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.

A Very Brief Comment on Donald Trump's Military-Oriented Fourth of July

Look, dude, we already have a military-oriented patriotic holiday.  Two, in fact, Memorial Day and Veteran's Day.  A showy display of military-oriented patriotism is entirely appropriate for either of those days.

The Fourth of July isn't like that.  It is our ultimate patriotic holiday, but we celebrate it as just a summer holiday, with picnic and barbecues and pancake breakfasts and entertainment with a healthy topping of Americana.  And fireworks, of course.

And it's kind of cool that we do it that way.

More on the Same Topic or Why I Hate Google

Not that long ago, really, Lindsey Graham came out with a tweet storm denouncing the Democrats for hiring a FOREIGNER (Christopher Steele) to work for the campaign accepting information from a FOREIGNER and how much worse this was than the Trump campaign merely talking to the Russians about possible dirt on Hillary and learning there was nothing to it.  Any number of people then came forward to show that campaign finance law does not ban hiring a foreign contractor, only accepting foreign donations.  Indeed, the Trump campaign hired a British contractor in the form of Cambridge Analytica,* so how is that different.  But in the short time that has passed, I can no longer find any of that on Google, so this is going by memory.

The general response was to backtrack and admit that OK, maybe it is allowed to hire a foreign contractor, but Steele was a foreign SPY who talked to RUSSIANS and was hostile to Trump, all of which should definitely have barred anyone from looking at his information.

Can we break this down for a minute.

First of all, yes, it is certainly true that investigating a presidential candidate is a big deal.  Abuses by Nixon at a minimum and probably other presidents going back to FDR or even earlier make that clear.  But a blanket view that an opposition candidate may never be investigated is to put presidential candidate above the law, and even encourage targets of federal investigation to run for President to stop investigations.

Second, can we consider for five minutes what it means to say that it was illegitimate to investigate Trump, much less get a wiretap on a former foreign policy adviser based on information from RUSSIANS.

Let's start with the obvious.  Our intelligence service cultivates Russian sources inside the Russian government for information.  Indeed, it is alleged that one reason the Obama Administration took Russian interference in the election so seriously was that US intelligence had a source in the Kremlin telling them that Vladimir Putin was directly behind the hacks, and that the purpose was to elect Trump as President.  If the same source had alleged that Trump was in on the plot (which, just to be clear, the source did not) would anyone claim that we should not investigate because the information came from a RUSSIAN?  The question is ridiculous.  Obviously RUSSIANS are going to know the most about what goes in in RUSSIA. 

But that is from our own intelligence community.  What about a FOREIGN intelligence service?  Much the same applies.  Friendly intelligence services cooperate all the time.  The British intelligence service is as friendly a service as there is.  If the active British intelligence had cultivated a Russian source who claimed that Trump was in on the plot.**  Would it have been illegitimate to investigate because the source came to us through a FOREIGN intelligence service instead of our own?  Again, the question is ridiculous.  We accept tips through British and other friendly intelligence services; that is one of the advantages of having allies.  The real question would be whether the source was generally reliable, and here admittedly the British would be better judges than we are.  But we would not distrust their judgment simply because FOREIGN SPIES.***

So, what about Christopher Steele, a retired British spy who had cultivated sources in Russia?  Well, the FBI did not consider Steele's retired status to disqualify him from begin a source (among many) in its FIFA Corruption investigation, and no one seems to have seen anything wrong with that. This would be the equivalent of a retired law enforcement officer working as a private investigator and seeking information from sources he cultivated while working in law enforcement.  Retirement would mean that it was no longer his job to investigate crimes, but if a more private investigation uncovered evidence of real criminality, should the police be barred from investigating simply because it was a RETIRED copy who uncovered the evidence?  Police begin investigations based on information from private citizens all the time.  And, yes, I realize that investigating a candidate for President is rather a different matter and raises the specter of political persecution.  But once again, I see no reason why Steele's retired status would taint him any more than an ordinary private investigator, or any private citizen, would be tainted.

And what of the argument that Steele was doing OPPOSITION RESEARCH for the DEMOCRATS and that therefore anything he uncovered was hopelessly tainted with partisan bias and could not have been investigated?  That argument has always just seemed bizarre.  The investigation of Hillary Clinton's notorious e-mails arose out of hearings by the Benghazi investigation.  Yes, Democrats did participate, but the Congressional Republican leadership made fairly clear that their purpose was to hamper Hillary Clinton's future campaign for President.  The committee ultimately found no wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton or her State Department, but did learn that Hillary had sent State Department e-mails on a private server.  This was taken seriously enough to launch an FBI investigation that dogged Hillary throughout her campaign.  

I suppose Republicans may say that even that is different because it was never seriously disputed that Hillary Clinton really did send State Department e-mails on a private server, but any Trump conspiracy with the Russians was very much in doubt.  But can we be serious here.  The simple fact is that anyone digging dirt on another person will probably be acting out of hostile motives.  (Duh!).  Partisan motives are no different than more personal hostility.  Suppose opposition researchers on some hypothetical candidate had limited themselves to open sources and discovered evidence that suggested a pattern of criminal conduct.  Should investigators refrain from looking into the conduct even though they had access to the same open sources simply because the first investigation was partisan?  I would say the decision to investigate should depend on how serious the apparent criminal conduct was.  If it was only a minor matter, I would let it go.  But if something really sinister seemed to be afoot, then yes, it should be investigated, regardless of the partisan origins of the investigation.

And I have explained at length why covert sources, including covert foreign sources, are not by themselves disqualifying.

I think most Republicans would concede these points, at least if the shoe was on the other foot.  What a lot of them seem to be arguing is not that there was anything wrong with Steele being a British contractor, or talking with people in the know, but that he fabricated the information.  There is no evidence of that whatever.

The strongest argument against using Steele as a source is not that he was a foreigner, or a former spy, or that he talked to Russians, or that he was working for the Democrats, but that his retired status prevented him from contacting his sources directly, and instead made him work through intermediaries.  In other words, he was passing on third-hand rumors, never a very reliable source of information.   And the risk is real that the Russians figured out what was going on and deliberately planted false rumors.  Rumors from sources that have been reliable in the past have their place in an investigation, but only if corroborated by more immediate sources.

And let us face it.  To this day we really don't know whether there was adequate corroboration of Steele's information.  The secret to that lies under the two redacted pages of the Page warrant.****

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*And, I will admit, our side has had its own conspiracy theories, never proved, about that.
**In fact, cooperation with friendly intelligence services seems to have played a major part in the investigation, although the details are kept secret for obvious reasons.
***Then there is the little bit about denouncing Steele as a SPY as well as foreign.  The implication here is that he was spying on the US and the Trump campaign, which is not true.  He was activating his sources in Russia, which is legitimate for the reasons I have gone over. 
****Emptywheel makes the case that there were sufficient grounds to order a wiretap on Carter Page based on what we currently know:  (1) Page had formerly been a target for recruitment as a Russian spy, (2) when Page was investigated as a target, he said that it was good to share low-grade secret information with the Russians and boasted to the Russians that he did not fully cooperate with the FBI, (3) Carter Page and George Papadopoulos were hired as foreign advisers to the Trump campaign at about the same time, (4) in March, Russian agent Joseph Mifsud told Papadopoulos that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton in the form of e-mails and intended to release them, (5) in July, early Page visited Russia and, according to the Steele Dossier, was told that the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton and might share it if the Trump campaign adopted a more Russia-friendly policy, (6) the Trump campaign did, in fact, adopt a more Russia-friendly policy, (7) the first Wikileaks release of DNC e-mails occurred on July 22, (8) the earlier Steele report about Page's activities in Russia was dated July 19, i.e., before the Wikileaks release.  To which I can only say that this may be true.  But it seems to me more like an example of how always looking for connections between disparate events can lead into complete paranoia.