Did I think he was an instigator though, and actually tried to promote Powell's bullshit and Eastman's well before 1/6? Like, as of November 2020? Wow. Ok. That was something else. Take the idea that he was texting Meadows that Powell was a straight shooter. Now, I would not have thought Lee was one of the people urging on a meeting of the minds between Powell and Trump's various campaign lawyers and the White House lawyers who saw little problem with putting on their campaign hats. I was sure the braingenius who invited the Kraken in was Giuliani himself.
But there Lee was. And it wasn't until the press conference where she introduced the stupidest Dominion conspiracy theories ever that were obviously going to get everybody sued that Lee apparently recognized that Powell was all crackers and no soup?
It seems extraordinary, but wow--the conservative folks sure exist in a whole other informational ecosystem, so, maybe? I mean, how else does Eastman's alternate elector slate scheme seem like a likely successful thing--except in a peculiar microcosm where democracy isn't supposed to be an American ideal? Would it somehow make more sense to him that state legislators in say, Pennsylvania, for some reason, could decide that people voted wrong because the state legislators themselves passed a dumb voting law and invalidated all the votes of that state? And so the state legislature would throw out those insane stupid bad presumed legal but apparently not votes,
Nota bene: the PA example is a real thing. My vote could have been thrown out because supposedly all the state legislators had gone barking mad for a minute and let me think I could vote the wrong way.
So, what else is new? Oh--Lee thought Cruz and Hawley were opportunists who were fucking with the electoral count via challenges in a way that would make Trump look bad. Worse. Bad or worse, if that was still a possible thing. But yeah, that strategy was opportunistic for them, putting their names out there and trying to then pull back from an insurrection that directly was about Trump--but not so directly themselves. That would be really parasitic of them, and I hope people don't get the idea that I am endorsing this interpretation of their actions just because I totally am.
Anyway. McConnell was about retaining the Senate, which I'm pretty sure Lin Wood more than anyone else fucked up for him. And he knew what Trump grifters were full of.
The rift between McConnell and Trump is still ongoing-because who should have mastery over the future of the party (broad hint from me--no one, but maybe though I hate it, Liz Cheney) ?
The midterms better increase the Democratic Senate majority and the House. Because the Republicans have demonstrated they don't care about Democracy and the rights of the people to determine their government. And that consciousness is what we need more than ever.,. because it was so recently imperiled.
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Gotta' laugh at the notion a velociraptor could be "dominated ..."
Credit where due: Lee and Roy both appear to have realized (however belatedly) that Things Were Getting Out Of Hand, although probably not that they were solidly in amongst the Not Very Bright Guys.
Credit ends there: they have neither good intentions, nor insight, nor skill, nor (in all probability) ability to learn -- except to model their constituents, in a positive feedback loop of incitement.
But let's dispel, as one of the other NVBGs said, with the notion that they, and the other Republicans (including RINOs and never-Trumpers), are "opposed to democracy". Quite the reverse. They understand that democracy is exactly the tyranny of the majority. They understand that all institutions, laws, regulations, and norms are antidemocratic because they may constrain the majority; and if the majority is constrained, in any way, to any degree, for any reason, then that is not democracy: it is something else, and it may as well be called by its name, if it had one.
Their mistake, if they are making one, is to believe that they are the majority. And how prove that they are not? Do not return a snap answer to that question; it is difficult and elusive. Polls won't do it. First-past-the-post elections won't do it, at least not as they are practiced here. The Founders, whom everyone fetishizes when convenient, were lightweights, straddlers, and dissemblers, and they set the tone of comprehensive confusion that has characterized American politics throughout.
I am prepared to stipulate that the Republicans are the majority because I recommend a system in which the majority is so constrained that it does not even matter who is the majority and who not. In fact, the notion of equality before the law rigorously mandates total unawareness of majority or minority status. Being outnumbered can only be one of two things: an existential disaster or an irrelevance. Which would you have it be?
It is clear which one the Republicans would have, and that is why there can be no coexistence with them (one tells no secrets: every word out of their mouths since 1980 has been no coexistence). But this is not because they are against democracy. It is because they, and democracy, are against civilization.
There's a paradox in the idea of the democratic republic that makes me sit with myself--GOP attacks on Roe v. Wade, Griswold, CRT (which is just Black History given a sinister gloss IMHO) or gay rights, my response is reactionary. "No fair--this is settled law, you radicals!" I feel like small "d" democracy and small "l" liberalism, along with a hodgepodge of warmed over notions like "the melting pot" and "wall of separation" and "right to privacy" are supposed to be there for my happy progressive ass. I'm the small "c" conservative, too with respects to what *I feel like* are traditions. The Republicans are the hairy-eyed radicals and bomb-throwers, the barbarians at the literal gate and rioting in the halls of Congress.
Republicans are vandals. They break stuff. They don't govern--they do culture war stunts. They exploit grievances and don't seem to care what violence or havoc they stir up.
But my notions of "tradition" are rooted in my social milieux and late 20th century experience--and even then, I know culturally, that in 1972 and 1984, presidents returned huge re-election numbers by exploiting the idea of a silent majority who really didn't love all this cultural change (echoed in tactics used later in '66, definitely '04, and obviously in 2018). Even though polls "are supposed to" show that support for family planning, the civil rights movement, LGBT rights, etc are improving, the right continues on with culture war--in part, as I tend to think, they created an echo chamber by RW media that borders on psyops, and insists "We are the majority". I noticed this a lot with the inflationary Tea Party rally numbers, and Trump's similar projection of rally numbers that have nothing to be with time or space, but aspiration and possibly the idea of "those with us in spirit".
But for much of US history, the majority probably agreed with the culture war sentiments of the folks I consider knuckle-draggers.
The Constitution supports the rights of the individual in theory and the common understanding that it is for everyone--but it works in theory, not practice depending on the biases of those running that system some of whom are vandals themselves, so that leaves us with what's left of democracy--throwing out the vandals and trying to get people who aren't bums in. The idea that the system is broken *now* is what turns off the young folks--but the system never worked right in the first place. I think the ballot still is where we have to look for remedies, and the tactics foes of the vandals have to use is to confront their hysterics (caravans of groomers with ebola are coming to take your guns and force you to read porns!) with mockery. Not mocking the fear--mocking the fear-mongers themselves. Pointing out who keeps breaking the things, and why aren't we demanding nice things instead of jackass stunts?
Whatever we want to call it, it's the only system we've got, and I genuinely feel like those who engaged in the insurrection plot shouldn't be allowed to touch politics again--but as always --who is going to check them? DOJ can only do so much, and I think Dems lost the plot that you have to always call out the GOP as the bad guys about this thing. Jan 6th recedes for people because that's how memories are--it stays infuriating for me, but that's because RW extremism (gestures at whole blog) is my whale. If they afraid to be antifa, they can call it antivandalism. But they can't stop calling out that the GOP are the ones who are violating laws, ruining comity at home, threatening US peace at home and strength abroad.
The key aspect of the present situation is devolution, which means that the salience of historical parallels is decaying.
Saying "X went wrong in [or before] the year N" presumes that, in some sense, the clock can be turned back, i.e. that is it somehow pertinent to analyze the status quo as of N in order to propose remedies.
Today most complaints are stateless: it only makes sense to say that X is wrong, and it is idle to speculate on when or how X went wrong, because any conceivable remedy does not depend upon the path followed to arrive at the present state.
Many postulates and modes of argument that were relevant until quite recently have now become irrelevant. This is because there is no longer a critical mass of persons who were taught the associated contexts and habits of thought. In modern informal terminology, the entire armamentarium that the likes of us were formerly accustomed to deploy are now tl;dr . The public discourse now consists of allegories, Schlagwörter, and primal screams.
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