Learning the Right Wrong Lessons, Part II

The major pivot point in Joe Biden's term in office did not stem from inflation or the war in Gaza. It came following his withdrawal from Afghanistan. That decision was marked by a few key characteristics:

1. It was the right call: we weren't accomplishing anything in Afghanistan, and nobody had a better plan to turn things around other than "stay for six more months, and then six more months after that."
2. It was always going to be bumpy, leaving ample attack avenues open for political opponents (and the media) to exploit; and
3. It was vocally demanded by the American left.

Three of Biden's predecessors over a twenty year period had stayed in Afghanistan, perhaps not believing the first point, perhaps fearing the second. Biden was the one who actually followed through and did the right thing, hoping that the progressive actors who enlivened the third point would rise to his defense to counteract the second.

It didn't happen. Biden withdrew, got absolutely pilloried for it in the press, received essentially no credit for it from the left, and to be honest his presidential tenure never recovered. As I and many others observed, any rational political observer knew what lesson to draw from the ordeal, and it's not a good one.

I think we're going through the same scenario with Biden's recent commutation wave targeting persons who were already moved into home confinement during COVID. After the Hunter Biden pardon, there were absolutely valid questions about how the clemency power was being used, and one narrative many progressives rapidly coalesced on was that if Biden is going to pardon his own son, he better use it to the benefit of ordinary, non-connected inmates in the clutches of prison system. Much like the Afghanistan withdrawal, this was a vocal demand of the left, and much like the Afghanistan withdrawal it was essentially assured that any large-scale deployment of the clemency power would yield something that political opponents could exploit. Contrary to the idyll fantasies in certain quarter, most people in prison have indeed done something wrong, and any political action to benefit the likes of "them" is a ripe avenue for political attack. This is one reason why criminal justice reform is hard.

Anyway, Biden issues a commutation order for roughly 1500 people, the largest one-day usage of the clemency power in American history. One of the beneficiaries was the notorious "kids for cash" judge in Pennsylvania, Michael Conahan. People -- including liberals who a moment earlier were demanding expansive use of the clemency power -- went ballistic. And Biden got essentially got no credit.

It goes without saying that the Conahan committed an absolutely heinous crime. But it is a testament to how bad the media culture is around this issue that when I first heard about Biden's decision I was misled twice. First I thought it was the case that Biden pardoned Conahan; he didn't, the sentence was commuted. Then I got the impression that the commutation meant that the judge would serve a negligible time in jail (time is meaningless to me right now, I had absolutely no sense of when the judge committed his crimes or was convicted and sentenced). Wrong again: Conahan was sentenced to seventeen years in prison, and this commutation occurred after he served fourteen.

Could one say that the Biden administration could have reviewed the commutations more closely to make sure a guy like this wasn't included? Perhaps -- but I'd level two notes of caution. First, if it wasn't him, odds are it'd be someone else. Again, most people in federal prison did something to hurt someone. If you support using clemency on a wide scale, you have to be willing to take that hit. Second, there is an inherent incompatibility between doing clemency at scale and adding a bunch of extra layers of individualized review. If we're talking a dozen or so people or so, it's probably possible to conduct a timely review of each of their records in depth that will assure oneself that there's nothing there that will trigger major political blowback. When we're talking about thousands of people at once, that sort of review isn't feasible without gumming up the works indefinitely. So if you think the problems in our carceral system are not just a few idiosyncratic cases of unusually sympathetic people who were caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, but is systemic, then you need to allow for reform mechanisms that are systemic in nature, and that necessarily means they're not going to be perfectly attentive to the particularities of every inmate's case.

Here, the reason that Conahan received a commutation wasn't because someone looked at his particular case file and said "this person is especially worthy of executive grace." There was rather a broad metric the Biden administration was using -- people who had already served most of their sentences, were medically vulnerable in prison, had not been convicted of violent or sexual offenses, and who had already been transferred into home confinement -- and this man was one of 1500 or so who met the criteria. That's a reasonable metric, and if you're telling me that it's essential to add more bureaucratic barriers to the clemency process -- and, in essence, make it much, much harder to issue clemency at scale -- in order to ensure that Michael Conahan serves seventeen years in prison instead of fourteen, then I say your priorities are out of order.

But the reality is that, like with Afghanistan, any observer will see what Joe Biden did here, see the reaction, see the anemic defense he received even from many of those who demanded action just like this, and learn the only rational lesson there is to learn: stay away from criminal justice reform. Be stingy with the clemency power. Keep more people in prison for longer. That's the lesson, and I'm sure every savvy Democratic politico is internalizing it.

Learning the Right Wrong Lessons

The Biden administration's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan should be viewed as a milestone moment in political courage. Instead, as both Scott Lemieux and Kevin Drum observe, it's probably one of his biggest political millstones. How did this happen?

We need to be clear: Afghanistan had become a hopeless quagmire. As Lemieux puts it, we could stay "for six more months" in perpetuity and just slowly bleed more and more, or we could make a decision to leave. Eventually, someone would have to make the decision to leave, and the only question was who would rip off the band-aid. Three different presidents kicked that can down the road for someone else to deal with.

It was Biden who finally had the guts to step forward, and he did so knowing he'd take a hit. There was no way withdrawing from Afghanistan was going to be pretty. Losing rarely is. But in the scheme of things, the withdrawal went about as smoothly as reasonably possible. Again, "reasonably possible" -- losing isn't going to be pretty. But all the armchair generals in the world still haven't offered much alternatives aside from "stay for another six months, and another six months after that." See point one.

Biden should have earned praise for this call. Instead, he get hit with a brutal one-two punch -- one from the media, which positively excoriated him over the "chaotic" withdrawal; and then from the putatively anti-war left which gave him essentially no credit for the move and certainly showed zero interest in providing substantial political cover for it. Indeed, it is fair to say that the Afghanistan withdrawal was the negative turning point in Biden's poll numbers with the American people. Doing the right thing got him nothing with the left and got him scorn with the right.

It can be hard to predict political fallout -- my students are now young enough that I have to emphasize to them that the moral taken from Nader 2000 was absolutely not "Democrats learned that they can't take the left for granted!" -- but even the most dimwitted politician surely will understand what obvious lesson to draw from this story, and it's not a good one. Nice work, team.

Clown Cars Aren't For Driving, They're For Clowning

At the start of the congressional session, I predicted that "endless stunt investigations is all the House GOP will do, because it's all they can agree upon". I'll give myself a pat on the back for that one, as the House -- on its second try -- decided to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for absolutely no discernible reason.

It's dead-on-arrival in the Senate, and rightfully so, but we need to reiterate just how pathetic and embarrassing this was. It was embarrassing when it failed the first time, and it's embarrassing that it succeeded the second time. The nominal complaint -- that Mayorkas isn't enforcing border policy to Republicans liking -- is not only not an impeachable offense (except insofar as Republicans believe it's unconstitutional for them to lose elections, which appears to be increasingly their consensus view), but it's doubly-embarrassing to blame Mayorkas for inaction on the border given that congressional Republicans can't even pass their own bill on the border because they think doing so will help Biden in the next election (and because actual policymaking, unlike endless stunt investigations, requires actual position-taking). Republicans dealing with the fact that they are too chaotic and incompetent to even have, let alone enact, an agenda on the issue they say is a Crisis Invasion Destroying America!!1!!1! by impeaching a Democrat is the latest example of the crippling infantilization that has completely overtaken the party.

The fiasco did give me a chance to call my Republican congressional representative, Lori Chavez-Deremer (R-OR), and Be Mad At Her, but to by honest my heart wasn't fully in it this time. I genuinely don't understand why Chavez-Deremer even wants to be in Congress at this point. She's not doing anything there -- she's certainly not legislating -- she just mindlessly nods along with whatever ridiculous circus show her more creative MAGA colleagues decide to put forward in any given week. One would think she could do the same thing much more remuneratively as a talk radio host, and with any luck after the next election she'll get that opportunity. 

[Image: NYT]

How Should the Single-Issue Palestine Voter Vote?

One of the bigger political stories to cross my path the past week was the report that a planned meeting between Biden campaign surrogates and Arab and Muslim community leaders in Michigan was canceled due to local furor at Joe Biden's support for Israel during the current war in Gaza. It was a punctuation mark on evidence that Muslim and Arab voters are seriously considering, if not outright committed to, withholding their votes from Joe Biden come November -- a decision that could have serious electoral ramifications in a swing state like Michigan.

Some Democratic commentators have clearly been surprised at the scope and severity of this reaction. But their surprise, I think, stems a fundamental misunderstanding of how closely -- or not -- the Arab and Muslim community was tied to the Democratic Party in the first place. These ties were much, much shallower than it appeared; a shallowness that was masked by the seeming impossibility of Muslims voting Republican in the post-9/11 and especially Trumpist era of extreme GOP Islamophobia. But much like with Latinos, Democratic strategists confused a negative polarization story for deeper partisan loyalty. 

Before 9/11, Arabs and Muslims were considered a swingy, even potentially right-leaning, voting bloc. Those sentiments still have plenty of purchase, and for persons who hold them it's hardly unfathomable to not pull the lever for a Democrat. And while for White people, "I'm so mad at Biden about Palestine that I won't vote for him" is almost certainly a phenomenon overwhelmingly associated with the leftier edge of the progressive coalition, that almost certainly is not the case amongst Muslim and Arab voters, for whom strong support for Palestine is -- if not quite wall-to-wall -- something that very much crosses ideological borders. If you envision that centrist or even conservative Muslim who nonetheless voted Democrat in the last few elections for no other reason than the relatively straightforward rationale of "Republicans hate us", it wouldn't necessarily take that much for them to decide to drop Biden or even vote GOP if their furor at Biden's Israel policy grows intense enough.

On that note, Matthew Petti has a fascinating and thoughtful piece on how we might expect Muslim-American conservatism to affect partisan politics in the coming years. He runs through several possibilities, from "Muslim conservatives will perform right-wing pro-Israel bona fides" (something we've definitely seen in recent years) to "the GOP will grow significantly more open to pro-Palestinian politics". The latter possibility has been largely masked because of the degree to which the GOP has defined itself by extreme chest-thumping pro-Israel politics. But while it may not be the most likely outcome, at least in the near-term, there are burblings that might give hope or fear (depending on your point of view). The true nationalist-conservative MAGA base absolutely contains significant elements that (for the usual unsavory reasons) are absolutely prepared if not eager to jettison support for Israel and instead cast Israel and Zionism as enemies of the American volk. While these views aren't common amongst elected Republicans, they aren't utterly unheard of either -- as in Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)'s social media post pitting "American patriotism" against "Zionism". And while much has been written about young liberals turning against Israel, there's also evidence of similar ebbing of support amongst young conservatives -- both amongst the nationalist right and amongst evangelicals -- a trend which offers rare opportunities for the GOP to fight in a demographic they sorely want to make inroads with. Back in 2021 I floated the possibility -- unlikely, but not absolutely impossible to imagine -- of Trump turning against Israel in 2024 (remember the "fuck him!" heard 'round the world?); if that happened, it could really crack some coalitions wide open. At the very least, Trump's mercurial enough to do it, and the GOP base is slavish enough to follow along with it.

Given all that, I've been wondering: what should the pure single-issue pro-Palestine voter do in 2024? By single-issue voter, I mean someone for whom the sole and decisive basis upon which they'll cast their vote is the issue of Palestine. While for most people that's an oversimplification of their decisionmaking process, it might not be for everyone, and it in practice might also roughly capture a classic "centrist" or "independent" voter for whom all the other issues that might push one towards Biden or Trump (abortion rights, democracy, health care, whatever) basically wash out, such that Palestine becomes the decisive issue.

To that person, the Biden 2024 pitch has been pretty straightforward: If the only thing you care about is Palestine, Trump would be worse on Palestine. No matter how angry you are at Biden, he's still the lesser of two evils on this issue.

Of course, some people aren't willing to vote for the lesser of two evils. But let's leave even that cadre aside. One can absolutely imagine arguments contesting the premise -- is Biden actually a lesser evil? Obviously, if Trump makes the pivot against Israel discussed above, that would sharply contest the premise. If that possibility seems unlikely, there's also the argument that Trump and Biden are equivalently evil -- their positions are materially identical. Even if, by stipulation, Trump's rhetoric might be worse and more cheerleader-y of Israel's worst excesses, it might be that such additional "support" makes no marginal difference at the level of policy. If one thinks that Israel already is maxing out the brutality it can impose upon the Palestinian population, then Trump being "more" pro-Israel is superfluous -- it doesn't make a difference. In such a world, how one votes in 2024 will make no difference on the level of policy except to the extent that it signals that the pro-Palestine voting bloc is a force that needs to be reckoned with going forward. So what vote -- Biden, Trump, or neither -- would send that signal most strongly? That's not self-evident -- there's cases to be made for all three. But while, contrary to many loud internet folks, I don't think the case for "vote neither" is self-evident (leftists "voting neither" in 2000, far from generating the lesson "we are indispensable", instead led to widespread hatred for the left from normcore liberals that took almost two decades to work past), it's absolutely not implausible either.

And this argument extends even if one does agree that Trump would be materially worse for Palestinians if elected to office in 2024, because then the question is whether the marginal difference in Trump's badness -- which we can ruthlessly measure in "number of additional Palestinian lives taken or ruined" -- is worth the possible advantage of cracking historic bipartisan pro-Israel consensus and opening the door for a more robust, genuine pro-Palestinian position to take root in at least one of the two parties going forward. If it seems horribly cruel to sacrifice Palestinian lives in the short-term for sake of a political long game, you might be right; but calculations like that are sadly omnipresent in this space. In a much more brutal sense, this was after all Hamas' calculation behind the 10/7 attack -- the goal was to provoke a bruising Israeli military response that would lead to the loss of innumerable Palestinian lives and, in doing so, fixate the world's gaze in a way that would lead to long-term, durable shift in global attitudes towards Israel on the one hand and the Palestinian cause on the other -- a calculation which has proven to be successful beyond their wildest estimations (this is one reason why Hamas has -- contrary to the assumptions of some of its more gullible western supporters -- not demonstrated itself to be especially interested in a ceasefire; to some extent, it's happy for the war to continue because it's proven itself eager to sacrifice Palestinian lives in exchange for global sympathy, and doesn't want that trade route to be closed).

Note, once again, that this chain of logic only holds if one truly is a single-issue voter. The logic falls apart once one starts adding in all the additional bads of not voting for Biden (abortion rights, health care, death of democracy, and so on). At that point, to adopt the above chain of logic is to say "the possibility of cracking the historic bipartisan consensus over Israel come 2028 is worth seeing (among other things) women thrown in jail for miscarriages, trans status being criminalized, LGBTQ books banned in schools, and potentially permanent damage to the basic status of the country as a democracy." To be a single-issue voter (on Palestine or anything else) sells all those other issues out, and that choice does and should in my view be judged exceptionally harshly. Put differently, the decision to not vote for Biden in 2024, no matter why one does it, is a decision to abandon the people and values that would be devastated by a Trump victory -- anyone who does this absolutely should be said to not care about reproductive freedom or democratic robustness or reining in the extreme right judicial branch or any of the other issues of pressing importance whose futures are on the ballot in 2024. 

But the moral jeremiad aside, it's undeniable that caring about absolutely nothing but a single issue -- any issue -- gives one a sort of tactical flexibility that others don't have. And for a person who is genuinely in that state of mind, it's not actually that clear what the choice in 2024 should be.

Can a Bibi-Led Israel Get to "Yes" on a Ceasefire?

A recurrent theme I've been hitting regarding calls for a "ceasefire" is that the term is meaningless without explication of the ceasefire's conditions. Everybody is fine with a ceasefire under certain conditions; the disagreement is regarding what those conditions should be. This, after all, is the basis for the obviously smarmy "Hamas could just surrender" take as a mechanism for ending hostilities -- it would cease the fire if "agreed" to, it just isn't a proposal that actually will be agreed to.  

Going off that insight, I've sometimes wondered why various Jewish groups -- or the U.S., for that matter -- haven't gone on offense a little bit in terms of proposing their own "ceasefire" plans whose conditions are agreeable. In general, any ceasefire proposal competes against whatever the belligerent parties think they can obtain from continuing military action, minus the costs of continuing military action. "Hamas could just surrender" may be a bit too brazen, but there are absolutely possible ceasefire conditions that wouldn't be quite so obvious non-starters that nonetheless could and should be viewed as substantial victories for Israel.

A ceasefire proposal based on immediate return of all hostages would be an obvious place to start. It could be paired with some other goodies -- Hamas' leadership agrees to go into exile into another country; proceedings against Israel at the ICJ are dropped. Submit that to the UN Security Council and make other countries vote against it. Make the other side be the one to say "yes, we might have said 'ceasefire now!', but not like this ...." The fact is, after all, that both Israel and Hamas have found themselves in the position of rejecting certain ceasefire proposals, but in the war of public opinion it would seem advisable for Israel and its allies to be seen as authoring proposals for peace rather than nixing them.

There are undoubtedly a multitude of reasons why this is too clever by half. But I think there is one specific, uncomfortable reason why we haven't seen Jewish groups pushing a line like this -- putting forward "ceasefire" conditions or urging the Biden administration to do the same. Simply put: they're worried that Israel would reject even a good, "reasonable" ceasefire proposal. And if that happens, after the Jewish groups endorsed the parameters, they'd have boxed themselves into the awkward position of positioning Israel as the obstacle to a just peace.

Several years ago, I broached the generic version of this worry in discussing the possibility -- unthinkable, in the Jewish world -- that contemporary, Bibi-era Israel might not be willing to agree to a "fair" peace agreement with the Palestinians. And at the moment, this worry is more than generic. Consider how Tom Friedman described the situation the other day in a conversation with Ezra Klein:

Netanyahu, I would argue, Ezra, doesn’t want to win. He wants to be winning, OK, that is, he wants to be able to say, we’re winning. We’re winning. We’re winning. It’s just around the corner. But he doesn’t want to actually win because, if the war actually ends, two things are going to happen. Then he can no longer avoid what is the new political end state. And I believe there will be an eruption, a massive eruption, of Israeli anger at him that I hope and pray will drive him from power because I believe he is not only the worst leader in Israel’s history. I believe he’s the worst leader in Jewish history.

And that’s a long history. And what is Netanyahu’s calculation? It’s very simple. If he is not in power and has to face the conclusion of his trial and three corruption charges without the protection and influence that comes over the judiciary from being in power, he has a very good chance of going to jail. People forget. Israel jailed a president and a former prime minister. They’re not afraid to do that. And he does not want to go to jail. And he does not want to give up power.

And so this is a terrible situation where Israel is in a existential war, and its prime minister has basically dual loyalties, one to the state and one to himself. And at every turn, he is prioritizing himself.

Put differently, where one takes Israel's goals to be things like "bringing the hostages home" or "destroying Hamas", one can at least understand opposing a ceasefire proposal to the extent that such a proposal will not lead to those outcomes (whilst continuing hostilities might). But the corollary to that is that if one believes those are Israel's goals, then a ceasefire proposal that does effectively accomplish them would be agreed to be Israel. And the corollary to that is that if Israel does not agree to such a proposal, it pretty decisively falsifies that these are the real goals. In short: making the proposal really puts that belief to the test, and no matter what they aver publicly I don't think most Jewish organizations are confident that this bet would pay out.

In a recent social media thread, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), alluded to this point. The cause of bringing home the hostages and incapacitating Hamas is indubitably just. But Bibi has not been comporting himself as if these are his primary goals. He's been acting in a fashion that suggests that his main goals are dragging this war on indefinitely to prolong his moment of political reckoning and appeasing his ultra-right coalition mates. And those objectives are absolutely not worth opposing a ceasefire for.

It is possible -- and proper -- for the United States to put this to the proof: if Israel wants to continue to receive American military backing, it has to show its objectives are what they say they are, rather than a self-centered way for Bibi to save his own skin while permanently kneecapping the political and social viability of Palestinian nationhood. If Bibi decides that the latter is more important than maintaining American support, well, that's his call to make (until the next election anyway), and the rest of the world in turn can make any number of justified inferences from those revealed preferences.

The Day After Hamas

The New York Times reports increasing "daylight" (to use an old term) between President Biden and Netanyahu regarding what the aftermath of the Gaza campaign will look like -- specifically, regarding the role that the Palestinian Authority might have in governing Gaza once (knock on wood) Hamas is defeated. 

Paul Campos thinks this is reflective of the worries regarding "the administration’s up until now very muted response to the siege of Gaza, and the gathering human rights and public health catastrophe that it represents." I'm not sure that's quite right, though it's perhaps lurking in the background. The more prominent instinct, I think, is that Biden fundamentally agrees with Israel regarding the merits and necessity of destroying Hamas, but fundamentally disagrees with Bibi regarding "the day after". The more "the day after" becomes salient in our minds and we start thinking not in terms of the war's prosecution but its aftermath, the more we're going to see latent but always-present disagreements between Bibi and Biden come to a fore. One sees this dynamic particularly in how Biden relates his response to Bibi's claim that the allies "carpet bombed Germany" -- "I said, 'Yeah, that’s why all these institutions were set up after World War II, to see to it that it didn’t happen again.'" The former point is about prosecution of the war, the latter point is about how we handled the aftermath.

For Biden, destroying Hamas has to be followed by aggressive state-building efforts meant to provide a real future (economically, socially, and politically) for the Palestinian people. The allusion to the Marshall Plan after World War II is clearly part of this, and other relevant players are also insisting that any plans for rebuilding Gaza credibly commit to a realistic pathway for Palestinian statehood. For Bibi -- well, I really have no idea what Bibi's "day after" plan is. I don't think he actually wants to fully reoccupy Gaza; but he also doesn't want the PA involved; or international involvement; and certainly Hamas is out the question; so ... where are we left? He seems much more interested in what he'll say "no" to than what he can plausibly say "yes" to, because at this stage in the game reality has become Bibi's unconquerable enemy. And Biden, in turn, isn't going to have a lot of patience for Israel post-war simply refusing to let Gaza rebuild itself or have any sort of self-governance structure whatsoever just because Bibi can no longer square the circle of "no formal occupation" and "no Palestinian independence" by building a castle around Gaza and then never thinking about it again..

Even if one accepts that Israel is pot committed to destroying Hamas, that doesn't obviate but rather accentuates the need to have a serious answer to the "day after" question. Anyone remotely serious figure understands that the war in Gaza is the middle of the story, not the end, which makes it unsurprising that Bibi wants to treat it as an end and just close his eyes to what happens in the aftermath. Biden is a more serious person, and so he's actually contemplating these questions. 

The Settler's War and the Biden Response

While the world's eyes are primarily on the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, another spate of violence has erupted in the West Bank, where Israeli settler violence has surged to unprecedented levels. A few weeks ago, I observed that while what's "going on in Gaza is more eye-catching ... the [West Bank] situation is in some ways even worse because there isn't even a colorable claim of self-defense -- it's pure unconstrained terror inflicted by settler extremists on the Palestinian population for the express purpose of subjugation." (Matt Yglesias made a similar point). The Gaza operation can at least in the abstract be defended as a necessary response to Hamas' violence. The violence inflicted upon Palestinians in the West Bank defies even theoretical justification. In terms of familial resemblance, West Bank "price tag" settler terrorists differ from the perpetrators of October 7 only in degree, not kind.

Today, the Biden administration announced it would begin pursuing sanctions (such as visa bans) on settlers who engage in or promote violence against Palestinians. It's an overdue step, and I've urged considerably harsher measures than that (last week I suggested identifying violent settler organizations and placing them on the State Department's list of Designated Terrorist Organizations). Nonetheless, it is a welcome one. Extremist violence emanating from West Bank settlers is one of the primary drivers of the current conflict and an existential (and very much intentional) threat to the viability of a two-state (or one-state, for that matter) solution. The fact that these malign actors carry significant support in the highest echelons of the Israeli government is not a reason for the United States to stay its hand. Indeed, their substantial influence and clout makes it more imperative that America decisively intervene to isolate them.

This step by the Biden administration will not neuter the criticism it is getting from the left for how it has handled the past month's events (indeed, I first heard about the anti-settler sanctions from at least three social media accounts who flagged it in the course of derisively dismissing the notion that it meant anything at all). But that's the way it goes -- our policy towards Israel and Palestine should be humane and intelligent regardless of whether that earns brownie points with the online activist crowd. This proposal is a good proposal. I hope it is followed up on, and I hope it prompts other pro-Israel Democrats to think more proactively and creatively about what steps America can take to sap the strength of the settler-terror movement.

The other big almost-news of the day is the prospect of a ceasefire negotiated by the Biden administration. Initially this was reported as a "tentative deal" having been struck, now the reporting has backed off a little to saying the deal is "close". The details, as they're being reported, would see both sides cease hostilities for five days, the release by Hamas of approximately 50 hostages (approximately 20% of the total number they're estimated to be holding), and the transport into Gaza of significant quantities of humanitarian aid. All I'll say on this is that I'm familiar with the arguments for why Israel's military operation is necessary, and I'm aware that a ceasefire is still part of the middle, not the end. But I'll never be dismayed at the prospect that people suffering tremendously in a warzone will, for some time at least, suffer less. And I'll likewise only feel joy at the prospect that some kidnapped captives will be redeemed to their families.

Getting Out in Front on Antisemitism

A few weeks ago, when the New York City Council was debating a resolution combating antisemitism, we had a bit of awkwardness when various lefty groups (and a few lefty councilmembers) expressed concern about aligning themselves with the undeniably right-wing actors who were the primary movers behind the underlying campaign. Six councilmembers ultimately declined to vote for the resolution, resulting in some absolutely expected negative headlines and bad press as the right seized the opportunity that fell into their laps.

In response to that own-goal, I wrote the following:

Look: Brooke Goldstein is an undeniably toxic actor. I totally get why a progressive wouldn't want to touch anything she's within ten feet of. But here's the thing: you don't *have* to wait for her to draft an anti-antisemitism resolution. You can draft your own!

NYC progressives have nobody to blame but themselves that they let Goldstein get out in front of them. If you don't want to vote for "her" res, write and submit your own first. Who knows, maybe [Republican city councilwoman Inna] Vernikov will pale at associating with you and you can turn the screws on her a bit!

But if you aren't writing these resolutions and you aren't frontloading the fight against antisemitism, you can't get too chippy that other people fill in the gap you've left. It's a problem entirely of your own making. 

As the day of the Biden administration's big antisemitism action plan rollout comes to a close, doesn't it feel nice to be on the right side of that lesson?

The Biden administration didn't wait on antisemitism. It didn't hold back, it didn't stay quiet and do nothing until some Matt Gaetz style yahoo created a "plan to fight antisemitism" that they had to reject while awkwardly insisting that of course they oppose antisemitism but they just can't oppose it this way.

The Biden administration wrote their own plan, on their own initiative, in their own words. And what was the result?

An array of Jewish organizations from the left to the center-right echoed those sentiments in welcoming the plan with enthusiasm, marking a change from recent weeks in which they had been split over how the plan should define antisemitism. Still, a handful of right-wing groups blasted the strategy, saying that its chosen definition of antisemitism diluted the term.

The Jewish left seems happy. I've seen naught but praise from groups like the JDCA, J Street, JFREJ, and so on. The Jewish center seems happy. The ADL and AJC clearly are taking this as a win. The Conference is happy. Groups like JIMENA are thrilled that the document expressly acknowledges and represents Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. A rapid consensus has already emerged across a broad swath of the American Jewish community that this document is an example of true allyship from the White House.

And the right? Well now it's their turn to feel uncomfortable. They're still trying to stomp their feet about Nexus getting 15 words of modest praise. They're awkwardly trying to figure out how handle MAGA darling Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) calling the proposed campaign against antisemitism a means of "go[ing] after conservatives" and comparing it to Soviet repression. They're on their heels, reeling from the fact that the biggest national program to fight antisemitism is being conducted and they're struggling to even board the train.

Right now, the fight against antisemitism is a coalition of left and center, with the right bickering on the sidelines. It's not just a win for the Jews (though it is), it's a great political coup as well. And it's all because the Biden administration took the very simple step of getting out in front.

Learn that lesson, and learn it well.

Biden Admin Releases Ambitious Strategy To Fight Antisemitism

The Biden Administration has released its long-awaited document outlining an ambitious national strategy to combat antisemitism. "This strategy," the document concludes, "represents the most comprehensive and ambitious effort to counter antisemitism in American history."

Mostly, I want to give immense praise to the Biden administration for putting this document together -- not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. It is no revelation to say that many Jews sometimes feel like the fight against antisemitism is an afterthought -- a fact that document acknowledges expressly ("One  report found that 91% of Americans believe antisemitism is a problem for everyone, and yet, in  many instances, Jews feel as though antisemitism is ignored, discounted, or not taken as  seriously as other forms of hate and bigotry."). With this strategy plan, the Biden administration is taking Jewish concerns seriously in a way that no other administration has. It has my thanks for that.

Given the discourse of the past few days, one might expect that I'd want to focus on the inclusion of the "Nexus" antisemitism definition in the document text. Several commentators, insisting on a fundamentalist version of sola IHRA scriptura, tried to curtail this inclusion by insisting that any discussion on antisemitism that goes beyond IHRA will necessarily be diluted or "confusing".

The snarky part of me wants to extend my sincere condolences to these critics, given that final document is 60 pages long, virtually all of which is comprised of words other than "IHRA". Turns out, there were more things to say. More to the point, here is the sum total of the document's treatment of this roiling controversy:

There are several definitions of antisemitism, which serve as valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of antisemitism. The most prominent is the non-legally binding “working definition” of antisemitism adopted in 2016 by the 31-member states of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which the United States has embraced. In addition, the Administration welcomes and appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.

That's what we've been obsessing over? Seriously? An unadorned mention, following the document's "embrace" of the IHRA definition, that it also "welcomes and appreciates" Nexus?

I will say that, in the veiled language of diplomacy, this is quite the swipe against JDA. The document "embraces" IHRA. It "welcomes and appreciates" Nexus. And as for other, unnamed definitions? Yes, we note their existence. It's kind of like how I described the 2020 Democratic primary: "There are many great candidates running for the Democratic nomination, and also Tulsi Gabbard."

But that's me being petty again. I'll just one of other thing here. In the paragraph before the one I just quoted, the document describes antisemitism as follows:

Antisemitism is a stereotypical and negative perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred of Jews. It is prejudice, bias, hostility, discrimination, or violence against Jews for being Jews or Jewish institutions or property for being Jewish or perceived as Jewish. Antisemitism can manifest as a form of racial, religious, national origin, and/or ethnic discrimination, bias, or hatred; or, a combination thereof. However, antisemitism is not simply a form of prejudice or hate. It is also a pernicious conspiracy theory that often features myths about Jewish power and control.

The first sentence of this is clearly adopted from IHRA, albeit modified -- IHRA says that "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." The Biden administration's formulation is clearly better (what is a "certain perception"), which already demonstrates that blind adherence to IHRA's text is neither necessary nor desirable.

But the following sentences go beyond anything in IHRA. Discussing antisemitism as not just a perception, but also discrimination and other actions, is closer to the language one finds in the Nexus definition: "Antisemitism consists of anti-Jewish beliefs, attitudes, actions or systemic conditions."

When you look at the above paragraph, and the portions that go beyond that first sentence, are you "confused"? Does it feel "diluted" or "counterfeit"? No. The inclusion of those iterations of antisemitism make the document stronger, not weaker.

IHRA is an important and valuable component of the national antisemitism strategy. But it couldn't shoulder the burden alone. Fortunately, it didn't need to. IHRA and Nexus are strogner together. And while I sincerely hope that this "debate" fades into the far, far periphery of future discussion over this document, for now the Biden administration deserves tremendous praise for understanding that the fight against antisemitism is too important to leave tools on the table. 

Making the Grade Roundup

It's grading season at Lewis & Clark. I have the entire 1L day class this semester across two sections of Con Law I, so it's a bit of a bear. But I'm almost halfway done!

You get a roundup.

* * *

As a professor, I cannot fathom the hubris it takes to see one of your papers rejected from a journal -- the most normal possible experience for an academic -- and decide to parlay it into an entire New York Times column decrying "wokeness".

Florida is set to legalize kidnapping trans children from their families. But don't worry -- they'll only do it if the families love their kids and provide them with healthcare. Family courts in other states better start boning up on asylum law, because the phrase "well-founded fear of persecution" is going to become increasingly germane in cases where there's a possibility of the child being sent to Florida.

Local elections in the UK are seeing the Tories getting absolutely stomped. Over a thousand seats lost by the party, most of which are going to Labour and a healthy chunk of which are going to the LibDems and Greens. It's amazing what Labour can do when it isn't being led by a wildly unpopular antisemitic extremist!

Princeton under fire for hiring prominent BDS activist to a fellowship position. The twist? The activist is a member of the Israeli far-right. But the BDS thing is real -- he supported a divestment campaign against Ben Gurion University in retaliation for its allegedly "anti-Zionist" tilt.

The UAW has new leadership (I had half an eyeball on this, since I technically was a UAW member in my capacity as a UC-Berkeley graduate student instructor), and they're playing hardball against the Biden administration demanding compensation for how new electric vehicles may reduce the number of autoworker jobs.

Diaspora Minister To Diaspora: Shut Up

Israel has a "Minister of Diaspora Affairs" -- a cabinet official whose very job is predicated on recognition of and respect for the unique relationship the state of Israel has with the global Jewish community.

And now, as hundreds of thousands of Israelis march in protest over the Israeli government's attempt to neuter an independent judiciary, the Minister of Diaspora Affairs has a message for the Jewish diaspora and international community who are backing these protesters and echo their concerns: shut up.

The Israeli minister responsible for relations with Jews in the Diaspora has a message for the government of the country where most of them live: “Mind your own business.”

Amichai Chikli made the comment Sunday in a radio interview in Israel, where he was asked to address recent comments by U.S. ambassador Tom Nides, who said he was urging Israeli leaders to “pump the brakes” on their controversial effort to change the country’s judiciary.

[...]

Chikli had a retort: “I say to the American ambassador, put on the brakes yourself and mind your own business,” he said. “You aren’t sovereign here, to get involved in the matter of judicial reform. We will be happy to discuss foreign and security matters with you. But respect our democracy.”

I especially appreciate the frankly laughable notion that the Israeli government is more inclined to listen to international and diaspora voices when it comes to foreign policy and security matters. These are in fact the areas where the Israeli government is most obstinate in the notion that outsiders lack skin in the game and ought not dare second guess the policy choices of the people who actually live there ("the people who actually live there", of course, does not include Palestinians, whose opinions it is entirely proper and indeed mandatory to ignore altogether).

But the actual consistent policy is straightforward: Israel does not care what the diaspora thinks. As much as a "Minister of Diaspora Affairs" suggests otherwise, the position of the Israeli government is that there is no special relationship between Israel and the global Jewish community. Our role is to sit back and shut up.

At the end of the day, though, Israel is a sovereign nation, it is indeed up to them to decide how to exercise their sovereign powers. And likewise, it is up to America and other countries throughout the world -- also in their capacity as independent sovereigns -- to decide what their own policies will be towards Israel as a result of the choices Israel makes. Sovereignty meets sovereignty.

Biden Visits Ukraine

President Joe Biden made a top-secret (but now public) visit to Ukraine in a show of solidarity as the country continues to face down Russia's war of aggression.

I don't have a lot to add to this except to say that as symbolic gestures go, this is quite the move. It obviously is reminiscent to trips Presidents Bush and Obama had made to Iraq and Afghanistan, but even more difficult to pull off given that Ukraine doesn't have American troops on the ground providing a security buffer.

As the GOP continues to play footsie with Putin's authoritarian thuggery, and the usual red-brown alliance pushes for Ukrainian capitulation and subjugation, this act of solidarity by the President is more than welcome.

Endless Stunt Investigations is All the House GOP Will Do, Because It's All They Can Agree Upon

Having finally secured his chair as House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has given his caucus marching orders -- and those orders are "do nothing but launch petty performative investigations of the Biden administration".

Kevin McCarthy has told House Republicans to treat every committee like the Oversight panel — that is, use every last bit of authority to dig into the Biden administration. That work begins in earnest this week.

Several sprawling probes — largely directed at President Joe Biden, his family and his administration — set the stage for a series of legal and political skirmishes between the two sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s all with an eye on the true battle, the 2024 election, as Biden flirts with a reelection run and House Republicans hope to expand their control to the White House.

After two impeachments of former President Donald Trump and a select committee that publicly detailed his every last move to unsuccessfully overturn the 2020 election results, GOP lawmakers are eager to turn the spotlight. And their conservative base is hoping for fireworks, calling on Republican leaders to grill several Biden world figures, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, retired chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and presidential son Hunter Biden.

This isn't at all surprising, of course. In fact, it was probably inevitable after the Speaker vote fiasco exposed just how bitterly divided the GOP is (and how in thrall it is to its nihilist caucus). They're never going to forward an affirmative policy agenda, since they can't agree on any particulars beyond sloganeering (and also, policies tend to require money, which the GOP adamantly refuses to raise or spend unless it is on gut-busting upper-bracket tax cuts). But investigations? That doesn't require any policy agenda at all -- that's just mugging for the camera and talking about how much they hate Democrats. Right in their wheelhouse! 

That the GOP is still nursing ludicrous levels of grievance over the terrible unfairness of a House panel exposing why coups are bad only exacerbates their belief that this is naught but turnabout being fair play. And as the New York Times reported the other day, the GOP's view of "investigations" is to take it as a divine axiom that they and theirs are being abused, then pursue that axiom to hell and back no matter how little evidence ends up supporting the proposition.

So this is entirely within expectations for the new GOP House. Expect nothing but loud yelling investigations for two years as they throw everything they can at a wall and wait for something to stick. They don't agree on or even believe in anything else, but they can agree on doing that.

The Pleasant Surprise of the Biden Administration

Joe Biden has set out a muscular, progressive agenda.

This has come as a surprise to some people, particularly those on the leftier edge of the party, who thought Biden would simply be an extension of Third Way Clintonism and were despondent over what they assumed was a guarantee of four years of anemic faux-progress.

But what's most surprising to me* is that we're actually seeing some of these leftier folks acknowledge the pleasant surprise. More and more, they're not dismissing what Biden's doing, they're not pooh-poohing it with "both parties are the same." They're admitting that Biden has been far better than they anticipated.

We saw this shift first, I think, when it came to the COVID stimulus bill. A couple of people certainly lapsed into reflexive Eeyore-ing, complaining that the $1.9 trillion bill wasn't bold enough or expansive enough or was worthless without the minimum wage increase. But most people, including those on the left, recognized that it was in fact a B.F.D.. It probably helped that Biden did not let the GOP tie him knots with endless delay disguised as "negotiating". Biden made it clear that he learned the lesson of the Obama years on that front: if the GOP wants to get onboard with a popular bill, lovely, but he's not going to get himself mired in a political bog for months in a futile effort to make Susan Collins vote for an inferior bill.

The early days of the Biden administration are a vindication for the persons who saw him, not as a "moderate" or a "progressive" figure, but as a party figure. Joe Biden has historically aligned himself with the middle of the Democratic Party. As the Democratic Party has shifted left, Biden has shifted left too. And that, we should say, is to the credit of folks like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have done great work in pushing the conversation left in the context of being Democrats (as opposed to in the context of smirking about how Democrats are worthless).

The team is coming together. It doesn't mean everything will be perfect -- it never is -- but it is coming together, and it's getting stuff done.

* My version of being surprised by Biden adopting a progressive agenda was definitely Terry McAuliffe's tenure as governor of Virginia, where he was just way better than I think anyone could have anticipated ex ante.

Congress Passes COVID Relief Bill Without Any GOP Support

We should be clear -- this was a bipartisan bill, in the sense that Americans of both parties backed its content. It passed on a party line vote because the GOP is relentlessly partisan and will never back any significant Democratic Party initiative no matter how it is framed or how much effort is put into negotiation. Yes, that includes Moderate Republican (tm) Susan Collins. And it's a very, very good thing that Democrats learned this lesson from the Obama years, and didn't waste time in a futile effort to gain meaningless Republican support. If Republicans had actual good ideas for the relief bill (as opposed to the "idea" of giving less help to fewer people), they were welcome to say so. In the meantime, Democrats should own all the tremendously popular provisions of this law straight through the midterms.

The other thing I want to say is that while yes, the random bites Joe Manchin decided to take out of the final bill were frustrating, stupid, and gratuitous, they also don't change the fact that the final bill is one of the most strikingly progressive pieces of stimulus legislation ever to pass through Congress. That's testament to a serious shift in the Democratic Party coalition which is worth celebrating, and it's also a good illustration that at the end of the day, the difference between Biden vs. Harris vs. Warren vs. Sanders as President pales in comparison to the difference between Ossoff and Warnock vs. Perdue and Loeffler as Georgia's Senators.

Firin' Biden

The Joe Biden administration has already begun with a bit more fire than the "sleepy Joe" chanting GOP had probably hoped for. Among the moves they made on day one came the termination of several particularly noxious Trump-era holdovers. This is big news, if no other reason than it suggests that Biden will not, contra the fears of some, allow Republicans to have their cake and eat it too on the question of norms. Trump shattered norms for four years without nary a peep of complaint, and Biden does not appear interested in unilateral disarmament.

That's clearly a necessary move, and I applaud him for it. If the risk of Biden was that he'd be too enamored with the old model of Washington where gosh-golly we just play nice with one another and agreements will be made over some cocktails, the reward would be that he's a savvy enough DC insider to know when to play hardball. Indeed, while it's certainly too early to make such judgments, I'm feeling a faint burbling of hope that Biden might mimic Terry McAuliffe in Virginia -- the seemingly boring party man who punched way above his weight in terms of pushing an aggressive progressive agenda forward.

That's all good news for the immediate future. But what about the downstream effects? Who benefits if incoming presidential administrations feel more free to terminate the seemingly "burrowed" figures from the previous administration?

One of the main drawbacks to doing these sorts of terminations is that they leave gaps in the federal bureaucracy which are (temporarily, at least) filled by essentially whichever career civil servant happens to be next in line. The argument that the new normal favors Democrats would be that basically competent and conscientious bureaucrats are more likely to be at least amenable to Democratic priorities compared to Republican ones, and so the "empty" time will be less costly. The argument in favor of the Republicans is that Democrats generally need a fully functioning bureaucracy running on all cylinders to achieve their aims, whereas Republicans -- at least in their more nihilist moods -- can "achieve" their desires simply by allow things to fall apart.

Which will it be? Hopefully we won't find out, because hopefully the GOP will be in the political wilderness for a long, long time.

The Beginning of the Beginning

The Donald Trump presidency is officially over. Congratulations to our new President, Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris.

This is obviously a huge step forward in terms of stemming the bleeding and repairing the immense damage caused by the last four years of quasi-authoritarian rule. And yet, I worry that so much time will need to be spent on the act of repair that we may struggle to also effectuate the positive changes we need. To be clear, by "repair" I don't mean vapid acts of "unity" and acting like the Trump era didn't happen. I mean the actual steps of undoing and rectifying the damage wrought against our democratic institutions. These are very much necessary, but they also will take time and energy; and that's time and energy that can't be devoted to other things.

It is not an easy situation that Biden, Harris, and the other Democratic leaders have placed themselves in. I wish them all the luck and all the support as they try to navigate difficult shoals.

Buttigieg for Secretary of Transportation

The word is Pete Buttigieg is going to be Biden's nominee for Secretary of Transportation. A few thoughts:

1. I never quite understand the magnitude of loathing some members of the leftier edge of the Democratic Party had for Buttigieg. This is in spite of the fact that Mayor Pete was one of the few significant candidates running in 2020 that I was never tempted to support. That's because my view was simply that there's too big a gap to jump from "Mayor of South Bend, Indiana" to "President of the Untied States." But that doesn't mean I have any animosity towards him occupying other positions.
2. While I think Buttigieg is perfectly fine for a Democratic cabinet appointment, generally, I'm not sure what relevant experience he brings to the field of transportation, specifically. When I think of the core issues in transportation policy a Democratic administration should prioritize, my mind immediately turns to mass transportation infrastructure in large cities. Buttigieg's small-town guy vibes don't seem particularly germane to that issue. Maybe he's got more thoughts on expanding high speed rail and environmental issues?
3. I believe it was Matt Yglesias who pointed out that, to the extent Buttigieg does want to use his DOT posting as a springboard for even higher office, he'll probably need to do something eye-catching (it's not like the DOT is naturally on the media radar, after all). So that might engender confidence that he'll set an ambitious agenda -- and that would be a good thing.