Leopards Eating Each Other's Faces

Well, well.  That didn't hold up so well.  It appears that MAGA faithful and the tech bro plutocrats have their differences after all.  Over immigration, of course.  Tech bros want to expand the H-1B visa program to admit high-skilled immigrants to work in tech.  The MAGA faithful was to cut back or eliminate the program, saying it steals jobs from Americans and lets in too many people from India.

Disagreements on policy are normal even within a party coalition, to be worked out by negotiations and compromise.  On the one hand, this does not seem like an issue that admits compromise.  If one faction of the party wants to expand the program and the other wants to massively shrink, or even eliminate, it, that seems like the sort of difference that can only end with one side winning and the other losing, or else with deadlock and nothing happening.

On the other hand, if one takes a few steps back and looks at the larger picture, H-1B visas are only a small part of the total immigration story.  Compromise is certainly possible.  There are an estimated 11 million people in the country without legal authorization.*  Trump has claimed the number is as high as 20 million.  By contrast, there are about 3 million H1-B visa holders in the US -- all present legally and not subject to deportation except for misconduct.  An obvious compromise is to focus on illegal immigration and leave legal immigration for a later date.  Or, Trump could cut back on other forms of legal immigration but grant an exception to the tech industry.  Others have suggested that if the tech lords had just had the sense to keep quiet, they could probably have whispered in Trump's ear and gotten their way without the MAGA faithful even noticing.

Look, let me be plain and say that I do not know enough about the H-1B visa program or labor conditions in the tech industry to have an opinion on the merits.  Nor do I care enough to do extensive research.  What is clear is that hardcore anti-immigration activists have thrown off the mask and revealed their racism.  

The MAGA faithful at least sometimes pretended only to oppose illegal immigration and said that they were fine with people who comply with all requirements to come here legally.  They even pretended to distinguish between Temporary Protected Status -- people who entered the country without legal authorization* but are granted legal status due to an emergency situation at home -- and people who indisputably applied for and received legal status before entering the US.  If your only objection is to illegal immigration, then even if you consider people with Temporary Protected Status as illegal immigrants granted retroactive recognition, that leaves no valid grounds to object to entry on an H-1B visa, which is indisputably legal.  People who oppose the H-1B visa program are admitting that what they really oppose is all immigration, legal or illegal, or at least all immigration by people who are not white.  So I understand why some people see MAGA as the leopard eating tech's face.

But in then end I think if this was just a dispute over H-1B visas, I still think it could be dismissed as a "spat" that would blow over.  What turns this into a serious breach, and a real example of leopards eating faces, is that Musk penalized members of the MAGA faithful for their posts.  

After all, Musk proclaimed himself to be a "free speech absolutist."  And, of course, by "free speech absolutist" he meant that he would not take down any right-wing speech, no matter how false, defamatory, or harmful, Russian bots and professional trolls included.  In fact, he aggressively promoted lies about FEMA's response to hurricanes in order to benefit the Trump campaign.  Needless to say, Musk's "free speech absolutism" did not extend to people he disagreed with.  It was compatible with banning leftwing posters at the behest of rightwing campaigns. and manipulating algorhithms to his advantage.  

Naturally, none of this bothered the right wing any.  Brendan Carr, Trump's nominee to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has held up Elon Musk as a model of the free speech policies all social media companies should adopt, or face anti-trust actions.  Carr also approves of denying licenses to stations that run news stories that displease Donald Trump.  And Trump at a recent Turning Point USA rally proclaimed to thunderous applause that under a Trump presidency  there would be freedom of the press -- at the same time he is using dubious libel suits to shut down any outlet that criticizes him.  Clearly on the right wing, "free speech" and "freedom of the press" mean non-stop right wing propaganda, with no form of excluded on the feeble grounds that it is false.

And now, lo and behold! after right wing posters applauded Elon Musk for suppressing left-wing posts while protecting them, it turns out he is just as willing to suppress right-wing posts he disagrees with. Recently he cancelled verification, demonitized, or suspended some 14 right-wing accounts, including Laura Loomer.  And I have to believe that a lot of right wingers who might have forgiven Musk for a disagreement on immigration will not be so quick to defend him when it turns out that Musk's exceptions to "free speech absolutism" extend to THEM!  

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*Without legal authorization does not necessarily mean illegally.  Asylum seekers can enter the country without legal authorization, but are not entering illegally so long as they turn themselves in and apply for asylum.

 

Donald Trump: Facts Don't Matter

One of the most notable things about Donald Trump is his realization that facts don't really matter to the claims he makes.  

An obvious application was his claim that US forces going into the Middle East should have "taken the oil."  What does it mean to "take the oil."  Well, when anyone other than Donald Trump sends forces into the Middle East, it presumably means seizing control of all oil production in the country and using it to US benefit, with no regard to anyone else.  And, by that standard, none of Trump's rivals ever "took the oil" because such a thing is just about impossible.  But when Trump is in power, he can just send a few troops to guard a few oil wells and claim that he "took the oil."  How can you possibly disprove that?  You might point to other oil facilities outside of his control, but how many Americans will actually go to the Middle East and see for themselves.

Only slightly less extreme was his claim that he would build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.  There was no need to actually do such a thing, just put in a few miles of wall and announce that it is built.  How many people are going to traverse the entire 2000 miles of border to fact check that?  Granted, there are people who live by the border who can point out that no wall has gone up where they live.  But just say that most of the wall has gone up and that their area is one of the last to receive it.  Again, how many people who notice that the wall has not gone up in their area are going to traverse the entire 2000 miles to see how much of it has been built.  And as for making Mexico pay for it -- look if Donald Trump says Mexico has paid for the wall, how can you possibly disprove him?

So I do agree with the people who say that the best response to Trump's latest nutty pronouncements is to say, "Sure, dude.  I'll believe you when you show me, no sooner."
 

Donald Trump: Affect versus Effect

 

Donald Trump as admitted that when prices go up, it is just about impossible to bring them down.  Given that he campaigned on a promise to do just that, will it hurt his popularity?

My guess is no, not really.  Last time around he campaigned on bringing back all those good-paying manufacturing jobs that went overseas.  He did not, in fact, bring back all those good paying manufacturing jobs, and that didn't hurt him in the least with the party faithful

My guess is that what is happening here is that people are taking Trump "seriously, but not literally."  Or, stated otherwise, they are judging him by his affect, rather than his effect.  In other words, voters may very well understand that the good-paying manufacturing jobs are not coming back, that when prices go up they are probably not coming down and, in general, that Trump is promising a lot of things that he cannot deliver on.  His supporters do not really blame him for these things because they know that at least he shares their aspirations.  

After years and years of hearing Republicans saying that anyone who does not at least aspire to own a business is a moocher and loser, and Democrats urging everyone to get a good education so they don't get stuck in a dead-end blue collar job, it must be good to hear someone who understands that you don't want to own a business, or to have a degree and desk job, you just want a job that pays a good wage and that is perfectly fine.  Even if Trump could not realistically bring back all those good-paying blue collar jobs, it must be good to hear a politician says that there is nothing wrong with your aspirations, and that you do not need either to own a business or to have a degree to be a valuable member of society.

The same applies this time to inflation.  When you are angry about increased prices, the last thing you want is someone to explain why it really is not as bad as it seems.  You want a leader who is also angry about increased prices.  Even if there is nothing that can realistically be done to lower prices, you still want a leader who shares your anger.

So does this mean that nothing can dent Trump's popularity?  No, I don't think that at all.  I do think that it won't hurt his popularity if nothing really gets better because things are actually pretty good as they are.  What will hurt his popularity is if things get worse.  Such as if high tariffs, large-scale deportations, or budget busting tax cuts cause inflation to go back up again.

Donald Trump is Creating a Plutocracy and So Far That Seems Popular

Remember when it seemed possible that Republicans were abandoning economic royalism?  Remember when they made the discovery that actually corporations can do wrong and can oppress.  Not by selling unsafe products, of course, or by having unsafe work conditions or ruining the environment, of course, but maybe Bud Lite seeking endorsement of a trans influencer.  Of course, Republican deviation from economic royalism was not a serious deviation, just an expression of anger at "woke capital."  An ideology of corporations can do no wrong was simply giving way to an ideology of corporations can do no wrong -- unless they say something "woke."

Fast forward to today when, probably unsurprisingly, Donald Trump appears to be going all-out economic royalist and is turning his administration into an open plutocracy.  He has cut a deal with big money interests -- cut the wokeness, and I will give you everything else you want.  They are eagerly taking him up on it.  Trump his stocking his administration with billionaires and letting oil companies set energy policy in exchange for campaign contributions.  And don't be so foolish as to think this will hurt his populist street cred.  Part of Trump's true stroke of genius is to turn economic royalism into a populist ideology.

I should add, just for the record, that this is entirely consistent with general Republican ideology for a long time.  People on our side of the aisle have been complaining for a long time the Republicans dismiss knowledge, expertise, and meritocracy.  Republicans, I would guess, would dispute this.  Their formulation, instead is plutocracy = meritocracy.  They simply see the true measure of people who know most in a field, not as degrees or credentials, or study, but as how much money one makes at it.  Thus whoever makes the most money in any given field clearly knows the most about it and is best qualified to set policy.  Letting oil companies set energy policy is popular in the assumption that oil companies want to maximize production, which will reduce prices.  

And the same in any other field.  The general assumption is that whatever maximizes corporate profits necessarily maximizes the public good.  Government of the richest, by the richest, and for the richest is naturally government to the benefit of all.  The whole idea that our plutocrats might have interests that differ from the broad general public (or, for that matter, from each other) is dismissed as Communism. Thus not only plutocracy = meritocracy, but plutocracy = the public good and therefore, ultimately, plutocracy = democracy.

And, following the same logic, since Elon Musk is the world's richest man, he must also be the smartest, most competent, and best qualified to run things.  Musk likes saying, "Vox populi, vox Dei" (the voice of the people is the voice of God).  Unstated in this assumption -- "Vox Musk, vox populi."  And, after all, since Musk is the world's richest, and therefore worthiest, person, who would presume to disagree with him?

Still, with all that being said, it is not so clear to me whether plutocracy would be so popular if anyone other than Donald Trump were promoting it.

What to Make of the Latest Flap

 

So, now that we have averted a government shutdown, what are we to make of the latest flap?

I would say, first and foremost, it appears that not even Trump can control the Freedom Caucus or, as Devin Nunes once called them, the lemmings with suicide vests caucus.  Maybe they will become more compliant once he is actually sworn in, but as of right now, they remain lemmings with suicide vests.

Second and relatedly, although Donald Trump and Elon Musk are spinning this as a win, neither man actually got what he wanted.  Musk called for a government shutdown and a halt to all legislation until Trump is inaugurated.  Trump called for abolition, or at least suspension, of the debt ceiling.  Neither of these happened.  In fact, the final bill was not all that different from the one Musk scuttled, but they did scuttle the first bill, so both men are trying to spin this as a win.

Third, and intriguingly, this may be the first disagreement between Trump and Musk.  At least, Musk called for a government shutdown.  Trump did not.  Trump called for an end to the debt ceiling.  Musk did not.  Maybe nothing will come of this.  But it is interesting.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly in the long run, it confirms my suspicion about a second Trump Administration.  My guess is that there actually will be grownups in the room during this administration.  The bad news is that, instead of being mavens of the Deep State (see above) as in the first Trump Administration, this time they will be the plutocrats.  Deep State mavens were primarily interested in keeping Trump from subverting the rule of law.  The plutocrats are primarily interested in keeping Trump from blowing up the economy.

Clearly one or more of the plutocrats (we have no way of knowing which one(s)) have impressed on Trump just how disastrous a debt ceiling breach would be.  Trump is therefore heavily invested in abolishing the debt ceiling, or at least kicking the can as far down the road as possible.  And he is absolutely right about that.  Stopped clock and all. 

But this is also troubling.  Let me be clear about my order of preferences.  They are as follows:

1. Trump does not subvert the rule of law or blow up the economy.
2. Trump blows up the economy, but does not subvert the rule of law.
3. Trump both subverts the rule of law and blows up the economy.
4. Trump subverts the rule of law but does not blow up the economy.

The reason for this set of preferences is simple.  Our country can recover from economic damage.  It has done so many time.  But it cannot survive as a true democratic republic if the rule of law is subverted.  

Thus the importance of rule number one in any smart authoritarian's playbook.  Don't do anything unpopular until after you have consolidated complete power into your hands.  Taking unpopular actions before you consolidate power will generate pushback and risks thwarting the attempt.  But if you truly manage to consolidate power, then you are free to take unpopular actions if you want because it will be too late to stop you.  Hugo Chavez and Erdogan Recep and classic examples of smart authoritarians who followed this rule.  

Trump, certainly, is not smart, but the grownups in the room just might turn out to be smart authoritarians who understand this rule.  

Then again, the lemmings with suicide vests caucus just might thwart them.

Donald Trump Isn't Incoherent, Just Delusional

So, speaking as one who follows a lot of anti-Trump accounts, a frequent comment is that Trump is totally incoherent.

I don't agree. Yes, he tends to ramble. Trump has always tended to ramble, so that is nothing new. And it is a mistake to overstate Trump's incoherence. If you follow closely, it is not too difficult to discern what Trump is saying.

In fact, Trump opponents should keep the Biden debate in mind. Not only was it Biden who sounded completely incoherent in the debate, but Trump proved that he still has enough discipline to sound reasonably sane. That is a suggestion that is nutty rantings are largely an act put on for the Party faithful who like them, that he is able to turn off when they are not welcome.

The problem is not Trump's rambling style -- it is still possible to follow his train of thought. Nor his seeming nuttiness. He can turn that on and off as called for.

The real problem is the content of Trump's speeches. Namely he appears to sincerely believe things that have no basis in reality. We are in danger of electing a completely delusional President. Let's look at some examples.

Hannibal Lector

Yes, it is weird to keep talking about, "The late, great Hannibal Lector." However, his meaning is clear enough. When Trump raises Hannibal Lector, it is always in the context of illegal immigration. He says that other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and insane asylums on the US. He then says that an insane asylum is a mental institution on steroids, the sort of place that held Hannibal Lector.* The point is clear enough. Trump is claiming that hoards of Hannibal Lectors are being unleashed on the US.

None of this has any basis whatever in reality. Yes, there are more people coming into this country than we can process and we really do need better border control. There is room to debate how many people we should admit in an orderly fashion, but then need to get control and make admission orderly is clear. But there is no evidence whatever that other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions on us, or that crime is reaching unprecedented heights in the US (it isn't) even as it falls everywhere else. And the suggestion that there are hoard and hoards of people as violent and dangerous as Hannibal Lector pouring across our border is just plain nuts.

Sharks and Electrocution



Go ahead and listen to his rant on sharks. Yes, it wanders some, but the point is clear enough. Trump is saying that government is forcing the replacement of gasoline boats with electric boats, and that electric boats are impractical because they will sink under the weight of the battery and the boat owner will have a choice between electrocution and being eaten by sharks!

Of course, this has no basis in fact. Gas boats are still being manufactured. Electric boats exist. They have actually been around since the 1880's. Serious comparisons exist between electric and gas boats. The general consensus -- electric boats are quieter, cleaner, and lower maintenance. Gas boats are more powerful. Most consumers opt for power. Nor is there much danger of electrocution unless you are between the terminals. In short, Trump's rant is rambling but comprehensible. It also has no basis in reality.

My suggestion -- electric boat owners should take Kamala for a cruise and Trump to join them. He will either have to accept and be shown up as a liar or decline and be shown up as a coward.

Child Care

Trump's opponents are having fun with his "jumbled' answer, but, again, the meaning is clear:  

But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly – and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care. That – it’s going to take care – we’re going to have – I – I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country. Because I have to say with child care – I want to stay with child care – but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just – that I just told you about.

In other words, he thinks that his tariffs will generate so much revenue that they will easily pay for any childcare shortages.  Once again, this is completely divorced from reality.  First of all, Trump refuses to understand that a tariff is simply an import tax which raises the prices of imports and therefore pinches people's budgets.  Nor are they the cash cow that Trump believes.  Kevin Drum has an estimate that if Trump puts a 20% tax on all imports and imports to not shrink as a result net revenues would be about $600 billion -- a third of our current deficit.

Of course, the goal of these tariffs is to reduce imports.  Trump appears to believe that if we reduce imports enough, it would spur enough growth to pay for everything and possibly even to create a post-scarcity economy.  Needless to say, that is completely insane.

Look, the debate is coming up on Tuesday.  Trump is pulling ahead.  I hope Harris is able to show Trump up for just how seriously out of touch with reality he is.  I hope his behavior drives the message home to voters just how dangerous he is.

But the fact is, Trump is a better debater than we like to think.  There are advantages to a debater who is completely untethered by the facts.

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*Many Trump opponents have suggested that he is confusing political asylum with an insane asylum. I have no idea on that one.

The Real Meaning of "When They Go Low We Go High"

 A lot of people have mocked Michelle Obama for saying, "When they go low, we go high."  This has been dismissed as hopelessly naive and utopian.  Indeed, Michelle has been accused of not following her own advice at the Democratic Convention.

I am not convinced.  There is another way of understanding the remark.  Most people seem to assume that there are three possible responses to attack ads, all of them bad.

The first is to ignore the attack as beneath response.  That has the disadvantage of looking like an admission that the accusation is true, or why are you letting it go unanswered.

The second is to deny the accusation.  The problem, of course, is that that only serves to amplify it.  That is the point behind the apocryphal story that Lyndon Johnson wanted to accuse his opponent of committing unspeakable acts with farm animals, just to force him to deny it.

The third alternative is to hit back, hard.  This is the one usually seen as the most effective -- when they go low, we go lower.  It is effective -- the reason there is so much attack advertising in politics is that it works. The result is the both campaigns compete to go lower and lower.  The one who goes lowest usually wins, but the overall result is to make voters despise both candidates and reinforce cynicism about the whole process.

I think that what Michelle Obama is saying is that there is a fourth alternative, a sort of political jiujitsu that turns the attacker's attack back on himself.  Ronald Reagan perfectly exemplified the technique when he responded to attempts to portray him as a dangerous extremist by chuckling and saying, "There you go again!"  It proved highly effective.

Barrack Obama was also a master of the technique.  He knew just how to drive his opponents crazy and then shake his head at their antics.  If an opponent wallowed in the sewer and invited him to come down and fight, Obama would say, "Wow!  It must really stink down there!"

A more recent example is Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock's famous ad.  Rather than making any detailed attempt at refutation, it shows him walking an impossibly cute dog, while saying showing a whole serious of headlines finding that attacks to be false out out of context.  "But I think Georgian's will see her ads for what they are," he says, throwing a bag of dog poop into the trash.  "Don't you?"  The dog barks agreement.  

Kamala Harris is showing some signs of understanding this technique as well.  The question is whether it will matter.  The latest poll shows Trump pulling ahead.

More Seriously: The Politics of Inclusion

 

Seriously, though, there is a point her.  My point is that Kamala Harris is working hard at the politics of inclusion and may be pulling it off.

Traditionally, Republicans have openly or subtly conveyed a message of exclusion.  Yes, they take care to include Black and Hispanic speakers to show that all races are welcome, but the constant message of "authenticity" and "real America" cannot help but convey a message that some "technical citizens" are inauthentic and not "really" American.  Who this refers to is somewhat intentionally left vague.  

Democrats, by contrast, present a message of inclusion -- which nonetheless has a tendency to exclude.  To some extent, this is the result of being a less cohesive coalition that the Republican base.  Democrats necessarily have to give assurances to all members of their coalition that all are welcome.  This can have the effect of telling people outside the coalition that they are not welcome.  And, yes, Democrats have made their efforts to overcome this.  Barrack Obama catapulted to national stature with his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention in which he said:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

And when he ran for President, Obama sought to reassure people outside the coalition by choosing Joe Biden, generally agreed to be an Authentic Real American, for Vice President.  Somehow it never convinced skeptics that he was anything but an out of touch elitist -- or worse.

So Kamala Harris is making her own bid.  She has chosen Mr. Super-Whitey from the Midwest for Vice President.  Walz flaunts the persona to assure voters on the fence that if you are Mr. Super-Whitey from the Midwast who coaches football, served 24 years in the National Guard, thinks tacos are made from hamburger and seasoned with black pepper and a hot dish is made with mild green chilies, taco sauce, chili pepper and paprika, you are an authentic real American who is welcome in our party.  And if you are the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants from California who makes homemade fries seasoned with home grown rosemary and thyme -- well you are just as real American and just as welcome in our party.

In further news today, Trump is ahead in the latest poll.

Does Kamala Harris Put Dijon Mustard on Her Homemade Fries?

 

Apparently, Kamala Harris's husband back in 2019 revealed her French fry recipe.  Apparently it involves double-frying them in peanut oil and duck fat and seasoning them with home grown rosemary and sage. 

"As if I needed another reason to do all I can to elect her," gushed one fan.  "WE ARE NOT GOING BACK," proclaimed George Conway, showing a picture of McDonald's fries by comparison.  Which is funny, because I can distinctly remember the day when any candidate would have gone to great lengths to conceal such a shameful secret.  Harris also stopped by a high end spice shop to buy "Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Base, Fox Point Seasoning, Trinidad Lemon-Garlic Marinade, Turkish Seasoning, and Tuscan Sunset Salt Free Italian Seasoning," and the worst Fox News could find to say was that the chain where she shopped was overtly political in its opposition to Republicans.

You don't believe me?  Seriously, look up Dijongate.  The right wing worked itself into a tizzy when Barrack Obama ordered Dijon mustard on his hamburger.  Obama did not do himself any favors by trying to conceal his preference.  And a general uproar ensued over Obama's elitism in using fancy mustard.  And now a Democratic candidate is making homemade fries, double fried in peanut oil and duck fat and seasoned with home grown rosemary and sage?!?  To which I can only ask, does she put Dijon mustard on them?

I Don't Care if Trump Loses His Mind. I Just Want Him to Lose the Election.

 

George Conway, the Lincoln Project, and others are looking for more and more ways to torment Donald Trump until he completely loses his mind.  They use terms like "narcissistic injury" and "decompensation," but the ultimate goal is clearly to drive him around the bend. 

I have problems with this.  First of all, it's not nice to make someone lose their mind, even if that person is Donald Trump.

Second, and more important for our country's future, the goal here should not be to make Donald Trump lose his mind.  It should be to make him lose the election.  Trump's tormentors are forgetting this distinction.

Presumably they would say that making Trump lose his mind if the most effective way to make him lose the election.  I am not so sure.  After all, he has been ranting about Hannibal Lector and sharks and who knows what else for months without any serious political consequences.

If the goal is to make Trump lose his mind as a means to making him lose the election, at a minimum, he will have to lose his mind in public.  And somehow, no matter how nutty he acts, all it seems to provoke in response is a collective yawn.  Personally, I think he could jump up and down and squawk like a chicken and most people would just shrug and say, "That's Trump for you."

Second of all, would it matter?  I am with Bill Maher, who said he would vote for Biden's head in a jar of blue liquid ahead of Trump.  Presumably there are any number of people on the other side who would vote for Trump jumping up and down and squawking like a chicken over any Democrat.  

I am Gobsmacked That the Republicans Were So Gobsmacked

 

Let us concede that the Democrats, in swapping out candidates so late in the game, took quite a radical action and it was somewhat understandable that Republicans were thrown for a loop. 

What surprises me, though, is that Republicans still have not recovered from it.  Apparently they had no Plan B, which is surprising.

I can understand that they might believe Biden would not withdraw voluntarily.  Biden himself was doing his best to create that impression.  But if Republicans truly believed that Biden was as frail as they claimed, did it not occur to him that he might be involuntarily removed by events beyond his control?  

In the most extreme scenario, he might die.  Failing that, he might have a clearly incapacitating medical event.  Or the Cabinet might invoke the 25th Amendment.  Even if one assumes these things are unlikely, they were not so far-fetched that a sensible campaign would have disregarded the possibility.  A Plan B seems like so much common sense.

I can only assume that Republicans assumed that Joe Biden's removal as candidate would have been followed by a power struggle to be his successor that would have torn the Democratic Party apart.  If Republican planners wanted to be generous, they might even have assumed this was the reason why Biden would never voluntarily step down.

Why the Pro-Hamas Crowds Pickets Democrats -- The Same Reason Ultra-Maga Harasses Republicans

 

There has been talk about why the pro-Hamas protesters showed up in force in Chicago and tried to disrupt the Democratic convention while leaving Republicans alone.  After all, Republicans are clearly more obedient to Israel and less friendly to the Palestinian cause than Democrats.  But really this is no different than why ultra-MAGA harasses and threatens Republican, but not Democratic, law makers.

An important caveat is in order here.  We have at least some idea who these pro-Hamas protesters are because they show up in person.  Their leadership appears to be Palestinian, while the rank and file are mostly college students and generic progressive activists seizing onto the cause of the day.  Most of the pressure the far right exerts against Republican officials takes place out of the public eye, by threats by email, phone and the like.  As such, it is not clear who are making the threats -- militia members, such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, or Three Percenters, or just the more hard core MAGA "normies."  

But the threats are real.  Many Republican office holders are being intimidated into supporting Trump, not just by the threat of a primary challenge but by actual physical threats as well.  Mitt Romney famously pays $5,000 per day in security because of these threats and can recount other Republicans who don't have that kind of money falling into line.  In 2020, Republican state legislatures expressed similar fears when Trump pressured them to appoint alternate slates of electors.  Rusty Bowers (Arizona Speaker of the House) and Brad Raffensperger.  Democratic law makers have not been targets of this sort of threats, although Democratic election officials have.*  And the reason is clear.  These hard core MAGA members believe that election officials are committing criminal fraud and therefore feel free to threaten them.  They expect Republican law makers to be in the tank for Trump and to vote for his certification regardless of election outcomes.  The do not expect Democratic law makers to be in the tank for Trump and therefore do not regard them as traitors for not voting to certify him.  

Or, put differently, ultra-MAGA are not currently seeking to take over the country.  They are seeking to take over the Republican Party as a prelude to taking over the country.

Something similar applies to the pro-Hamas crowd.  They know Republicans are in the tank for Israel and do not expect to have any sway with them.  Their fury is directed at Democrats, who they do expect to sway.  Or, put differently, they see Republican supporters of Israel as mere enemies and Democratic supporters of Israel as traitors.  And they are attempting to take over the Democratic Party, presumably as a prelude to taking over the country.

Of course, there are differences as well.  MAGA has been much more successful at intimidating Republicans into submission than the pro-Hamas crowd has been at intimidating Democrats.  The primary reason for this, I assume is that MAGA is much larger than the pro-Hamas crowd -- large enough to form the majority of a party, versus a minor faction.  

I also suspect that the ultra-MAGA tactic of staying in the shadows -- of making secret anonymous threats or harassing people at their private residence -- is more effective than the highly public and obnoxious actions of pro-Hamas.  If ultra-MAGA took their worst actions in the public eye, I have little doubt they would alienate public opinion enough to undermine their power. But private threats and harassment do not make it onto the public radar screen, and create they impression that there is a violent and authoritarian Left threatening the fabric of our country, with no equivalent on the Right.  The real difference is that the violent and authoritarian Left has been kept marginalized, while the violent and authoritarian Right is integrated into the mainstream.

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*Also school board members.  

Why Republicans Are So Weirded Out at Being Called Weird

 

It appears the Republicans are totally weirded out over being called weird.  The obvious question is why.  After all, on the total scale of political invective, "You're weird" is about as mild as it gets. Republicans are used to being called racists and fascists and regularly call their opponents Communists, terrorists, radicals seeking to overturn our country and so forth.  What is the big deal about weird.

One part of it, no doubt, is that Republicans cannot invert the accusation.  If they try calling Democrats weird, Democrats will cheerfully own their weirdness and proudly flaunt any number of harmless eccentricities.  

But I don't think that is all of it. Some people have suggested that "weird" is code for "creepy." There may be something to that, but I don't that that is the main reason "weird" is drawing blood. David Frum suggests that:

"Weird" is code for "expresses obsessive hostility to women, including the women in his own personal life" - and because MAGA Republicans don't get the code, they don't understand why they are losing the argument.

I definitely don't think it is that.  I think that Republicans understand the code very well.  That is why they are so threatened by it.

Quite simply, "weird" is code for "doesn't share the values of ordinary Americans like you and me."  No wonder Republicans are so outraged by the accusation.  It comes right out of the Karl Rove playbook of hitting your opponents where they are strongest.  Because Republicans' great claim to legitimacy has always been that they speak for Authentic Real Americans everywhere, while their opponents are just A Handful of Out-of-Touch Elitists.

The assumption that liberals are, by definition an out of touch elite, has reached such levels that it is now Republican doctrine that one cannot be simultaneously conservative and part of the elite.  No matter how rich, educated, powerful, politically connected, and privileged a Republican, they can never be part of the elite because they speak for the values of ordinary Americans.  Tucker Carlson's father might be an ambassador, director of the Voice of America and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; his stepmother might be an heiress to the Swanson fortune; he might have attended exclusive boarding schools and asked Hunter Biden to give his son a reference, but none of this makes him part of the elite because he is right-wing and therefore shares the values of ordinary Americans.  

Of course, at some level the Republican, um, intellectual leadership (mustn't call them elite) must have known that they do not, after all, speak with the values of ordinary Americans.  After all, they have long been committed -- on paper at least -- to rolling back the New Deal, a project that finds no support among the general public.  But Republican elites thought leaders could take comfort in the thought that the American people were poorly informed, and that if they only understood the peril that Social Security and Medicare were in, they would support, if not rolling them back altogether, at least plans to turn Social Security into a 401-k and voucherize Medicare.

Presumably the first clue that ordinary Americans did not necessarily agree with Republican elites activists must have come when the Supreme Court repealed its protection of abortion and turned the matter over to the states.  It soon became apparent that most Americans wanted abortion to remain legal. 

But Project 2025 has been devastating.  Most Americans may not know exactly what is in Project 2025, but they know it does not represent their values -- and the Republican elite leadership knows it too.

This is potentially a valuable moment for the Democratic Party.  Abortion won one election cycle (2022), but it can hardly be enough to sustain the Democrats for long.  But the discovery that out of touch elitism is not a liberal monopoly -- that there are conservative elites at the Heritage Foundation and elsewhere who do not share ordinary Americans' values -- can be the basis of Democrats' appeal for another generation.

PS:  Here is a clue.  Any political movement that uses "normie" as an insult clearly does not represent the values of, well, normies.  Sooner or later, someone was going to point that out.

Hello, Again

 

So, there has been quite a gap since my last post, even as Biden has dropped out of the election and Harris has pulled ahead.  

I will have to say, it has been hard to post about domestic politics even as the Middle East looks ready to blow up any day.  That makes anything in domestic politics look very much like a fragile construction that could be totally upended at any moment -- much like Trump's lead when Biden dropped out.

It also seems self-centered to view the prospect of all-out regional war from the prism of domestic politics, but I can't help it.  What would be the results of all-out war in the Middle East?  Presumably skyrocketing gas prices and mass riots by the pro-Hamas crowd.  That should be enough to put election out of reach by the incumbent party and hand it to Trump.  

Nor are my fears limited to the US.  In Europe as well, and possibly Latin America, two decades of democratic back sliding are finally beginning to show signs of reversing.  And mass riots by Muslims across Europe could very well reverse the reversal and bring the anti-democratic far right to power.  

And yet all the accounts I follow seem to be focusing on our domestic politics and treating that Mideast as, at most, an afterthought.  So let me do a few domestic posts as well.

Trump's Upcoming Pick for Vice President

 So, apparently Donald Trump now has a list of eight potential candidates for the Vice President slot -- Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, Doug Burgum, Elise Stefanik, Byron Donalds, and Ben Carson.

It could be worse.  Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, and Joe Arpaio are all mercifully absent.  Presumably Trump fears they would cost him votes.

Look, I know it is customary to analyze the potential picks from the candidate's viewpoint and list their pros and cons as potential vote getters.  But I am not going to do that.  The Vice President might have some influence on Trump and might take over if he passes his sell-by date while in office.  So, for the sake of the country, how do I evaluate them?

My somewhat unorthodox approach is that I prefer a knave to a fool. In other words, when candidates say something completely nutty, I would rather have one who knows it is a lie told to fool the gullible rubes than one who actually believes it.  Certainly, many people I respect disagree with me on this point.  And I recognize that the one who is knowingly lying is more morally culpable than the one who truly believes.  But it is also true that the deliberate liar is reality-based on the whole and can be rational when it is in his/her interest.  And the true believer will often cross lines that the liar would not.

Consider the 2022 election.  While the vast majority of Republicans who lost conceded defeat, there were two notable exceptions -- Kari Lake and Solomon Pena.  Lake knew perfectly well that she lost, but put on a show of challenging the results, made speeches denouncing the election as rigged, and sued to overturn the results.  At the same time, she knew perfectly well that the result would fail and did not make a serious attempt to overturn the results.  She was simply being performative.  Pena, by contrast, genuinely believed those stories, made complaints to a wide range of election officials and, when they did not take him seriously, started shooting at their houses.  It seems a safe assumption that Lake would never go so far.

Lou Dobbs also comes to mind.  There is a reason he was the only Fox host fired over the 2020 election.  The others knew perfectly well that they were recounting lies and could stop when the directive came down.  Dobbs believed and had to be fired.  Likewise, Newsmax hoped to outflank Fox on the right, but found it did not have deep enough pockets to withstand the sort of libel verdicts Fox could absorb.  As a result, it had to cancel Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, and others who refused to shut up because they truly believed.

So, with that in mind, what would be my order of priority among the Big Eight?

Knaves but not a fools.

Doug Burgum

1.  Doug Burgum.  Two-term governor of North Dakota and businessman.  Burgum seems to be a basically, sane, normal, decent person whose politics I don't like.  He clearly knows he is lying and makes only the minimum effort necessary.  If he ever did come to power, I think he could be trusted to govern in a rational manner, even if I did not care for it.  The big question is whether the governor of a state with a population under 780,000 is qualified to be President.  To which I can only answer, that Burgum is almost certainly better qualified than Trump.

Tim Scott

2.  Tim Scott.  South Carolina Senator since 2013, formerly House of Representatives, South Carolina legislature and Charleston City Council, served on the Banking and Finance Committees, author of Trump's proposed police reform bill, voted to certify Biden as President.  He appears to be both qualified and rational, and basically normal and decent.  He is also absolutely shameless in the lies he is willing to tell to get the slot.  Like Burgum, Scott really doesn't seem to care that everyone knows he is lying. So why do I prefer Burgum?  Mostly because of his role a a governor.  A governor really has to deal in reality or he/she will not be successful.  We could use more governors running for President for that very reason.

Tom Cotton

3.  Tom Cotton.  Arkansas Senator, one of the Big Three most conservative along with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, but he broke with them to agree to certify Biden as President, apparently after hearing the take recording of Trump's conversation with Brad Raffensperger.  Also a Russia hawk who voted for aid to Ukraine, definitely reality based, and tough enough to maybe have some sway with Trump and keep him at least somewhat grounded in reality.  So why do I prefer Burgum or Scott, neither of whom shows that kind of toughness?  Well, unlike Burgum and Scott, Cotton does not come across as basically decent.  His enthusiasm for waterboarding and eagerness to declare martial law during the 2020 riots suggest that Cotton is an authoritarian himself, albeit, a more reality-based authoritarian than Trump.  However, I am open to persuasion that Cotton might be preferable to Scott because he is tougher and better able to keep Trump grounded.

Marco Rubio

4. Marco Rubio.  Florida Senator, part of the Tea Party class, contender for President in 2016, voted to certify Biden.  It won't be Rubio for a simple reason.  The Constitution does not exactly say that the President and Vice President must be from different states, but it does require electors to vote for a ticket that includes at least one person from a different state.  This means that if Rubio joined Trump on the ticket, Florida's electors would be disqualified.  In a close election, that just might cost Trump victory, so I think we can rule out Rubio.  Nonetheless, if he were to move to another state, that would be a sort of ultimate act of self-abasement.  Rubio ran as a hawk in 2016, but voted against aid to Ukraine.  In short, he has abandoned his principles beyond what is absolutely necessary for the slot.  Somehow that just strikes me as particularly distasteful, although I am open to persuasion either way whether he might be preferable to Tom Cotton.

Elise Stefanik

5. Elise Stefanik.  House of Representatives from Upstate New York since 2014.  Originally ran as a moderate, elevated to chair of the House Republican Conference mostly so a woman could take Liz Cheney's place when Liz Cheney refused to acknowledge Trump as winner of the 2020 election.  Stefanik has since sought to advance herself by abject deference to Trump.  So what makes her any worse than Burgum, Scott,  Cotton, or Rubio?  Look, I prefer a knave to a fool, but I prefer a lesser knave.  The others at least have some sort of distinction other than shameless opportunism, but Stefanik has built her entire career on that.

Purely a fool.

Ben Carson

6. Ben Carson neurosurgeon, served as Donald Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, noted for bizarre beliefs like that the pyramids were really granaries and not tombs.  Kevin Drum described Carson's previous claim to fame as a neurosurgeon and crackpot and described him as being crazy but not scary.*  To be clear, just because Carson is a fool does not mean he is lacking in intelligence.  He is a literal brain surgeon, after all.  Nonetheless, we have had 46 Presidents of varying quality, and not one was ever qualified to perform brain surgery.  Conclusion:  Being a President and doing brain surgery are two separate and unrelated skill sets and having one by no means ensures the others.  Also, Carson is nutty enough to maybe actually believe about the stolen election.  But he seems like a decent enough guy other than that.

Knaves and fools.

Byron Donalds

7. Byron Donalds.  Elected to the House in 2020, almost certainly not qualified to be President.  But unlike Burgum, who appears to be reality based and willing to listen to sensible advice, Donalds appears to have made a career out of being as outrageous and obnoxious and possible.  This includes saying things like that Black people were better off under segregation and other such bomb throwing.  Unlike Scott, Cotton, or Rubio, Donalds voted not to certify Biden's election, which should itself be disqualifying. Does he actually believe the outrageous things he says?  I am inclined to think that Donalds resembles Trump in being a master of doublethink, about to believe or not believe whatever is most expedient at the time.  And to Donalds, expedient means outrageous.  Differs from the others in that he does not appear to have any interest whatever in governing and solely want to provoke.  Fortunately, Donalds has the same incurable defect as Rubio.  He is from Florida.

8. J.D. Vance.  Ohio Senator, elected 2022.  Combines all the worst traits of a knave and a fool.  Once harshly critical of Trump, now supports him down the line.  And it is hard to tell, but Vance appears to be a true believer who supports Trumpism with all the zeal of a convert.  He is definitely opposed to aid to Ukraine and believes that the working class is not served by the current international order.  (How does the working class benefit from more countries invading their neighbors?).  Vance knows perfectly well that the 2020 election was not stolen and does not seriously argue that it was, but does seriously argue that voters going to the polls and casting their votes for President should be a empty formality and that Congress should be allowed to throw out the election at will. In short, a Trumpist true believer who just might have the intelligence and competence to pull it off.  

And naturally, current signs point to Vance.

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*He questionably characterized Steve Bannon as scary but not crazy and gave Michael Flynn the dubious distinction of being the only member of Trump's original Cabinet to be both crazy and scary.

On the Debate

 Simple.  It was a pure, absolute, unmitigated disaster.  Biden tried to sound energetic, talked too fast, and just sounded like he was on stimulants.  He glitched several times and did not seem to understand what he was saying.  

Point of contrast: In the Biden-Palin debate in 2008, I got the impression that it was a debate between a candidate with a serious, in-depth knowledge of policy and one who was reciting canned talking points.  This time, Biden came across as the one reciting pre-rehearsed lines.

Up till now I was skeptical about claims of cognitive decline.  He seemed alert an knowledgeable during the State of the Union, interviews, the written notes from the Robert Hur investigation, and so forth.

This one just seems to confirm the absolute worst fears.  A pollster leading a focus group of undecided voters quoted one as saying, "I don't know if Biden can make it to November."  They called on him to resign.  It was that bad.

I think tonight is the night Trump wrapped up the election.  I would not even rule out a Reaganesque landslide.  

We need to work on Plan B NOW!

What if Biden Wins and is Certified?

I have given Trump advice on how to not and say he did.  If Joe Biden manages to win and to be confirmed, would my advice to him be the same?  

Taking into account that Biden is a Democrat and Trump is a Republican, my advice would be substantially similar.  

I would advice both to leave things as they are on the economy and gas prices and take credit for an improving situation.  I recommended supporting a federal anti-carjack statute for Trump, and it would probably work for Biden as well.  Regardless of who is President, I do expect the Gaza war to subside into an occupation and low-grade insurgency.  Regardless of who is President, we need to set up a consistent system for arming Ukraine with Russian money because sooner or later someone is bound to undercut it.

The differences would be in detail, but they would exist.  For instance, I would expect Trump, but not Biden, to federalize law enforcement in Washington, DC.  While I would encourage both to make a deal with the Fed to swap fiscal consolidation for reduced interest rates, I do recognize they will undertake different kinds of fiscal consolidation.  Trump will doubtless focus on preserving tax cuts and letting spending increases expire.  I would expect Biden to let tax cuts expire at the higher levels, keep the increase in Obamacare subsidies, and phase out infrastructure and local government subsidies.  I would expect Trump's immigration policy to consist entirely of increasing border security and cutting asylum admissions, while Biden would increase opportunities to apply for asylum from afar while cracking down on unauthorized border crossing.  Total asylum admissions, work visas, and humanitarian patrols would no doubt be greater under Biden than under Trump even at his most generous.

And, of course, the two men would appoint very different federal judges.  But yes, the real difference under my proposal is in who they would prosecute.
 

The Really Big Question

 

All of this raises one question that I cannot offer even a guess at.

Is this what the Republican Party has become for the foreseeable future, or is Trump a unique pathology?  I really don’t know.

In the lead-up to the 2022 elections, I was very much afraid that Republicans everywhere would follow Trump’s example and refuse to concede defeat.  In that I was pleasantly surprised.  There have been many elections since 2020, and the rule appears clear.  In elections for offices other than the Presidency, candidates other than Donald Trump (with a few exceptions) will concede defeat.*

In general, when Trump is not around, the Republican Party has not wholly lost its civic virtue. Its candidates (with a few exceptions) concede defeat when they lose, and none has successfully overturned an election.  Despite their razor-thin majority in the House, Republicans voted to expel George Santos.  They have accepted a criminal investigation of Matt Gaetz.  They are keeping the lights on and avoiding government shutdowns and debt ceiling breaches.  These are not very high standards, but they are certainly higher that Trump can clear.

So what happens when, as is inevitable sooner or later, a candidate other than Trump runs for President and loses?

To be clear, I don't believe stories that Trump has galloping dementia.  He has always been rambling and tangential.  His ghost writer for Art of the Deal had this to say about Trump in 1987 when he was 41:

One of the chief things I'm concerned about is the limits of his attention span, which are as severe as any person I think I've ever met.. . . . No matter what question I asked, he would become impatient with it pretty quickly, and literally, from the very first time I sat down to start interviewing him, after about 10 or 15 minutes, he said, 'You know, I don't really wanna talk about this stuff, I'm not interested in it, I mean it's over, it's the past, I'm done with it, what else have you got?' 

People have been speculating that Trump has dementia since 2016 and he keeps going.  Nonetheless, it remains true that time is not Trump's ally, that sooner or later he will necessarily age past his sell-by date.

Which means that some time, sooner or later, there will be a Republican running for President who is not Donald Trump.  And presumably sooner or later a non-Trump Republican running for President will lose.  I am very curious whether the party will accept the outcome when Trump is not the candidate, or whether they have completely assimilated the idea that the Presidency is theirs by right, and that they never have to accept the results if they lose.

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*The first sign of this was actually as early as January 5, 2021, with the Georgia runoffs.

So, Am I Being Defeatist?

 

I can already hear a lot of people complain that I am being defeatist here, assuming that a Trump victory is all but assured and asking how to deal with it.  To which I can only answer, yes, that’s what the polls say.  And yes, I know, polls can change, but these ones have been remarkably stable.  Yes, Biden got a little bump after his State of the Union, but it proved fleeting.  Trump appears to be having a reverse bump following is conviction, but that may also be fleeting.  As of right now, a Trump victory is at a minimum at 50% chance, which makes it something we have to plan for.

But it is not just that.  Trump has all the advantage that a cheat has over an honest player.  And Trump is not just a cheat, but by now backed by a whole party of cheats who are pledged not to recognize his defeat as legitimate.  So let’s game out a Biden victory and see just what he has to get past to assume the White House.

First of all, there is a general consensus that Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are out of reach, so any win will come down to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.  That is good in the sense that all three states have Democratic Governors and Secretaries of State, who can be counted upon to certify a Biden victory if it happens.  Better yet, Pennsylvania and Michigan have Democratic legislatures, so no risk of either state legislature choosing an alternate slate of electors.

That bad news is that Biden will need all three states to win.  The loss of even one will swing the election to Trump, and one can be sure that Republicans will pull out all the stops.  Since Pennsylvania Democrats control the executive and legislative branches in Pennsylvania and Michigan, sabotage will have to take place at the county level, but there are plenty of opportunities. 

In Michigan the matter got dramatic coverage – each county has a board of two Democrats and two Republicans who must certify results, and the state has a similar board.  In 2020, Republicans sought to refuse to certify the counties Biden won.  Can anyone doubt that they will do the same thing this time around, and probably Republicans on the state board will try to certify the result minus the Biden counties.  Naturally, Democrats on the state board will refuse to go along with that, and our media will probably treat these things as equivalent.

I am less familiar with the process in Pennsylvania, but it is easy to imagine Republican counties refusing to certify any results at all in order to prevent state-wide certification.  The remedy in both cases is presumably the same – go to court to seek a writ of mandamus ( court order to do one's duty) to order Republican officials to certify the results.  I do hope the courts do not try to enforce their order with fines or imprisonment.  Republican officials can easily wait till the safe harbor is passed, which loudly proclaiming themselves martyrs and crying political persecution.  A better option is to appoint a special master to do Republican county officials’ jobs for them.  The officials will doubtless still call that dirty pool, but there will be less opportunities to claim martyrdom.

Wisconsin is a different matter.  In Wisconsin, Republicans control both houses of a thoroughly gerrymandered legislature and can choose an alternate slate of electors.  Of course, Democrats now control the Wisconsin Supreme Court and will doubtless declare those electors invalid, but Republicans will hardly care.  Maybe fake electors will still claim to be the real electors in Michigan, although they were criminally prosecuted last time.  The Pennsylvania fake electors avoided prosecution by claiming they were only casting provisional votes if the official votes were invalidated.  But remember, the loss of even one of these states will throw the election to Trump.

But all of this will be secondary.  The real issue will be decided in Congress.  Recall that in 2020, state Republicans quite heroically resisted pressure from Trump and duly certified Biden when he won.  Republicans in Congress were a different matter.  This time, it appears to be the official position of the Republican party that the November election is an empty formality that Congressional Republicans can disregard at will.  Mitt Romney is retiring, so that leaves one Republican in either house who can be counted on to certify a Biden victory – Lisa Murkowski. 

So what if Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all certify Biden electors?  Well, if Democrats control both houses, they will certify a Biden win.  If Republicans control both houses, they will find an excuse to throw out at least one of the states (probably Wisconsin, where the legislature will have an alternate slate of electors) and declare a Trump victory.  Sure, people can challenge the validity of the vote in the Supreme Court, but does anyone think they will actually invalidate Congress’ actions?

What will be interesting is if there is a split  If Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate, or if Republican have a 51-49 majority and Murkowski votes to confirm Biden.  The House has several options under the Twelfth Amendment.  One option is that if the houses cannot agree, the Speaker of the House becomes President under the Presidential Succession Act.  Mike Johnson will become President.  The good news -- under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, his choice for Vice President would have to be approved by both houses.   That would presumably prevent him from naming Donald Trump, which is worth something, but it would still mean that Congress had defeated the will of the voters.

Alternately, the House may declare which slate of electors won in Wisconsin unknowable and say that since neither candidate can be said to have won the “majority of the votes cast” and therefore the matter is cast into the House – which votes by state.  Republicans control the majority of states and can be expected to continue to control the majority of states for the foreseeable future.  The House, voting by states, will naturally choose Trump.  So far as I can tell, there is no way for the Senate to stop them, other than a Supreme Court case that the Supreme Court would presumably refuse to decide.  There would be one drawback here.  In that case, the Senate chooses the Vice President.

If Democrats control the House and Republicans control the Senate, the incentives are reversed.  The decision whether to declare the winner unknowable and throw the matter to the House is decided by a simple majority.  House Democrats could refuse to do that, and the Senate would have no way to force them.  The Senate might declare no winner and attempt to choose a Vice President, but the Twelfth Amendment requires a two-thirds quorum, which Democrats could thwart by walking out.  Once again, presumably the Speaker would become President.  I have no doubt that, faced with the prospect of a President Hakim Jeffries, a small number of Senate Republicans would cave and agree to certify Biden.  (They would, of course, be vilified and face primary challenges). 

So it would appear from this perspective that winning the House is more important than winning the Senate because the Senate is the weaker body in terms of certifying a Presidential election.  On the other hand, the Senate confirms presidential appointments and a Republican Senate would presumably refuse to do so.  That would not be so bad in the case of executive appointments – Biden could presumably stick with the current ones or appoint “acting”  executive officials.  But we have to assume that the number one priority in a second Biden term would be to appoint as many young federal judges as possible, and a Republican Senate would block that.

Finally, needless to say, the Capitol would be under martial law while all this was going on to prevent a repeat of January 6.  It should also go without saying that Republicans would cry foul and denounce Biden as a military dictator, even if he took care to have the National Guard merely surround the Capitol and not enter it.  I am open to persuasion both ways whether martial law would be needed up to the inauguration.  In 2021 it was clearly necessary.  On the one hand, insurrections take time to plan, and would-be insurrectionists appeared to have taken their chance and lost it.  But some last, desperate action to prevent an inauguration could not be ruled out.  This time, Biden is well-entrenched in the White House.   But certainly, there would be no excuse for martial law after the inauguration.  (It was maintained well past what was necessary last time).

And this is what our country has come to!