@Geoffberner @LouisIngenthron a good electoral system is not based on a consumer-choice style evaluate-service-then-fire-the-bastards. what the state does is what we collectively do, not what someone else does whom we just fire. our electoral system does encourage that metaphor, so yes, a better world gets constantly destroyed because it’s susceptible to ugly oppo or is not adequately sold.
@LouisIngenthron @Geoffberner i don’t think that’s right. there’s a huge time consistency problem in the (at best very incomplete) understanding of electoral democracy as “the public evaluates and throws the bums out if they don’t like how things are going”. lots of policy interventions take longer than an electoral cycle to meaningfully reveal results. 1/
@LouisIngenthron @Geoffberner if you make “selling the strategy” or “maintaining enthusiasm” as an essential dimension of quality, then, sure, tautologically, a successful administration would have nothing to fear. 2/
@LouisIngenthron @Geoffberner but i think good policy can often involve a long lead time, through which it may be challenging to sustain enthusiasm, while challengers can sell hopes without any plausible policy behind them. 3/
@LouisIngenthron @Geoffberner so i think it quite possible that an administration can be succeeding on policy grounds but remain electorally fragile. /fin
@Geoffberner no, i don't think so at all. i think what makes this so painful is, regardless of the state of the President himself, the group of people who surround him think (with some justice!) they are doing a great job, and understand the band would be broken up, and they personally would be unlikely to have roles nearly so influential, if there were a switch of marionettes. they, i think, are all in unless/until loss becomes nearly certain.
In the US, we don't elect political parties (now famously "hollow"). And we don't elect the man, or the woman. Even in Congress, but especially as President, the job is far above the capability or judgment of one person, however old or young.
What we elect when we elect a person is that person's friends, who will become staff, advisors, appointees.
Whatever you think of the person, what matters is the people they will place around them. We choose not so much the puppet as the puppeteers.
from @RebeccaSolnit https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/06/biden-trump-race-rebecca-solnit
Text: Speaking of coups, we’ve had a couple of late, which perhaps merit attention as we consider who is unfit to hold office. This time around, Trump is not just a celebrity with a lot of sexual assault allegations, bankruptcies, and loopily malicious statements, as he was in 2016. He’s a convicted criminal who orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election both through backroom corruption and public lies and through a violent attack on Congress. The extremist US supreme court justices he selected during his last presidential term have themselves staged a coup this very Monday, overthrowing the US constitution itself and the principle that no one is above the law to make presidents into kings, just after legalizing bribery of officials, and dismantling the regulatory state by throwing out the Chevron deference.
@franktaber so your view is simply the Democratic primary should be determinative? (counterarguments might include that new information or new debility undermines the legitimacy of that primary, or that it deserves little deference because “the field was cleared” for the incumbent. not endorsing any of these in particular. i find the current situation miserably difficult.)
@franktaber in what sense?
@Alon Harris is included in Other, I promise!
2024 Democratic nominee should be
42.9%
Biden
(18 votes)
57.1%
Other
(24 votes)
from Tressie McMillan Cottom https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/06/opinion/biden-debate-scotus-immunity.html
However poorly Biden performed at that debate (and he was embarrassing), debates are theater. However ill equipped the Democratic Party is to provide an heir apparent — and they are embarrassingly unprepared for this predictable eventuality - their dysfunction is not the clear and present danger. The Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity is a harbinger of not just the court's growing power but of Democrats' inability to mount a populist defense. This conservative bloc on the court reflects years of undemocratic political maneuvering, from Mitch McConnell stealing a seat to the political activism of Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas. Their decisions are not only codifying minority interests, they are a show of strength for a Republican Party that has no intention of ever ceding power to majority will again. If you take your eye off the ball of democracy for any length of time, no amount of history will save you. Americans have taken our eyes off the ball. I have not wanted to make that call.
Do we really need judicial review? See Nikolas Bowie https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Bowie-SCOTUS-Testimony.pdf
// I feel like the upsides of judicial review are given shirt shrift. Miranda rights, gay marriage, until recently abortion rights all derive from judicial review. Reading this piece, you’d think the only minority rights the Court ever protected were rights of the wealthy. But in a post-Roe world with a weaponized Supreme Court legalizing corruption and authoritarianism, judicial review is becoming hard to defend.
@Hyolobrika @AltonDooley @volkris No. Quite the contrary. The President is given absolute immunity for "conclusive and preclusive" "official acts" including "commanding the Armed Forces of the United States; granting reprieves and pardons", and "at least presumptive immunity" for all other official acts. The majority explicitly states that "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." 1/
![Text:
(1) When the President acts pursuant to “constitutional and stat- utory authority,” he takes official action to perform the functions of his office. Fitzgerald, 456 U. S., at 757. Determining whether an action is covered by immunity thus begins with assessing the President’s au- thority to take that action. But the breadth of the President’s “discre- tionary responsibilities” under the Constitution and laws of the United States frequently makes it “difficult to determine which of [his] innu- merable ‘functions’ encompassed a particular action.” Id., at 756. The immunity the Court has recognized therefore extends to the “outer pe- rimeter” of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are “not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.” Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F. 4th 1, 13 (CADC).
In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to ju- dicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Fitz- gerald, 457 U. S., at 756. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Oth- erwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect.](media_attachments/files/112/738/353/619/464/492/original/746a6ebf41fad1a3.png)
Text: (1) When the President acts pursuant to “constitutional and stat- utory authority,” he takes official action to perform the functions of his office. Fitzgerald, 456 U. S., at 757. Determining whether an action is covered by immunity thus begins with assessing the President’s au- thority to take that action. But the breadth of the President’s “discre- tionary responsibilities” under the Constitution and laws of the United States frequently makes it “difficult to determine which of [his] innu- merable ‘functions’ encompassed a particular action.” Id., at 756. The immunity the Court has recognized therefore extends to the “outer pe- rimeter” of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are “not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.” Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F. 4th 1, 13 (CADC). In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to ju- dicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Fitz- gerald, 457 U. S., at 756. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Oth- erwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect.
@Hyolobrika @AltonDooley @volkris People understandably presume reasonableness of the Court, try to fill gaps in in such a way as you could say, look, this is a balanced measure to prevent harassing or politically motivated prosecution while continuing to ensure that Presidents follow the law. But read the text. It is not that, not at all. It provides absolute immunity for actions with sufficient scope to order violent lawlessness and protect perpetrators from any criminal accountability. /fin
@ike to say i'm deeply concerned would be an understatement.
[new draft post] If the issue was the lawfare https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/07/05/if-the-issue-was-the-lawfare/index.html
Should Democrats strategically poll?
If a pollster calls, and you are one of the weirdoes who takes pollster calls, and of course you would vote for Biden rather than Trump, but you think Biden should pass the baton, should you lie and say you'd vote for Trump to put greater pressure on the Biden campaign?
@data_from_space fucking with you, then making you take a breath and think about what is being communicated.
"Right now each of these scenarios are equally possible but that does not mean they are equally likely." #CassidySteeleDale https://cassidysteeledale.substack.com/p/possible-futures-for-the-2024-democratic
// an interesting framing for when probabilities over a set of scenarios are not knowable, but none are overwhelmingly likely or vanishingly unlikely
@Hyolobrika @rms @waltercool if the issue were preventing "lawfare" and spirals of politically motivated convictions, the decision would look nothing like this. yes, it would grant immunity to the President.
BUT IT WOULD NARROW HIS PARDON POWER AND ENABLE INQUIRIES INTO MOTIVATION.
it would hold unelected subordinates inescapably accountable for following unlawful orders.
this is the accountability equilibrium we created after the Nixon administration. Nixon's henchmen went to jail.
1/
@Hyolobrika @rms @waltercool this is a decision calculated, in its own words, to enable "bold and unhesitating" (ha!) Presidential action, not to prevent scurrilous prosecutions. it is about reducing accountability, quite explicitly with respect to the President himself, but implicitly of all subordinates by placing the pardon power within the charmed circle of that which cannot be questioned. /fin
it is better to prevent than to punish.
The pain was impossible. He thrust the blade again and again and again. Into belly. Leg. Chest. My only consolation was this would end. It had to end, very soon. This will end!
I hadn't realized I had spoken aloud, but he laughed. Pausing only for a moment he asked, "Don't you believe in knife after death?"