Feb. 8, 2024 - Trump case at Supreme Court today

… Colorado ballot case … Williamson out … Carlson/Putin interview … my contrarian border-deal rant …

---

Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Trump Ballot Access

The right-wing Supreme Court today will hear arguments on Colorado’s decision to block D4FRFP¹ Donald Trump from the ballot. Trump’s defenders argue that Colorado is being ableist by punishing Trump just because he suffers from chronic insurrectile dysfunction.

The reality is that the 14th Amendment isn’t a punishment. It wasn’t written to punish Confederate traitors — by which I mean traitor traitors — it was written to establish a new qualification for office: That you didn’t try to destroy America, much like you must be a natural-born citizen, and you must be 35 years or older. Or much older

The history of the 14th Amendment is really relevant here, especially because it shows how it’s not a reach to apply it to Trump, it was practically written for the guy. I’m pretty sure it was Mike Harriot who first tipped me off to the history, and the role of race here. (His book is called Black AF History, after all.)

But I couldn’t find Mike’s work on this, so I ended up at the History channel website, which also had a good writeup. Go ahead and laugh, but go check it out, it’s worth a read. Look, I’ll prove it:

Recommended Reading: The History Channel writeup on the 14th Amendment.

Turns out, the reason the U.S. implemented the 14th Amendment was that otherwise Congress would be overrun with traitor traitors and they couldn’t have that because then those traitor traitors would have blocked Reconstruction and the expansion of voting rights and human rights to Black humans.

In other words, the 14th Amendment wasn’t just a safeguard against generic insurrection, it was specifically engineered to disqualify from office people who had betrayed the country in order to disenfranchise the Black vote, Black property, and the right not to be property. And to prevent them from doing it again.

The 14th Amendment couldn’t be more specifically directed at Trump if it disqualified everyone who lied about their weight, sexual prowess, crimes, and/or golf score.

And let’s not fool ourselves that only Trump and the Trumpists have ever betrayed the Constitution in order to steal voting power from Black people. That’s exactly what Karl Rove and his Republican — I wanna say…confederates? — did. The Bush administration pressured federal prosecutors to pretend that fake voting was a thing, so they could have a predicate for voter “protections” [sick] that would actually serve to steal voting power from Black people.

ENOUGH PAST, GIVE US SOME FUTURE! I know, you just wanna know what the Supreme Court will do. I’ll be a bit surprised if they put Trump back on Colorado’s ballot. But paradoxically I concede that might be the most likely outcome.

I do think there’s a decent chance we’ll get some weird votes here. On either side. They could also punt it to Congress. Won’t that be fun!

But I also think it’s possible that five of the judges will see that a plain and originalist reading of the 14th Amendment precludes Trump from running — or at least allows states to do so. We’ll see!

(As I’ve said, the vox populi arguing that Trump is disqualified have an interesting dilemma here: The Constitution doesn’t say whose job it is to enforce its disqualification — the 14th Amendment is basically binding on everyone. There’s no one, for instance, whose job it is to stop 34-year-olds from running. They just…can’t. So if Trump wins…will House Democrats violate the 14th Amendment by certifying him as the winner? Will Pres. Joe Biden violate the 14th Amendment by handing Trump the house keys and garage-door clicker? So far Democrats have been very quiet on this one.)

Williamson Ends Presidential Campaign

Author Marianne Williamson yesterday ended her presidential campaign after coming in third in the Nevada primary and coming in nowhere in media coverage.

Pres. Joe Biden got 89% of the Nevada vote, “None of these candidates” got 6%, and Williamson got 3%. It’s hard to write that without coming off dismissive and condescending and I apologize if I’ve failed at that.

People should run for president. Fuck unity. People should run for lots of shit. We should contest and challenge and fight and debate about shit. That’s the system we ostensibly love. Good for Williamson for taking the shot.

Shame on media for ignoring her and the others. Shame on Biden for not doing debates.

It’s pretty well understood that robust primaries and debates actually strengthen the eventual winner. Biden may come to regret having neither.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and The Young Turks CEO Cenk Uygur (my former boss) both remain in the race. Which doesn’t mean they hate America. And on that note…

Carlson / Putin Interview Airs Today

Former every-channel host Tucker Carlson announced last night that his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin will air tonight on Carlson’s website and on Elon Musk’s. (The marketing team wants me to replace “air” with “drop.” Fuckin’ marketing team.)

Responding to news of the interview, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) called Carlson “a traitor.”

The reason, of course, is that Carlson is helping Putin spread propaganda that could serve to advance several ends:

• Helping elect D4FRFP Donald Trump

• Weakening U.S. support for Ukraine

• Sowing anti-American chaos and division to weaken the U.S. politically and on the world stage.

Annoyingly, both Putin and Carlson are allowed to do all of that because this is America and I’m getting a little cheesed off at all the people demanding that Something be done about this because the implication is that America isn’t up to the challenge. If you believe in suppressing free speech because you think it’s a threat to America, that’s a threat to America.

Of course they’re propagandists. So am I! You probably are, too. Come on in, the water’s fine!

Democrats should chill out about this. If for only one reason. If you really buy into the argument that it’s anti-American to amplify Putin’s message…what do you think Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are doing by lighting their hair on fire about this interview? The most likely outcome is that this interview is a threat to us — because it might bore us to death. But Democrats have already succeeded in making it feel exciting as transgression … in a way it wouldn’t have if it were just propaganda.

Border Deal Shot Down Before It Can Pass

The long-awaited deal tying border policy and funding to billions of dollars worth of weapons proliferation died yesterday even after leaders from both parties had agreed to it. The bill needed 60 votes and got 49.

Here’s the narrative you’re seeing today: That Republicans have been howling for years that the border is in crisis and extreme, nigh-dictatorial measures are needed to fix it. And that Democrats hate America and are letting in undocumented migrants so these people will change America and also vote the Democratic Party line.

And therefore, Republicans must be crazy or craven not to take the best deal they’ve ever had on immigration. That Republicans are bowing to D4FRFP Donald Trump for reasons of pure politics, because they don’t wanna help Democrats politically by letting Pres. Joe Biden look tough on the border and they don’t wanna hurt themselves politically by vexing Trump, who is easily vexed.

So therefore Republicans are crazy, right? And politics is the reason for killing the deal.

I think that’s a fair summation of our political journalism at the moment. So then lemme ask this: What about Democrats? Isn’t all of this just as true of them?

Democrats have been howling for years that Republicans are exaggerating the border crisis (or pointing out that it’s a humanitarian crisis not for America but for the people trying to get to America) and that asylum-seekers and hey here’s a thought even non-asylum seekers deserve humane treatment and due process. And that Republicans hate America and are blocking undocumented migrants so those people won’t come in and change America.

So then why wasn’t the Democratic flip to welcome these nigh-dictatorial measures just as crazy as the Republican flip to block them?

If Republicans are balking at the deal out of fear of Trump… can’t we (okay, I) argue that Democrats only accepted the deal out of fear of Trump?

(And by the way, caving on immigration due to fear of Trump is just incredibly short-sighted. Did anyone really think that if the bill passed, Trump (and Fox) wouldn’t just declare it a failure and label whatever was happening at the border still a crisis? If the GOP won’t acknowledge facts, why cave as if they’ll acknowledge that fact? Did they really expect Trump to say, “Dems fixed the border, gotta give ‘em credit!”?)

And if Democrats were right all these years that Republicans were full of shit about the border crisis, then isn’t politics the Democratic reason for now wanting the deal just as much as politics is the Republican reason for rejecting it?

Is the Republican flip really any different than the Democratic one that precipitated it? If Democrats were so opposed to bullying and un-Americanly treating migrants for years … isn’t it rational for Republicans to question why the Democrats flipped now? Isn’t it rational to conclude that “securing” the border might help America less than denying Democrats a win? (You and I know that’s based on the insane vision of Democrats as America-hating pedophiles, but if you’re dumb enough to believe that vision, then yeah you’d be willing to give up a lot to avoid helping them!)

So why don’t we have tons of stories about Democratic chaos and dysfunction? Well, mostly because Democrats didn’t rebel loudly — which you can argue is crazier, given the years they’ve spent defending migrants and trying to debunk Republican horror stories. 

But we’re also getting the Republicans-are-crazy narrative because Republicans were open about their rebellion. And even though Republicans — especially House Republicans — increasingly believe stupider and stupider things, the fact that they’re at war with each other is in a weird way actually healthier than the other way.

Political consensus is not only antithetical to the structurally adversarial nature of our political system, it’s got a proven-dangerous track record. Look at the horrors bipartisan consensus has visited upon us: The war on Iraq, the war on drugs, the war on crime, business-worshiping financial deregulation, Elon Musk.

Consider a new study out this morning about party unity. The study finds that House Republican leadership last year was the loseriest party leadership in decades.

Specifically, the study looked at bills where a majority of Democrats felt one way and a majority of Republicans felt another (crazy) way — and then analyzed how often the parties were able to vote as one and win. Republicans only did so less than two thirds of the time.

Here’s what that looks like, courtesy of Roll Call’s noble graphics department:

There’s actually something healthy and, dare I say it, small-d democratic about that. The media don’t like it because they see the job of Congress as producing bills, with as little muss as possible. But in the eyes of the founders, the muss was the job. Hence committees and procedural votes and transparency so we could all see the muss until it turned “muss” into one of those words that sound weird after you say it too often.

My argument here isn’t that both parties are nuts. It’s that they’re both not nuts. At least not about this. However crazy Republicans are for suddenly deciding there’s no crisis on the border, Democrats are precisely equally crazy for suddenly deciding yes there is.

And if Republicans are crazy for flipping out of fear of Trump, we should’ve seen Democrats that way, too, when they flipped first. For the same reason.

And while Politico was sharp enough to do a piece on the Democratic defectors, they did it quietly, and the headline tipped its hat to the prevailing narrative that Republicans are crazy:

In fact, the number of “sane” people on both sides is about the same. Only four Republicans voted for the deal that their party has said for months that it wanted: Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), James Lankford (R-OK), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Mitt Romney (R-UT).

And only five Democrats voted in line with (a) years of defending migrants and/or (b) upholding arms-dealing laws by not giving Israel weapons illegally without conditions against killing civilians. The five Democrats were Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

In other words, the vast majority of both parties flipped yesterday. Which doesn’t make any of them crazy.

The bottom line is that they — we — react logically based on the incentives we’re faced with, what we believe the facts are, and how we think our actions will play out. And the reason we need to recognize this is that we the people can only move our politicians politically if we recognize why they move so we know which levers to work. Harumph.

TCB

I’ve got a meeting in the city (that’s what New Yorkers call New York) on Monday with some LGBTQ+ advocates from Europe. I’m looking forward to learning more about how the U.S. prayer breakfast movement has driven discrimination in their countries. “Looking forward” being not the best way of expressing that anticipation. Wish me luck!

I know you haven’t seen any original reporting from me this week. I am working on several stories that I hope to bring you soon. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can spend more time on the reporting and writing and less time on the tawdry business of marketing and promotion. Sharing TFN with your fellow newsfuckers also helps!

Go get ‘em, kids…!

1. D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President