Martin Longman is the web editor of the Washington Monthly.
He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. Before joining the Monthly, Martin was a county coordinator for ACORN/Project Vote and a political consultant. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Our system is sick not because of the president, or the government – but because of the voters. A large fraction of the voters are sick – mentally ill. Otherwise KY would not have voted for MoscowMitch after all his cruelty towards them, SC would not have voted for LeningradLindsey after all his ass licking, ME would not have voted for Collins after all her lies (Trump has learnt his lesson!), Cornyn in TX – the list is long! And 74M voted for Trump after seeing him lighting fire in every way in every part of the government. NO –… Read more »
All I really want to know is if we can recover once Trump is no longer president, and, if so, how long will it take? I think a lot depends on how successful this effort is, by people like Hawley, to harness the energy and fanaticism of the Trump cult and keep it interested in continuing their work to destroy democracy. If it stays organized and has some kind of leadership within the government that can keep these MAGA’s engaged, then we are in for a long and bumpy road, with no certainty that we escape before the next smarter… Read more »
There are estimates that 140 republican “congressmen” will vote against accepting electors. They are purposefully radicalizing 40-50 million people against democracy, and the right wing media that these people will flock to will fan those flames. If Fox isn’t willing to do what they crave then OAN and Breitbart and Newsmax will. I don’t see a way out of this that allows our country to function.
At least a couple of Dems are on record (Manchin, for one) that they won’t support elimination of the filibuster, so winning those two Georgia seats, while important and essential, will not prevent the minority led by McConnell from preventing Democratic governance – unless “the likes of Romney, Sasse, and Kasich” decide they need to separate themselves from McConnell’s control.
Yes, he could well be on the record about the filibuster. But if we win those two seats, Manchin’s nuts are going to be in a vise tighter than he could have ever imagined in his most repressed nightmares. We are talking about the potential death of democracy here. The pressure is going to be unprecedented to do whatever is necessary to keep the whole thing from going into the shitter, forever. We are talking a situation and set of circumstances that have not been faced in this country since at least the 1860’s. The old rules are no longer… Read more »
There are two parts to this. One is, is it possible assuming we get 50 seats, to change the filibuster rule for one off bills like a new Voting Rights Act? I don’t know how the Senate rules work to even know if that is possible. The second is, Manchin obviously is opposed to it for now. But even he might not be, if McConnell proceeds to block anything and everything and prevents functioning of the administration. In fact I’m not even sure Manchin is running in 24. Potentially he can be bought off. Earmarks are expected to make a… Read more »
If Manchin refuses to vote with his party at this particular time he is lost to us and should be shunned forever. Joe needs to find another way to object or simply get the fuck out. It would be better if he used his power to voter no on the legislation than to hide behind a filibuster rule.
We’re fucked and we’re gonna be fucked for a long time. Are we irrevocably fucked forever? Well as my father used to say, “Forever is a very long time.” I’m not a young man though and a long recovery is heartbreaking to contemplate.
What the Republicans are doing with the electoral college certification is just the logical extension of what they have already done with the Supreme Court. The McConnell Rule is that no D president gets to seat a SC justice while the Republicans control the senate. The Gohmert/McCarthy codicil is that no D president gets to take office while the Republicans control the Congress.
And all this follows from the core principle of the modern republican party: Power in the hands of Republicans is always legitimate; power in the hands of Democrats never is.
I confess to not understanding how this certification process works. But for anyone who knows, if the republicans somehow decertify Biden’s win, can that vote be taken to the Supreme Court? The whole thing sounds insane to me. Surely all the safeguards in the constitution cannot be aimed at taking away an election for which there is zero evidence, and for which the states have already certified. It simply cannot be possible for someone like Trump to literally steal an election. And if the Supreme Court upholds Trump’s win do we really have a government under a constitution any longer… Read more »
Like Karl Rove said – they are creating their own reality – for a very long time, starting with Roy Cohn. someone like Trump to literally steal an election Today when I was going on 101 North (Thousand Oaks, CA) there were MAGAts on an overpass with Stop the Steal signs. That had slowed down traffic (one way) for people to gawk at the spectacle. So they have adopted the jujutsu technique – if we say they are stealing the election, they say we are stealing the election. Now they are saying that unless Perdue and Loeffler win by large… Read more »
I don’t think the Supreme Court would review it. If Hawley, Cruz et al. succeeded, the result would be a breakdown of our constitutional system. The republicans would that Trump had won. The democrats (and anyone sane) would say that Biden had won. We would have a pure crisis of legitimacy…sort of like when the Catholic church had two popes. It would be the end of the Republic.
Sounds like we will have legalized sedition. Thus far this issue has never presented itself, lucky I guess, But Biden has 8 million more votes than Trump. So if the thugs had a majority of congress those 8 million would be a dead issue and the thugs would go merrily on their way. That is hard to accept. And just maybe many would not or could not accept it. Then what? The church has two popes now but only one acting.
The election was Nov 3 but the republican overlords now want ten days to audit the count – – – again. I am hoping the dems have the balls to tell them to take a hike and end this shit.
Our system is sick not because of the president, or the government – but because of the voters. A large fraction of the voters are sick – mentally ill. Otherwise KY would not have voted for MoscowMitch after all his cruelty towards them, SC would not have voted for LeningradLindsey after all his ass licking, ME would not have voted for Collins after all her lies (Trump has learnt his lesson!), Cornyn in TX – the list is long! And 74M voted for Trump after seeing him lighting fire in every way in every part of the government. NO –… Read more »
You might say we live in a make believe democracy where the constitution takes away the democracy part.
All I really want to know is if we can recover once Trump is no longer president, and, if so, how long will it take? I think a lot depends on how successful this effort is, by people like Hawley, to harness the energy and fanaticism of the Trump cult and keep it interested in continuing their work to destroy democracy. If it stays organized and has some kind of leadership within the government that can keep these MAGA’s engaged, then we are in for a long and bumpy road, with no certainty that we escape before the next smarter… Read more »
There are estimates that 140 republican “congressmen” will vote against accepting electors. They are purposefully radicalizing 40-50 million people against democracy, and the right wing media that these people will flock to will fan those flames. If Fox isn’t willing to do what they crave then OAN and Breitbart and Newsmax will. I don’t see a way out of this that allows our country to function.
Very nice post and it lays out the truth we now face.
At least a couple of Dems are on record (Manchin, for one) that they won’t support elimination of the filibuster, so winning those two Georgia seats, while important and essential, will not prevent the minority led by McConnell from preventing Democratic governance – unless “the likes of Romney, Sasse, and Kasich” decide they need to separate themselves from McConnell’s control.
Yes, he could well be on the record about the filibuster. But if we win those two seats, Manchin’s nuts are going to be in a vise tighter than he could have ever imagined in his most repressed nightmares. We are talking about the potential death of democracy here. The pressure is going to be unprecedented to do whatever is necessary to keep the whole thing from going into the shitter, forever. We are talking a situation and set of circumstances that have not been faced in this country since at least the 1860’s. The old rules are no longer… Read more »
There are two parts to this. One is, is it possible assuming we get 50 seats, to change the filibuster rule for one off bills like a new Voting Rights Act? I don’t know how the Senate rules work to even know if that is possible. The second is, Manchin obviously is opposed to it for now. But even he might not be, if McConnell proceeds to block anything and everything and prevents functioning of the administration. In fact I’m not even sure Manchin is running in 24. Potentially he can be bought off. Earmarks are expected to make a… Read more »
If Manchin refuses to vote with his party at this particular time he is lost to us and should be shunned forever. Joe needs to find another way to object or simply get the fuck out. It would be better if he used his power to voter no on the legislation than to hide behind a filibuster rule.
We’re fucked and we’re gonna be fucked for a long time. Are we irrevocably fucked forever? Well as my father used to say, “Forever is a very long time.” I’m not a young man though and a long recovery is heartbreaking to contemplate.
I think your first sentence is a precise statement of the “new normal”.
What the Republicans are doing with the electoral college certification is just the logical extension of what they have already done with the Supreme Court. The McConnell Rule is that no D president gets to seat a SC justice while the Republicans control the senate. The Gohmert/McCarthy codicil is that no D president gets to take office while the Republicans control the Congress.
And all this follows from the core principle of the modern republican party: Power in the hands of Republicans is always legitimate; power in the hands of Democrats never is.
I confess to not understanding how this certification process works. But for anyone who knows, if the republicans somehow decertify Biden’s win, can that vote be taken to the Supreme Court? The whole thing sounds insane to me. Surely all the safeguards in the constitution cannot be aimed at taking away an election for which there is zero evidence, and for which the states have already certified. It simply cannot be possible for someone like Trump to literally steal an election. And if the Supreme Court upholds Trump’s win do we really have a government under a constitution any longer… Read more »
Like Karl Rove said – they are creating their own reality – for a very long time, starting with Roy Cohn. someone like Trump to literally steal an election Today when I was going on 101 North (Thousand Oaks, CA) there were MAGAts on an overpass with Stop the Steal signs. That had slowed down traffic (one way) for people to gawk at the spectacle. So they have adopted the jujutsu technique – if we say they are stealing the election, they say we are stealing the election. Now they are saying that unless Perdue and Loeffler win by large… Read more »
I don’t think the Supreme Court would review it. If Hawley, Cruz et al. succeeded, the result would be a breakdown of our constitutional system. The republicans would that Trump had won. The democrats (and anyone sane) would say that Biden had won. We would have a pure crisis of legitimacy…sort of like when the Catholic church had two popes. It would be the end of the Republic.
Sounds like we will have legalized sedition. Thus far this issue has never presented itself, lucky I guess, But Biden has 8 million more votes than Trump. So if the thugs had a majority of congress those 8 million would be a dead issue and the thugs would go merrily on their way. That is hard to accept. And just maybe many would not or could not accept it. Then what? The church has two popes now but only one acting.
The election was Nov 3 but the republican overlords now want ten days to audit the count – – – again. I am hoping the dems have the balls to tell them to take a hike and end this shit.