Copper Beeches: The Mystery

 

Copper beech

Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Arthur Conan Doyle's attempt at a Gothic novel continues.  Holmes and Watson meet Violet Hunter at an inn by the train station and she explains what happened.  The country house where she works is named Copper Beeches (not beaches) for the beech trees that grow there.  Rucastle's wife is not mad, merely bland and colorless, other than her clear devotion to her husband and son.  Her son is temperamental and cruel and delights in torturing small animals. There are two servants -- Toller, an uncouth drunkard, and his dour and silent wife. Alice, Mr. Rucastle's daughter by his first marriage, left for Philadelphia because she did not get along with her step-mother who was only slightly older than she was.  (And maybe not with anyone else in the house, either). 

Violet Hunter at the window

The Rucastles have Miss Hunter wear Alice's electric blue dress, which fits her perfectly, and sit in front of the window, always with her back to it.  They have her read from novels and suddenly break off in mid-sentence.  Mr. Rucastle tells very funny stories, and Violet laughs until she is quite weary.  But her back is always turned to the window, and she starts to wonder why.  Her mirror is broken, so she hides a piece in her handkerchief and raises it to her eye to see a strange man staring at her.  Mrs. Rucastle figures out what is happening and tells her husband that a strange man is staring at Miss Hunter.  Mr. Rucastle tells her to gesture him to go away, which she does.  Mrs. Rucastle then closes the curtain and the strange performance ends.

Violet Hunter finds her hair

But other, equally strange things happen. The Rucastles keep a vicious dog, always underfed to keep him mean, who ranges the property at night and makes escape under cover of darkness impossible.  Even Mr. Rucastle can't control the hound; only Toller has any influence.  Searching through her room, she finds a locked drawer, and when she tries her key it turns out to contain her hair!  She had saved her hair in her trunk, and it is still there, but the hair in the drawer perfectly matches it.  But above all, there is a mysterious wing of the house, locked off and seemingly uninhabited.  There are four sets of windows on the wing, three dirty and one shuttered.  Mr. Rucastle and the Tollers sometimes go into the wing, but Miss Hunter is not allowed.  One day Rucastle comes out clearly angry.  When Miss Hunter comments on the wing, Mr. Rucastle tells her that he is a photographer and keeps his dark room there. She is not convinced.

Clearly a Gothic novel

Last night Toller got drunk and left the key in the door.  While the others were dealing with Toller's condition, Miss Hunter used the key to get into the mystery wing.  There was an empty hall, with three doors.  Two, matching the dirty windows, were open to empty rooms.  The third, matching the shuttered window, was locked from the outside and barred, though it had light, presumably from a skylight.  And then she heard footsteps in the room and saw a shadow move.  At that point she panicked and ran -- straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, waiting outside.  Seeing her fear, he tried to sooth her and asked her what frightened her. But he overdid his act, so she said it was just too lonely and eerie. When she would not admit to seeing anything else, Rucastle let the mask slip and told her if she ever set foot in that wing again he would throw her to the hound.  (And what would he have done if she had admitted what she saw?  Maybe it's best not to know).

Fortunately Toller was too drunk to unleash the hound that night, so after everyone went to bed, Violet was able to sneak out to a telegraph station half a mile away to send a wire.  (Just how common were telegraph offices?  And what hours did they keep?).  She asked for some time off the next day, which Mr. Rucastle inexplicably granted.  That seems most strange to me. Granted, he did not know about the telegram, but, after all, he threatened her life the night before. The next day he allows her to go into town where a train station is?  Doesn't it occur to him that she might catch the next train the hell out of there?*

We don't know what Holmes is thinking, but he pieces together the mystery with just the clues Miss Hunter has given.  The Rucastles are holding a captive in the forbidden wing, presumably Mr. Rucastle's daughter, Alice.  Miss Hunter was hired for her resemblance to Alice. The plan was for the young man, presumably Alice's suitor, to see her laughing and think his Alice was happy without him.  The gesture reinforced the impression.  So maybe Mr. Rucastle would think Miss Hunter had served her purpose and be glad to see her go and be out of the way.  The dog is kept to keep the young man away. The hair belonged to Alice and was presumably cut off as a result of illness.

Well, that would not be an obvious guess!  It seems even less plausible than the crazy wife.  But we can make some guesses as to what he might be thinking.  It seems likely that Holmes guessed that Miss Hunter was hired for her looks.  The mention of wearing Alice's dress must have raised at least the possibility that she was chosen, not for lecherous reasons, but because she resembled Alice, though it would not be clear why.  The dress fitting her perfectly and the mysterious hair must have reinforced that impression.  Making her laugh and wave the young man away, as well as the dog, must have suggested that her purpose was to discourage the young man's attentions.  But where was Alice while all this was going on?  After all, the young man might have been a gold digger, or a stalker.  Maybe Alice fled precisely to escape him. The mystery wing would solve that question.

So, how to rescue Alice?  By an extraordinary coincidence, Toller is still incapacitated with drink and Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle are going out that nigh.  That leaves Mrs. Toller, so Holmes has Violet lure her down to the cellar and lock her in.**  Holmes and Watson rush to the rescue, only to find the skylight open and Alice missing. There is a ladder against the wall that was not present.  And then Mr. Rucastle shows up. When Holmes confronts him, Rucastle goes to unleash the hound. That turns out to be a mistake, as Toller has been too drunk to feed the dog for two days. It attacks Rucastle (serves him right!), so Watson shoots and kills it (too bad for the dog, who has been treated appallingly).  Mr. Rucastle survives, but as an invalid.  And Mrs. Toller, released, provides the details that Doyle could not drop as clues.  More on that in my next post.

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*Maybe he thinks her lack of money or family, and the fear that he can ruin her prospects for finding a new job, will keep her from fleeing.
**What about the child?  We never hear from him in the final scene.  In the TV version, Holmes has Miss Hunter send him out to play with friends.

Adventure of the Copper Beeches, What is Holmes Thinking?

 

So, Violet Hunter has taken a job as a governess for Jephro Rucastle at his isolated country house, Copper Beeches, with his second wife and cockroach-killing son, aged six.  Rucastle shows not particular interest in what Miss Hunter can teach his son, but offers an unheard-of salary for her to cut her hair and wear whatever dresses his wife gives her, including an electric blue dress belonging to Rucastle's daughter Alice, now in Philadelphia.  Miss Hunter soon sends an alarming telegram summoning Holmes and Watson, asking them to meet her at the train station.  Watson asks what this can mean, and Holmes says he has devised seven possible explanations, but lacks sufficient information to settle on any one.  What could those seven explanations be?

Miss Hunter has suggested one -- that Mrs. Rucastle is mad, and her husband is indulging her.  I have suggested another -- that Mr. Rucastle hired Miss Hunter for her looks because he has lecherous designs on her.  That leaves five more.

The request not just to wear any dress Mrs. Rucastle may choose, but to wear daughter Alice's dress raises another possibility.  Mr. Rucastle has chosen Miss Hunter for her looks, not because of lecherous designs, but because she resembles his daughter, Alice and wants to increase the resemblance by having Miss Hunter wear Alice's clothes and copy her hairstyle.  (Spoiler alert: True).  But why?

The simplest and most innocent explanation is that he misses his daughter and wants to be reminded of her.  But that would hardly account for the extraordinary salary, or the alarming telegram.

Alternately, maybe Alice left on bad terms.  Mr. Rucastle wants to do some roleplaying games.  He thinks he can play the role most effectively with someone who physically resembles his daughter.  He will react to Miss Hunter as if she were his daughter and Miss Hunter, though she has not special insight into Alice, might at least explain how a young lady would react.  Mr. Rucastle hopes this will help him understand what went wrong and maybe to reconcile with Alice.  This type of psychotherapy might be very important to Mr. Rucastle, but also extremely stressful to the role-player.

Third explanation.  Alice isn't in Philadelphia.  Don't be ridiculous, did you think she'd leave without her clothes?  She's dead.  Her hair was cut in her final illness.  (It was assumed that the time that if a woman or girl was seriously ill it would be necessary to cut her hair to let her cool off).  Mr. Rucastle hired the governess to remind him of his daughter. That could be either endearing or morbid, depending on how it turns out.

The most horrible explanation combines the daughter and the lecherous design -- there was incest going on.  That's why Alice ran off without packing her clothes, or maybe committed suicide.  Mr. Rucastle wants to continue with the governess standing in for Alice.  As for the short hair, maybe Alice cut her hair in hopes it would make her less attractive to her father.  It didn't work.  Or maybe her father cut her hair in hopes she would be ashamed to go out, and to make her unattractive to potential suitors.

Does this last one count as two explanations (alternate accounts of why Alice is missing and why her hair is short), or as one.  If it is two, I now have seven possible explanations.  If it counts as one, I only have six.  

Spoiler alert: None of them is correct.

Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Beginning

 

As this book cover may suggest, Adventure of the Copper Beeches is Arthur Conan Doyle's attempt to involve Sherlock Holmes in a Gothic novel.  It has many of the usual conventions -- the innocent governess in a sinister mansion, the creepy wing where no one may go, and the brooding sense of danger and terror.  In this case, the sinister mansion is Cooper Beeches -- not beaches, but beech trees.

The story begins with Holmes rather nonplused at receiving a letter from Miss Violet Hunter asking his advice on whether to accept a job offer as a governess.  It seems beneath his talents, but as she unfolds the circumstances, he becomes intrigued.  Miss Hunter has no family.  Her former employer has moved overseas, and she is in desperate financial straits.  She seeks work at an employment agency for governesses.  A fat, good-natured man named Jephro Rucastle jumps in his chair and immediately says she is just what he is looking for.  Her last employer paid 4 pounds a month (48 a year), but Rucastle says nothing less than 100* will do for a lady of her "accomplishments."  When she tried to discuss her actual accomplishments, Rucastle dismisses them as less important than her "bearing" and "deportment."  He even offers her an advance.  Her job will consist of coming to his country house and caring for his son, age 6, who has great enthusiasm (shared by his father) for killing cockroaches.  She will also have to obey the little commands of his wife, like wearing a particular dress, or sitting in a particular seat.  Miss Hunter has no objections, but when Rucastle insists that she must also cut her hair short, she refuses. That seems to be the end, but it is not.  Mr. Rucastle obtains Miss Hunter's address and writes to offer her 120 pounds a year (10 per month) if she will cut her hair and come to work for him.  His wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and wants Miss Hunter to wear it indoors in the morning.  They will lend her an electric blue dress belonging to Alice, Mr. Rucastle's daughter by his first marriage, now living in Philadelphia.  

Holmes finds the whole thing most suspicious, especially the inordinate salary and says he would not want any sister of his take such a job.  But he does not have enough information to form a specific hypothesis.  Miss Hunter suggests that Mrs. Rucastle is insane, and that her husband indulges her to keep her quiet and prevent her from being institutionalized.  Holmes agrees that seems the most likely explanation, although it is not clear whether he actually believes that or is simply humoring her.  Because it does not seem like the most likely explanation to me.

Maybe I am unduly influenced by the Me Too generation, but consider the circumstances.  Mr. Rucastle decided he wanted Miss Hunter at a glance.  He showed no interest whatever in her actual accomplishments, but a rather creepy fascination for her clothing and hairstyles.  Clearly he is hiring her for her looks.  And given that he is offering an unheard-of salary to accompany him to an isolated country house, it seems most likely he wants to do more than just look.  In short, the most likely answer for Mr. Rucastle's not-so-strange behavior as that he has lecherous designs on his governess.  Watch the above video (starting about 8:55) and see if any other explanation is remotely plausible.

Violet Hunter meets Rucastle

Two objections offer themselves.  First of all, what about his wife?  Won't she interfere?  But we have never seen his wife and have only Rucastle's word that she even exists. And even assuming that she does, remember that a governess is a full-time, live-in caretaker.  Mrs. Rucastle can hardly be on her guard at all times.  Sooner or later, Mr. Rucastle will catch Violet Hunter alone.  Second, what about the hair?  Wouldn't cutting her hair make Violet Hunter less attractive, rather than more?  That one is a bit more puzzling.  Maybe Mrs. Rucastle actually does exist and insists that all governesses cut their hair short to make themselves less attractive, but her husband is not so easily deterred.

So why doesn't Holmes point out the obvious?  Did Victorian delicacy prevent such a subject from even arising in fiction?  I have to assume not, because a country gentleman with lecherous designs on the governess is a major plot point in Crime and Punishment.  Maybe Doyle was just more squeamish about such things than Dostoevsky.  And certainly Victorian delicacy may not have allowed Holmes to point this out too directly.  But couldn't he at least delicately hint at it (rather as I have done)?  Wouldn't that be enough to discourage her?

But Holmes does not point out the obvious, and Miss Hunter decides the take the job, with the proviso that she can summon him for help at any time.  In about two weeks they receive a telegram late at night.  "Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday to-morrow," it said. "Do come! I am at my wit's end. HUNTER."  As they head out on the train, Holmes comments that Miss Hunter is in greater danger in an isolated country house than she would be in a urban area where it would be a simple matter to flee or summon help,** although there does not appear to be any immediate danger if she can meet them at the train station.  He also says, "I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no doubt find waiting for us."

What could those seven explanations be?

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*Point of contrast: In A Case of Identity, Holmes comments that a single lady can get on very nicely on a sum of 60 pounds, and that 100 is enough to "travel a little and indulge yourself in every way.").  

**He goes a bit far in saying that rural areas in general are scenes of greater depravity than the most squalid slum in London -- because there are no neighbors at hand to intervene.  Given that all statistics indicate that crime rates per capita are higher the denser the population, and given that Jack the Ripper had been operating in the squalid slums of London just a few years earlier, this seems extreme.  But in this case, the danger of an isolated country house seems real enough.

Sherlock Holmes, In General

 

Sherlock Holmes

I really do want to do any number of posts on Sherlock Holmes.  He was written before the convention had been established for mysteries that the reader had to be able to solve the mystery with just the clues provided. Sherlock Holmes violates this all the time, partly with his trademarked Sherlock scan to figure out all sorts of things that Watson never noticed.  And he often presents the answer to the mystery by investigation off-stage that we learn about only after the fact. And, of course, he also violates the accepted convention that the mystery has to be about a murder.  

Still, there are little glimpses, now and then, of the requirement to stick to the clues in the story, especially in mysteries that Holmes solves (mostly) from the comfort of his own study, and with no more information that Watson has.  There is the famous dog that did not bark, for instance. 

In A Case of Identity, Holmes recognizes that the missing fiance's desperate pleas to be faithful no matter what do not mean he knew he was in danger.  Rather, his conspicuous muttonchop whiskers and glasses, his speaking in a whisper, his meeting his girlfriend only in dim light, her poor eyesight, and his refusal to give his address or sign his type-written letters could only indicate that the man was actually the girl's step-father in disguise.  

In The Speckled Band, Holmes observes the bed bolted to the floor, the ventilation shaft to the step-father's bedroom, the bell cord not attached to a bell, and the collection of exotic animals from India to figure out how his client's sister was murdered in her locked bedroom -- by a poisonous snake.  

In The Red-Headed League, Holmes figures out that the pawn broker's assistant's willingness to work for half-pay and his insistence that the pawn broker joint the Red-Headed League, which pays his to write from the Encyclopedia Britannica, indicates that he is in on the plot and that the Red-Headed League was simply a ruse to get the pawn broker out of the shop during the sinister activity.  The proximity of the pawn shop to a bank and the assistant constantly taking photographs and disappearing into the basement to develop them allows Holmes to deduce that the assistant is actually digging a tunnel to the bank.

And in The Sussex Vampire, Holmes solves the mystery of why his client's South American second wife is beating her stepson and sucking on wounds in her baby.  Observing South American weapons collected in the house, a suddenly paralyzed dog, and the older child's extraordinary attachment to his father, Holmes figured out that the boy tried to kill the baby with one of the poisoned darts and the mother was sucking the poison out.  (No wonder she hit him!).  

But I will confess to not having read most of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and would have to read a lot more of them to see just how large a role Arthur Conan Doyle had in developing later mystery conventions.  In the meantime I am strangely drawn to one that Holmes did, indeed solve, with only the clues available to the reader.  It is Doyle's attempt at a Gothic novel -- Adventure of the Copper Beeches.

Too Much News

 So, a new COVID variant is out (but not the nu variant, the omicron variant) that appears to be both extremely contagious and vaccine-resistant.  Vaccine makers are on it but expect it to take 100 days (i.e., till early March) to start getting out vaccines, and who knows how far it will spread in that time.  Merck's COVID pill is looking less effective than expected.  Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine. And Donald Trump is expected to win by a landslide in 2024.

At some point, I just can't take any more news.  So I think it is time to give political blogging a rest for a while (barring further developments that give me no choice) and write a little more about Arts and Entertainment.

Do I Actually See Glimmers of a Sensible Center-Right?

Looking for hopeful signs from the recent election, I see three.  First, as I understand it, the main target of really hardcore MAGA types were school boards, and they seem to have had quite limited success there.  Second, where Republicans did lose, they conceded defeat, even if some delayed more than would be ideal (see New Jersey). And finally, Republicans winning (as in Virginia) put a crimp stories of rigged elections. So there is some room to hope that Donald Trump's behavior is the product of a deranged personality, rather than a general new tactic.

And now I am seeing some faint glimmers of a sensible center-right in Congress.  Some are reaching out on immigration.  The article mentions Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban-American freshman Representative proposing legal status, though not citizenship; Dan Newhouse, a Republican Representative from Washington State, co-sponsoring legal status for farm laborers with progressive Democrat Zoe Lofgren; and on the Senate side Republican Michael Crapo of Idaho working on a similar bill and John Cornyn proposing legal status for DREAMers.  

Obviously, Republicans are motivated by self-interest, in this case, the hope to attract more Hispanic voters to the Republican side.  But so what?  That is normal politics, after all.  Senate Republicans agreed to cooperate with Democrats on infrastructure in hopes of thwarting Build Back Better.  Democrats denounced such attempts as evil, but really they were just ordinary politics.  Offering the other side some of what it wants in hopes of persuading it to settle for less than everything is well within normal behavior for a loyal opposition. Nor should it be surprising that Republicans are softening their opposition to giving citizenship to Latin American immigrants once they can expect more of them to vote Republican.

My advice to Democrats, honestly, is to take it. The immigration provisions are sure to be stripped out of Build Back Better by the Senate parliamentarian, and Joe Manchin may spike the whole thing anyhow.  Settling for part of what you want is better than holding out for everything and getting nothing. It give Joe Biden and Democrats a win on an issue that is broadly popular.  It may, indeed, win more Hispanic/Latino votes for Republicans, but it will also serve to split the party and provoke quarrels between the hardcore nativist base and the more immigration-friendly moderate.  The cries of outrage from Marjorie Taylor Green alone make such a measure worth supporting.

The other article deals with climate change and the growing realization that it is real and has to be dealt with and reports that "scores of Republicans" are seeking to claim a middle ground between Trump and Biden on greenhouse gases.

In a conservative caucus founded by Republican Rep. John Curtis of Utah, the Republicans say they know how to move voters off fossil fuels and argue for a climate policy that continues use of natural gas in particular.

They emphasize trees, as well as carbon capture technology that has yet to be developed to scale, to capture climate-damaging emissions.

“We know we must reduce emissions. Now let's have a thoughtful conversation about how we go about it,” Curtis said in a panel with other U.S. lawmakers at Glasgow. “And that's, that's a new place, I think, for us.”

Indeed, it is.  As the article comments, it goes against Republican policy as recently as the Trump Administration.  

Unlike proposals on immigration, these appear to be addressed to the indefinite future, but should be promoted as far as possible in the here and now.  Republicans have complained, with considerable justification, that the Green New Deal is more a grab bag of Democratic priorities than a serious attempt to address climate change.  What they have not offered is a sensible center-right alternative, just denial.  Jonathan Chait has proposed that a sensible center-right climate policy might mean more emphasis on nuclear power and expansion of carbon-capture technology.  If select Republicans are proposing natural gas and carbon capture instead -- well a debate on how to save the planet is a whole lot healthier than a debate on whether the save the planet, and the same political considerations apply to this as to immigration.

Granted, I would still have preferred Republicans willing to take the truly radical step of acknowledging the results of the 2020 election and denouncing any attempt to overturn it.  And I still believe that the (substantive) issues are not the issue; the survival of democracy is.*  Nonetheless, the more (select) Republicans are willing to cooperate with Democrats, the more they legitimate Democrats' presence in the government.  That alone is important.  And if (as I believe) we need as broad a coalition as possible of pro-democracy forces, then it makes sense to cooperate with Republicans to the extent possible, even if it means getting less than we want.  That, too, is normal politics.

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*Although, of course, the survival of the planet is even more important that the survival of democracy.

Swing Voters in Virginia

 Here is an interesting piece on some researchers who did focus groups of Biden-to-Youngkin voters in Virginia.  Major findings:

It's still the economy, stupid.  The economy isn't actually that bad.  Growth has been healthy and job recovery has been impressive, and people are shopping fit to beat the band.  But that is the problem. We do appear to have overstimulated the economy, so that people's consumption is outrunning our capacity to produce or even import and is causing inflation and shortages.  Help wanted signs are everywhere, but businesses are curtailing hours for lack of workers. Swing voters don't see Democrats as focused on the economy, or as doing anything about it.  They also saw Democrats as focused only on advancing marginalized groups and not on people like themselves.

Two things you don't want to see made -- laws and sausages.  Democrats have responded to winning the triple crown by trying to pass as much legislation as possible, on the assumption that nothing will pass once the Republicans win the midterms.  The result is much the same as what happened when Democrats focused on passing Obamacare -- voters got a good look at sausage making and wanted none of it.  The substance of what is being passed just doesn't matter.  These voters just saw endless fighting instead of doing anything about the economy.

Education was important, especially school shutdowns.  Education was the primary local issue, but swing voters' biggest concern was not Critical Race Theory, but school shutdowns and general resentment of schools for not not taking parents into account.  That made McAuliffe's comment about not letting parents tell schools what to do bad -- but not necessarily decisive.  It just encapsulated what they believed anyhow.  They did also see schools as being politicized in general and CRT as part of that, although they did not blame either side exclusively.

They still disliked Trump, but it was personal and did not apply to all Republicans.  Presumably some o the nuttier Republicans would not go over with these voters, but Glen Youngkin seems likeable and relatable.  Not asked -- whether it bothered them that Youngkin would not say outright that he accepted the results of the 2020 election.  In short, Youngkin was successfully doing what so many Democrats in Republican-leaning districts did in 2018 -- he personalized the election and localized it.  He also proposed to fight rising prices by removing the tax on groceries, and to increase school funding and give parents more say.

So my general advice to Biden would be -- quietly and discretely work on getting out tests and treatment for COVID.  (This includes reclassifying home tests to free them from the FDA).  Work loudly and publicly on supply chain issues and make sure everyone sees it.  My advice to Congress is -- raise the damn debt ceiling.  Nothing else matters.

Also of note:  Megan McArdle is warning Democrats that inflation and COVID restrictions can cost them the Black, Hispanic, and Asian working class and leave only college educated voters -- no more than a third of the population.  In short, McArdle thinks Republicans will soon outnumber Democrats by 2-1.  I am somewhat skeptical.  Warnings to Democrats that Black and Hispanic voters, who they see themselves as representing, are actually more moderate than the party's white, upscale base are well-taken.  But I think the same will apply to Republicans. I expect Republicans to find Black and Hispanic voters also to be more moderate than the MAGA base, and a program consisting mostly of being performatively obnoxious, offending liberals as much as possible, banning abortion, and flooding the streets with ever more guns will also have its limits.

The Claremont Institute's Wargame, Continued

 

A few more things stand out about the Claremont Institute's wargame of the election.  Claremont writes several highly resentful proposed announcements by social media suppressing right-wing opinions and relying solely on the mainstream media, which Claremont (naturally) sees as hopelessly liberally biased.  It also has social medial cooperating with law enforcement to track down and arrest left-wing disruptors converging on DC.  Go figure.

Claremont went into greater detail than TIP on anticipated post-election litigation and writes .  Despite Trump's open avowals that he would sue to overturn the election if he lost, Claremont does not address that issue. It has one suit in what the Republican Party of Michigan seeks to compel the governor to seat electors.  The court refuses, saying that under Michigan law there is no timetable for the electors to be certified.  I think Claremont intends to endorse this opinion. If so, it would clearly give Republican governors the option of refusing to certify Biden as winner regardless of the vote outcome, but Claremont does not address that possibility.  What Claremont focuses on most of all is suits by Democrats to require and Republicans to block counting of ballots received after the election.  Or, as Claremont puts it, "[T]he Biden team seeking to negate state election law to maximize the counting of late or flawed mail-in ballots while the Trump team sought to have state election law followed."  It has opinions going both ways.

I read the opinions with some interest to see how much the emphasized what Trumpsters since the election have decided is their most sacred principle, Article II, Section i, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . " (emphasis added).  Thus, the argument goes, any change in voting rules must be passed by the state legislature, which cannot delegate its power or be struck down by state courts.  Thus all changes in election procedures made to accommodate COVID are unconstitutional because they were not passed by the state legislatures.  Republicans tried to overturn numerous elections on those grounds.  So how important a principle was that before the election?

Several of Claremont's "decisions" ruling against a counting ballots

ceived after election day cite state law and one says:

The federal Constitution makes clear that the “Manner” for choosing electors shall be directed by the Legislature. U.S. Const. Art. II, § 1, cl. 2. The Michigan legislature as determine that vote-by-mail ballots must be received by the close of polls on election day. To allow a low-level court of claims judge, rather than the legislature itself, to alter that “manner” of election, with apparent complicity from the executive officials of the state, is to ignore those basic structural requirements.

No other opinion is so emphatic on the matter. But probably the most significant "opinion" prepared by Claremont is is proposed Supreme Court decision upholding this ruling:

[T]his Court has repeatedly treated late challenges to long-standing election rules as deeply suspect.. . .  What happened in the district court below is even worse. Its order, reversed by the Court of Appeals, was not a change in the rules close to the election; it was a change in the rules after the election had ended, while the ballots were still being counted. I cannot think of anything that would undermine our faith in the ballot more than were we to allow changes in the rules after the game had been played, when partisans can target rules of long-standing for a temporary political gain.

How true!  And this viewpoint would come back to haunt Trump supporters in numerous cases filed after the election seeking to challenge changes in rules a unconstitutional because the changes were not made by the legislatures. The courts invariably ruled that the challengers should have made their challenges before the election, and that overturning a result after the fact was not an allowable remedy.

I also found one of the players in Claremont's wargame strangely passive.  Their scenario has a great deal of activity by left-wing rioters, by police and right-wing vigilantes, by state parties and by state and federal courts, by social media, by members of Congress of both parties (always with Democrats as the villains), and even a little activity by Joe Biden (calling his supporters out into the streets) and Mike Pence (presiding over the Senate in the vote count).  But Donald Trump does absolutely nothing during the entire wargame!  He never so much as tweets!  Does this seem even remotely plausible?

Finally, I think Claremont shows a serious misunderstanding of Antifa/Black Lives Matter, which may itself be an example of the mirror image fallacy.  I saw the same error in a tweetstorm by a Trump supporter which (mercifully) I can no longer find.  The tweeter acknowledged that most of the allegations of vote fraud were false, but that underlying sense of unfairness was legitimate.  I read it over with great interest to see if it was finally a reasonable argument supporting Trump's position.  It was not, simply an ever-growing font of paranoia.  But what stuck with me in particular the tweetstorm's dismissal of all the federal court rulings dismissing challenges of the election.  These could not be counted on, the tweeter said, because federal judges were probably intimidated by the Antifa/BLM crowd.

First of all, both Claremont and this tweeter are seriously underestimating their own side's potential for violence.  Both assume that the potential for violence lies solely on the left, which the right is strictly for law and order, even as voting officials were being deluged with threats and harassment from Trump supporters, even as a Trump supporter looking for voter fraud force an air conditioner repairman off the road to search for forged ballots. And, of course, Claremont got quite wrong who was going to revolt when the vote was counted.

None of this is to deny that a violent left exists.  Antifa is certainly real  Black Lives Matter has its violent precincts.  Riots in the summer of 2020 are fairly described as left-wing.  Our side needs to acknowledge the reality of a violent left and take a strong stand against it.  But the violent Left is not interested in electoral politics.  It regards the whole spectrum of elected politicians as simply part of the same system of oppression.  Until recently, the more extreme precincts of the Right took that same viewpoint.  Part of what makes Trump so dangerous is that he brought the far Right into electoral politics.

Consider the targets of violence in 2020.  The bulk of the violence was senseless destruction of property, some of it directed toward police stations (clearly a political target) and some toward looting stores (not a political target).  Soon after, there was a wave of violence against statues and monuments, which was clearly political.  Protesters in Seattle seized several blocks and attempted to create their own autonomous zone outside the control of the state -- a thing to be condemned whether it happens in downtown Seattle or on Bundy Ranch.  And Portland rioters besieged the federal courthouse night after night.  All of this deserves to be condemned.  All of it is properly seen as political and left-wing.  All the targets except the stores looted (but bulk of targets, after all), are properly seen as "political" targets.  

But none of it targeted the election system.  Attacks on the election system have been the province of the right.  When TIP commented that the Biden team did not control Antifa/Black lives matter, they did not primarily mean that protests by these groups might escalate out of hand (although that was certainly a possibility).  What TIP meant above all was that Antifa/BLM might not show up when Biden called.  If Claremont and other Trump supporters do not understand this, then they are missing important political realities.

The Claremont Institute's Wargame

So, with that out of the way, on the Claremont Institute's wargaming of the 2020 election.  It dismisses the TIP wargame as an attempt to make Donald Trump look bad and accuses TIP of the mirror image fallacy, i.e., the assumption that one's opponents think the same way as oneself.  Presumably they meant that the TIP wargamers assumed that Trump and Republicans would engage in nefarious behavior just because Trump's opponents were willing to do so.

That is clearly not true to begin with.  TIP presupposed an asymmetry between the parties, based on the input of participants who had actual insight into how the participants might behave (i.e., Democratic consultants giving opinion on how the Democrats might behave; Republican consultants giving opinions on how the Republicans might behave).  TIP did not have a similar diversity of opinion and experience.  

The Claremont Institute criticized TIP for encouraging Biden to bring his supporters out into the streets. Concerned that Black Lives Matter were outside the Democrats' control and might not respond when called, TIP encouraged the Democrats to forge stronger ties.  The Claremont Institute warned (correctly, in my opinion) that this might get out of hand.  Indeed the Claremont Institute regarded "left-wing street violence as a near-certainty."  In fact, much of the Claremont Institute's wargame consists of fantasies about out-of-control leftwing violence that failed to materialize in real life.

The Claremont Institute gamed out a uncertain result similar to TIP's -- everything coming down to the result in Michigan, Trump being ahead by a few hundred votes, when a fire of unknown origin destroyed ballots in Detroit, i.e., ones likely to be for Biden. The Democratic governor then refused to certify electors for Trump and a constitutional crisis ensued.

Except that didn't quite get Claremont the riots they wanted.  Claremont postulated, not completely unreasonably, that the thing most likely to cause left-wing riots was a win declared on election night and then taken back.  But how to achieve such a result?  After all, the Claremont Institute acknowledged, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to vote by mail.  Mail-in ballots would take time to count.  Many swing states did not even allow mail-in ballots to be counted until election day.  Therefore, it was far more likely that election day would create the false impression of a large Trump victory, only to see it fade away.  Claremont did not add that in many cases the ban on counting mail-in ballots until election day was done in a deliberate attempt to create a false impression of a Trump landslide.  They also describe the push for mail-in ballots as the result of "political stoking of fears of contracting COVID."  But they also acknowledge that mail-in ballots have a much higher rejection rate that in-person ballots, as high as one in twenty.  Why would Democrats encourage voters to use a method more likely to result in rejection unless their fears of COVID were sincere?

So given that Claremont's own analysis shows that the most likely result on election night was a seeming Trump victory being eroded, and the most likely catalyst for widespread left-wing riots was a seeming Biden victory being stripped away, how do you get from here to there?  Claremont implausibly postulated a hack of the Texas vote counting to create the false impression of a Biden win. It seems far-fetched, but they wanted riots. Claremont proceeds to describe riots in implausible detail.  The report justified the details as merely attempts at "realism" and not intended to be predictive, but mostly just goes to show that the more details you use in a prediction, the more wrong the prediction is apt to go.  The report has not only mass riots in the downtown area of all major US cities, but riots spilling over into residential area.  Civilian authorities resist the crackdown.  Police bypass civilian authorities and go rogue. Federal forces and right-wing paramilitaries come to their aid.

As the vote count draws nigh, Antifa and Black Lives Matter prepare to descend on Washington DC.  The city is placed under martial law.  Texas, Michigan and Florida state capitols also raise security and place barriers to prevent leftwing attacks. Major police departments, the FBI and Homeland Security start tracking and arresting people congregating in various cities to head to Washington for the showdown.*  Federal, state, and local law enforcement coordinate to arrest over 1000 ringleaders on "the barest minimum of probable cause on the lowest charges."  This is not only an extraordinary degree of projection, it also reveals just how narrow and particular MAGA's current commitment to civil liberties is.

But not to fear, Claremont tells us, the Constitution will get us through the crisis.  And by "the Constitution," Claremont means the narrow and technical provisions of the Twelfth Amendment dealing with an uncertain result.  Those provisions read:

[I]f no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.  [Emphasis added].

We see here some of John Eastman's view that Congress certifying the electoral votes is not a mere formality, but a serious exercise of discretion.  Claremont also takes care to have Democrats be the sole nefarious actors.  Michigan has not certified electors in this scenario, and Biden is ahead by a vote of 262-260.  To win, a candidate does not need a majority of the total electoral votes, but only a majority of electoral votes cast, which appears to make for a Biden win. Despite this apparent win, Nancy Pelosi considers refusing to seat Republican members of the House (technically legal, but an outrageous violation of accepted norms) to prevent a quorum, which would prevent certification of any candidate and make Pelosi the President.  Republicans mobilize public opinion and Pelosi backs down. It turns out that one "faithless" elector voted for Bernie Sanders, making the vote 261 Biden, 260 Trump and 1 for Sanders.  Without a majority, the House must decide, voting by states. Republican states outnumber Democratic states 26-24, so Democrats attempt to walk out to thwart a quorum.  The Sergeant-at-Arms brings them back by force. Antifa riots and causes life-threatening injuries to a Republican from an at-large delegation (i.e., a state with only one Representative -- Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Wyoming), but the delegate heroically leaves his hospital bed and is brought, with IV's and blood transfusions being administered, to cast the deciding vote.  The Constitution triumphs!

This degree of specificity is quite simply not a serious attempt to game out what is likely to happen, but a work of fiction.  The appendix on the supposed riots that will take place actually imply that the at-large delegate will be from Wyoming, based on its reference to an attempted assassination of the Wyoming Congressman and "his" aid.  Yes, that's right, Claremont has the deciding vote for Trump cast by Liz Cheney!

To be continued.

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*I do recall right-wing chatter before the vote about Antifa/Black Lives Matter congregating and getting on planes, headings to Washington, always without identifying details. In hindsight, this looks like some serious level projection.

Review of TIP's Wargaming of the Election, Preliminary to Claremont Institute's Wargames

I have discussed the Transition Integrity Project’s (TIP) wargaming of the 2020 election in the past .  It appears that the Claremont Institute did its own wargame (available only through reviews) that is, um, interesting.  The Claremont Institute accuses TIP of just wanting to make Donald Trump look bad and touts their own analysis as showing the Constitution can get us through any crisis.  Their own interpretation of the Constitution, that is, and a crisis that exists only in their imagination.

This is not to deny that TIP got some serious things wrong.  TIP foresaw Trump attempting to mobilize his supporters in the streets, and also to use the machinery of the federal government to sway the election in his favor.  Biden also sought to mobilize supporters in the streets, meaning the "racial justice movement," i.e., Black Lives Matter. The Democratic players warned that the Democratic Party had no control over Black Lives Matter and other such organizations and could not guarantee their mobilization.  TIP also warned that such mobilization might not remain peaceful, especially if provoked by Trump supporters.  Its advice was for the Biden campaign to cultivate stronger ties with Black Lives Matter and the like to ensure their turnout.  In the clear light of hindsight, TIP was almost certainly wrong about that.  The summer riots were an extremely recent memory and any recurrence was more likely to turn public opinion against Democrats than in their favor.  Biden kept it off the streets, and wisely so.

Some of TIP’s direst warnings did not pan out.  Trump did not seize mail-in ballots, federalize the National Guard, deploy the military domestically, launch investigations into opponents and freeze their assets, etc.  It is not clear to what extent this was for lack of trying and to what extent it was due to resistance by the “deep state.” Information is coming out that may shed some light on this. 

In other ways, TIP underestimated just how desperate Trump could be. Certainly, TIP failed to foresee a violent insurrection to overturn the vote count in case of a clear Biden victory.  In fact, Trump behaved more the way TIP anticipated in case of a narrow Biden win (i.e., about 278 electoral votes, as opposed to the 306 that Trump called a “landslide” when he won them).  He denounced the result as illegitimate (true), had William Barr investigate “voter fraud” (true), state legislatures to send an alternate set of electors (true), and Congress not to certify (true).  TIP even had Mitch McConnell end the standoff by privately signaling to Republican Senators that they should certify the results.  On the other hand, TIP had Michigan and Pennsylvania actually choose alternative slates (false), Barr try to stop ballot counting (false), massive demonstrations by Biden supporters with some violence (false) and a Trump forcibly escorted from the White House.  Again, it failed to foresee an insurrection.

TIP's most alarming proposal was actually if Trump won the Electoral College but not the popular vote and featured separate slates of electors sent by Democratic governors, threats of secession to pressure Republicans into making reforms to strengthen popular majorities, and a split in Congress over which candidate to certify as the winner.  But it is the ambiguous result that makes the most interesting contract because it was the ambiguous result that the Claremont Institute decided to wargame. TIP postulated a 2000-like outcome.  Everything came down to one state (Michigan) which was too close to call.  A rogue individual destroyed a large number of ballots believed to have supported Biden, creating a narrow Trump win.  The governor sent an alternate slate of electors.  The election came down to a dispute whether the Vice President could decide which slate of electors to recognize.  True!

This was more or less the scenario the Claremont Institute also used.  Except that it wasn’t.

Remember the Debt Ceiling?

 Remember the debt ceiling?  You know, the thing that could have catastrophic results if we don't raise it?  So why aren't Democrats focused like a laser on raising it?  Why are they so dead set against using reconciliation to pass it by a simple majority?

Personally, I would favor introducing a bill to abolish the debt ceiling altogether.  The Republicans would call he filibuster.  Democrats would take vote to determine that the filibuster does not apply to abolishing the debt ceiling.  The vote would be 50-50 and Kamala Harris would cast the deciding vote.  And that would be it, end of any games of chicken over the debt ceiling.  Since abolishing the debt ceiling would be a one-time event, there would be no effect on the filibuster for anything else.  Most Congressional Republicans would probably be secretly relieved not to have to face any more games of chicken.  Granted, Republicans would denounce this at outrageous fiscal irresponsibility and make a lot of ads on it, but it it would end holding the debt ceiling hostage it would be worth it.

Unfortunately, is not going to happen.  Joe Manchin would not agree.  So the Democrats will once again have to raise the debt ceiling.

I would prefer to see them do it by simple majority for a simple reason.  Acting alone, Democrats can raise the debt ceiling high enough to postpone any further showdowns until after the 2024 election.  Enlisting Republican will undoubtedly mean Republicans will set the debt ceiling up for further confrontations after they take control of Congress in 2022.  And if the next Congress plays chicken with the debt ceiling, they just might be crazy enough not to swerve.

Addressed to Repubicans

 

Conventional wisdom has it, not just that Republicans will win by sweeping landslides in 2022 and probably retake the White House in 2024, but that they are poised to dominate for the next generation. Democrats are hemorrhaging Hispanic voters and leaking Black voters at an alarming rate, while making no headway whatever in rural areas.  The latest election shows that Republicans can fire up the base with crazy while still winning swing voters by acting sane, and that Democrats are getting nowhere in pointing out the contradiction.  Racial polarization is declining while educational polarizing is rising.  Soon Republicans will dominate non-college voters everywhere while Democrats are relegated to a few upscale college enclaves.

That being the case, why are Republicans acting like a party on the run and running scared?  Why are they working at making it harder to vote and easier to overturn elections they don't like, when chances are good that they will be highly successful anyway?

And so far as I can tell from listening to the Republicans at work, the answer seems to be that our country is in such dire straits since Biden came to power that clearly Democrats are simply a disaster we cannot risk. Comparisons to Jimmy Carter and the 1970's are common.  Implied but not quite stated is that Democrats are so disastrous that we can no longer afford the luxury of competitive elections and will have to institute a one-party state, and all will be well.

I will start by conceding that yes, we have problems. There is no denying that 2021 has been a bad year -- not as bad as 2020, but definitely bad.  But guess what.  We have had problems in the past, and bad years. Somehow we managed to come through them without ending democracy and instituting a one-party state.

So let us compare our present-day situation with the 1970's.  Doubtless the 1970's were a troubled time. (Some of the troubles happened under the Republican Nixon and Ford Administrations, but we can ignore that detail). The mass riots and leftwing terrorism of the 1960's had ended, but remained a troublingly recent memory.  The US was newly extricated from a prolonged and highly unpopular war in Vietnam, weakened.  Withdrawal was chaotic, with Vietnamese desperately clinging to US helicopter, and the country was spiraling into disaster.  Communism seemed on the march everywhere.  Crime was surging at home. Inflation was in the double digits, despite high unemployment and sluggish economic growth. Gas prices were soaring and long lines forming outside filling stations.  

So it should not come as a surprise that Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election, and that in the 1980's Republicans won the presidency by three successive landslides.  But no one concluded from that that Democrats were intolerable and must never hold office again. In fact, they continued to dominate Congress throughout the 1980's and to be competitive at the state level in numerous states.

The 1980's saw many of the problems of the 1970's resolved.  Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker slammed on the brakes and broke the inflationary spiral at the cost of a severe recession.  Recovery was rapid once the spiral was broken, and prosperous times ensued. Gas prices fell.  Communism fell apart as unworkable, including in Vietnam.

Still, it would be a mistake to view the 1980's era of Republican hegemony in the presidency as problem-free. Unemployment remained steadily above 5% in prosperous times. Crime continued to surge, not starting to fall until the 1990's.  Many of our inner cities were little better than war zones as rival drug gangs fought for control.  If one counts the years 1990-1992 (still part of the Republican hegemony in presidential politics), riots returned -- anti-Semitic riots in Crown Heights (an unheard-of thing in the US), and severe riots in Los Angeles in 1992. 

Gay communities, IV drug users, and hemophilics were devastated by AIDS -- both the disease and the stigma. Employers fired infected workers, landlords evicted them, families cast them out, healthcare workers refused service. Much of conservative opinion saw this as appropriate punishment and considered any research to treat AIDS as immoral because it encouraged the gay lifestyle.  And many of the problems that led to Donald Trump coming to power -- out of control deficits, good paying blue collar jobs going overseas, the decline of family farms and rural community, rampant homelessness -- got started in that era.  

So putting Republicans in charge is hardly a panacea. 

So, What Should Democrats Do?

 

So, given my fears that US democracy is doomed, what can Democrats do about it? Given that the survival our our democracy may depend on who controls the votes in 2024, what can Democrats do within the next year?

Democrats are at a major disadvantage, being up against 30 years of talk radio, 20 years of Fox News, the complete atrophy of their party in rural areas, gerrymandering, and a system weighted to favor rural areas.  These disadvantages will not be overcome in one year.  

Nonetheless, these would be my short term suggestions:

Make the best use of limited resources.  Election counters will be the absolutely most important offices in the next election.  Republicans are certainly focusing on election officials.  We need to do the same. Recruit, recruit, recruit.  Everywhere.  If we can't defend anything else, defend that.  We need to beat them over the head again and again by asking whether they will certify the result regardless of outcome.  Maybe I am being hopelessly optimistic here, but I believe an open pledge to disregard election results is still a loser.

It's the economy, stupid.  In the third quarter, growth slumped while inflation surged.  Inflation is eroding people's paychecks.  Biden's popularity slumped about the same time.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  So focus on clearing up bottlenecks and supply chain snags, let the Fed fight inflation, and push to open up the world economy by getting out vaccines, tests, and treatment to fight COVID.

Listen to Ziblatt.  He gives two useful pieces of advice.  His advice from How Democracies Die is to build the broadest possible coalition with as many swing voters as possible.  How to do that?  He gives a hint in his other work, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.  In defining a strong center-right party, he says it should have strong enough ties to the voters to know what appeals to them, enough flexibility to adopt to what is a winning platform, and an institutional interest in the survival of democracy.  The same applies no less to a strong center-left party.  In other words, we need to be better attuned to what actual voters want and less to what party wonks want.  (The wonks still have an important role in figuring out what is practical and how to implement it).  

And yes, in case you don't get the hint, that does mean moderating our stance in order to get votes.  It means not falling victim to what Ruy Teixeira calls the Fox News Fallacy.

This is the idea that if Fox News (substitute here the conservative bête noire of your choice if you prefer) criticizes the Democrats for X then there must be absolutely nothing to X and the job of Democrats is to assert that loudly and often. The problem is that an issue is not necessarily completely invalid just because Fox News mentions it. That depends on the issue. If there is something to the issue and persuadable voters have real concerns, you will not allay those concerns by embracing the Fox News Fallacy. In fact, you'll probably intensify them by giving such voters the impression that Democrats simply don't care about their concerns and will do nothing to address them.

Teixeira offers crime, the border, and education as examples.  Inflation is another.  

I realize hardcore activists might protest here and complain that we are asking them to give up their last chance to pass their program.  To which I say, save democracy, and there will be another chance.  Let the Republicans destroy it and there will not. I recall a Republican making the same error during the Obama Administration, saying that usually he agreed with William F. Buckley that conservatives should pick the most conservative candidate electable, but this emergency was an exception.  He argued that Democrats had completely run off the rails and the Republicans should therefore stick to the most conservative candidate and not worry about electability.  Need I point out the error there?  If you truly believe that the other party has run off the rails and poses an intolerable threat, the goal has to be to stop them immediately, at all cost, even the cost of some ideological purity.  Well, the same applies to us, too.  If you believe that Republicans have run completely off the rails and must be stopped at all costs (and I do), then all costs include ideological purity.*

Or look at it another way.  Do we believe ourselves to be the party of oppressed Black and Latino populations?  Then maybe we should listen to real, live oppressed Black and Latino populations and respond to what they actually want as opposed to what some white ivory tower theorist thinks they should want.  As it happens, most Black and Latino voters are considerably more moderate that upscale white liberals. (This may be why many Latino and some Black voters are starting to defect to the Republicans).  And the good news here is that maybe we don't have to choose between representing the wishes of Black and Latino population and reaching out to white swing voters in the suburbs.  Maybe what the two groups want isn't so different after all.

What else can we do?  We are at an immense disadvantage dealing with the Right Wing Noise Machine, its pervasiveness in rural areas, and its relentless message discipline.  We are also at an immense disadvantage with large-scale Republican donors and their capacity to organize mass movements. So what can we do?  Well, we can exercise more message discipline among Democrats giving interviews and be more proactive in getting our viewpoints out, but I don't think there is any hunger on our side for the sort of noise machine the right wing has.  We can also seek to involve big donors more in party building.  

But remember two words -- George Soros.  To the extent that Democrats have a major donor, it is George Soros.  Soros donates to liberal candidates, causes, and publications.  He has a Political Action Committee.  In that he is no different than countless conservative donors.  I know of no evidence that he exercises anything close the the influence of, say, Charles Koch or other leading Republican donors.  But the degree of Republican freakout that a Democrat dares play their money game is extraordinary.  

I could make a few other suggestions that can only go so far in the short run, but may be useful in the medium run if our democracy survives.

Don't Rely on the Lincoln Project.  Yes, after being targets of Republican nastiness all these years it is good to see somebody really nasty on our side for a change.  But I see no evidence that it actually changes votes. The rage addicts have already made up their minds and are going to vote.  The swing voters we are trying to reach are not rage addicts.  

Do Rely on Person-to Person Work.  That is how underdogs do it every time.  After the 2020 election, moderate Democrats said our failures to expand were the result of moving too far to the left, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it was the result of not doing enough personal outreach.  I say both are right. AOC, by all accounts, is not just a leftwing ideologue, but also a first-rate old-style machine politician.  We need to start rebuilding that old-style political machine  Remember, if there is one thing that can blunt right-wing demonization, it is showing them that we are people too.

Don't Over Centralize.  In 2018, Democrats won by the glories of message indiscipline.  Each candidate had their own personally-crafted message, and the right wing noise machine didn't know how to counter all of them at once.  Stacey Abrams undertook a major expansion of the Georgia Democratic Party, and it has paid off.  Sure, Republicans hate her, but hardly on a par with their hatred for George Soros.  Now imagine if there were 50 Stacey Abrams.  Where would Republicans focus their hate?

Compete Everywhere.  Because our system is inherently stacked to favor rural areas.  If Democrats can't find some sort of rural outreach they are doomed.

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*This is why some on the farther left resist the idea that Trump posed or poses a unique threat.  They prefer to treat him as just another candidate so they don't have to sacrifice ideological purity to stop him. 

Why I am Not Optimistic About the Prospects of American Democracy

I do not believe that the recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey, etc. are a must-win for Democrats.  I do believe that the 2022 are a must-win for democracy.  And I see no evidence whatever that democracy will survive the 2022 elections, when MAGA candidates seek to take over the election machinery and Republican candidates run for Congress on a pledge not to certify a Democrat as president.. The 2021 elections showed that accepting election results is a deal breaker for the Republican base, and that refusal to accept result is not a deal breaker for swing voters.  

Daniel Ziblatt argues that when authoritarian parties menace a democracy, the only way to stop them is by a grand coalition of the pro-democracy forces across the ideological spectrum.  His book (pp. 26-32) gives instances of how this has worked in multi-party, parliamentary systems.  In Belgium in 1936, Belgium's conservative Catholic Party expelled all supporters of fascist parties and formed an alliance with the Socialists (social democrats, not communists) and Liberals. This was a bitter pill, not just for the Catholics Party, but also for the Socialists, who had a plurality but not a majority in Parliament, yet had to accept the Catholic leader as prime minister.  Likewise in Finland mainstream parties initially tolerated the violent right so long as it targeted Communists, broke with it when it began kidnapping Social Democrats and attempted a putsch.  Conservative parties then allied with the Social Democrats to defeat the far right.*  More recent examples exist as well.  In Austria in 2016, conservative parties backed the Green candidate over the far-right candidate in a runoff election for president.  And, although Ziblatt does not mention it, mainstream German parties have held together in a frail coalition to keep out the Alternatives for Deutschland.

So what would that look like in the US, with our uniquely binary, first-past-the-post system?  Well in Louisiana 1990 and 1991, the Republican establishment threw its support behind the Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor respectively, rather than let David Duke win.  

But I suppose it is asking too much to expect the Republican Party to intentionally lose an election for President.  So the alternative would rely on Democrats making the broadest possible coalition, reaching out to swing voters, and seeking to isolate Republicans as extremist and undemocratic.  That did not work in the recent election.  In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won swing voters by not embracing Trump too closely, but he also won the Republican base by not expressly repudiating the claim of a stolen election.  Ten participants in the "Stop the Steal" rally won, as opposed to only five who lost.**  Some 57 participants are up for election in 2022 and likely to win.  

Ziblatt's advice (pp. 214-220) is not to violate accepted institutional norms, but to fight within them, and to build the broadest possible coalition, including swing voters and pro-democracy conservatives.  It is the general advice one hears to treat Trump (and MAGA) as ordinary opponents. Ziblatt contrasts Hugo Chavez in Venezuela with Alvaro Urribe in Colombia, who showed similar autocratic tendencies.  Chavez' opponents attempted a coup against him, and thereby made themselves look anti-democratic and Chavez like the democrat.  This furnished the perfect opportunity for him to crack down. Something similar happened when Recep Erdogan's opponents attempted a coup.  In Colombia, by contrast, Urribe's opponents stuck to the legislature and the courts and preserved the democracy.

To the extent that Ziblatt means don't resort to illegal or extra-legal measures, I agree.  These are more likely to discredit Trump's opponents than to succeed, and even if they succeed, they simply destroy democracy in a different way.  But does it mean not pointing out what an intolerable threat Trump and MAGA pose to democracy?  Does it mean not proclaiming from the rooftops that the MAGA crowd is even now attempting to intimidate election officials and drive them from office with threats and harassment, and to install vote counters who will refuse to accept results regardless of the outcome? Democracy is under siege.  Is the only way to preserve it to refrain from saying so?

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*In both cases, the defeat of domestic fascists did not prevent the country from being overrun by foreign invaders, Nazi Germans in Belgium and Soviets in Finland.  But it paved the way for a democratic restoration afterward.

**It is at least mildly encouraging that all denied having actually breached the Capitol.
 

The Latest in Vote Flow Charts

All attempts to overturn the 2020 election having failed, Republicans appear to have decided to rely on a new tool not in their toolkit last time -- private election audits. Somewhere along the line the Cyber Ninja audit in Arizona went from a ridiculous search for bamboo fibers that was making Arizona a national laughing stock into something Republicans in every state wanted to copy -- even in states where Trump won by sweeping landslides.

The Cyber Ninja audit, it should be added, failed to overturn the result. (It actually added a handful of votes to the Biden column).  But that failure can be ignored because the audit came up with various (illegitimate) excuses to doubt the results and essentially declared the actual outcome to be an unknowable mystery. 

So the current Republican model for elections appears to be as follows:

This looks distinctly messy and unsatisfactory, not to mention the fact that it failed to get the result they wanted.  But fear not, Republicans can now make Cyber Ninjas the first tool in their kit.  Given the group's performance in Arizona, it should be an easy matter to delay certification past the deadline.  This will allow the (Republican, thoroughly gerrymandered) legislature to choose an alternative slate of electors.  The Cyber Ninjas model in swing states will look like this:

This is simple and straightforward and can guarantee a Republican victory in every swing state.  It might run into problem, though -- Democrats in Congress.  Up until 2020, it had been assumed that Congress's role in certifying an election is purely ceremonial unless their was no Electoral College majority (something that has happened only twice).  But now the unthinkable has become thinkable. Can Congress refuse to certify a state's electoral vote.  Certainly we can imagine that a state legislature overrode the popular vote, Congressional Democrats would refuse to certify.  Republicans would naturally be outraged at their dirty dealing.  The model would look something like this:

In fact, I could almost see this being made to work.  It is generally assumed that our system of government depends on upholding unofficial norms.  If the norms are kept, constitutional government thrives; if norms fail, the rule of law is trampled.  FDR's failed attempt at court packing is given as the classic example.  But sometimes norms fail and new norms simply take their place, leaving democracy and the rule of law none the worse for it.  Classic example: Andrew Jackson's veto of the Bank of the United States.  Up till then it was assumed that the President should veto only unconstitutional legislation.  The Supreme Court had found the Bank constitutional, so Jackson would have no choice but to sign. Instead, he vetoed and set a new norm that the President can veto legislation for purely policy or partisan reasons.  Democracy seems to have survived.

So I suppose we could adopt a system in which the electoral college is purely a formality and Congress makes the choice, with each member voting for the candidate of their own party.  It would move us more in the direction of a parliamentary system.  It would also make control of Congress paramount and have the effect of being a complete end to ticket splitting and making gerrymanders all the more important.  It do not favor such a system, but I could see democracy possibly surviving it.*

Clearly the Cyber Ninjas model has two disadvantages.  One is that Congress can thwart it if Democrats hold a majority.  (Does anyone doubt the next certification will take place under martial law with the National Guard lined up all around Congress?).  The other disadvantage is that it applies to Presidential elections only and still allows Democrats to hold other offices.  But Republicans are working on another model that is more reliable -- simply put people in charge of vote counting who will not certify Democrats as winning any office.  It will look something like this:

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*For democracy to survive, we would need the following sequence.  Democrats win the presidency and Congress.  Congressional Republicans then unanimously refuse to certify the outcome but Democrats, as the majority party, override them.  Perhaps there is a repeat performance with Democrats again holding both branches in the next election.  After that, a Republican wins both branches and Democrats see little choice but to retaliate, and the new norm is born.