The Media Does Not Get To Blame Hillary Clinton for their Own Choices of Coverage

Last night, I tweeted out the following as an "unpopular opinion":

Unpopular opinion: Hillary Clinton in fact devoted plenty of time to promoting a positive agenda for America. Media just didn't give a shit.

— David Schraub (@schraubd) November 19, 2016

It turned out to be ... rather popular (for me at least).

Now here's the thing. There is an entirely valid post-mortem critique of the Clinton campaign vis-à-vis the media. It would go something like this:

In our current media climate, what matters is who can get the attention of the cameras. Donald Trump was a master at ginning up free publicity for himself by being outrageous and outlandish. Hillary Clinton -- too dry, too boring, too establishment, too wonky, too policy oriented -- was incapable of adequately countering this strategy. One can moan about how unfair that is, but politics is the art of winning, and Clinton didn't win. So in that essential respect, she, her team, and the Party that picked her failed.

If a member of the media wanted to level that critique, I'd respect that. I'd view it as a rather sad commentary on democracy, but I'd respect the sort of hard-headed realism of it. I'd even accept the claim that the "media climate" reflects nothing more than what the people want, and so the media can't be blamed for not indulging in the delusion that what the people want is neatly laid out agendas for American policy reform.

But for the media -- whose political coverage never left the pendulum swing of "look at this KEE-razy thing Trump said" and "EMAILZ!" -- to now turn around and say that the problem was that Clinton didn't forward a positive agenda for America ... that takes serious chutzpah. Yes, she ran plenty of negative ads. But I saw plenty of positive ads too. And listening to her at the debates or at her DNC speech, the vast majority of her statements were about explaining, calmly and seriously, her plan for how to keep America safe, how to improve the lives of working Americans, how to bring about justice for the full panoply of our diverse population, and so on. The problem was not that this analysis wasn't there. It was, if anything, the centerpiece of her campaign! To say that she tried to run a campaign on nothing more than "I'm not Trump" is ludicrous.

The problem was not that Hillary Clinton ran as "the one who isn't Trump." She didn't. It was the media who chose to treat her as "the boring one who's only relevant as the one who isn't Trump. And who had an email server." And again, if we're saying it's her responsibility to deal with the media we have and the electorate we actually have, not the one deliberative democrats fantasize we have, that's one thing. But it's another thing entirely to blame Hillary Clinton for not presenting a positive policy agenda that she tried desperately to frontload in the face of months of media apathy.

UPDATE: Scott Lemieux: The Media Refuses Accountability For Its Own Malpractice.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XXXI: Electing Donald Trump

In 2008, when Barack Obama won election with 78% of the Jewish vote. a Greek newspaper heralded the outcome as "the end of Jewish domination." So now in 2016, with Donald Trump surging to victory while only carrying 24% of the Jewish vote, who's the driving force behind his victory? Oh, you know who:

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, has reportedly suggested that Donald Trump won the US election because of support from “the Jews.”

Zakharova made the comments over the weekend on a nationally televised talk show, saying that it was Jewish money that tipped the election for Trump, Radio Free Europe reported.

“If you want to know what will happen in America, who do you have to talk to? You have to talk to the Jews, naturally. But of course,” Zakharova said while on Sunday Evening, a show hosted by pro-Kremlin television personality Vladimir Solovyov, the report said.

Zakharova then reportedly adopted “a cartoonish Jewish accent” while impersonating her alleged interlocutor.

Honestly, the question was less "would people blame the Jews for this" and more "who would be the first to blame the Jews for this." Although, given that this is a Russian governmental official talking about Trump winning the presidency, we might more accurately title this one "Things People Credit the Jews For."

Mike Huckabee Doubles Down on Jewish "False Flag" Allegations

A few days ago, I encountered a story on some far right websites alleging that left-wing Jewish students at Northwestern had fabricated an incident of bigotry -- spray painting a church with swastikas and other hateful images, along with the word "Trump" -- in order to further the narrative of right-wing prejudice following Donald Trump's election (it's been scrubbed or "updated" from many of these websites, but this one at least gives you a sense of how they initially reported the story). Basically, they suggested that this (and by implication, other) alleged hate crimes that occurred after the election were really false flag operations to frame the right for sins they were not, in fact, committed. Among the proponents of the story was Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (it's gone from his Facebook page, but I checked a cached version and he absolutely endorsed the allegation that left-wing Jews -- and he specifically mentioned Jews -- were behind the vandalism incident).

The story was entirely false -- for starters, because the incident occurred this past March (not post-election day), but more importantly because there was no evidence that the perpetrators were (a) leftist, (b) Jewish, or (c) anything other than earnest (albeit probably drunk) in their hateful acts. And this matters, because the claim that Jews fabricate anti-Semitic incidents in order to generate public sympathy and discredit their supposed adversaries is among the most prominent forms of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorizing extant today. It was, for example, central to the anti-Semitic musings of just-fired Oberlin professor Joy Karega (she alleged that Israel secretly was behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and ISIS in order to discredit pro-Palestinian advocates).

I had seen that Huckabee had scrubbed the story from his Facebook page, and today I read in JTA that he had apologized for the initial post. The JTA article does not link to Huckabee's actual note of apology [UPDATE: The link is now in the story], and perhaps for good reason. Because in his "apology", it turns out that Huckabee is not apologizing at all. He very explicitly, and very openly, doubles down on the core allegation that the incident in question was a false flag operation done by left-wing and (potentially -- he hedges here) Jewish students to discredit conservatives. Here's the key segment:

[Critics] accused me of spreading false information and hatred, and demanded an apology. And they’re right, I do owe readers an apology. Due to a posting error, the story was actually from last March, but it appeared to be a new story. I didn’t remember the original story and assumed it was new. For that mistake, I sincerely apologize. But the facts of the story were otherwise accurate.

Read that passage again -- it's clear as day. Huckabee concedes only that the incident occurred in March, not this past week. Other than that, he maintains that "the facts of the story" -- in other words, the claim that the swastikas and vandalism was a hoax perpetrated by left-wing Jews to tar conservatives -- is "otherwise accurate."

Need more proof? Here's Huckabee's very next paragraph:

As for the rest of the paper’s attacks on me, which included a disputed report that the vandals were Jewish, that was part of the original story and was certainly not intended as any sort of slur on Jews. It was considered relevant only because the hateful graffiti included a swastika, obviously intended to make it falsely appear that the vandalism was committed by anti-Jewish Trump supporters.

Again, other than the slight hedging on whether the vandals were Jewish (and, to reiterate, there is precisely zero evidence that they were -- that was not part of the "original story" and was apparently made up out of whole cloth), Huckabee stands entirely behind the core narrative. The act of vandalism was a hoax. It was a false flag.

That is not an apology. That's a double-down. And it's very important that he be called to account for it, because the claim that Jews (or any minority group) engages in false flag attacks on its own community in order to discredit adversaries is incredibly serious, and flagrantly bigoted in its own right. It is not something minor, and it is not something that can be overlooked -- especially when he appears to be the front-runner for Ambassador to Israel.

In presenting Huckabee as apologizing for his false flag allegations, the JTA story is spectacularly misleading, and gives Huckabee a pass on an issue which frankly should end his career. It needs an update, and it needs an update stat.

The Last Temptation of Jewish Groups

The Jewish community is facing a difficult challenge when it comes to the Donald Trump administration: "Condemn or court?" It has come to a particular head given the appointment of Steve Bannon -- head of the far-right Breitbart News, the notorious clearinghouse for every brand of White nationalist hatred imaginable -- to a high-level advisory position. Some groups, like the ADL, have stood by their principles and condemned the appointment. Others have been more, shall we say, cowardly on the question of bigotry in the Trump campaign and in his appointments.

The American Jewish Committee just released its big post-election statement. Would they be brave, or would they cower in mealy-mouthed apologias? Alas:

Campaigns frequently generate rhetoric that sounds appealing to some voters, but, in reality, are little more than unexamined sound bites and crowd pleasers. History has shown that not all pledges made in the heat of a tight race turn into policy. This has been true of both Democratic and Republican winners. We need, therefore, to understand how a successful candidate plans to govern before making sweeping judgments based largely, or even exclusively, on the language of the primary and electoral periods.

Indeed, who among us cannot relate to -- in the heat of electoral passion -- calling Mexicans rapists or demanding that innocent Black people be executed?  Have we not all sometimes been tempted to insist on a ban on all Muslims entering the country? And surely all of us can understand how, at the end of a long electoral season, one might end up cutting a campaign ad that functionally reboots The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's quite the crowd-pleaser, after all.

I hope the AJC recognizes the peril they're putting themselves in with the community for which they claim to speak. I am not the only one has entirely lost patience with this craven approach of coddling bigotry, and I am not the only one taking note of which Jewish organizations are showing a backbone and which ones are falling over themselves to knuckle under. If the AJC wants to dishonor itself, that's its prerogative. But if it wants to claim to be a representative of the Jewish community, it needs to look at exactly where that community is, and what message we want to send. Because right now, it is a shanda.

Who's Afraid of Right-Wing Anti-Semitism?

I just published a column in Ha'aretz about how Jews have given mainstream right-wing anti-Semitism a free pass, and how it needs to stop. While I submitted it to them under the title "Who's Afraid of Right-Wing Anti-Semitism", they published it as "Who’ll Have the Guts to Stand Up to Trump’s Powerful anti-Semitic Predators?" But you can get a fair sense of the tenor of the piece by its original working title: "The Republican Jewish Coalition is chickenshit."

And that was before they (and the even-more risible ZOA) decided to defend Steve Bannon.

Ha'aretz, alas, has a paywall (and a notoriously cantankerous website). But if you're having trouble accessing the article, I've found that going through google and selecting the cached version usually works.

Who Benefits from a National Popular Vote?

Hillary Clinton will win the national popular vote.

This is a lot less relevant than it seems. Legally, of course, it's entirely irrelevant: we elect our President through the electoral college system, not the popular vote. And even as a talking point, its bark is worth more than its bite. Just because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote under  the system we have (where the popular vote isn't the prize) doesn't mean she would have won had a popular vote plurality been the deciding factor. Both candidates' strategy would have been very different had the popular vote been the deciding factor; perhaps if Trump had an incentive to focus on ginning up more votes in, say, Los Angeles, the numbers would work out differently. It's not implausible that Clinton would have won the popular vote anyway, but it's a hypothesis supported by moderate -- not overwhelming -- evidence.

Nonetheless, the fact that we've now had two elections in 16 years where the popular vote winner was the electoral college loser has put our status quo system under unprecedented scrutiny. My inclination is to support reform: it's hard to justify the electoral college (particularly since it is about to fail at one of its original justifications -- ensuring that a wave of populist demagoguery doesn't put a manifestly unqualified hack in the oval office).

Perhaps the only plausible contemporary justification for the electoral college I've seen is that it forces candidates to appeal to a wide range of Americans, instead of just concentrating on big cities. Who would spend time in rural states like Iowa or New Hampshire were it not for the electoral college incentive? The claim is that, if we only decided things by the popular vote, our presidential election campaigns would be fought out only in our biggest cities, leaving many Americans on the outside looking in.

I don't find this objection compelling for two reasons. First, the electoral college also very obviously causes large swaths of America to be overlooked. "Safe states" like California or Texas (or Delaware or Wyoming) are entirely ignored. And if certain regions have to be ignored in a democratic system, in a democracy it seems like "having fewer people" is a pretty decent metric for allocating our attention.

But second, I'm actually unconvinced that we'd see widespread neglect of rural America in a popular vote model. The way actual presidential campaigns operate in swing states is illustrative. In Wisconsin, for example, it's not like Democrats and Republicans spend all their time fighting for votes in Milwaukee and Madison, and ignore the rest of the state entirely. Rather, there is plenty of attention paid to the outlying regions -- particularly by Republicans, who try to drum up support from many smaller counties to counteract huge Democratic margins in the cities. This seems to be pretty standard across most contested states. So why wouldn't we see the same dynamic play out nationwide: Republicans rallying many small-population regions to try to overcome large Democratic margins in cities?

And this brings me to my final observation. I support a national popular vote model because it seems more democratic than our status quo. But I think people are being mislead in thinking that it necessarily benefits the Democratic Party. Many large urban centers are in blue states that are not currently contested. Many rural areas, by contrast, are in purple states which are absolutely contested. In other words, our political system right now has Democrats and Republicans nip-and-tuck in a situation where Democrats do try to appeal to rural and exurban voters, and Republicans basically don't try to appeal to urban voters. It seems like the GOP has a lot more room to grow if, as it'd have an incentive to do in a popular vote system, it starts making a serious play for city votes (it's also true that in doing so it may have an incentive to moderate itself by appealing to a more diverse constituency that it currently ignores).

Again, my small-d democratic preferences aren't based on what helps the large-D Democratic Party. But this is a note of caution about thinking that a popular vote model will necessarily be a boon for progressives. It may well help the GOP more (though it also might help the GOP break out of its increasingly radical shell).

The Independent Republican Conference

The Independent Democratic Conference is a group of six renegade Democrats who effectively let the GOP control the New York State Senate, despite its nominal Democratic majority.

I do not expect there to be an Independent Republican Conference in the U.S. Senate. It will be a 52-48 Republican majority (barring something truly shocking in Louisiana's runoff) -- a two-seat Democratic gain (pickups in Illinois and New Hampshire).

But what is plausible -- maybe -- is that a cohort of Senate Republicans might be willing to break from the past eight years policy of absolute, resolute, kneejerk party line voting and join with Democrats to insure there will be some actual oversight of the Trump administration.

Who are the likely candidates to take up that mantle?

The leader almost certainly would have to be Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE). He was one of the earliest, most consistent, and most outspoken critics of Trump from within the GOP (here's his column on Trump's victory, tealeaf it yourself). That's one -- not because it's guaranteed, but because if he doesn't take the lead I can't imagine any caucus forming. Who else?

The supposedly moderate Susan Collins (ME) is an obvious possibility, but she's never exactly been renowned for her backbone. It'd be a major change for her to start bucking her party on a regular basis. But if ever there was a time for her to grow an actual spine, it'd be now.

Lindsey Graham (SC) could be a possibility. He's likewise been pretty critical of Trump, and has some personal grudges against Trump's wing of the party. His colleague Tim Scott (SC), as the only Black Republican in the Senate, is a complete wild card on this -- I wouldn't normally slot him in unless Trump goes so avowedly White supremacist that he can't not say something.

John McCain (AZ) ... well, who knows what he's thinking these days. I don't have a lot of faith. Jeff Flake might actually be a more realistic shot from this rapidly purpling state.

Marco Rubio (FL) and Ted Cruz (TX)? Don't make me laugh. Both have raced to snuggle up to Trump after getting blown apart by him in the primaries.

Chuck Grassley (IA), Orrin Hatch (UT), and maybe Pat Roberts (KS) might be old enough to do the whole "elder statesmen" thing. None of them will suffer any repercussions if they don't, though.

Dean Heller (NV) might look at Joe Heck's defeat and feel the need to avoid a similar fate. Or he might think that Heck was undone by his late wince away from Trump.

The Democratic Party is in a routed state right now. It will recover, but it will take time. In the meantime, it'll be up to congressional Republicans to decide if they want to put brakes on Trump or let him run wild. Democrats are, for the short-term at least, out of the equation: the last eight years have shown that a unified Republican majority can completely, utterly, entirely shut out the Democratic minority if they want to.

The ball is in your court, Sasse.

Post-Election Roundup: The Bad Place or the Darkest Timeline?

Jill says we're in the darkest timeline. I say we're in The Bad Place. Either way, it ain't good, and my browser is clogging up.

* * *

If there's an award for Most Craven Jewish Organization of 2016, the Republican Jewish Coalition has to be the frontrunner.

Everyone's talking about how coastal elites are in a bubble. But many rural Americans -- who've scarcely met a Muslim or a Jew, or an African-American or an Asian -- are in a huge bubble of their own. And nobody seems all that concerned with urging them to break out, or to take seriously the views of other people unlike them.

Latino Trump voters explain their votes.

A meditation by Joan C. Williams (UC-Hastings Law) on what drives "White working class" (which actually generally means middle class) voters. Basically, they feel like their is a dignity-deficit in their lives, and they hate the professional/managerial (not the rich) class. An interesting read, though I have some reservations.

The anti-Semitization of racism. That's my term, but Phoebe Maltz Bovy explains how racism is beginning to resemble anti-Semitism in that it targets achievement by racial minorities and snarls about their supposed excess of power and influence.

And finally, a truly excellent letter from Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Jason Kander, a Democrat who only narrowly lost his deep red state in a big GOP year. Well worth reading if you need a jolt.

The Humiliating Best-Case Trump Administration Scenario

I want to talk about what I take to be the best-case Trump administration scenario. Now let's be clear, along a lot of axes that scenario is still a pretty grim one. On many issues -- civil rights and liberties, voting rights, the environment, reproductive rights, to name a few -- it's hard to imagine a Trump administration being anything less than cataclysmic. I don't talk about those here, not because they don't matter, but because they aren't meaningfully different in the "best-case" scenario versus the median-case.

So what is our "best-case"? Well, Trump's victory speech focused on infrastructure, and I've joked with my friends that if Donald Trump wants to distract himself for four years by building trains I would be over-the-moon. And this is hardly implausible -- Trump has very little in the way of firm ideology (he's the consummate populist panderer), but he does like building things. He's already calling for a huge stimulus package, of the sort that Democrats have been begging for for years now but Republicans always derided as socialist. Well, "always" meaning "when Democrats propose it." If there's one thing we know about Republicans, it's that they're entirely fine with massive federal government spending so long as it isn't a Democratic idea. So it strikes me as eminently plausible that this could get through Congress.

Likewise on health care. The big news and the end of this week was that President-elect Trump may consider keeping major portions of the Affordable Care Act: specifically, the ban on preexisting condition discrimination and the allowance that young people can stay on their parents' insurance up until age 26. I've also heard that he might continue to support the Medicaid expansion, and I'm dubious Republicans state politicians will continue to resist taking that money now that it isn't an explicit middle finger to Obama. The ban on preexisting condition clauses, for its part, would make it virtually impossible to get rid of the mandate. I fully expect to see some law out of the Republican Congress that purports to "repeal Obamacare." But rather than "repeal and replace," it may well be in essence "repeal and keep." The "repeal" part would basically be an ego salve; or perhaps more accurately, an effort to appropriate Obama's legacy to themselves by taking what's properly termed a "fix" and pretending like it's a brand-new Republican idea.

So let's see: Infrastructure spending. Stimulus. A health care plan modeled on the ACA. All of these are Democratic ideas, that Republicans will now consider only because it won't be a party of Black people and women that's proposing them. This is actually not even that surprising when you look back at American history -- remember how the healthcare mandate was bog-standard Republican orthodoxy right up until it became Obama's policy, at which point it transformed into the greatest threat to human liberty in the past century? Much like Rock & Roll, they'll savage them right up until they can steal and take credit for them. Again, it's the best case scenario because it preserves or implements some genuinely good policies. But it'll be humiliating to see Republicans act as if they came up with these wonderful ideas all by themselves.

And of course, the real moral of the story would simply be "we can get Congress to invest in America again, but only if we wash it down with a gallon jug of White nationalism and misogyny while we're at it." This would not augur well for the future of American progressive politics.

Which Historical Leader Will Trump Most Emulate?

The opening odds:

Silvio Berlusconi ------- 2:1
Vladimir Putin ---------- 4:1
Richard Nixon ---------- 4:1
Hugo Chavez ----------- 5:1
Warren G. Harding ----- 6:1
Andrew Johnson -------- 6:1
Rodrigo Duterte -------- 8:1
Gamal Abdel Nasser --- 10:1
Benito Mussolini ------- 12:1
George W. Bush -------- 12:1
Teddy Roosevelt -------- 30:1
Adolph Hitler ------------ 30:1
Barack Obama ----------- 2000:1

Hebrew Letters in Berkeley, Part II

First, a bit of background.

On Wednesday, the Vice Chancellor sent out a message noting the concern and fear that many felt as a result of happenings this election, and providing a message of support from the Berkeley administration and a thoroughgoing commitment of the university to principles of equality, inclusion, diversity, and tolerance. Her note included a very lengthy list of groups that were "in particular" affected by the election, the rhetoric leading up to it, and its potential aftermath. Jews were conspicuously absent. I thought about writing on that omission, but ultimately elected not to (for reasons that my letter will explain).

On Thursday, the Vice Chancellor sent out an additional message which specifically assured that Berkeley's leaders "condemn bigotry and hatred in all forms, including the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the recent campaign season." Though not expressly mentioned, it was pretty clear that this message was sent due to expressions of concern regarding the omission of Jews from the first email.

What follows is the email I sent to the Vice Chancellor following this second message. I wrote it this afternoon; independently, Richard Jeffrey Newman also authored a thoughtful post about how many progressive groups are -- consciously or not -- omitting Jews from those groups which are seen as threatened by the Trump movement and what it represents. I endorse his post in full as well, and I highly encourage you to read it.

* * *

[Name,]

I wanted to write and thank you for the email you sent out today, acknowledging the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the campaign season and affirming Jewish inclusion in our campus community going forward. As a Jewish student (and faculty member) who is feeling renewed concern about his place in our community and country, it meant a lot to me that you transmitted this message.

I assume this particular email was sent as a follow-up to yesterday's, which did not include Jews among the lengthy list of communities in concern. I admit I had noticed the omission as well. Two things made the absence particularly stand out to me.

• First, all of us probably had a moment Tuesday evening which was particularly piercing for us. For me, it was a Jewish journalist who spent much of Tuesday retweeting message after message gleefully promising him a swift trip to the gas chambers. It drove home for me the real danger that had been unleashed, fanned, and validated this election cycle. Other people of all backgrounds undoubtedly experienced their own iterations of the same. It is a terrible commonality we shared in fear.
• Second, following the first, I considered on Wednesday morning wearing a Hebrew-language t-shirt and additional identifiably Jewish garb simply to send the message "I am not afraid." But ultimately, I did not do so. There were many reasons for this, but one was the fear that my gesture would not be recognized as a rallying point for solidarity; that for many in our community it would not even register that I was threatened by these developments too, in a very real and material way.

Because of those considerations, I had considered writing about the message that was sent when, in such a lengthy listing of groups expressly mentioned as experiencing fear and concern, mine was not among them. But I elected not to. In part, this was because this day and this message was not just about me, and I did not want to center myself as the focal point of the conversation when so many of my peers were hurting in their own way. And in part, it was because I continued to fear that even asking for this gesture of inclusion would be seen as some as an imposition, as illicit, even as a form of theft.

And this hurts. It hurts to feel like one has to beg for the scraps of communal solidarity. And it hurts to feel that, if one does so, it will be viewed by some as fundamentally dishonest -- even appropriative.

The failure to include Jews in lists like these at the outset, without prompting or prodding, matters. It is not because it would ever be possible to list off every single group, but because the lack of Jewish inclusion is read not as an oversight but rather as locating them as similarly situated to the groups that "won" with Trump (even though Jews voted Clinton 70/24). The failure to instinctively perceive Jews as among the communities threatened by waves of populist prejudice goes hand in hand with the presumption that Jews are not entitled to access these forms of solidarity; that when we do ask for support on equal terms, we are arrogating to ourselves something that is not ours, that we are stealing precious resources from the "real" marginalized communities and hoarding it to our perfectly-privileged selves. 

There is, in short, a particular instantiation of structural anti-Semitism in which Jews are viewed as anti-discrimination winners, the outgroup that's in. Jewish oppression very often goes hand in hand with the view that Jews are if anything hyperpowerful, surely not in need of more of the bounty they already possess. The particular way one shows solidarity for Jews in cases like these is to recognize that we count, that we are not artificially but naturally a part of the communities that this week need our help.

The hope of all of us is that each and every community one day will be able to count on that instinctive form of solidarity -- that if we're hurting or threatened or vulnerable, our fellows will be there to have our back not because they were pressured to do so, or persuaded to do so, but simply as a basic reflex. That's our hope not just in Berkeley, but nationwide. It is, perhaps, a particularly distant hope this week. But the first step is to try and cultivate those instincts right here in our own backyard. That is the hard, trying, difficult work that we are tasked with.

Of course, if everyone already perfectly possessed those instincts, we'd be having a very different conversation this week. So I will return to where I began: Thank you for sending the follow-up. It does matter, and it is appreciated. If, as Orlando Battista once said, "an error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it," then I appreciate the attempt to correct the error and the commitment that next time, it will be right the first time.

Thanks again for all of your had work in this difficult time,

--

David Schraub

Lecturer in Law, UC-Berkeley

Senior Research Fellow, California Constitution Center, UC-Berkeley

PhD candidate, Department of Political Science

Democracy is a Choice We Make Everyday

Election day is an important day when we as Americans choose who we are as a nation. Today, Americans chose Donald Trump to be our standard-bearer, and he will be our next President.

I truly didn't think this would happen. I can say that with 100% honesty, as I actually put a bunch of money into the stock market this morning on the assumption I could turn a neat profit on the Clinton victory bounce. That didn't turn out great.

As it became more evident that Donald Trump would win tonight -- massively outperforming prior Republican tallies in White regions even as he lost Latinos by shocking margins -- I didn't quite have the reaction I thought I would. I wasn't quite as panicked as I thought I'd be. I wasn't quite as despondent as I thought I'd be.

This is not a softening on the Trump campaign one bit. I do not believe this election was about "economic anxiety", and I do not believe it was about generic anger at the "establishment". What drove the White majority in this nation was the realization that they didn't have to pretend to care about others' equality. And if they didn't have to do it, they had no interest in it. If ever a hypothesis was falsified, it was the conceit that contemporary American bigotry was subconscious rather than simply in hiding.

Peter Beinart's twitter feed today -- retweeting message after message gleefully promising to send him to the gas chambers -- was an entirely unnecessary confirmation of the hell Trump has unleashed for Jews in this country; a hell that parallels the terrors he promises for Muslims, immigrants, people of color, and women. Indeed, the most terrible lesson we've learned this day is the degree to which White people in this nation thirst to return to an overt position of supremacy -- advantaged not just implicitly but openly. What I was reminded of most was Bernard Henri-Levy's commentary on the resurgence of European anti-Semitism. It came out of a yearning

for people to feel once again the desire and, above all, the right to burn all the synagogues they want, to attack boys wearing yarmulkes, to harass large numbers of rabbis, to kill not just one but many Ilan Halimis....

They want to do it, and they want to feel good about wanting to do it. This election was about White people wanting to no longer feel guilty about wanting to stand atop and astride people of color, about Christian people wanting to no longer feel guilty about dreaming of an America that only includes Christians, about men wanting to no longer feel guilty about their fantasies of assaulting women.

Another lesson we learned was the absolute, complete irrelevancy of the "intellectual" wing of contemporary conservatism -- a faction which has always feared Trump. Let's be clear, if even a quarter of Republicans actually bought into #NeverTrump, this election is a blowout. The GOP establishment, its elites, its thinkers -- people who found Trump risible -- they are trivial. They are nothing. There has probably never been a larger gap between public profile and actual influence in the history of this nation.

So what caused my zen-state earlier this evening? Maybe it was numbness. Maybe it hasn't set in yet.

But Donald Trump is not interested in governing. I suppose thank goodness for that; heaven help us if he developed an interest. But if he's not interested in governing, then he won't be interested in following through on his more vicious policy proposals. They'll require work, after all, and since when does Donald Trump wish to work?

Take the Supreme Court. Trump clearly couldn't care less about it. Which means he'll almost certainly nominate bog-standard conservative justices from the standard conservative lists. Under normal circumstances, that would be awful. But the silver lining is those justices tend to come from that "intellectual" wing of the Party I just dismissed as trivial. They are precisely the sorts of conservatives who may well recoil at any overtly authoritarian tendencies by a Trump administration.

Or perhaps not. The Republican establishment has been thoroughly cowed by Donald Trump, and that has a tendency to prompt one to reconcile oneself (maybe that's what I -- optimistic, establishment-oriented-I -- am doing right now). And does anyone really trust Trump to abide by a hostile court decision? The fact that we're asking these questions is scary in its own right. And there are other issues -- global warming is perhaps the most striking -- where it seems we are probably just doomed.

But what this boils down to is this. As awful as Donald Trump is, I'm less scared of him than I am of the people who elected him. They formed a national plurality that talks of throwing political opponents into jail, that revels in hurting others unlike them, that has unleashed a torrent of racist and sexist abuse the likes of which haven't been seen in my lifetime. All that talk about how "you can't say" certain things about Muslims or Jews or Blacks or women? We've discovered you absolutely can say it -- and become President in the process! That genie won't get bottled up again easily, regardless of how Trump comports himself from this day forward. Trump was just an opportunistic vessel for that sentiment; I no longer think it needs his express or implied support for it to survive. That said, better men than him have tried to purely translate raw populist sentiment into concrete policy. It's no easy task even for skilled politicians.

So where do we find ourselves?

Election day is a day when we as American choose who we want to be as a nation. But that's only because we make that choice every single day. We make it tomorrow, when we agree to a peaceful transition of power. We make it this weekend, when we stop making stupid jokes about moving to Canada and start thinking about our next steps here. We make it over the next two years, when we dig in our heels and renew the fight. We make it each and every moment that we put forward a vision and a dream that the choice America makes for itself tomorrow will be better than the choice we made today.

Today's choice was a terrible choice. But it is not our last choice. It is not history that will vindicate us, or the arc of the universe that will bend our way. It is up to us, and our choices, to (if I can adopt a successful slogan) make America great again.

2016 Election Day Live Blog

It's a Debate Link tradition (though each year I swear to end it). We'll be following returns all evening from throughout the country -- not just Presidential but Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races as well (all times are Pacific -- I'm a California kid now, remember?).

* * *

10:00 PM: Took a long shower. Preparing what I'm going to say to my Intro to American Politics students on Thursday. Frankly, it's amazing how not bad the Senate turned out to be (51-49 GOP) -- but given that we're facing down President Trump with a unified GOP legislature, that's not exactly a consolation. Anyway, I'm probably done for the night. Best of luck to the President-elect, and to the country. As President Obama said, the sun will come up tomorrow.

9:04 PM: 89% of Pennsylvania is in, and Clinton's lead is less than 6,000. McGinty is down by 4,000.

8:55 PM: I wonder if folks realize that Hillary Clinton may about to become a literal martyr for democracy. I mean, I don't expect her to flee the country. And I do expect Trump to do his best to "lock her up." And I hardly expect him to be content with normal legal processes if they don't go his way.

8:37 PM: I'll probably write more about this in another post, but as far as I'm concerned the story of this election is the realization by White voters that they didn't have to care about minorities or their rights. Nobody was forcing them to. And in turned out, when given a choice, they happily elected to endorse White supremacy.

8:24 PM: You might have noticed that I'm basically looking for bright spots while praying that Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire turn around (and Pennsylvania holds up). This moment's bright spot comes to you courtesy of New Jersey where Rep. Scott Garrett (R) is down two points with 88% in. He was wildly conservative for any district, let alone his swingy eastern seaboard one.

8:12 PM: Sheriff Joe Arpaio has lost his bid for reelection in Arizona. And to be too racist to win election tonight is deeply humiliating.

8:10 PM: Yes, Iowa was almost certainly a mirage. Trump's now up by a half point with about half the state in, but the trendlines are clearly moving his way.

7:44 PM: I assume that Clinton being up 10 in Iowa with 30% in is solely a function of which counties are reporting. It's hardly the sort of night where Clinton would pull out a surprise-win in an overwhelmingly White Midwestern state.

7:37 PM: Half in in Pennsylvania, and Clinton is still up four. McGinty is beating that pace, up five against Toomey.

7:29 PM: Colorado is 2/3 in, and Clinton's up 5 there. That's a good thing.

7:24 PM: Ohio called for Trump: He's up by 11 with 75% in.

7:22 PM: On the one hand, Wayne County (Detroit) is only 15% in. On the other hand, Clinton is only up 51/44. Those are cataclysmically bad numbers for her if they hold. Trump is up 50/45 in Michigan as a whole now, with 30% in.

7:20 PM: The only thing really in question in North Carolina right now is the governor's race, where Roy Cooper holds a tiny lead over incumbent Republican Pat McCrory. Ross is down 5.5 points, Clinton 3.5, with 86% in.

7:15 PM: Virginia looking decent for Clinton now, but North Carolina (as well as Florida) almost certainly will go Trump. Michigan and Wisconsin are where it's out now -- and if you thought White working class voters were angry in the southeast....

7:02 PM: Broward County just came in (98%). Trump is still up by 1.5% statewide. Looks like Florida is Trump territory after all. Damn it. Egg on my face (least of my concerns right now, but I'll own it).

6:54 PM: Clinton just took a (tiny) lead in Virginia, with 82% in.

6:52 PM: In Michigan, Clinton is winning Oakland County by 52/44. Earlier in the evening I'd note that's above her county benchmark (49/49). But with rural areas really coming in hard for Trump, the logic is that Clinton needs to badly overperform in counties like Oakland (affluent inner suburbs) to counterbalance Trump's big night out in the exurbs.

6:44 PM: Now it's a 10,000 point gap in Virginia with 80% in. Anyone who follows Virginia politics knows that Democrats tend to keep creeping up in late returns, but it'd be nice if they'd hurry it along and relieve some of my heart palpitations.

6:36 PM: Clinton is creeping up in Virginia. Down just 25,000 votes with 78% in.

6:27 PM: Still waiting on Broward County. A little less than 2/3 in, which is still a lot. But goodness, it really will be down to the wire.

6:12 PM: Since I was harping on county benchmarks, here's the counterstory. The key big counties, Clinton is overperforming. But there are lots of little counties, and Trump is overperforming there. That's the story in Florida, for example -- we'll see if it's the same nationwide.

6:10 PM: 50% of Broward now in, and its not a big dent in Trump's lead. Now I'm officially nervous.

6:03 PM: FL-07 gets called for Stephanie Murphy -- a Democratic pickup.

6:00 PM: Not that it was remotely in doubt, but Chris Van Hollen will be the next Senator from Maryland. First campaign I ever volunteered on. Still a huge fan. Congratulations Senator!

5:53 PM: I'm still feeling pretty good about Florida, with Broward outstanding, but I understand why people are nervous -- particularly with more rural/exurban locales going hard for Trump.

5:51 PM: Given how catastrophic West Virginia is for Democrats these days, its very impressive that a Democrat is winning the governor's race right now. Jim Justice is up 48/42 with 30% in the Mountain State. Clinton, for her part, is down 65/30.

5:42 PM: North Carolina seems to be slipping away from Deborah Ross at the moment. It's not just that Burr just took a lead. Up 55/41 in Wake County (Raleigh) with 88% in, she wanted to be at 57/42.

5:34 PM: Ohio has quietly reported a third of its votes and Clinton is up 50/46. Again glancing at the benchmarks: Cuyahoga County is Clinton 68/29, she wants 68/31 (it's a third in right now as well).

5:30 PM: Two Florida House seats have already flipped, but they cancel each other out and in any event are the product of redistricting turning a blue seat red and vice versa. The two other high-profile House races there were the FL-13, where ex-Gov. (and ex-GOP) Charlie Crist looks like he'll turn the seat blue (albeit by a closer than expected margin -- he's up 52/48 with 91% in), and the FL-26, where Carlos Curbelo held off a truly awful Democratic candidate in Joe Garcia. But remember when I said to keep an eye on the FL-07? 86% in and Democrat Stephanie Murphy is up 52-48 over incumbent Rep. John Mica. There's more vote left in Mica-friendly turf, but this one looks down to the wire.

5:24 PM: I am seeing a lot of panic about Florida, as Trump is currently leading by about 20,000 votes with 89% counted. Broward County is the second largest county in Florida. It has not put in any of its non-early votes. Its early votes went Clinton 70/29 -- well ahead of her benchmark.

5:19 PM: Taking a gander at New Hampshire, we see that Hassan (Senate) and Van Ostern (Governor) are both running ahead of Hillary Clinton. My first instinct was to be pleased, but it seems that Democrats are actually falling a little short of their targets here. Concord, where everyone is stacked at around a 60/35 lead, was supposed to be closer to a 63/36 Democratic advantage. 80% of the vote is counted in Concord, but just 6% statewide.

5:15 PM: Exit polls looking very robust for Jason Kander (D) in Missouri (and the same polls have Trump meaning by about the margin you'd expect, so that helps validate them). Man, do I want that one -- this ad deserves to be rewarded.

5:13 PM: Looks like Rubio is going to hold onto his Senate seat in Florida. There's still a good chunk of south Florida yet to report, but Murphy just isn't wracking up the numbers he needs down there. Miami-Dade is now 80% in and Murphy's only up 54/43 (he wanted 62/38; Clinton's at 63/34).

5:11 PM: It might not seem like big news that Kentucky Republicans cleaned house -- literally -- in taking the Kentucky State House tonight. But Democrats have held it continuously since the 1920s. Really, this is just the final spasm of the realignment of Appalachia, but it's still worth noting.

5:08 PM: Tammy Duckworth knocks off Mark Kirk to secure the first Democratic Senate pickup of the night. Probably the most "in the bag" Senate race for us, but it still feels really good -- especially after Kirk's grotesque racism at the tail end of the campaign.

5:00 PM: I'm feeling really good about a Clinton victory tonight. The Senate is a dicier proposition. With Indiana out (as I suspected it would be), Democrats still need that last piece of the puzzle assuming that their core trio of Wisconsin/Illinois/Pennsylvania holds together. In Florida, Murphy is inching closer to Rubio but remains four points behind (compared to Clinton, who's up by two). In North Carolina, Deborah Ross (D) is ahead of incumbent Richard Burr by four points whilst Clinton is currently leading in the state by seven. The good news is that Ross is -- just -- hitting the number she needs in Wake County (the largest in the state): with 25% in she's up 58/38 there, she needs to be 57/42.

4:56 PM: We must be close to calling Florida, right? Clinton's up by 2% with 73% in. Trump and Clinton are tied in Duval County (Jacksonville), a place Trump absolutely needed to win. Meanwhile, the south Florida trio of Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties haven't reported anything except their early vote -- and Clinton's beating her benchmarks in all three.

4:54 PM: Ohio Senate race goes to Rob Portman without trouble. A state Democrats should have been competitive in, but where ex-Gov. Ted Strickland could not get off the ground. Meanwhile, Richard Burr is maintaining a slight lead in North Carolina -- but will it hold as Democratic areas start to come in?

4:51 PM: With Clinton's early numbers looking excellent in both Florida and Virginia (don't worry about the aggregate totals right now -- she's hitting or beating her benchmarks in the huge counties that will decide things), my eye falls on Pennsylvania. Florida and Virginia are blue-trending states where higher percentages of educated, professional, and/or Latino voters are giving Trump fits. Pennsylvania, at least in theory, cuts a different profile -- a state where their remains a solid core of working class white rust belters. If they break red this year in a mirror image of how Latinos and upscale professionals are turning blue, we still have a race. If not, we're done here.

4:42 PM: All the early numbers look dreadful for Evan Bayh, who seemed to piss away a sizable lead late in this race. I'm 10% satisfied, because Bayh is the quintessential entitled arrogant political hack and this is justified comeuppance, and 90% annoyed, because this was a Senate seat Democrats should have taken and he blew it hard. 24% in and he's down 55/39

4:40 PM: The VA-10 is one of those races that Democrats need to win if they have a chance of making the House interesting. It's a blue-trending district whose demographics (wealthy educated professionals) are primed to despise Trump, but currently held by a really strong Republican incumbent in Barbara Comstock. And with 22% in, Comstock is leading her Democratic challenger by a measly 400 votes.

4:35 PM: Man, it really will be interesting to see if the Latino tide that is drilling Trump in Florida right now carries over to sweep Rubio out of office. As much as I'd like to see it, it looks like there are enough ticket-splitters for Rubio to survive. There are some House races, too, where Democrats might see some stretchier pickups -- keep your eye on the FL-07.

4:27 PM: That said, it doesn't seem like Trump's misfortunes are carrying over to Marco Rubio. Right now, he's running 7 points ahead of Trump's pace -- enough to give him a five point lead over Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy.

4:23 PM: Early numbers looking very good for Clinton in Florida. She's ahead in Duval County, where Romney narrowly won in 2012 (and recall that Trump needs to do better than Romney to win the state). In Palm Beach County, she's starting out up 61/37 -- the benchmark she needs to hit is 58/41. Ditto Broward County, where Clinton wants to keep Trump at 32% or below ... and he's not even cracking 30% right now.

4:17 PM: There's a lot of crowing about South Carolina being "too close to call" following exit polls. I personally am less enthused, for two reasons. (1) SC is extremely polarized by race, so Democrats have both a high floor and a low ceiling; and (2) it does Clinton no good to lose SC by less than the typical Democrat. In fact, it's the possibility that Clinton will overperform in non-competitive states while getting nipped at the finish line in swing states that's been my main frustration with relying on national popular vote polls (and my main keep-me-up-at-night terror).

4:09 PM: CNN has called the Kentucky Senate race for Rand Paul. Not a surprise, even with Gray overperforming Clinton (and Grimes in 2014). I will observe -- not to give false hope -- that CNN's tally is behind other numbers I've seen (e.g., those nice numbers for Gray out of Fayette County).

4:05 PM: The GOP's stranglehold over the south may well be cracking. Virginia and North Carolina are already purple. Meanwhile younger voters -- and "younger" here means younger than 45 -- are now decisively in the Democratic corner in Georgia.

3:55 PM: One sleeper race that nobody had on the radar was the Kentucky Senate race, where Democrat Jim Gray challenged incumbent Senator Rand Paul (R). And to be sure, most sleeping races stay asleep. But in Fayette County, near Lexington, Gray is beating 61/39 with 80% in (by comparison, in 2014 Democratic candidate Allison Lundergan-Grimes won this county 52/45  in the course of losing statewide to Senator Mitch McConnell 56/40). But particularly in a state like Kentucky, it's entirely plausible that the more liberal portions of the state might swing noticeably to the D column even as the more conservative areas tilt even harder to the right -- and there are more of the latter than the former.

3:51 PM: Exit polls are tricky business. But if this one is at all accurate, it does not augur well for the GOP -- it has Latinos voting for Clinton over Trump by a crushing 79/18 split (it was 71/27 in 2012, 67/31 in 2008).

3:49 PM: Since we've got some time, let's use an early example of the importance of looking at comparative county level data rather than early aggregate numbers. There is currently one county in Indiana where a non-negligible percentage of the votes are in: Montgomery County, northwest of Indianapolis (59% in). At the presidential level, it's going 73/23 Trump (about a 5,000 vote advantage). Now, I have no idea if that's historically good or bad for the GOP nominee. What I do know is that at the Senate level, it's 63 Young (R)/30 Bayh (D), and for the Governor's race it's 61 Holcomb (R)/35 Gregg (D). So the downballot Democrats are running about 15 points ahead of Clinton in that county -- potentially a good sign that there's a non-trivial number of ticket-splitters, though again it's hard to know without info on how strongly Republican this county is (not to mention it's super-early, this is a relatively small county, etc. etc.).

3:39 PM: The first few polls have closed! They're in Kentucky, where nothing really is competitive, and Indiana, which is going to go for Trump at the Presidential level but has interesting races downballot. Of course, we still have some time before any sizable results come in.

11:58 AM: States are not a monolith. Different counties vote different ways -- in Florida, for example, Miami-Dade votes very differently than the Panhandle. Consequently, it's easy to be mislead by early returns which often come from a few counties which are likely to be unrepresentative of the state as a whole. What you want to do is see whether Democrats are over- or underperforming relative to their historic vote totals on a county-by-county level. If, for example, you saw that Clinton was getting 75% of the vote in St. Louis City, you might elated -- except that Obama got 83% there in 2012 and Clinton would want to approach 90% to counteract more conservative rural counties and win the entire state.

On this note, DK Elections' county benchmarks are an absolutely invaluable resource. They'll give a sense of where Democrats should be shooting for if they want to pick up swing states (and even in non swing states, overperforming 2012 numbers may be a good sign down ballot).

10:50 AM: I suppose I should get my final predictions in, while the getting's good:

President: Hillary Clinton 323 EV (49.2), Donald Trump 215 (45.1). Clinton takes Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and both Maine districts. Trump gets Ohio and Iowa.

Senate: 50/50. Democrats hold Nevada and flip Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and one of New Hampshire or North Carolina (force me to choose and I'll say New Hampshire). Republicans hold Florida, Indiana and (sadly) Missouri.

House: Democrats break 200 seats but fail to win a majority.

Gubernatorial: Democrats hold Missouri, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Montana; flip Indiana and North Carolina. If this comes true, it represents Democrats running the table on the contested governors' races -- but it seems like their candidates are overperforming compared to the Senate.

8:17 AM: There won't be a lot worth reporting on for awhile, and I have a morning meeting anyway, so for now I'll just leave you with my personal GOTV theme lyrics, courtesy of Hoobastank's "Without a Fight":

The clock is counting down...
The seconds tick away...

This is our time! Without a doubt!
Time to ignite! We're not going down,
Without a fight!

This is our time! Get up off the ground!
Take what is mine! We're not going down,
Without a fight!

A Republic, If We Can Keep It

Ben Franklin was always my favorite founding father, at least since I played him in Burning Tree Elementary's Fifth Grade Play (the play was called Let George Do It, but my scene was actually a cut-in from 1776). It may even predate that -- I have to imagine I read Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by his Good Mouse Amos at an even earlier age (an excellent children's book, by the way -- all good children's books contain mice).

Among Dr. Franklin's most famous lines was his reported statement, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, that we had created "a Republic, if you can keep it."

The constitutional character of America is not something one can take for granted, and it is not something we claim by birthright. We must keep it, each and every day. It is an ongoing responsibility.

But some days are more salient than others. Election days are always among them, and this election day is more meaningful than most. This is the moment where we get to decide what sort of country we want to be. This is the moment where we get to prove that our homilies about law and liberty, equal justice and due process, free speech and free press, are more than just words.

Some of you (like myself) have already voted. If so, thank you. If you are waiting until election day, please make sure to go to the polls. And if you are still unsure of whether it's worth voting, or whether there's time, or whether it matters -- it is, there is, and it does.

America is not perfect, but it is a great Republic -- a haven for millions who have come to these shores seeking a better life, and a model for millions more inspired by our constitutional ideals. I never want America to stop being the sort of place people around the world look up to. I never want America to stop being the sort of place where people believe that they can achieve their dreams. I never want America to stop being the sort of place where people want to immigrate to.

America, is and has been all of these things. They define and demarcate our Republic.

Tomorrow, we will see if a majority of Americans find that Republic to be worth keeping.

Marco Rubio Losing Would Be the Best Thing That Could Happen to the GOP

I'm assuming -- perhaps too brightly, although even the most pessimistic projectors have Hillary Clinton the sizable favorite -- that Hillary Clinton will win Tuesday night, and Donald Trump will lose. Other Republicans will lose next week as well. Mark Kirk will lose. Ron Johnson will almost certainly lose (though the "almost" is a recent addition, and not the right trendline). Joe Heck might lose, if the massive Democratic wave in the early voting is any indicator.

Marco Rubio, by contrast, probably will not lose. And that's a shame.

It's not, truth be told, that I have any personal objections to Marco Rubio -- at least, no more so than come standard to pretty much any Republican these days. If anything, Rubio is probably an above-average Republican (not that that's saying much). In any event, my argument isn't based around Rubio needing to lose because he's particularly bad or malicious or anything of that nature. Rather, what I care about is whether there is any hope of the non-lunatic wing of the GOP to win its coming civil war. For it to do so, the bulk of the party will have to come to terms with the fact that the path it's currently on -- the path that led them to Trump -- is not sustainable. And to come to the realization, important Republicans -- those who stand a chance of leading the party in the future -- will have to personally experience pain. And loss.

Mark Kirk losing his seat will not cause anyone to undergo any soul-searching. Nor will losses by Ron Johnson, or Joe Heck, or Pat Toomey, or many of the other vulnerable-ish Republicans this year. The difference between Rubio and many other Republicans who might lose on Tuesday is that Rubio represents the future of the Republican Party -- at least, if it is to have any future. In office, Rubio hasn't really shown the moxie to stand up to the radicals of his party -- sure, he tried to do work on immigration, but he folded like a cheap suit in the face of right-wing pressure. If he's reelected, I expect him to continue in that largely go-along get-along fashion. But unlike most of his colleagues, Marco Rubio still matters to the GOP even if he loses reelection. And a Marco Rubio who goes from rising star to unemployed because of Donald Trump is a Marco Rubio who will be highly motivated to grab his Party by the jaw and wrench their eyes toward some uncomfortable truths.

Is It Still a "Smear" If It's, You Know, True?

"Republicans are racist. That’s been the predictable smear the left has hurled at the GOP for decades. It was always ever groundless and cynical," opens Noah Rothman, right before effectively admitting it turned out to be exactly right.

The title of the piece is "The GOP's White Supremacy Problem", and hey, if that by-now-reflexive presage is what you need to actually reckon with the problem then go for it I guess, but I can't say that it inspires a ton of confidence.

Lee Smith on the SPLC is the Bizarro Version of Berkeley Protest

The other day, a colleague of mine described the typical Berkeley student activist's argument as "taking a reasonable point, and then pushing it so hard and so far that it stops being reasonable and starts being terrible."

Lee Smith of Tablet Magazine must have attended Berkeley.

Smith has primarily graced my virtual pages for his commentary on the Iran Nuclear Deal. The problem was not that he opposed it -- I had mixed feelings myself, though ultimately came out in favor -- or even linking the issue to questions of anti-Semitism. The problem was that Lee's contributions were consistently histrionic, bordering on conspiratorial, and frequently failed to display basic reading comprehension skills.

Today's target is the Southern Poverty Law Center's newly released field guide to anti-Muslim extremists. The document lists off fifteen names, much of the public disdain for this document centers around its inclusion of Maajid Nawaz, founder of the Quilliam Foundation and self-described liberal Muslim activist. I had heard of Nawaz, though I didn't know much about him, but even solely going off what the SPLC says about him in this document the case for labeling him an "anti-Muslim extremist" seems exceptionally thin. Placing him on a list that includes Pam Geller seems recklessly irresponsible at best, discrediting at worst.

So, we start with a reasonable point! What will Smith do with it?

It is sad but telling that the SPLC’s so-called field guide to Muslim-haters is not a list of violent extremists—who certainly do exist—but is instead a blacklist of prominent writers whose opinions on a range of cultural and political issues are offensive to the SPLC. The SPLC blacklist list contains practicing Muslims like Maajid Nawaz, ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, foreign-policy think-tankers like Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes, and right-wing firebrands like David Horowitz—none of whom could be reasonably described as anti-Muslim bigots.

Who indeed could call Frank Gaffney -- who thought President Obama must "still" be a Muslim following his Cairo address -- or David "Islamo-fascism awareness week" Horowitz "anti-Muslim bigots"? It's unreasonable, I say! I will cop that both are non-violent, but hatred and malign ideologies are hardly limited to the explicitly violent variety (indeed, that observation -- noting that there are "Islamists" who are non-violent but still hold deeply reactionary views -- is one of the things that got Nawaz on the list!). Hell, even take Smith's next-most-sympathetic example, after Nawaz -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali has an extraordinarily powerful and moving life story. But she really did advocate closing down Muslim schools in the West, and that really is pretty flagrantly biased. It's perfectly valid and appropriate to call that out.

Oh, and speaking of President Obama, you know he's going to make an appearance:

Interestingly, the document fails to list the man who, according to [the SPLC's] description, is the world’s most influential anti-Muslim extremist—President Barack Obama, who told the Atlantic that young people in the Middle East are only thinking about how to kill Americans.

No, he didn't (Smith is kind enough to include the link. Go ahead and read it -- Obama said nothing of the sort.). I tweeted at Tablet that they "could save a ton of money by firing its editors, since they're clearly not doing anything anyway", and this was the section I had in mind. This is the sort of passage that a self-respecting editor has to put on the chopping block. I've written for Tablet, I know they're capable of doing it. I can't imagine they're not embarrassed by this. If you don't care about Smith looking bad, at least care about what you're doing to yourself.

Finally, Smith is shocked that the SPLC urges that people not rely upon these listees as sources on Islam.

Nor does the SPLC hide the fact that the purpose of its publication is to blacklist and silence its enemies. The field guide recommends to its consumers in the media that they, “research the background of extremist spokespeople and consider other sources, and if they do use anti-Muslim spokespeople, point out their extremism.”

I mean, really? Is that our definition of "blacklist" now (we'll just skate past Smith uncritically adopting the whole "people not listening to my terrible opinions is 'silencing'!" frame) -- trying to rely on reputable sources when talking about a given group, rather than fringe lunatics? It's a "blacklist" to "consider other sources" on Islam other than Pamela Gellar? Really? I mean, soon, we might ask that the newspaper not rely on Kevin MacDonald or Miko Peled regarding the Jews (both are, to be scrupulously fair, non-violent, and according to Smith that's the only hurdle one needs to cross)!

There is a reasonable point in here that the SPLC, in including someone like Nawaz as an "anti-Muslim extremist", badly damaged its credibility in a quite noble endeavor to get mainstream media sources to stop treating Frank Gaffney (who thought the Obama administration was gearing up to invade Israel), or Pam Geller (who rose to prominence by objecting to building mosques in lower Manhattan because they must be celebrating the 9/11 attacks) as credible. That is a very much a point worth making; my instinct is to share in it. But Smith insists on taking that good point and absolutely obliterating it in his usual explosion of breathless hysterics.

He'd fit right in among a certain crowd here at Berkeley.

Has the GOP Already Lost Its Civil War?

Last week, I talked about how good Republicans -- the sorts who are genuinely appalled by Donald Trump and have been from the beginning -- need to come to terms with the underlying causes that brought him to the fore of their party. Donald Trump was not an act of God, he was not a bolt of lightning. He is the Republican nominee because of choices the Republican Party made in dealing with its coalition -- fanning flames of bigotry, paranoia, anti-intellectualism, and outright hatred. Many have suggested that after this election (assuming Trump loses), the GOP will face a "civil war" between the pro-Trump elements of the Party and the "establishment" wing.

Jonathan Chait offers another hypothesis: The GOP already had its civil war, and the Trump wing has won. The only thing now is for sane conservatives to admit defeat and leave.

Chait has some powerful evidence, not the least of which is the fact that Republicans who dare stand up to Trump for even a moment tend to see their approval ratings crater among Republican voters. The fact of the matter is that the median Republican right now is not "appalled" by Donald Trump. They are not outraged by what he's done to the party. Donald Trump represents what they want out of Republicans. They're never happier than when a Republican Congressman whips up yet another frenzied foam of investigatory nonsense against this or that Democratic leader -- Hillary Clinton makes for a good target, but she's hardly necessary for the feeding frenzy. It's no accident that the way Republicans rally votes now is by swearing to never confirm a Supreme Court Justice nominated by a Democrat while pining longingly at the possibility of putting a "bullseye" on Hillary Clinton -- while standing in a gun store. This is the Republican Party for the foreseeable future. The civil war was this year's primary. Non-lunatics lost. Decisively.

It is far from clear that there is anything good Republicans can do to save their party at this point. That's a bitter pill to swallow, no doubt, but a necessary one. The choice is either a fundamentally sane party that is more to the left than you'd like, or an increasingly nightmarish disaster-show where sitting governors consider Trump's potential to be "authoritarian" to be a form of praise.

Your call.

Meet Avi Buskila, The New (Mizrahi) Head of Peace Now

I highly, highly recommend you read this fascinating interview with Avi Buskila, the new head of Peace Now in Israel. Buskila is a gay Mizrahi Jew (his parents immigrated from Morocco), he grew up on Israel's periphery, and he has combat experience as an IDF soldier -- including stopping a terrorist attack by a fellow IDF servicemember on innocent Palestinians. Some highlights:

On the left and Mizrahim

Buskila talks about the kind of posts he encounters in left-wing groups on social media. For example one person wrote: "We've gathered the savages and brought them to Israel, and now they are destroying us," meaning Jews of Mizrahi descent. "After all, right-wingers equal Mizrahim, equal religious," he says. 

But Buskila says has no intention of being the "left’s pet Mizrahi."

"I won’t apologize for serving in the IDF longer than Naftali Bennett or for living in the periphery longer than Miri Regev," he says defiantly. 

"The portrayal of the left as old and Ashkenazi is accurate. There are a lot of people in the (peace) camp who would rather see us fail than give up their control. They refuse to recognize that it’s time they retire and leave. But I have news for them—they are going to lose control and if they don't, we'll take it from them, both in the political parties and in organizations. The left, in many ways, failed to speak to the people. For years, it just told everyone why they are wrong."

"The left doesn’t respect the painful narrative of fear. I don’t doubt my mother's fears. She spent most of her life in shelters under the threat of rocket fire. Speaking their language means I'm not preaching, and I'm not constantly explaining to someone why he's wrong. It's not about coming from Tel Aviv to tell a Netivot resident that his fears and the discrimination he feels are nonexistent bullshit. I accept what they're telling me."

On coordinating with international actors

"Everyone can do what they think is right. I respect and support these organizations. At the end of the day, Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem are my partners, and we all have the same vision. What distinguishes between us is our style of work. I don’t feel their international work harms Peace Now. However, I do strongly oppose BDS. It hurts us and undermines a possible agreement. We need to speak up in the international arena but to choose carefully whom we speak with. I have not lost hope for the State of Israel."

On the Israeli right's standard-bearers

"There's a small settler group that delegitimizes the entire country. Naftali Bennett speaks of annexation and other such nonsense, but he is terrified. He doesn’t have the courage to go through with it. Why isn’t this right-wing government annexing the territories? Bennett is dangerous because his party produces the most extreme statements that threaten Israeli democracy.

"For example, Uri Ariel, a man who symbolizes all that is bad in my eyes—the scared Diaspora Jew who walks around with a grenade in his pocket fearing for his life. He doesn’t care about anything but Greater Israel and is willing to pay for it with rivers of blood. The man uses the Torah to produce racism, homophobia, and a lot of money. He is not alone; he sits with (Bezalel) Smotrich, who is insane, and Ayelet Shaked, who manages to say the most terrible things with such a sweet tone. She seems not to understand that a more Jewish state means that I do not have the right to live here because I am gay, that the entire country will be closed down for Shabbat, and our children will learn to read from Torah scrolls in the first grade.  

"Ask Bennett for me: how many Mizrahim are in his Bayit Yehudi party? There aren’t a lot because it’s a party that represents a settler elite, which is Ashkenazi and Anglo-Saxon. They think that he people should worship them. And within this elite there is another elite: the Hebron settlers who are Ashkenazi and receive even more money than other settlers. They don’t think of other Israeli citizens, not even my mother or their friends in Kiryat Shmona. They think only of themselves. NIS 300 million went to settlements in recent months. How much money went to the residents of Kiryat Shmona? Did Bibi visit Kiryat Shmona or even look down at it from a plane? The city is on the verge of collapse. When it was under attack during the Second Lebanon War, it was relatively protected. Today it interests no one."

But seriously -- read the whole thing.

After Ammon Bundy, Can We PLEASE Stop Obsessing Over O.J. Simpson?

Ammon Bundy and his cohort have been acquitted of all charges following their seizure of a federal Oregon Wildlife Refuge despite, you know, clearly having done it. A lot of people are upset about this, but I'm not. You want to know why?

Honestly, the O.J. Simpson trial had been getting a bit dated as a reference for "criminal trial where obviously guilty persons don't get convicted."* And with the Bundy acquittal, we can finally let the Simpson case go and focus our contempt for the criminal justice system and effective jury nullification on a more recent and topical case.

That's precisely how this will work, right? We are all equally outraged when high-profile White people escape punishment for the crimes they clearly committed?

* In many ways, this is worse than the Simpson case -- for while Simpson was almost assuredly guilty, at least he actually denied committing the crime. The Bundys more or less admitted to doing everything the government charged them with, with a defense justified by "but it's the government, so come on" -- a much more classic case of nullification.