.
Mostly, no matter how far off the rails these nominees are proven to be, the
Senate will cheerfully and briskly impose them on America. The GOP isn’t just
complicit; they’re co-conspirators, gleefully enabling the destruction of the
systems that once restrained executive power. What’s left will be a
hollowed-out government run by lackeys, grifters, foreign assets,
neo-monarchists, and chaos agents.
And if you think they’ll
stop with just breaking the system, think again.
They’ll profit from its
ashes.
Chuck Schumer isn’t off
the hook, by the way. The idea of “give ‘em enough rope" doesn’t work
here: Schumer should be leading a loud, front-and-center fight over these
monstrous picks.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Saturday, November 16, 2024
HARDBALL - BIDEN,SCHUMER,GARLAND AND DURBIN CAN'T CONTINUE TO BE THE NORMALIZING WEAKLINGS WHO ENABLE TRUMP
It’s Time for Outgoing Democrats to Play Hardball
Much can still be done
between now and Inauguration Day to put limits on the excesses of the incoming
Trump administration.
Nov 15, 2024
IN THIS CRUCIAL PERIOD between the
election and the inauguration, opponents of the president-elect need to use
every feasible lever of power to defeat Trump’s movement, lest the country
fail.
In this, they would be correcting a
past mistake. The original response to Donald Trump’s rise was based on a strategic error. His critics and opponents
thought he was an aberration, not a phenomenon—a recipe for quietism.
In the context of culture, we had
Michelle Obama’s initial response: “When they go low, we go high.” The comforting
conceit was that if Trump’s opponents continued to hold the moral high ground,
Americans would eventually tire of the man’s shenanigans and return to their
better natures. If you get down in the mud with a pig, the saying goes, you
only get dirty.
In the political context, this
misconception contributed to the Democrats’ recent defeat. Biden and
congressional Democrats saw Trump as an exception, so when they took power in
2020, they returned to traditional, normal leadership activities. They performed
admirably. Like a well-drilled baseball team turning a double play, the
Democratic Congress, despite its narrow majority, passed valuable legislation
aligned with typical Democratic priorities, like the Inflation Reduction Act.
The problem is that Trump was playing
dirty. The Democrats may have turned a double play, but the runner had gone to
second anyway and was punching the second baseman in the face. Had Democrats
recognized the transformational meaning of Trump’s movement, then instead of
prioritizing “normal” legislative activities, they would have put their focus
on reforming electoral rules to prevent Trumpism from taking root. Drastic
options would have been on the table—things like adding two states to gain four
Democratic senators or beginning the effort to abolish the Electoral College
(not that the latter would have helped them in 2024). They did none of those
things.
Likewise, in the context of law and
policy, the Democrats’ idea was to continue to adhere to the norms of conduct
that undergird formal legality. The very first piece I wrote after the 2016
election was titled “Defending Norms by Defending Norms,” and it
critiqued (of all people) Preet Bharara, who was then the U.S. Attorney for the
Southern District of New York. He had (in my then view) transgressed normative
expectations by refusing to resign, forcing Trump to fire him. Bharara was
within his legal rights to do this, of course; my criticism at the time was
rooted in my belief that the best response to Trump was to keep up traditional
standards of conduct and restraint.
Boy, was I wrong. And so were other
critics. We’d misjudged the situation and made a strategic error—one that
opponents of Trump are still making today. It’s time to correct that error. If
we want to have a real hope of reversing Trump’s authoritarian course, we all
need to stop playing tee-ball and start playing legal hardball. Trump’s
opponents need to stop showing automatic deference to historical norms and
limitations that ought, in a good and just society, be adhered to—not because
those norms are bad, but rather because it behooves us to suspend normal
decorum when the building is on fire.
NO ONE SHOULD WELCOME the coarsening
of normative behavior that will result. Nonetheless, opponents need to deploy
every legal tool in their toolkit to oppose Trump’s encroachments, whether or
not it is “appropriate” or “traditional” or “historically legitimate” to do so.
If opponents of Trump don’t fight to win, they will lose, plain and simple.
What do I mean by this? Here’s an easy
example: Trump abused the pardon power for personal gain and for the benefit of
his cronies. We can readily expect he will do so again. As I recently wrote in the Atlantic,
it is now that Biden needs to throw aside the constraints of “good governance”
and use the pardon power liberally, not to benefit his cronies but rather for
the ethical and moral reason of protecting his supporters and allies from
Trump’s revenge. Everyone from Liz Cheney to Gen. Mark Milley should be offered
as much protection from Trump as Biden can possibly give them before he leaves
the White House.
The range of unilateral options open
to President Biden in his remaining few days is surprisingly broad. All
options—to skip the inauguration, to provide more weapons to
Ukraine, to make legally binding commitments to NATO, and still others—should
be on the table.
Here’s one creative idea: At the end
of his first administration, Trump proposed to create a new “Schedule F” that
would convert many civil service positions to at-will positions whose
appointment he, as president, would control. The proposal was based on a novel
interpretation of a statutory authority that had never been
used in that way before.1
One of the principal promises Trump
has made is to re-implement his Schedule F proposal as a first swing of the axe
against the deep state. Of course, the fired employees will sue—but Trump’s
“fire first, litigate later” strategy would have significant effects, even if
the employees eventually won. Some employees would resign rather than fight;
others would be cowed into grudging subservience. And, in the end, even if only
for a brief period of time, Trump would be able to begin populating the civil
service with his sycophantic toadies.
There might be a way to forestall that
eventuality—if Biden is willing to play a little hardball. What would happen
if, hypothetically, the unions representing civil servants sued preemptively
(in, as the Republicans are wont to do, a district where a favorable jurist
sits) to seek a declaratory judgment that Trump’s legal interpretation was
wrong? And what if, instead of contesting the suit, the Biden DOJ conceded the
point and accepted a binding consent decree with enforceable terms favorable to
those who would be affected by Trump’s Schedule F order?
After such a decree, the litigation
posture of any effort by Trump to implement Schedule F would be quite
different: Instead of issuing an executive order premised on a novel
interpretation of a statutory text, he would need to directly challenge a binding
court ruling. Trump might, of course, still win out in the end, but there is no
reason to make it easy on him by sitting back and waiting for him to dictate
the terms of legal engagement.
The options for Democrats aren’t
limited to the administration. As Norm Ornstein points out, the Democrats still control the
Senate for the next two months. Not only should they fill as many judicial and
regulatory positions as possible, but they should also hold preemptive hearings
on Trump’s worst cabinet picks and most odious policy proposals.
William Kristol and Andrew Egger
recently observed that, for different reasons,
neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress seem eager to push back against
Trump’s predations on the rule of law, competent governance, and even the
prerogatives of Congress itself. But if congressional Democrats are lax now,
when do they expect to reconstitute their strength? They should act to the very
limits of their legal power to prevent Trump from exceeding his.
Why not use what power is available to
erect barriers to authoritarianism, even if it means getting down in the mud to
fight with the pig? Please, Democrats, with all the time you have left in
power: Play hardball, damn it.
For those interested in the details, Trump proposed to use a provision that
exempted certain positions “of a confidential, policy-determining,
policy-making, or policy-advocating character” from civil service protections.
Before Trump, everyone understood the language to apply only to a small number
of positions traditionally filled by political appointees.
Friday, November 15, 2024
GaetzGate - Joe Klein
The Sky Is Falling
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There I was, two days
ago, blithely typing these words, “I find, rather amazingly, that I’m making a
pretty good face of non-despair at the moment,” at which point the news arrived
that Trump wanted Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States of
America. And that he wanted Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National
Intelligence. And now, that he actually wants to endanger the nation’s children
by appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run Health and Human Services.
Suffice to say, I have
stopped making a pretty good face of non-despair. Edvard Munch’s Scream has nothing on me: I could spare the alphabet and just launch a
page of infuriated exclamation points (!!!!…you get the picture) and dumfounded
question marks (?????….). But words are all I got. Donald Trump is laughing at
us—and he is testing the August and Supine Republican members of the Senate.
Taken together with Pete Hegseth’s intention to eviscerate the military of
anyone who ever breathed the same air as General Mark Milley, you have, rather
quickly, a national crisis. Lindsey Graham has indicated he’s okay with this. I
knew Lindsey before he became a puddle of brown sugar. He was an Air Force
veteran, a JAG in Kandahar…but he’s now a willing stooge for the dismantling of
the U.S. military. Will any Republicans stand up against this obscenity?
We know who and what
Gaetz is—and we’ll probably know a lot more when the House Ethics Committee
investigation leaks. I just heard a tape of Senator Markwayne Mullen of
Oklahoma saying that Gaetz went around the House floor showing nude photos of
his teeny-bop paramours and explaining that he would prep for party time with a
cocktail of erectile dysfunction drugs and energy drinks (a concoction that
hereafter might be known as the Viagra Bull). He could then “go all night.”
I’ll bet.
One wonders whether Gaetz
is being used as a Viagra Bull in a china shop to divert attention from the
other bizarre Trump nominees. You should read David Ignatius on the terrible national
security picks. The ever-excellent Tom Nichols has this to say, over at The
Atlantic, about Tulsi Gabbard:
Gabbard ran for president
as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace
candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian
dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are
otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting
America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood. Hawaii voters
have long been perplexed by the way she’s
positioned herself politically. But Gabbard is a classic case of “horseshoe”
politics: Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is
probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into …
whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the
former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of
the GOP).
Also, Gabbard meets
another Trump standard: she’s good looking. As are Pete Hegseth and Gaetz in a
hilarious Hollywood villain sort of way.
(N.B.: We have been
conditioned by feminists to ignore women’s looks. It is said to be sexist
ogling. That should come to an end now. Not when the President relies so
heavily on this annoyingly superficial factor when choosing advisors. It is
also a natural human reaction: being attractive is a force multiplier that can not be
denied and should, from time to time, be remarked upon. One lesson I shall take
from this election is that the English language has been bowdlerized in a
LatinXy way by the fems. It was never too awkward for me to call mankind
“humankind,” but other formulations like “herstory” were just silly. As were
the plural pronouns. They/them should be over now, too. The main purpose they
served was to annoy people—and annoyed people, it turned out, voted in numbers
in 2024. “Kamala is for They/Them” turned out to be a powerful punchline. (See
the item below) Tolerance should be the order of the day for any choices people
make about themselves, but not to the point of silliness…or political defeat by
a thug. The re-correction of the language should extend beyond feminists to the
legions of the politically-prissy word abusers: Recently, in a piece I wrote
for a mainstream outlet, the word “homosexuals” was edited out and replaced by
“the gay community.” I didn’t mind so much, even if it implied a political
judgment that not all people might share; in fact, I sort of like the irony
inherent in formerly oppressed people calling themselves “gay.” But I draw the
line at LGBTQ+. It is the sexual equivalent of “people of color” and
“undocumented” immigrants—a politically incorrect imposition on plain speaking.
If we are ever to seize back a majority of voters from the Trumpers, we must
speak truth to activists. We must be free to call a babe a babe.)
And Then, There Are The Democrats…
What am I? What is my
political stripe? I’ll accept liberal in the classical, free speech, free
enterprise, rule of law sense—and I considered myself a New Democrat in the
1990s, and a Never Trumper for the past decade. But when I look at the vast
wasteland that is now the Democratic Party—an amalgamation of identity
activists, post- socialists, teachers union members and deluded academics—I can
pretty safely say, I am not one of
them. I am not a Republican,
either, obviously. As long as there is a binary choice between Trumper and Not,
I’ll vote not. But it sure would be nice if Democrats took a look at reality
and reformed themselves. What is reality? Well, this post-election poll by the Democratic firm
Blueprint offers a solid glimpse:
KEY FINDINGS:
1.
The top
reasons voters gave for not supporting Harris were that inflation was too high
(+24), too many immigrants crossed the border (+23), and that Harris was too
focused on cultural issues rather than helping the middle class (+17).
2.
Other
high-testing reasons were that the debt rose too much under the Biden-Harris
Administration (+13), and that Harris would be too similar to Joe Biden
(+12).
3.
These concerns were
similar across all demographic groups, including among Black and Latino voters,
who both selected inflation as their top problem with Harris. For swing voters who eventually chose Trump, cultural
issues ranked slightly higher than inflation (+28 and +23, respectively). [Emphasis mine.]
4.
The
lowest-ranked concerns were that Harris wasn’t similar enough to Biden (-24),
was too conservative (-23), and was too pro-Israel (-22).
There was all this
blather about how Kamala had to “earn the votes” of black men, as if they were
some unique category. But she also had to earn the votes of white men and
women, and Latinos and Asians any everyone else. And going forward, the Dems
are going to have to earn my pantheist, capitalist, cosmopolitan,
internationalist, bibliophilic vote, too.
There is one
other rule of the road going forward:
As horrific as Trump’s
start has been, it is not impossible that he will inadvertently—or even
advertently—do some good stuff. I will not be a reflexive anti-trumper. That
would be boring for me and for you. And it would be irresponsible. So yes, I am
extremely worried about the state of our democracy, but that goes both ways—so
long as Democrats insist on confusing equality (of opportunity) with equity (of
results). It will not be easy for me to give credit to a man I consider a
mortal fool, but if it must be, it will be.
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