#The Republican Party in disarray

[filosofablogger]

Robert Reich Says "The Party's Over"

Robert Reich Says “The Party’s Over”

I watched about 20 minutes of the vote for speaker of the House of Representatives.  Rather boring, but I felt compelled to watch a bit of it, anyway.  Within those 20 minutes or so, it was clear that there will be a second vote.  Democrats unanimously voted for Hakeem Jeffries, while on the right-hand side of the aisle there were several votes for Andy Biggs of Arizona and a few for Jim Jordan…

[tomorrowusa]

Just as the Nazi Party in Germany was essentially the Hitler Party, the Republican Party has become the Trump Party. There may be a few odd holdouts, but the GOP has been overwhelmingly MAGAfied.

At the Republican National Committee, he is moving to replace longtime supporters with allies even more closely bound to him, including his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. In the House, Republicans are more compliant than ever. Most vividly, Speaker Mike Johnson — ostensibly the party’s top-ranking official — backtracked on an endorsement in a crucial Senate race because Mr. Trump disagreed. On Thursday, Mr. Johnson’s candidate ended his campaign less than one week after opening it. In the Senate, which has been less beholden to Mr. Trump, his influence over a failed border bill made one of the party’s most effective lawmakers, Mitch McConnell, look weak. The displays of obedience emerging in recent weeks remove any lingering doubt that the Republican Party is aligned to advance the interests of one man, signaling that a sweep of victories from Mr. Trump and his allies in November could also mean replacing checks and balances in Washington with his wishes and whims.

Through fear and intimidation, the GOP is now just a subsidiary of the Trump Organization. The GOP stands for nothing except more power for Trump.

Mr. Trump, who long accused Republican leaders of rigging the system for their self-gain, has come to mirror their methods. The swamp that he once declared in need of draining, he now sees as wetlands in need of protecting. Mr. Trump’s team argues that he is giving voice to popular opinions that had no champion in the party, and that the changes at the Republican National Committee are intended with a single goal in mind: electing him to a second White House term.

Being a nepo baby himself, Trump understands the value of having his relatives run the GOP.

Mr. Trump’s next chairman at the R.N.C. is likely to be Michael Whatley, a supporter of the former president’s false election claims. Mr. Trump also endorsed as party co-chair his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who has had various roles in his political operation.

When somebody now votes Republican at any level, they are essentially voting for Trump.

This forced merger of MAGA and the GOP establishment could bring catastrophe to the party if Trump unequivocally loses this year. Those who supported Trump halfheartedly and only out of fear would then openly blame MAGA for a Republican defeat while the hardcore Trump loyalists would claim that they lost because they weren't MAGA enough. A convincing Democratic presidential and congressional victory might cause the GOP to split and go the way of the Whigs.

[wilwheaton]

Trump can’t win the general election with 78% of the Republican vote. In 2020, Trump got 94% of the Republican vote and lost. The country would be well served if most of the Haley voters either voted for Biden, voted third party, stayed home or wrote somebody in for president. They don’t have to vote for Biden to thwart Trump. Even Fox “News” has admitted that Trump can’t win without Haley’s supporters. Another symptom of Trump fatigue is that Mike Pence has declined to endorse his candidacy. This is huge news. What if Al Gore had refused to endorse Biden? In addition, 41 out of 44 Trump cabinet members have declined to endorse him. These are the people who know Trump best. This gives millions of Republicans a permission slip to not vote for Trump in November.

Republicans In Disarray - Why Trump Won't Win

I don’t believe we can take a single moment’s rest until he is vanquished, and I’m terrified he will find a way to successfully execute the coup this time, but this writer has some good observations that can help keep us focused.

[thebreakfastgenie]

It's worth remembering that Trump didn't want to run against Biden. No one remembers this anymore, but the first time he was impeached it was for threatening to withhold support to Ukraine (yeah) unless they investigated Biden (via Hunter, but he was alleging Joe was involved). Trump didn't want to run against Biden because he was afraid Biden would beat him. And he did in 2020. And ever since then Trump and the GOP have been throwing shit at Biden, the same way they threw shit at Hillary, hell even at Bill Clinton (don't send me into a Clinton impeachment tangent). They impeached his secretary of homeland security. They prosecuted his son. And that is why I believe this age/health thing was a successful Republican attack.

It's possible I will be proven wrong. We will see what the president says in his address. I think they finally managed to hit on something that was already a weakness with enough voters and people in the media and within the party fell for it. It doesn't matter if the president is actually infirm, if enough people believe it, it will still sway their votes.

All those reports of the Heritage Foundation planning nonsense lawsuits... getting the incumbent president who beat Trump once out of the way... the "Dems in disarray" headlines writing themselves. It all benefits the Republicans.

And that's really what I'm angry about. That it worked. And I'm scared, because we can't be letting this shit work. We cannot.

Right now the best thing we can do is unite behind ONE nominee. That's going to be the vice president. The president already endorsed her. We do not give them an inch of disarray.

[qqueenofhades]

Shapiro posted a very gracious statement supporting the Harris-Walz ticket and implying that it was partially his decision to fulfill his term as governor(whether this is wholly true or not is mostly irrelevant) and committing to campaigning hard for them in PA for the next 90 days. Dare I say, the dems are...in array?

Look, I like him (I hung onto his tweets in 2020 when he was Pennsylvania AG and the Republicans were trying all their fuckery, which he slapped down with verve and style) and I think he could be a great candidate in the future, but... not this year. Israel/Gaza is just too flammable an issue, especially with the young voters who are re-energized with Kamala, and it would have been very treacherous to jeopardize that. As I said, we can argue about whether it's fair or not, but politics are not fair, etc., and we needed to do the thing that has the best choice of defeating Trump and keeping the party as (amazingly!) united as it's been since Biden's exit and Harris' ascent. And that is 100% Walz.

Likewise, Walz has more experience than Shapiro (who is only in his first term as PA governor and has a lot to do to protect the state from crazy PA Republicans), and that is another strike against the Trump-Vance looney tunes ticket of inexperience. Plus this is the best of both worlds: park Shapiro in Pennsylvania where he is very popular and where the Democrats obviously need to win, but turn the Midwestern Dad of Doom loose on JD Vance's fake hillbilly ass and be the driver of more effective Democratic messaging than we have seen in literally years (seriously, can anyone else remember a more united message since "Hope" in 2008 with Obama?) We avoid the pitfalls with young voters that would come rightly or wrongly with putting Shapiro on the ticket, especially with bad-faith actors desperate to maximize any hint of more DEMS IN DISARRAY. So yes. I think all of us are kicking ourselves because we are so not used to it, but whatever it is, I desperately want more.

[alex51324]

Good explainer for anyone wondering about this! The short answer is, Not Really, but they could disrupt the election by pretending to think they can.

The first big point is that Biden was not actually on any ballots yet: he was the presumptive nominee, but until the Democratic National Convention, he wasn't formally declared as the nominee. If any states started physically producing ballots ahead of the conventions, on the presumption that we all knew who the nominees would be, that's their problem.

Secondly, neither Joe Biden nor anyone else can be forced to run for President against their will; that would be nuts. Even if there were some halfway-plausible case to be made that the Party has to nominate him Because Primaries, the obvious workaround is for the Convention to ceremonially offer him the nomination, he refuses it, and then the delegates are free to start over. In terms of optics, it's probably not optimal to do it that way, but if there were any sort of real legal argument to be made, the place to deal with it would be the Convention, not the general election ballot.

However, given the number of courts that have generated legally baseless rulings that benefit Trump, it's possible that the GOP/the Trump Campaign could string together some kind of argument that they can drag out long enough to keep this question in the public eye and create the impression that the Democrats are in disarray, and/or trying to pull a fast one on the voters.

So if that comes to pass, we can help by countering misinformation and reminding people of the basic facts that Biden can't be forced to run for President if he doesn't want to, and Trump doesn't get to pick his opponent.

[beatrice-otter]

I really like John Scalzi's analysis of the whole wtfery of this. (I'm not a great fan of his books, I think he's really overrated as a novelist, but his political commentary and commentary on the SF/F world is interesting.)

I think he has a good point about how while the initial panic about his bad performance at the debate was genuine (and if he'd done better, he'd never have withdrawn), but also that once there was panic, he decided how to manage things to maximize Harris' chances at both getting the nomination and winning the election.

Consider that the announcement was made on the Sunday after the Republican National Convention, and after the Sunday morning political talk shows were put to bed, i.e., after the GOP political capital was spent slagging Biden, and when professional spinners would be caught flat-footed by the announcement. Biden’s news was quickly followed by his endorsement of Kamala Harris, which in turn was followed by a flood of endorsements for Harris across the Democratic political firmament, effectively slamming the door on any serious challenge to Harris at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. If you think something like that just happens spontaneously, well, one, bless your heart, and two, you’re wrong. This was a work, a rope-a-dope, and a strategy to energize the Democratic base and to toss what little momentum the GOP had coming out of their convention down a deep, dark hole. And it worked! Harris raised an huge amount of money for her campaign in its first day — $49 million at least, and I’ve heard up to $70 million — and the GOP messaging was in disarray, limited largely to Trump whining on Truth Social, Stephen Miller freaking out on Fox News, and Mike Johnson trying to suggest that the Democrats can’t do that, it isn’t fair. Which is just what the Democrats wanted out of this. ... The current iteration of the GOP has been mask-off racist and sexist for some time, and Donald Trump sets the tone for the party on this score. Be expecting the whole array of nonsense from them, from dog whistles to flat out racist and sexist shit, said out loud, and also all over the former Twitter by Trump’s pet fascists and/or Russian bots. I guarantee you it will be nothing Kamala Harris has not heard before, but you might see a couple of new ones. The GOP outsourced their policy making to The Heritage Foundation with its Project 2025, which is already deeply unpopular, probably because it’s terrible for anyone who is not already a billionaire cryptofascist with a cross fetish. The GOP can’t go after Harris on policy grounds, and Trump doesn’t do policy anyway. So expect endless variations of she’s an uppity black woman for the next several months. ... Also, Biden has manifestly changed the narrative around both himself and his presidency. I didn’t want him to stop running for re-election, but choosing to do so allows for a “country over self” positioning that’s a hugely effective contrast to Trump’s “I’m running to avoid prison and to get revenge” narrative. It also allows a fresh reframing of the Biden administration’s achievements and accomplishments, and positions Harris to say she will continue them. Biden can lean into the whole “Grandpa Joe” thing now, and have it seen as a positive rather than a negative. ... To put it another way, after eight years, we know what the hard cap is on Trump’s support. We don’t know what the cap is yet for Harris’ support. History does suggest that cap is higher than Trump’s.

[tomorrowusa]

The free-for-all among Republicans in the US House of Representatives is causing many people to quote the late Monsieur Mallet du Pan – though not always accurately. The original is shown above.

Kevin McCarthy was the last of the three "Young Guns" to be devoured by the Tea Party revolution they helped inflame.

Kevin McCarthy’s Downfall Is the Culmination of the Tea Party

The fact that McCarthy and the other Young Guns were once called tea party people because they dallied with the movement does not mean that the tiger wasn’t going to consume them in the end.

• Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children. —Jacques Mallet du Pan

Orig. French: A l'exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfans. 

Considérations sur la nature de La Révolution de France

[carcinized]

Today (July 25, 2024) there has been a lot of backlash against Kamala Harris for her statement regarding pro-Palestine protesters at the capital. I want everyone to read her actual statement:

She condemns violence and antisemitism. Nowhere does she defend Israel and Netanyahu's actions.

Harris was the first member of the Biden administration who called for a ceasefire, though she only requested a temporary one, in a March 2024 speech. While she has been harsh on antisemitism and states that Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas, she has continuously expressed concern for citizens of Gaza and Palestine. She also did not attend Netanyahu's recent speech to Congress, though not as an explicit boycott, but due to previous commitments at the time. [Source]. She met with Netanyahu today (July 25, 2024) and says that she discussed "the importance of addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza," including an urgent ceasefire, with him. [Source].

The truth is that, while Harris is not a perfect advocate for a ceasefire, she does not condemn the violence harming innocent lives in Gaza. She also takes an important stand against antisemitism and a normal stance for an elected official against vandalism and burning the American flag.

However, anti-Harris sentiments are stirring up online for her supposedly pro-Israel views. One widespread alleged quote goes, "Our support for Israel will continue." There is seemingly no record of this remark. A quick Google reveals an MSN article titled: "Fact Check: Kamala Harris Said 'Our Support for Israel Will Continue'?" from their fact checking series. They deemed this quote to be false and unfounded.

So how does a fake quote like this stir up such a response? Where does it come from? There's no way to know for sure where this specific quote came from, but this is a perfect moment to remind liberals, especially those involved in online political spaces, of something called troll farms.

There are places where individuals work paying jobs impersonating average people, spouting political opinions, on both sides of the political spectrum, intending to turn political tides through misinformation and inflammation of issues. A study by MIT found that prior to the 2020 election, 140 million Americans were reached by troll farms on Facebook. Only 25% of those reached had followed these accounts. [Source].

Republicans and their allies want to sow disarray in the Democratic party prior to the 2024 presidential election. They know that many liberals are discontent with Biden's response to Israel's aggression, so they want us not to trust Harris, either. This motivates the twisting of words that has happened to Harris today and this week.

Don't fall for it.

Fact check before you repost. Fact check before you post. Use sources when posting your opinions.

It takes 20 minutes to find and read a nonbiased, reputable source, then cross-reference with another source. It takes maybe 5 more minutes to form your own opinion on a topic.

While it may line up with your political views, it may not be true. By sharing this misinformation today, many have unwittingly assisted Donald Trump in lying his way to reelection, while also working against a possible next president who is working towards a ceasefire in Gaza.

Today's widespread misinformation is incredibly disappointing. Start fact checking your sources or we are going to lose every battle we fight.

[filosofablogger]

Untitled

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein Point made.

[mariacallous]

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu made headlines in April after coasting to a second term in office by nearly 12 percentage points. Imamoglu, who has served at the city’s helm since 2019, is seen as a major political threat to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). The latest win in Istanbul cemented Imamoglu’s continued popularity among the Turkish public.

But Imamoglu is only the most prominent face of a broader opposition, led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP). In March’s municipal elections, the CHP secured its most crushing victory over the AKP in decades. Possibly more notable than Imamoglu’s reelection was the newly elected class of women executives of provinces and districts across the country.

One of these women—Sinem Dedetas—may hold the keys to the future of Turkey’s opposition. Imamoglu is currently battling slander charges in the country’s high court, in addition to a slew of other cases that could eventually ban him from politics, even as he is the favorite to run for the CHP in Turkey’s 2028 presidential election. No matter how those fortunes play out, Dedetas promises to be central to the party’s strategy in a post-Erdogan Turkey.

Istanbul is the only city in the world to straddle two continents. Uskudar, a seaside constituency on the Anatolian side, lacks many of the bars and clubs across the water in the European districts. Instead, the conservative area is known for its historical mosques. It is also one of Istanbul’s key transportation hubs, home to a confluence of ferries, rail, metro, and bus lines. Millions of people from all over the city—and world—pass through Uskudar every day.

In April’s elections, Dedetas, a 43-year-old engineer, made history as the first woman to ever win the Uskudar municipality mayorship, a position similar to that of a New York borough president. She also flipped the district from the AKP to CHP rule.

Dedetas moved to Uskudar from her native Eskisehir, a city in northwest Turkey, for college in 1999. After receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees in naval engineering from Istanbul Technical University, she got her first job in the district as an engineer. In 2014, she went on to work as a marine engineer at the Halic Shipyards, the oldest continuously operating dockyard in the world. Over the centuries, the facility has produced vessels from sail boats to steamships and submarines to electrical passenger taxis.

Dedetas’s career has featured many firsts. In 2014, she became the first chairwoman of the Turkish Chamber of Naval Engineers. While she was in that position, Istanbul’s AKP mayor tried to privatize the public harbor and turn it into a terminal full of restaurants and shops. Dedetas protested the project and was barred by the government from entering the shipyard.

She continued to oppose the new real estate development, concerned that the city’s ferries—an indelible part of Istanbul’s social history, skyline, and soundscape—would grind to a halt without the vital maintenance work done at the docks. “We fought to keep [it] from being lost,” Dedetas later said after her success in blocking the project.

Then Imamoglu became mayor of the city, bringing Istanbul back under CHP rule. “The privatization processes of the shipyard were being carried out,” Dedetas told Turkish media. “If [the mayorship] had not changed hands in the 2019 elections, there would be no shipyard left.”

One of the new mayor’s first orders of business was to appoint Dedetas as manager of Istanbul’s maritime public transportation system; she was the first woman in the role. Over the last quarter century, the city’s water transport fell into disarray as Istanbul’s population swelled and moved further inland, contributing to congestion and gridlock on road and rail. Yet municipal-run ferries predate the first Bosporus bridge and remain one of the city’s fastest options to cross continents.

Dedetas proved herself to be a masterful administrator, overhauling the entire water transit system. She opened 11 new ferry lines and launched a 24-hour weekend ferry that connected the European and Asian sides of the city. She also doubled the patronage of public water transport, in part by restoring the iconic white and orange vapur ferry ships. And she launched an electric sea taxi service, providing a personal, environmentally friendly option to traverse the Bosporus Strait and the Marmara Sea.

Through the effective management of maritime transportation, Dedetas gained national attention. She set her eyes on her home district, Uskudar—the Istanbul neighborhood with the longest Bosporus shoreline—ahead of the 2024 municipal elections. “Uskudar is the first gate for people who arrive from Anatolia, and for Istanbul, it is the gate to the rest of the country,” said Onur Cingil, an Uskudar native and CHP member.

The borough had been an AKP stronghold for as long as Cingil and most others could remember. It is even home to Erdogan’s private villa. Cingil said he saw local government officials claim eminent domain and exaggerate concerns about earthquake vulnerability to demolish buildings and hand over lucrative sites to construction companies, religious associations, and other party loyalists. “This happened … to my own student dormitory, and many other places,” Cingil said.

Cingil was one of the many CHP candidates vying to be the nominee for Uskudar’s mayorship in March’s elections, but the CHP leadership eventually selected Dedetas to run due to her reputation for being a technocratic consensus builder.

“Normally, I wouldn’t expect such a profile to be nominated for Uskudar,” said Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, a professor of political science at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. He described Dedetas’s young, professional, and secular profile as going against the grain in the district. The CHP typically nominated old-school, male party insiders for such roles, Ozpek said, adding with a laugh that they always lost the race. “This was a radical change,” he added.

Dedetas took a pro-people approach to her campaign against the AKP incumbent Hilmi Turkmen, who had been a mainstay in Uskudar’s politics for decades. She canvassed the district neighborhood by neighborhood, underlining her accomplishments governing the city’s maritime transit system, which has a budget the same size as Uskudar’s.

Dedetas vowed to redress the AKP’s neglect of women’s issues on both the district and federal levels. She promised to prioritize women’s employment and noted that, during her time helming Istanbul’s maritime transit system, she nearly tripled the number of women working there. She also proposed the creation of a free HPV vaccine program to protect against some forms of cervical cancer. (The cost of the vaccine has become nearly equivalent to Turkey’s monthly minimum wage.)

The candidate pledged to create child nurseries in every neighborhood in Uskudar. “This will enable women to work,” especially residents with low incomes, said Rumeysa Camdereli, an activist and member of Havle Women’s Association, the first Muslim feminist organization in Turkey.

Dedetas promised to expand welfare initiatives, and called for additional municipally subsidized cafeterias in Uskudar. Imamoglu created these during his first term for residents to get a healthy meal for just over a dollar, and his AKP competitor Murat Kurum mocked them on the campaign trail. “We are tired and bored of the rhetoric that tries to deceive the people by … giving half a tea glass of water or milk as if it is a service,” said Kurum. He also made fun of Imamoglu’s background as a kofte vendor.

Kurum’s gaffe turned off blue collar voters. Istanbul’s public eateries fill up every day for lunch and are vital in a country enduring a cost-of-living crisis amid annual inflation of nearly 70 percent.

“Local elections are less ideological and always more focused on services,” said Emine Ucak, the program director for social policy at the Reform Institute, an Istanbul-based policy center, who researches women in Turkish politics. “Women always think about their children, and they had stopped seeing a future for them.”

The campaign also focused on securing areas most vulnerable to earthquakes, a national concern after the devastating February 2023 earthquakes in Turkey’s southeast. Many locals fear that the slate block flats populating the hills above Uskudar’s wharf are in imminent danger in case of an earthquake. In response to their concerns, Dedetas is establishing a natural disaster directorate to help the district become prepared for earthquakes and other catastrophes.

On election night, Dedetas triumphed, beating Turkmen by more than seven percentage points. In doing so, she tore apart the long-held myth that Uskudar was an AKP stronghold.

“It’s a district with a lot of conservative families,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution. “For an uncovered woman to win is a real testament to her political appeal.” Unlike past CHP candidates, Dedetas shied away from the hardline, sometimes alienating secularism her party is known for. Pragmatism and empathy won the day.

Dedetas was not the only victorious woman on election day. Altogether, voters tripled the number of women mayors across Turkey. While only four female mayors had been elected in the previous municipal elections in 2019, 11 provinces and 64 municipalities are now governed by women, the vast majority of them representing opposition parties. Together, they won, on average, 53 percent of votes.

Female political representation is a welcome change after what many in the country see as backsliding on women’s rights under Erdogan. In 2021, Turkey exited the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty to combat gender-based violence that was drafted in the city a decade earlier. The Turkish president had urged women to have at least three children, claiming that those who reject motherhood are “deficient” and “incomplete.”

Although Turkey has a highly centralized political system, mayors remain key to managing districts and municipalities. They are where citizens first access the country’s welfare systems, and where businesses are registered, among other duties.

Following March’s elections, Dedetas and other mayors in the Turkish opposition now have their best chance in decades to govern with less interference from Ankara. She has wasted no time in initiating programs that address locals’ needs, such as grocery subsidies of up to $150 for retired residents. The district also plans to provide elderly residents free shuttle services to food markets. (Pensioners, who compose more than 10 percent of Turkey’s national population, receive roughly $293 per month from the state, an impossible wage to live on in Istanbul.)

Uskudar’s new mayor is also working to counteract the AKP’s neoliberal strategies, which many accuse of benefiting political patrons through shady backroom dealings all while poverty has deepened. To help promote transparency, Dedetas has begun to broadcast all municipal council meetings live online.

Figen Kucuksezer, an optometrist and Uskudar resident, is very excited by these changes. They’ve already helped preserve Uskudar’s Validebag Grove, one of the last wild green spaces in Istanbul. The area, which Kucuksezer volunteers to protect, is home to 400-year-old trees and migratory birds.

“The former mayor always wanted to make changes to the grove,” she said, referring to the AKP’s plans to develop the area by adding parking lots and food stalls and removing some native flora. But Kucuksezer and other local activists filed a lawsuit and have fought for years for Validebag to be left alone. “We had to block the Caterpillar [equipment] from entering in,” she said.

Since being elected, Dedetas has promised to protect it as a green space for all residents. In May, the local court annulled the previous government’s construction plan. “It is a breath of fresh air,” Kucuksezer added.

There is a saying in Turkish politics that whoever wins Istanbul will one day win Turkey. It was the case for Erdogan, who previously served as mayor of Istanbul before leading the country for the past two decades.

After years in the political wilderness, the CHP is now trying to repeat its success in the next national election, which should be the first without Erdogan in nearly 30 years. The challenge for Dedetas is to help Imamoglu triumph so that she can be his successor in Istanbul as he runs for the presidency.

So far, her stances have mirrored those of Imamoglu; Dedetas regularly highlights their work together on social media. But she has also bolstered her own profile by engaging in key culture war debates—including by opposing controversial legislation that will kill beloved stray dogs on the streets to rooting for the women’s national volleyball team at the Paris 2024 Olympics, a squad that has been vilified by the conservative right. Imamoglu’s and Dedetas’s fortunes are now intertwined.

“And this is just the start of her office,” said Cingil, Dedetas’s one-time party rival. “There are already rumors that she will be the next candidate for Istanbul mayor.” That would be another first.

[misfitwashere]

Fascism and Fear

The Moment, The Media, The Election

Timothy Snyder

Jul 07, 2024

Mainstream media have treated President Biden with prejudice and arrogance. Quite a few Democrats, reacting to this, treat any mention of President Biden’s fitness as disloyalty. This is mistaken, if understandable.

One source of the negative energy is Trump’s fascism. Focusing on it will not answer the question of what Democrats do, but will help us to understand the context in which the discussion is taking place. By fascism I just have in mind (1) the cult of personality of a Leader: (2) the party that becomes a single party; (3) the threat and use of violence; and (4) the big lie that must be accepted and used to reshape reality: in this case, that Trump can never lose an election.

Much more could be said (as I have done elsewhere), but it is the official big lie and the threats of violence that are dangerous to those whose job is to report truth. Trump is on the record as regarding reports as enemies of the people. What should I make — a journalist might ask — of Trump’s talk of arresting journalists? When not confronted, such questions become self-realizing fears.

That’s the subtle version. Meanwhile, those higher up in corporations might like the ratings Trump brings, or like Trump himself. And so it is easiest to keep things personal — give Trump time, on the self-deluding logic that he will discredit himself, and focus on Biden’s age rather than his achievements. For reporters it can feel like the work is being done when only Biden is at the receiving end of criticism — whereas, in fact, the ground has been shifted by fascism, or by the inability to confront it.

And so fascism spreads and settles in our minds during this, the crucial period between Trump’s first coup attempt and his second. The Biden administration is being held to standards, while the previous Trump administration is not; and Biden personally is being held to standards, while Trump as a person is not. This helps to generate a fascist aura. There must be something special about Trump such that he is different from others: a Leader beyond criticism rather than just an indebted hack or a felon from Queens or a client of a Russian dictator.

It should seem odd that media calls to step down were not first directed to Trump. If we are calling for Biden to step aside because someone must stop Trump from bringing down the republic, then surely it would have made more sense to first call for Trump to step aside? (The Philadelphia Inquirer did). I know the counter-arguments: his people wouldn’t have cared, and he wouldn’t have listened. The first misses an important point. There are quite a few Americans who have not made up their minds. The second amounts to obeying in advance. If you accept that a fascist is beyond your reach, you have normalized your submission.

When media folks describe discussions among Democrats as chaos and disarray, they are implicitly suggesting that it is better for a leader of a party to never be questioned. (Why, after all, is being part of an array a good thing?) An obvious point goes missed: Democrats can say what they want, because none of them is afraid. And that is good! Governor Maura Healey can express her dissent and Joe Biden can express his frustration with her — but no one is worried about her physical safety.

Trump, by contrast, controls his party through stochastic terror, threats issued through social media that his cult followers can be expected to realize. Republicans leave politics because they fear for themselves and their families. Those who remain all obey in advance. That is new, and it should not be normal, and it should not spread any further. But it becomes normal when we treat discussions, and not coercion, as abnormal.

If I am right that much of the energy behind the Biden pile-on is displaced fear of a regime change, much of the media will continue to generate fascist froth for Trump, whether or not Biden is the Democratic nominee — unless, of course, journalists confront their fears, and keep the issue of regime change inside the story, and provide a constructive alternative alongside personal criticism.

There are three tests of good faith for those who are proposing that President Biden step down. The first is recognition that Biden’s first term has been one of extraordinary achievement. The second is a plan for what the Democrats would do, should Biden withdraw, to select a nominee and win the election. The third is recognition that the threat of regime change is what might justify changing the nominee.

I don’t want to dodge the issue of President Biden’s candidacy — I will have something to say about that. But I found I could only enter the discussion after saying a word about how it has been warped — by fascism and fear.

[nodynasty4us]

When is the best time for Biden to drop out?

When would be the best time for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race?

The best time would have been in early 2023.

The contest for speaker of the house showed the Republican party in disarray.

There would have been plenty of time for Kamala Harris and other candidates to mount a normal primary campaign.

[wilwheaton]

The most generous analysis — the kind you might hope to see in mainstream media coverage — would focus on a Republican Party in disarray on a level conservatives have long falsely accused Democrats of but which no party has exhibited to this degree since before WWII. By comparison, the Democrats of 1968 look like they were cast for that iconic Coke commercial of the era. The Republican field sans Trump couldn’t agree on Trump, the Constitution, Jan. 6, Ukraine, climate change, or — unbelievably — abortion. Kumbaya. And yet that still doesn’t fully capture the dysfunction and self-delusion that the GOP exhibited last night. It’s not riven by factionalism or dueling power bases vying for supremacy. Chris Christie, Asa Hutchison, and Doug Burgum represent no one and had no place being on the debate stage. Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott represent the last vestiges of the former GOP, and their anemic response to Trump even now exemplifies how the Republican Party got itself into this mess to begin with. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy are explicit about wanting to be the next Trump and are soulless enough to pull it off but lack his skills and appeal. Ramaswamy was particularly horrifying to watch, a know-nothing who will say anything and do so convincingly. If this debate had an iconic moment it was the halting raising of hands captured in the photo above when the candidates were asked if they would support Trump as GOP nominee even if he were a convicted felon by then. All but Christie and Hutchison were down for Trump 2.0. No winners in this debate. Just losers.

The Most Unsettling Presidential Debate Spectacle Ever

[azspot]

Yes, the Republican Party controls the Supreme Court, the House, and most state legislatures. It's on track to win back the Senate and its presumptive nominee leads in the polls for the presidency -- but it's "dissolving." Right. Got it.

FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME: REPUBLICANS ARE NOT IN DISARRAY