Do We Have a Warped Set of Priorities?

Consider recent stories regarding Donald Trump.

Asylum seekers, including children, are being held in overcrowded and inhumane conditions.  The Trump Administration claims to have a third country agreement requiring all asylum seekers to seek and be refused asylum in Guatemala before coming here.  The Administration is making other plans to cut the number of asylum seekers admitted to near zero.  Steve Miller is also seeking a plan to greatly reduce the number of green card holders.  Donald Trump put out a tweet to four non-white Congresswomen who oppose him to "go back home" and led crowds chanting "Send her back!" about the only one of the four who is not U.S. born.

Which one of these developments gets the most attention?  The last, of course.  The first, asylum seekers held in inhumane conditions, has gotten some attention, mostly because of the Squad's attempts to draw attention to it.  But the changes in immigration policy have flown mostly under the radar.

Part of this is the media's Washington focus.  It is easier to focus on the President's latest outrageous tweets than developments taking place along the border, let alone prospective changes affecting mostly people in other countries.  But let's face it, We, the People, are not blameless here either.  It really is easier to focus on a story about a famous guy that lots of ordinary folks we never heard of.  Especially if those ordinary folks aren't even fellow citizens. 

On the one hand, to report the tweets without the policy is to strip them of all context.  It allows Trump supporters to portray him as harmless, just a little rough around the edges, and to dismiss objections to him as mere trifles of aesthetics.  Bigoted tweets look a lot less like a harmless blowing off steam when you see the bigoted policies that lie behind them.

On the other hand, let's face it.  There are people who are not bigots who support Trump's basic immigration policy, although they would prefer a more humane way of carrying it out.  And even more people simply can't bring themselves to care about anyone who is not a fellow citizen.  We should not make immigration policy outside the bounds of reasonable discourse.

And Trump's tweets show what sort of regard he has for a lot of fellow citizens.  And increasingly, the tweets and the rallies show that even Trump tweets are not a mere roughness of style, or a trifle of aesthetics.  The tweets and the rallies are active attempts to rile up the mob and inflame people's basest passions.  And such actions are very dangerous indeed.

Brexit is Going About How I Expected

When Salon used the purported Venn Diagram on the left to show the options for Brexit, I was unduly annoyed at the abuse of Venn Diagrams, but I could see what the outcome would be.  The diagram showed three alternatives.  A deal between Britain and the EU would be acceptable to Leave voters and would not crash the British economy, but was not acceptable to the EU, which wanted Britain to suffer.  A new referendum (with Leave probably failing) was acceptable to the EU and would not crash the British economy, but was not acceptable to Leave voters.  And crashing out without a deal was acceptable to both Leave voters and the EU, but would crash the British economy.

I could see how that was going to end up.  Either a deal or a referendum would force someone to back down in a humiliating fashion, and that obviously wasn't going to happen.  So if everyone dug in their heals, the only possible outcome was for Britain to crash out without a deal and let the chips fall where they may.

Of course, I was wrong about some things.  The EU did, after all, agree to give Britain a deal.  But Leave voters and leaders found the terms humiliating and unacceptable, so they turned it down.  The Brits needed some time to dither and delay in order to accept the pain of a no-deal exit as preferable to the humiliation of any deal the EU would offer, but they appear to have gotten there.  The delay also served the useful purpose of allowing the Brits to stockpile supplies for the initial shock of exit, so Brexit will doubtless be less painful that it would have been if it had happened sooner.

I recommended that what the Brits needed was a top-notch demagogue to sufficiently stoke their anger at being made an example of that they could see Brexit as a sort of war -- a replay of the WWI with their leader as a latter day Winston Churchill, the German-led EU as the Nazis, and the hardships associated with a no-deal leave as sort of like bombing during the Blitz.  That is, in fact, just what is happening now.  Although the British are not usually distinguished for their demagogues, three appear to have risen to the occasion -- Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, and Nigel Farage.  I am inclined to see Johnson as the least bad choice among them -- someone we can hope will direct British anger only at the EU and not at immigrants (as with Farage) or Jews (as with Corbyn).

Of course, I made the same suggestion to the Greeks when facing the possibility of Grexit.  They should combine skilled economic planning for leaving the euro (but not the EU) with a top-notch demagogue to treat the EU/Germans as Nazis and the ensuing hardships as the equivalent of WWII.  Admittedly, good planning and good demagogues do not often go together.  And, in the end, the Greeks backed down, not ready yet -- emotionally or technocratically -- to deal with the upheaval that would follow.  Perhaps if they had dragged out the negotiations for longer they might have both made adequate preparations to soften the blow as much as possible (though it would still have been severe) and to stoke public anger far enough the accept the Grexit and ensuing hardships.

Well, the Brits have had more than long enough now to make plans, and long enough to build public anger to where it can take No Deal.  They have also managed a reasonable division of labor -- Theresa May as the sober leader who made necessary plans to soften the impact of a no-deal Brexit, and Boris Johnson as the demagogue who will fire up the public to accept the pain of impact, whatever that may be.

If Donald Trump Shot Someone in the Middle of Fifth Avenue

If Donald Trump shot someone in the Middle of Fifth Avenue, various new commentators would explain that it was a shrewd maneuver to gain the votes of ordinary Americans.  After all, ordinary Americans are all murderers and think that laws against murder are elitist and inauthentic.  Warnings would circulate to Democrats not to condemn the murder lest they play into Trump's hands.  Handwringers would warn that, although Trump was wrong to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, Democrats were equally wrong to insist on making an issue of it. 

Is the Squad the Democrats' Freedom Caucus?

The Squad

So, with that out of the way on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are she and her cohorts making up the "Squad" -- Illhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley -- the Democratic equivalent of the House Freedom Caucus?

Certainly there is some resemblance.  Both groups are insurgents, dead set against compromise and against politics as the art of the possible.  Both are determined to let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough, and are more interested in issuing demands, attracting attention, and (they hope) moving the Overton Window, that in passing actual legislation.  Both are serious headaches for House leadership, refusing to take political or even practical reality into account, willing to court disaster for the sake of ideological purity.  And both have awakened in the other party a "strange new respect" for the ideologically committed, but politically pragmatic Speaker, who has the frustrating job of dealing with the insurgents.

But there are differences as well, drawn from the differences between the parties.

Former Speaker John Boehner, frustrated in his dealings with the House Freedom Caucus, said of them, "They can’t tell you what they’re for. They can tell you everything they’re against. They’re anarchists. They want total chaos. Tear it all down and start over. That’s where their mindset is."  Devin Nunes referred to the House Freedom Caucus as "lemmings with suicide vests."  Pelosi, by contrast, dismissed the Squad as media personalities, with no real legislative heft, but did not appear to dissent from their ultimate goals.

In other words, the Freedom Caucus were basically wreckers.  They wanted to put and end to vast swaths of the Federal Government.  Doubtless they would agree that an orderly dismantling was the ideal way to go about it.  But if an orderly dismantling was not in the cards, obstruction, incompetence, shutdowns, and even default on the national debt were all effective, after all.  The Squad, by contrast, wants to build programs, which calls for some actual knowledge and skill and willingness to work in a constructive manner.

Furthermore, the Freedom Caucus followed the Republican Party as a whole in its determination to deny President Obama any sort of success.  As such, they were opposed to any compromise, any bipartisan legislation, and constantly eager to undertake actions that would hurt the country, such as government shutdowns and debt ceiling breaches.  By contrast, both AOC and Rashida Tlaib have asked questions of the chairman of the Federal Reserve that makes clear they are willing to put their country's well-being above partisan advantage.  And AOC is apparently working on bipartisan legislation with Ted Cruz.

More importantly, the name "Squad" itself reveals something important -- the four members are not enough to rate as a caucus.  The Democrats have a House Progressive Caucus with some 98 members -- most of whom voted for compromise legislation that the Squad opposed.  Pelosi's whole point in dismissing the four was that they were not numerous enough to carry any legislative weight.  The House currently has 235 Democrats out of a total of 435.  That means that even if all members of the Squad refused to vote for a measure, it could still pass with purely Democratic votes.

This is in contrast to the Freedom Caucus, which was numerous enough to block legislation by defecting.  That meant that the Republican leadership in introducing legislation either had to make it far enough to the right to gain the votes of the Freedom Caucus (which often made legislation highly unpopular with the country as a whole) or else to form a coalition with Democrats, which moved legislation to the left of the Republican mainstream.  In particular, Republicans had to rely on Democratic votes for must-pass legislation such as raising the debt ceiling, which gave Democrats considerable bargaining power.  No wonder the leadership found the Freedom Caucus so frustrating!

But if the Democrats have the advantage of being able to bypass the Squad in passing legislation, they have a disadvantage as well.  The Squad, unlike the House Freedom Caucus, has to deal with the Right Wing Noise Machine.  Fox News, talk radio, and the whole, disciplined right wing mediasphere all train their focus on the Squad, playing up every controversy (real and imagined) about them and eventually forcing the mainstream to deal with the noise as well.

And I confess to being of two minds about this.  On the one hand, I do believe that the Squad, like the Freedom Caucus, needs to learn some lessons on the art of the possible, and to accept that most of the country does not agree with them.

On the other hand, it is a mistake to believe that anyone can ever placate the Great Right Wing Noise Machine.  Even if the Squad did shut up, the Noise Machine would just move on to another target.  Before the latest dust-up, that target was Nancy Pelosi.

Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the Democrats' Sarah Palin?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

So, given all the attention "the Squad" in Congress is getting, what are we to make of them?

Although Trump appears to be working at making Ilhan Omar the face of the Squad, up till now the best-known member has been Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is the Democrats' Sarah Palin or even (Got forbid!) our Donald Trump?  My answer to that would be no.

AOC has in common with Sarah Palin that she is a woman, young(ish), pretty(ish), charismatic and populist.  She has in common with Donald Trump that she is a very Twitter-savvy publicity hound.  Republicans would doubtless point out that AOC differs from Palin in that she has not juggled holding office with being a mother of five, and has not taken on the responsibilities of raising a Down's baby instead of having an abortion.  This counts in Palin's favor personally, but is outweighed in public life by two factors.  One is that she was not prepared for the level of vitriol that running for nationally known office bring, which is certainly understandable, but basically disqualifying.  AOC, by contrast, appears to have gone into this with her eyes wide open, and to cherish controversy and have a very thick skin.

The other is that Palin's populist style, like so many other Republicans' is to tout ignorance as proof of virtue.  Ordinary Americans don't know about policy and don't want some snobby elitist who does and gosh darnit, I don't know about policy either, so I'm perfect for the office.  AOC's populism goes more to talking about her work as a bartender and how much she learned at it.  This highlights a basic difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Republicans are more interested in striking heroic poses than the minutia of policy details and tend to see concern with such minutia as elitist.  Democrats have a significant wonk base that insists on knowledge as a prerequisite for office.

And, in fact, AOC has shown herself to be more than just a pretty face, or a media-savvy publicity hound.  Certainly, she brings a valuable skill to Washington -- the skill at compacting complex ideas down into a 280-character tweet, and the skill at always going on the offense or counter-offense on Twitter and never the defense.  But she has impressed people across the political spectrum with her skill at questioning witnesses before hearings and getting to actual information, rather than mere grandstanding.  Her questioning of Michael Cohen has been widely praised, and her questioning of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been praised across the political spectrum.  Nor is she purely partisan.  Her urging of Powell to focus on the economy regardless of who is in the White House shows a public spirit Republicans notably did not show during the Obama presidency.  And she is joining forces with Ted Cruz on two issues -- a ban on members of Congress serving as lobbyists, and making birth control pills available over the counter.  And they appear to be working together to craft serious legislation on both these subjects.

Nor is she just a panderer.  She has taken the wildly unpopular position of backing a Congressional pay raise and more pay for staffers.  None of this makes AOC a policy wonk.  It simply means that she is sharp, well-staffed, and eager to learn.  More accurately, one could say that she is an apprentice wonk, and an apprentice drafter of important legislation.

But one area where AOC signally fails is on understanding politics as the art of the possible.  And that is what brings her into conflict with Nancy Pelosi.  Pelosi and AOC are both from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, but AOC is a crusader, shunning compromise and refusing to settle for less.  Pelosi is a politician's politician, an expert in the sordid work of sausage making that AOC shuns as beneath her dignity.  AOC wants what she wants and that is it.  Pelosi wants to keep in mind Democrats from more centrist districts and not endanger their chances of reelection.

Which leads me to the next question.  Are AOC and her "Squad" of firebrands the Democratic equivalent of the Freedom Caucus?

What Makes Donald Trump So Procedurally Dangerous?

At Least We Got a Tax Cut

So what is it about Donald Trump that makes him so procedurally dangerous? I suppose the Fourth of July is an appropriate time to write about that, given the Declaration of Independence's long catalog of alleged crimes of George III.

What about a catalog of alleged crimes, or at least procedural outrages, of Donald Trump.


He has combined the Presidency with running a large business empire and refused to make any financial disclosure, so that no one can tell whether he has ongoing conflicts of interest.

He has regularly profited off the Presidency by making his entourage stay at Trump facilities and using the office to promote his businesses.

He has given high ranking White House positions to unqualified family members.

He has, to all appearances, intervened to an unprecedented degree give security clearances to cronies and family members who pose unacceptable security risks.

He has mixed governmental and campaign functions in ways clearly forbidden by the Hatch Act and is seeking to make the federal government into his own personal and partisan instrument.

He has pressured the Department of Justice to prosecute his opponents and spare his supporters.

He has pressured the Department of Justice and other regulatory agencies to reward or punish business and especially media entities based on their support or opposition.

He has made clear that he regards the Attorney General as his own personal lawyer (read, fixer), and the Department of Justice as his private police force.

He has made unprecedented abuses of the unilateral tariff authority that Congress (foolishly) vested in the President for national security reasons.  This violates a principle going back to medieval England that the legislature alone holds the power of taxation.

He has diverted monies appropriated by Congress for one purpose to an unauthorized purpose.  This, too, violates principle that the legislature alone holds the power of appropriation.

He has made clear that he will stonewall any and all Congressional investigation or attempt to hold any portion of the executive branch accountable by refusing to produce any documents whatever in response to subpoenas.

He has circumvented the constitutional requirement that Cabinet members and other major officials be confirmed by the Senate by appointing "acting" officials for indefinite periods of time.

And now he shows all intention of defying a Supreme Court ruling that he must offer a defense of the citizenship question on the census that is not "arbitrary and capricious" by going ahead and including the question anyhow.

And I am sure I can come up with many, many more.

I realize very few normal people lose sleep over this sort of thing at night, and few base their vote on it.  But in the end, our constitutional structures and the rule of law rest on such matters, and are gradually being undone when our President is allowed to get away with such things.

To be updated as I think of new outrages, or as they occur.

PS:  Of course!  He has blurted out super classified information to Russian visitors, and ruined an important allied (Israeli) intelligence operation in Syria as a result.

UPDATE, 9/22/19:

He has threatened to fire career civil service professionals rather than admit an innocent mistake.  (Sharpiegate).

He has sent his personal lawyer to encourage a foreign government to give him dirt on his probably opponent in the next election.

Donald Trump and the Need to Elevate Procedure Over Substance

At Least We Got a Tax Cut

Look, I understand why a lot of Republicans are willing to put up with Trump.  They like his policies.  He cuts taxes (especially at the top), guts regulations and appoints conservative federal judges.  Also he is anti-immigration, which is his core appeal for some Republicans and distasteful for others, but well worth cutting taxes, gutting regulations, and appointing conservative federal judges.  It is hard to get too upset about his disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law when playing fast and loose with the rules is being done in favor of policies you like.  It is easy to dismiss such things as mere trifles in aesthetics and not matters of substance.

But that just goes to confirm what I have commented before.  Democracy is hard.

Democracy is really not as easy or natural as we have been taught to assume. It values procedure over substance. It demands obedience to leaders who are chosen by the right procedure (i.e, who win the election), regardless of how loathsome their values or policies may be to us. It expects us to treat abstract procedural details, such as federalism or separation of powers, as more important than the actual merits of what policy to adopt. It insists that we respect the rights of people we despise (sometimes deservedly). 

 Democracy is best seen as an uneasy compromise between dictatorship by our side (the best option) and dictatorship by their side (the worst option).  It is instead a framework that allows each side a roughly equal opportunity at holding power and ensures that whoever loses can live to fight another day. 

Maintaining democracy requires all parties to respect the basic framework, even if they lose under it, and to recognize that policy differences and even policy defeats are are a normal and acceptable part of the democratic process, and are no cause for concern, so long as all parties respect the procedural framework. And yes, some disputes about even the procedural framework are normal and acceptable, and yes, all sides tend to be hypocritical on these issues, favoring whatever advances their partisan and policy goals.  But in a healthy democracy such disputes are around the edges, and all parties respect the basic structure and become alarmed at anyone who does not, even if they benefit in the short run.  Because in the long run the other party may come to power and you may reap what you have sown.

This is something that all of us have to remember.  It means that liberals should not accept that Never Trump conservatives will not adopt all our policy preferences, will continue to agree with Republicans on many policy matters and that that is normal and acceptable.

It means that Never Trumpers accept that Democrats in power will have higher taxes, higher spending, more regulations, more liberal judges, and a wimpier foreign policy* than they like.  But we have survived these policies before and will survive them again. 

And it means explaining to Trump supporters that no, he is not a normal President, and no, this is not just a matter of obnoxious tweets or aesthetic revulsion.  It is the sense that Donald Trump has no concept of our basic democratic framework, that he is acting as if it doesn't even exist, and that he is slowly destroying it as a result. And yes, I do understand that nothing disastrous has happened, and yes, I had feared much worse.  But even if nothing disastrous has happened, make no mistake, our basic procedural framework is being destroyed, and the long run damage is and will be very real.


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*Never Trumpers tend to be national security conservatives who have always found wimpy foreign policy to be their biggest deal-breaker.  But given the choice between wimpy foreign policy and a President whose loyalty they doubt, they will accept the wimp.