Month: January 2021

On Wednesday, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., addressed the “Save America” rally and prepared them for their assault on the Capitol. Four protestors would die in the failed effort to prevent Congress from formalizing Joe Biden’s presidential victory. The U.S. Capitol Police suffered one fatality and dozens of injuries, some requiring hospitalization.

Don. Jr. told the crowd—an assemblage of MAGA-hatted true believers, white supremacists, and QAnon nutjobs—that the Grand Old Party no longer belonged to officeholders in the Capitol. “This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.”

Then he promised to destroy the political career of any Republican who voted to accept the Electoral College results: “We’re coming for you, and we’re going to have a good time doing it.”

In truth, Don Jr. was overestimating his family’s hold on the party. If Republicans in Congress were willing or capable of preventing Trump’s defeat, the rally wouldn’t have been necessary.

When the president took to the stage, he called GOP lawmakers who followed the Constitution and accepted Biden’s victory “weak” and “pathetic” and ordered the crowd into action:

“Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy,” [Trump] said. “And after this, we’re going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you — we’re going to walk down … to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

 The president didn’t follow through with his promise to “be there with you,” but instead watched the assault on television in what was described by a witness as a “bemused” state.

He didn’t remain that way for long. The assault failed, Biden’s victory was assured, and a furious backlash against the president began.

When Trump addressed the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee in Amelia Island, Florida, on Thursday morning, he received applause, but behind the scenes it was more complicated. This was especially true because RNC members were still smarting from losing both runoff elections in Georgia, and thus control of the U.S. Senate.

“People are freaking fed up. Repeatedly, what I kept hearing over and over again was that the president is responsible for the loss in Georgia and the president is responsible for what happened yesterday,” said one Republican operative at the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “It may well mean that he will not have the same kingmaking power.”

 Steve Frias, an RNC committeeman from Rhode Island, insisted that “Everyone needs to accept that Biden won, and that includes President Trump,” but he saw the real challenge going forward as finding a balance between holding onto the president’s loyal base and the more traditional suburban voters needed to win state and national majorities.

“There is going to be this very difficult balancing act,” he said. “The issues that [Trump] pushed resonated in bringing new people into the Republican Party, more blue-collar oriented. But his personality flaws pushed away people that had been in the Republican Party in the suburban communities. We have to make sure we make that balance work.”

Traditionally, it has been a piece of cake for Republicans to drive a wedge between urban and suburban voters using issues like race, crime, taxes, and fights over transportation and education. In the era of Trump, the formula failed in spectacular fashion, in part because a more racially-diverse surburbia is less amenable to the same-old GOP racial messaging. The larger factor is educational attainment. By a wide margin, well-educated, professional Americans weren’t deceived by Trump’s rampage of lies.

The Republican Party could come back in the suburbs if they focused on issues that divide cites from the communities that surround them rather than stoking the anxieties and paranoia of struggling rural and small-town America.

But they have to make a choice. Without Trump on the ballot in 2018, the Republicans were massacred at the polls. They gained back House seats (but not the majority) in 2020 because Trump’s base showed up, but the Republicans’ standing in the suburbs continued to erode. For example, Gwinnett County outside Atlanta gave John McCain 55 percent of the vote in 2008 but Trump only got 44 percent in 2016. In 2020, Trump’s 40 percent in the suburbs lost him the state and its 16 electoral votes. In the 2021 Senate runoff elections, Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler only received 39 percent of Gwinnett’s votes, leading to their defeats.

A Trumpist strategy of maximizing white rural support at the cost of more suburban erosion won’t work, particularly without Trump, which means that Republican Party will do better the sooner they are free from his influence. The Biden administration, Democrat-controlled Congress, as well as various state prosecutors could actually help the Republicans recover from Trump by holding him accountable. The more he is discredited, the less hold he’ll have over the party.

In the end, a healthier GOP will mean a healthier country, even if it means the Republicans spend less time in the political wilderness.

When the Senate reconvened on Wednesday after a deadly insurrection by a pro-Trump mob had interrupted Congress’s effort to count the Electoral College vote, Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer equated the day’s events to the Japanese sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor-the event that thrust America into the Second World War.

“President Franklin Roosevelt set aside December 7th, 1941 as a date that will live in “infamy.” Unfortunately, we can now add January 6th, 2021 to that very short list of dates in American history that will live, forever, in infamy.”

My colleague, Garrett Epps, equated the MAGA protestors who overran the Capitol with the “slave power” of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and demanded justice, arguing that that we not let a desire for national reconciliation–“our better angels”–seduce us into repeating the errors that led to a century of Jim Crow laws and terror in the South.

Whichever historical analogy you choose, there is a surprisingly broad sentiment that President Trump’s direct role in inciting the sedition should preclude him from serving out the final 13 days of his term.

For example, Jay Timmons, formerly the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and now president and CEO of the right-leaning National Association of Manufacturers, issued a statement calling for Trump to be immediately removed from office: “Vice President Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment…because our very system of government, which underpins our very way of life, will crumble…if our leaders refuse to fend off this attack on America and our democracy.”

For context, in 2020, the National Association of Manufacturers gave an award to Ivanka Trump for her “extraordinary support” of American manufacturing.”

The 25th Amendment would allow Pence to “immediately assume the powers and duties of the office” of the presidency” if he and a majority of the Cabinet declare the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” If Trump contested this, Congress would have to settle the matter, with two-thirds of each chamber required to permanently remove him. Under the provisions of the Amendment, the longest the dispute could last is six days—four for Pence to respond to the president and two for Congress to vote.

Of course, this constitutional provision is designed to address a physical health crisis, like the stroke President Woodrow Wilson suffered in October 1919, but it can be invoked for a mental health crisis as well and that’s exactly what Schumer calledon Pence to do on Thursday.

“What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement on Thursday. “This president should not hold office one day longer.”

“The quickest and most effective way — it can be done today — to remove this president from office would be for the vice president to immediately invoke the 25th amendment,” Schumer said. “If the vice president and the cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president,” he added.

Republican columnist Bret Stephens of the New York Times prefers the latter prescription because impeachment allows Congress to disqualify Trump “to hold and enjoy any Office of honor Trust or Profit under the United States” ever again.

Impeach the president and remove him from office now. Ban him forever from office now. Let every American know that, in the age of Trump, there are some things that can never be allowed to stand, most of all Trump himself.

There are advocates from both approaches in Congress. Democratic Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Ted Liu (D-CA) of the House Judiciary Committee are circulating articles of impeachment, while Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger released a video called for removal through the 25^th Amendment.

Of course, a third option is that Trump follow Richard Nixon’s example and resign. That’s what Republican Governor Phil Scott of Vermont demands, and he calls on either the cabinet or Congress to remove him if he won’t go voluntarily.

For Epps, irrespective of what happens in the next 13 days, what is needed now is resolute boldness, “Until the nation receives a full accounting, and until criminality pays a suitable price, our institutions will lie open, undefended against those who openly aspire to break them up by force.”

There seems to be more consensus for this approach than I would have expected. While many Republicans are sticking with Trump and even advancing conspiracy theories that Antifa, not the president or his supporters, were responsible for the invasion and looting of the Capitol, the GOP voices calling for swift removal and accountability within Congress and the media, and among their business allies, give reason for hope that justice may eventually be rendered.

The president may serve out the remainder of his term, but Epps’s concern that “the impulse of liberal Democrats is to forgive and forget” might not bear out. Joe Biden is a conciliator by nature, but when demands for justice are bipartisan, he can best bring the country together by providing a reckoning for Trump’s actions on the infamous day of January 6.

Georgia’s on my mind:

And while we’re at it, here’s a few from Georgia’s finest:

Alright. The bar’s open. The jukebox is working just fine, as long as the power grids hold up. Stay safe and healthy everyone.

Cheers.

It’s only January 5, and the biggest election of 2021 is already upon us. Today’s runoff elections in Georgia between Jon Ossoff and Sen. David Perdue and Rev. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Kelly Loeffler will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. If the Democratic challengers win both elections, Chuck Schumer, not Mitch McConnell, will preside over the confirmation of Joe Biden’s nominations and legislative agenda. If the Republicans win just one of two, power in Congress will be split and Biden’s ambitions will be stymied.

Much like Election Night in November, we should expect initial returns to skew Republican, as Election Day votes will outnumber the mail-in votes favored by Democrats in the early count. It could be more than a week before we have an official count, and with recounts possible, certified results could take much longer.

More than three million people voted early—the most ever in a Georgia runoff election, and an indication, perhaps, that there may not be much drop off from the five million total participants in November.

A detailed analysis of the early vote by Ryan Anderson, who works in marketing, but who has earned attention for his data-driven website, GeorgiaVotes.com, suggests the Democrats have built up an impressive lead in the early vote, ranging from 170,000 to 245,000, or six to eight percent. What’s more, precinct-level turnout looks better for the Democrats than countywide analysis alone would suggest

This jibes with the polls. The FiveThirtyEight estimate of the runoff elections has both Democrats, Ossoff and Warnock, holding narrow leads, but still a hair below the 50 percent needed to win.

Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz says “There is a greater divide in the Republican Party than there is in the Democratic Party,” and predicts “I think the next 48 hours are going to be among the worst for the GOP.”

That divide was on display on Monday night as Donald Trump held a rally in conservative northwest Georgia, ostensibly for Perdue and Loeffler. “I don’t do rallies for other people. I do them for me,”the president told the crowd, as he railed against Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Republicans who doesn’t support his effort to remain in office despite losing the election.

Of course, to win, the Democrats need their votes to count, and that won’t happen for any mail ballots that arrive late. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s efforts to slow down mail delivery could impact thousands of voters. This could be why Politico reports that Biden advisers are “privately skeptical” about Ossoff and Warnock’s chances at victory. They’re also worried that Biden’s victory in Georgia was driven by anti-Trump sentiment that won’t be as powerful in the runoffs because the president isn’t on the ballot.

Yet, Biden’s team must be pleased to see how Trump, Perdue and Loeffler tied themselves together at the end of the runoff campaign, because they want Georgia voters to treat these elections like a referendum on Trump.

During Loeffler’s brief appearance on the rally stage, she emphasized that her loyalty to the president was not in question. She announced during the rally that she would join some of her Republican peers in contesting the Electoral College vote on Wednesday, eliciting loud cheers from the audience.

“This president fought for us. We are fighting for him. He put America first,” Loeffler said. “Georgia, we are the firewall to socialism.”

That kind of rhetoric may rally some Trump-only Republican voters to the polls, but it will diminish the number of anti-Trump Republicans who find Loeffler or Perdue acceptable.

Every analyst seems to agree that the elections will be close so if you’re in Georgia, make sure your voice is heard.

On Saturday, vice-president Mike Pence lent support to a quixotic plan by dozens of congressional Republicans, including 11 senators and senators-elect, to challenge and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election when Congress convenes on January 6 to count the Electoral College votes. This effort is based on no evidence of fraud or irregularities that would change the outcome in any state, and it will therefore fail. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take office as scheduled at noon on January 20.

Nonetheless, it’s worth considering how we got to this point and what Pence’s role should be in the process.

William Rufus King was the 13^th vice-president of the United States, but nothing about his brief term in office was normal. Elected on the Democratic ticket with Franklin Pierce in 1852, the long-serving Alabama senator took his oath of office in Matanzas, Cuba where he was convalescing from a case of tuberculosis. He returned to the United States in April, but died at his plantation on April 18, having served as vice-president for a mere six weeks, and without ever carrying out any duties of the office. The position remained vacant for the remainder of Pierce’s term, which is why it fell to James Mason of Virginia to officiate the Electoral College count on February 11, 1857.

The grandson of Founding Father George Mason, James was fulfilling a dutyspelled out in the 12^th Amendment to the Constitution which requires the president of the Senate to open the states’ certificates of election “in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives.” Mason got the job because he was Senate President Pro Tempore, empowered in the vice president’s absence to preside over Senate sessions.

But, as Ronald Shafer details in the Washington Post,  Mason ran into a problem when Wisconsin’s electors were challenged. Due to a blizzard, the votes had been certified in Madison a day past the constitutional deadline. Unsure what to do, Mason unilaterally allowed Wisconsin’s votes rather than invalidate them on a technicality.

Even though Wisconsin’s votes were not determinative of the outcome, mayhem ensued, as many senators objected to the idea that the presiding officer of the Senate should have the unilateral power to make such a consequential decision. After internal deliberations, an “Act of God” was deemed responsible for the tardiness of Wisconsin’s votes and they were accepted, but it set a precedent for how contested electors should be handled in the future. Congress, not a single man, should decide.

Yet, when competing slates for president were offered in 1876 by South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, Congress was unable to resolve the dispute and the contested election was settled by a specially appointed commission. After that, there was broad recognition that the process needed to be codified but the job wasn’t completed for another decade. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 created the rules we use today. Here’s the Congressional Research Service’s current interpretation of the Act:

“Objections to individual state returns must be made in writing by at least one Member each of the Senate and House of Representatives. If an objection meets these requirements, the joint session recesses and the two houses separate and debate the question in their respective chambers for a maximum of two hours. The two houses then vote separately to accept or reject the objection. They then reassemble in joint session, and announce the results of their respective votes. An objection to a state’s electoral vote must be approved by both houses in order for any contested votes to be excluded.”

There is no role in the statute for the president of the Senate other than to oversee the opening and counting of the certificates of election, and then to announce the results. This is intentional, as there should be no repeat of James Mason’s 1853 attempt to decide a dispute on his own authority.

Nonetheless, in a suit that was rejected in federal court on Friday and in federal appeals court on Saturday, Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert and an illegitimate slate of Arizona Trump electors sought to invalidate the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and grant vice-president Mike Pence the sole authority to determine which slates of electors to accept or reject. Pence actually opposed Gohmert’s argument and successfully used Department of Justice lawyers to make his case.

If Pence’s actions seem schizophrenic—endorsing a congressional challenge but rejecting the power to validate one—it’s because he’s trying to find a middle ground between staying in President Donald Trump and his supporters’ good graces and abiding by the law and Constitution.

Congress long ago decided that no one should have the unilateral authority to decide the victors of a presidential election, and Pence knows the country would erupt in violence and disorder if he ignored the results of the 2020 election and declared himself and Trump the winners.

Yet, Trump has been relentless in pursuing efforts to do just that, including his potentially criminal phone call on Saturday with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he begged the election official to “find” the votes he needs to overturn the certified results in the Peach State.

Fortunately, we have a law that makes clear that Pence cannot provide this kind of criminal service for Trump, and we have courts willing to uphold that law.

I don’t know what will happen in the January 5 Georgia runoffs which will determine which party will control the U.S. Senate, but I do know that Mitt Romney really ought to caucus with the Democrats irrespective of the results there. I don’t say this because I have much respect for Romney. He ran the most dishonest presidential campaign in history prior to Donald Trump. I say it because he has no future in the Republican Party and on the most critical issues facing the country, he’s clearly on the side of the Democrats.

That’s clear from Romney’s latest statement on “the egregious ploy” by Ted Cruz and several other of his Senate colleagues to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Romney sees the “ill-conceived endeavor” as dangerous and completely indefensible, and asks, “Has ambition so eclipsed principle?”

That’s a rhetorical question. Romney may be appalled, but he knows that there’s not much principle left in his party, and none with the party’s base. He can see that his colleagues are responding to pressure from Republican voters and that all the rewards will go to those who “dangerously threaten our Democratic Republic.”

There’s no chance that Romney will ever again be the party’s presidential nominee, and there’s a good chance he’d lose a competitive primary even though Trumpism is weaker in Utah than other bright red states. If his chances of reelection are poor regardless of which party he represents, he might as well serve with the party that is on the side of the Constitution.

As for whether the Democrats should welcome Romney, that’s a tougher call. If it means they get control of the Senate, it’s a no-brainer, but that would only happen in the case of split-decision in Georgia. Otherwise, Romney would add a little bit here and there, but also take up valuable slots on committees where his input and vote would not be consistently aligned with the party’s agenda. Romney would often be more valuable as a Republican offering a bipartisan sheen to a few issues than as an actual tie-breaker.

Plus, every time a sane Republican defects to the Democrats, it makes the GOP just a little more radical.

 

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Sedona, Arizona scene. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 8×10 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I have made some good progress for this week’s cycle. The distant buttes now have highlights along the top edges. Also new is the revised middle ground, now seen in subtle greens and blues. Out in front the closest area has been darkened. Things are moving along.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas is suing vice-president Mike Pence. Pence is using Department of Justice lawyers to defend himself.  Attorney General William Barr resigned just before Christmas. President Trump cut short his Mar-a-Lago vacation by a day to return to Washington. Do I know what it all means?

Hardly.

Beyond it being in some sense the real-life manifestation of Trump’s private delusions and pathologies, it looks like Gohmert wants the courts to award Pence with the power to decide the winner of the 2020 election without any necessary reference to how people voted. Pence doesn’t want this responsibility and the DOJ is still independent enough of Trump to have Pence’s back.

Trump just wants to be declared the winner and knows he needs Pence to play his part for the coup to have any prospect of success.

The president does have some support from congressional Republicans, including some freshmen but Trump cannot be happy that his rudderless DOJ is backing Pence’s reluctance to do his bidding.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is having no part of a coup attempt and is reportedly pissed at Senator Josh Hawley for agreeing to join with renegade House Republicans in challenging the slates of least a couple of states.

This is a lot of drama and I struggle to figure out what it signifies. Our president is sick so our system of government is also sick.

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?