From Marc Elias

The only way we lose is if we stop fighting.

Building the Opposition

After the 2016 election, a movement that would become known as “the resistance” quickly emerged to protest and confront Donald Trump and his incoming administration. The hope was that if Trump could simply be held back — resisted — for four years, politics would go back to normal. A Democrat would retake the White House and Trump would be viewed as an unfortunate aberration.

Since Election Day, it has become fashionable in some circles to view that effort as a failure. The cynics dismiss the grassroots energy and the hard work of so many as naïve and without impact.

As usual, they are wrong. The resistance movement helped protect the Affordable Care Act from repeal and lead to bold policies at the state and local level. It built new pro-democracy institutions that challenged Trump in the courts and in the streets. It inspired thousands of new candidates to run for office and contributed to a successful mid-term election. Most importantly, in 2020 it helped defeat Donald Trump.

Republicans used that time fruitfully. They built new ideological organizations, new campaign structures, new media outlets and new leaders. Even as they suffered losses in the midterms, they were undeterred from their mission of fleshing out what a second Trump term would look like. For all of Trump’s disavowals of Project 2025 during the campaign, that effort and other, equally extreme measures were being planned.

MAGA was not focused specifically on resisting Biden. It had a bolder agenda. It wanted to build an opposing ideological and political movement to win elections and govern over the long term. It prioritized hate over hope, cronyism over competence and retribution over reconciliation.

As we head towards January, it is our turn to use this period productively. Hoping that Trump fails is not a plan. We must develop and foster new movements, structures, tactics, platforms and leaders to oppose Trump and articulate a positive vision.

In most democratic political systems, this is referred to as the opposition. Rather than a resistance, the concept of an opposition is more comprehensive and durable. It recognizes that there are no time limits to the effort.

In some systems the opposition entails an entire shadow government, in others it focuses on specific platforms. I don’t pretend to know the exact form it will take in this country, but I do know some of the basic principles it must embrace.

The success of our democracy rests on an effective opposition movement.

First, we must prioritize effective electoral campaigns that maximize the chances of electing Democrats and defeating Republicans. Obtaining power in our system of government means running well-funded and professionalized campaigns. Now is not the time to unilaterally disarm in the service of some higher principles. All legal tactics must be on the table. Ideological fights must yield in service of winning. We must recruit and fund candidates who can win their state or districts.

Second, we must be a big tent full of diversity of new policy ideas and approaches to governing. Political movement must be about big ideas. New Deal liberalism was a big idea. So was the Great Society, neo-liberalism and populism. But the leaders who embraced and implemented these ideas were not dismissive of other, competing visions.

A strong opposition movement needs to allow for people within it to exchange, debate and even disagree over the best way to solve problems. Failed oppositions seek to impose purity tests and purge dissent. Successful movements incorporate ideas from across the spectrum of its participants.

Third, we need new and existing institutions to bolster the opposition, not work against it. We cannot be afraid to let new institutions rise, and others fall. The only litmus test for groups is whether they help the opposition effort. Republicans and their conservative allies have spent years investing billions in a range of civil society and political groups. Building and funding pro-democracy opposition groups needs to be a critical priority for years to come.

Fourth, we must cultivate and amplify new communication methods and messengers. We need to identify and promote our best messengers and pair them with the most influential platforms, period. This means ending our reliance on credential-based legacy media. These high prestige outlets command very small audiences and that audience is shrinking. They speak to almost no persuadable audience. The goal should be to reach voters, period.

Finally, we must be comfortable using every legal tool available to challenge Trumpism in court. One of the most important lessons from the last eight years is that the courts matter. Many of the resistance’s successes were fueled by lawsuits. And when Biden took office, conservatives ruthlessly used the courts to block his agenda. More than half of federal judges were appointed by Democratic presidents. Many state courts are controlled by liberals. Litigation is one of the most important tools to protect democracy and we must use every tool we have.

I know that these ideas are just a starting point. The success of our democracy rests on an effective opposition movement. We all must play a part in offering additional ideas and approaches and not being afraid to take risks. I plan to be a part of that effort. I hope you will too.

embrace the suck

stay in the fight

Heather Cox Richardson

People who are well informed (legacy press, "progressive" media, etc) voted 3-to-1 for Harris, while people who're fed a diet of mis-information and conspiracy fantasies (Twixter, DumFux News, OAN, Reddit, News Max, etc) voted almost 2-to-1 for Trump.

The audience for Wingnut Media approaches twice that for "Liberal" media.

The arithmetic is pretty simple on that one.

Out of 100 people watching DumFux News, 65 voted for Trump.

Out of 60 people watching MSNBC, 45 voted for Harris.

Don't tell me Harris failed, and that you know exactly why. She didn't, and you don't. So fuck you, James Carville.

The Dems ran a really good campaign. Americans were bamboozled into electing Trump and his MAGA clowns.

Consider a few anecdotes via AOC, who put up a constituent Zoom call, asking how people came to vote for both her and Trump.

Voter 1:

"You're both strong advocates for working people."

Voter 2:

"I was a little apprehensive about voting for Trump, so I voted for you to keep him from going too far."

 

Voter 3:

"You both care about me."

 

The main problem is:

knowing enough about something

to believe you're right,

and not enough

to know you're wrong.

Don't obey in advance

Encouragement

Pro-EU leader wins Moldova election despite alleged Russian meddling

Moldova's pro-EU President Maia Sandu has claimed a second term after a tense election run-off seen as a choice between Europe and Russia.

The Moldovan Central Electoral Commission confirmed Sandu's victory on Monday morning.

Sandu won 55% of the vote, according to preliminary results, and in a late-night speech on Sunday she promised to be president for all Moldovans.

Her rival Alexandr Stoianoglo, who was backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, had called for a closer relationship with Moscow.

During the day the president's national security adviser said there had been "massive interference" from Russia in Moldova's electoral process that had "high potential to distort the outcome".

Russia had already denied meddling in the vote, which came a week after another key Eastern European election in Georgia, whose president said it had been a "Russian special operation".

Stoianoglo, who was fired as prosecutor general by Sandu, has denied being pro-Kremlin.

In a joint statement congratulating Sandu on her re-election, the European Commission and the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell said there had been "unprecedented interference by Russia".

As polls closed, both Sandu, 52, and her rival thanked voters, with Stoianoglo speaking in Russian as well as Romanian. Although Romanian is Moldova's main language, Russian is widely spoken because of its Soviet past.

Turnout at 54% was high, especially among expat voters at polling stations abroad.

Stoianoglo took an initial lead on the night and was the more successful candidate in Moldova itself with more than 51% of the vote. Sandu won in the capital Chisinau, and she was completely dominant among expat voters.

As she overtook her challenger late on Sunday night, there was cheering at her campaign headquarters and chants of "victory".

In a hoarse voice she praised her compatriots for saving Moldova and giving "a lesson in democracy, worthy of being written in history books".

Then, moving into Russian, she said: "I have heard your voice – both those who supported me and those who voted for Mr. Stoianoglo. In our choice for a dignified future, no-one lost... we need to stand united."

Maia Sandu’s foreign policy adviser, Olga Rosca, told the BBC she was proud of the result.

Asked whether she was surprised that Stoianoglo had won in Moldova itself, she said the vote in Moldova and abroad should be seen as one and the same: “We never divide people into Moldovans at home and expatriates - we see Moldovans as one family.”

With elections coming next year she said the president had “clearly indicated she has heard the mood for change. On several occasions between the [two presidential] votes she said the fight against corruption must be intensified and justice reform must be accelerated – she’s committed to this work”.

The final result will be declared on Monday.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Sandu, saying "it takes a rare kind of strength to overcome the challenges you've faced in this election.

"I'm glad to continue working with you towards a European future for Moldova and its people," her message on X said.

Casting his ballot, Alexandr Stoianoglo had promised to be an "apolitical president", and that he had voted for "a Moldova that should develop in harmony with both the West and the East".

Stoianoglo polled particularly well in rural areas and the south, while Sandu was ahead in the cities and with young voters.

After casting her ballot, Sandu had warned of "thieves" who sought to buy their vote and their country.

Presidential national security adviser Stanislav Secrieru said Russia had organised buses and large charter flights to bring voters to polling stations.

Bomb scares had briefly disrupted voting in Moldova, at UK polling stations in Liverpool and Northampton and at Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern in Germany, he added.

A Soviet republic for 51 years, Moldova is flanked by Ukraine and Romania and one of Europe's poorest countries. It has a population of 2.5 million and an expat population of 1.2 million.

Moldova's authorities have long warned that a fugitive oligarch called Ilan Shor has spent $39m (£30m) trying to buy the election for Moscow with handouts to 138,000 Moldovans.

Shor, who is based in Moscow, denies wrongdoing but did promise cash payments to anyone prepared to back his call for a "firm No" to the EU.

Commentators and politicians had warned that a Stoianoglo victory could radically change the political landscape in the Danube and Black Sea region, not because he was some kind of "Trojan horse", but rather because Russia has thrown its weight behind him.

There were queues at polling stations in Moscow, Italy and among voters from a mainly Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transnistria, who had to cross the River Dniester into Moldovan-controlled territory to vote. Transnistria is home to a Russian military base and a huge arms depot.

Moldova's election commission said it was aware of reports of organised and illegal transports of voters by air and land in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and appealed to the public to report further violations.

Although Sandu had easily won the first round of the vote, several candidates swung behind Stoianoglo, although the third-placed candidate refused to back either of the two.

The first round coincided with a nail-biting referendum on backing a change to the constitution embracing the commitment to join the EU.

In the end the vote passed by a tiny margin in favour, and Maia Sandu said there had been clear evidence of attempts to buy 300,000 votes.

Yeehaw And Away We Go

This is where we are because of one small stupid insecure little man, and a host of barely-invisible moneyed interests supporting him thru dis-information and straight up gaslighting - all of whom hate our tradition of democratic self governance, and are working to tear it all down in order to replace it with a good old-fashioned top-down corporate-style plutocracy.

I think we continue to come out of this MAGA nonsense today, by electing Kamala Harris.

But don't start thinking we're anywhere near the beginning of the end. We may not even be at the end of the beginning.

This democracy thing is pretty hard. Because it's a constant struggle for balance between honor and belligerence. Between humans' natural impulse for violence and a more enlightened sense of the greater good.

There's a kind of weird Twilight Zone quality to it - it's somewhere between the lofty summit of our knowledge and the dark pit of our fears.

Fake lord help us find that balance.

Drones and snipers on standby to protect Arizona vote-counters

Razor wire. Thick black iron fencing. Metal detectors. Armed security guards. Bomb sweeps.

The security at this centre where workers count ballots mirrors what you might see at an airport - or even a prison. And, if needed, plans are in place to further bolster security to include drones, officers on horseback and police snipers on rooftops.

Maricopa County became the centre of election conspiracy theories during the 2020 presidential contest, after Donald Trump spread unfounded claims of voter fraud when he lost the state to Joe Biden by fewer than 11,000 votes.

Falsehoods went viral, armed protesters flooded the building where ballots were being tallied and a flurry of lawsuits and audits aimed to challenge the results.

The election’s aftermath transformed how officials here handle the typically mundane procedure of counting ballots and ushered in a new era of high security.

“We do treat this like a major event, like the Super Bowl,” Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner told the BBC.

Razor wire sits atop one of the fences guarding the county's election tabulation centre
The county, the fourth most populous in the US and home to about 60% of Arizona's voters, has been planning for the election for more than a year, according to Skinner.

The sheriff's department handles security at polling stations and the centre where ballots are counted. The deputies have now been trained in election laws, something most law enforcement wouldn’t be well-versed in.

“Our hope is that it doesn't arise to a level of need for that,” he said when asked about beefed-up security measures like drones and snipers. “But we will be prepared to ensure that we meet the level of need, to ensure the safety and security of that building” and its employees.

The election process here in many ways echoes that in counties across the country. Ballots are cast in voting locations across the county and then taken to a central area in Phoenix where they're tabulated. If they’re mailed in, the ballots are inspected and signatures are verified. They’re counted in a meticulous process that includes two workers - from differing political parties - sorting them and examining for any errors.

The process is livestreamed 24 hours a day.

While much of this process remains the same, a lot else has shifted. Since the 2020 election, a new law passed making it easier to call a recount in the state. Previously, if a race was decided by the slim margin of 0.1% of votes cast, a recount would take place. That’s now been raised to 0.5%.

The tabulation centre is now bristling with security cameras, armed security and a double layer of fencing.

Thick canvas blankets cover parts of a parking lot fencing to keep prying eyes out. Officials say the canvas was an added measure to protect employees from being harassed and threatened outside the building.

“I think it is sad that we’re having to do these things,” said Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates.

Gates, a Republican who says he was diagnosed with PTSD after the election threats he received in the 2020 election, doesn't plan to run for office again once this election is over because of the tensions.

“I do want people to understand that when they go to vote centres, these are not militarised zones,” he told the BBC. “You can feel safe to go there with your family, with your kids and participate in democracy.”

Yellow and black rope forms a line where visitors to the tabulation centre must queue to go through a metal detector. Three armed security guards stand near the detector. A black folding table sits nearby with a metal detector wand.

The county has invested millions since 2020. It’s not just security, either. They now have a 30-member communications team.

A big focus has been transparency - livestreaming hours of tests for tabulation machines, offering dozens of public tours of their buildings and enlisting staff to dispute online rumours and election conspiracies.

“We kind of flipped a switch,” assistant county manager Zach Schira told the BBC, explaining that after 2020 they decided, “OK, we’re going to communicate about every single part of this process, we’re going to debunk every single theory that is out there.”

It’s all led up to Tuesday's election.

“We may be over prepared,” Sheriff Skinner said, “but I'd rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Some Maricopa Republicans told the BBC they’ve tracked recent changes and felt there would be fewer problems this election cycle.

“They’ve made steps that I think will help,” said Garrett Ludwick, a 25-year-old attending a recent Scottsdale rally for Trump’s vice-presidential running mate JD Vance.

“More people are also aware of things now and I think there are going to be a lot of people watching everything like a hawk," he said, wearing a Trump cap that read, “Make liberals cry”.

One Republican voter, Edward, told the BBC the 2020 cycle caused him to get more involved. He’s now signed up for two shifts at polling locations in Maricopa County on Tuesday.

“Going to a rally or being upset isn’t going to fix things,” he said. “I wanted to be part of the solution.”

Not all are convinced.

“I still think it was rigged,” said Maleesa Meyers, 55, who like some Republican voters said her distrust in the process is too deep-rooted to believe the election could be fair. “It’s very hard to trust anyone today.”

Results in Arizona often hinge on Maricopa County, giving the county an outsized role in the outcome. Officials here estimate it could take as long as 13 days to count all ballots - meaning the expected tight race in this swing state might not be called on election night.

“There’s a chance that in 2024, the whole world will be watching for what the result is in Maricopa County," said Schira, the assistant county manager.

"Truly the world’s confidence in democracy could come down to this.”

Today's Today

This is it.

Good luck, America.

Today's Dana

Some pretty great insight in this.

The Bromance

Democracy has to constrain the majority, even as it delivers power to the majority.

Today's Today

National Voter Registration Day

Democracy is not something we have

if it's not something we do

Send Lawyers Guns And Money

ABA task force sounds alarm on democracy threats, takes action

Two prominent former chief executives of global organizations urged the legal community to mobilize to defend the principles and processes of U.S. democracy while also underscoring the need of collective action to educate the public and business during a packed Aug. 2 luncheon at the American Bar Association 2024 Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The luncheon kicked off the ABA Democracy Summit, a half-day series of events that focused on what ABA President Mary Smith called in opening remarks “the most consequential issue of our time – threats to democracy.”

The former CEOs – Carly Fiorina who headed technology giant Hewlett-Packard and Ken Frazier of pharmaceutical Merck – discussed the challenges facing democracy in America today with moderator Judy Woodruff, longtime television journalist best known for her work at PBS NewsHour. All three are members of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy, which earlier in the day released a statement outlining the critical role lawyers should play in restoring trust in our democracy.

Woodruff opened the conversation by noting she is working on a news project focused on why “America is so divided” and observed that the polarization might be the greatest since the Civil War more than 160 years ago. She pointed to the “disagreement of the facts whatever the issue is” and that “people today more than ever have different places they go to for news.”

In their discussion, both Fiorina and Frazier praised the ABA for its efforts in seeking to preserve democratic principles and processes. The task force and Democracy Summit were developed by President Smith as signature priorities of her term.

Fiorina and Frazier also explored the reasons for the strong divisions in the U.S. and what can be done about them. Frazier is a lawyer and longtime ABA member; Fiorina said she dropped out of law school in her first year before rising to become a corporate executive.

“We do not know our history,” Fiorina said, suggesting that is one of the reasons the country is divided. She said most citizens don’t know American ideals, principles, processes and the rule of law.

Frazier, who retired as CEO in 2022 after 30 years at Merck, observed that lawyers need to take a stand on the “defense of democracy and defense of the rule of law.”

“If lawyers don’t take a stand for those two things,” he said, “who else will do it?”

At the luncheon, ABA President Smith praised the work already being done to protect U.S. democracy. She honored 22 individuals and organizations with the democracy task force’s Unsung Heroes of Democracy medals and awarded Presidential Citations to Frazier, as well as task force co-chairs Jeh Johnson, former secretary of U.S. Homeland Security, and retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig.

Beyond the mobilization of legal professionals, Fiorina and Fraser urged businesses ── small and large── to become more involved in promoting democracy as well as its principles and processes in a nonpartisan way. They embraced ideas of giving employees time off to vote, work the polls and generally educate their workforces on democracy.

“Businesses can and should remind people of our fundamental principles and processes,” Fiorina said, noting that people listen to local business pillars as well as global CEOs.

Frazier also offered an idea for corporate America: establish an organization to “preserve democracy and the rule of law,” similar to the Business Roundtable that lobbies for big business issues such as tax policy. He said a new coalition was needed to “counter” the distrust and anger that many Americans feel toward a variety of institutions today that he said is “unprecedented in my lifetime.”

Both urged American corporate leaders to find a collective voice in a nonpartisan way.

“There is safety in the herd,” Fiorina said, urging leaders generally to “stand up” for democratic principles and processes.

Go Small To Play Big

A Biden/Harris window sticker, or a yard sign, or talking positively in casual conversation at the bar - these are all good for a coupla more votes.

But every time you shit-talk Biden, or politics in general - every time you complain about not having the choices you want - you're giving somebody else permission to stay home, or to write in Harold Stassen, or reason to believe the Both Sides bullshit, or whatever. So stop it.

When we can't count on 40-60% of Americans to show up and vote - the absolute least you can do to serve this country - over time, our little experiment in democratic self-governance ends with barely a whimper.

I'm not saying everybody needs to be a rah-rah for government. There's plenty about government in general - and this government in particular - that sucks.

So how do we change that?

In a democracy, we get to change that.

Get with a local campaign and write some postcards for somebody running for city council, or county commissioner, or state representative, or whatever.

Good things - and bad ones too - grow from the ground up.

Refusing to participate in democracy

is the same as voting against democracy.

And if you vote against democracy,

don't be surprised when you

never get to vote for it again.

Both Sides Don't

It's not about choosing the lesser of two evils.

It's about choosing the better man.

Trump Interview                      Biden Interview

Fighting Trump on the Beaches

Biden’s fiery D Day speech in Normandy warns against the ex-President’s isolationism, while Trump is back home, targeting “the enemy within.”

Anniversary speeches are, generally speaking, the trivial bane of an American Presidency. They are, by definition, backward-looking. The obligatory patriotic rhetoric, the flag-drenched backdrops—it is hard for them to read as anything other than tired and trite. Speaking in Normandy on Thursday to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Allied landings that spelled the beginning of the end of the Second World War, Joe Biden faced all those hurdles, and a few more besides. He is, after all, running for reëlection as America’s oldest-ever President, an octogenarian whose campaign is beset by increasingly pointed questions about whether he is still up to the job. Born in the midst of the war, Biden is all but certain to be the last U.S. President who was alive on June 6, 1944; there will not be another. The solemn D Day commemorations could have easily backfired on him—serving as a reminder that he, like the one hundred and eighty veterans of the Normandy operation able to return for this year’s ceremony, is but a superannuated relic of a bygone era. I have no doubt that in the unkinder, Trumpier precincts of the Internet, this is exactly how his appearance there was received.

It is true that Biden walked slowly during the proceedings and at times stumbled over his words; the White House would do well to stop pretending that, at age eighty-one, the President has not lost a step or two. It is also true that he did not suddenly transform overnight into a spellbinding orator. But, for what may well be his final D Day encore before the great battle passes from living memory, Biden met the moment with a message that was bracing, urgent, and clarifying. In a speech at the Normandy American Cemetery that was anything but generic, he called out both Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and, though he did not use his name, Donald Trump’s isolationism—the dual threats that have animated this last political campaign of Biden’s, in a long life full of them. “The autocrats of the world are watching closely,” he said, and it was not a warning, really, so much as a statement of blunt fact about the stakes in this year’s U.S. election and the foreign-policy consequences that will flow from it. His opponent is an admirer of Putin, and, reportedly, of Hitler even. Trump truly supports neither Ukraine nor nato.

As I write this, it still seems insane, unimaginable, that these are sentences about a once and possibly future American President. But they are real, if unfortunately so familiar by now that Trump often benefits from our failure to be shocked all over again. Just two days before Putin’s attack on his neighbor, Trump called him a strategic “genius.” On the campaign trail, Trump frequently speaks about his great relationships with the world’s current crop of autocrats and tyrants, praising Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un for their strength, while ranting about the weakness of the West. When Trump was President, he told his White House chief of staff, John Kelly, a decorated former Marine general, that he wanted America’s officers to be more like Hitler’s in their unquestioning loyalty to him. He routinely calls his enemies “vermin” and “human scum,” echoing Hitler’s language, and Kelly has said that Trump even told him that “Hitler did some good things.”

While listening to Biden’s speech, I thought about a resignation letter that Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appointed by Trump, wrote but did not send to him in 2020. “It is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945,” Milley said in the letter, a draft of which I obtained in the course of writing a book on the Trump Presidency. “It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against.”

Biden did not have to mention any of this to make it the inescapable context of his remarks on Thursday. “To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable,” Biden told the audience pointedly, adding, “Were we to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.” And yet so much forgetting has happened, and I am not thinking here about the lessons of the past century as much as I am about the lessons of just one four-year Presidential term ago. Does anyone still remember Trump in Helsinki in 2018, tripping over himself as he took Putin’s word over that of America’s intelligence agencies? Or Trump in France, for another set of world-war commemorations later that year, fresh off midterm-election losses and skipping a cemetery visit because he reportedly did not want to get his hair wet? Or Trump, in 2019, blackmailing Ukraine’s young new President, Volodymyr Zelensky, by holding up hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance needed to fight off Russia as he demanded Zelensky dig up dirt on Biden?

It is thinkable, then, all too thinkable. At the time of Biden’s speech, the polling averages showed Trump slightly ahead of him. What will happen to Ukraine if he should win?

“Their generation, in their hour of trial—the Allied forces of D Day did their duty,” Biden said, concluding his remarks. “Now the question for us is: In our hour of trial, will we do ours?”

Just a week ago, Trump became the only former President to be convicted of a crime. In a round of interviews defiantly rejecting both the verdict and the legal system that produced it, Trump made the following observation about America’s adversaries: “So you have Russia, you have China. But if you have a smart President, you always handle them quite easily, actually,” he told the hosts of the Fox News weekend morning show. “But the enemy within—they are doing damage to this country.”

Could there be a bigger contrast with Biden’s words in Normandy? “The enemy within” is not the language of a democratic President but of a dangerous demagogue who cares more about loyalty tests than geopolitical realities. Their clashing world views are underrated—or not rated at all—as a campaign issue, in a race overwhelmed by questions about Biden’s age and Trump’s sanity, and dominated by concerns over inflation, immigration, and the general sour mood of the country. And yet I cannot think of a starker delineation between the current President and his predecessor. It says something about the politics of 2024, indeed, that rather than seeing foreign policy as Trump’s vulnerability, some now view it as a problem for Biden, who struggled for months to get the Republican House of Representatives to provide billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, a delay that caused battlefield setbacks and a drop in morale, even as his own Democratic Party grew painfully divided over the President’s strong public support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

On the eve of Biden’s trip to France, Time magazine released a lengthy interview with him, a striking counterpoint to an interview that the magazine conducted with Trump earlier this spring. Biden’s was dominated by his concerns over the unravelling of the postwar order that he warned about again on Thursday; Trump’s was a portrait of a man consumed by grievances, whether against the “very unfair” European allies who Trump thinks should be contributing more to Ukraine’s defense, or the criminal court cases against him that he blames on Biden. When the Time interviewer told him that many Americans found his rhetoric about being a dictator “for a day” and the suspension of the Constitution contrary to “cherished democratic principles,” Trump’s reply was chilling. “I think a lot of people like it,” he said.

Reading back through the interview the other day, I was struck that Trump had said, almost word for word, the language about Russia and China and “the enemy within” that he repeated once again this week: “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others that would be called enemies depending on who the President is, frankly.” This, then, was not an idle observation of Trump’s but a theme of his campaign—the theme of his campaign.

Biden must have read Trump’s interview, too, as preparation for his own. It clearly informed his passionate case for why Trump is a danger to the international order, his focus on the threat posed by Russia—Trump, in his own interview, had bragged about how well he got along with Putin—and his best off-the-cuff line: “All the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man. Not a joke.”

Neither stirring battlefield rhetoric nor snarky one-liners, though, can explain how Biden can extract himself from his current predicament, running dead even at best against a felonious ex-President who diminishes the threats from America’s adversaries abroad because he is consumed by purging disloyal citizens at home. Tell that to the boys of Pointe du Hoc. I don’t think they’d believe it.


Donald Trump has now made clear that he won’t concede if he loses the election. Believe him.
By Susan B. Glasser

Defend Your Institutions

democracydefenderspac.com

It's Not About That

It's not about left vs right. It's not about Democrats vs Republicans. And in the end, it's not even about right vs wrong.

In American democracy - the way democracy is supposed to work - the way Madison set it up - it's just about not being such a fucking asshole about everything.

Go Jen

Today's Democracy Thing

The video is mostly about Stupid Republican Tricks, and the beginning of what I hope could be an awakening to the fact that all this MAGA shit is childish, and while we should never have to take this ridiculous nonsense seriously, we have to take it seriously.

What stands out for me in stark relief is something Marc Elias says about how this shit has been going on for almost an entire generation.

Trump started in 2010 or 2011 with the birth certificate bullshit. For 12 or 15 years, we've been getting splattered nonstop with lies and slander and what should be the most obvious gaslighting hogwash imaginable.

But millions of us are convinced it's all true, so there are folks who were 8 years old - when a lot of people are just becoming vaguely aware of politics - and they've spent the last 12 or 15 years being exposed to the fire hose every day. Now they're out of the nest, and "doing their own research", and holy fuck, it's pretty goddamned scary thinking how many of them might be well enough indoctrinated to stay home, or go 3rd party, or vote for Donald fucking Trump.

Today's Quote

Find the enemy that wants to end this American experiment in democracy and kill every one of them until they're so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.

--Gen Jim Mattis, USMC

The Test

It's pretty appalling to keep finding out that so many Americans know so little about our history or our government.

The citizenship test has some of the easiest questions ever - stuff I was taught in grade school - starting like in 3rd or 4th grade.

Nobody's asking you to present a full dissertation on the details of our little experiment in democratic self-government, but holy crap, people, c'mon - ya gotta know some of this to be at least kind of effective in the whole democracy thing.

Democracy is not something we have

unless it's something we do.

And we have to know something about it

to make the damned thing work.

Check yourself:

The next time you hear somebody shit-talk immigrants for not knowing enough about USAmerica Inc, ask them a few of those questions.

Nancy MacLean

We pay attention to things so we're less likely to be fooled.

• We pay attention to our health so pharmaceutical ads are less deceiving
• We pay attention to economics so we're not as likely to be deceived by "Financial Reporters" telling us about indicators - leading or trailing or Market Basket or Durable Goods or interest rates or whatever
• We pay attention to politics so we won't be fooled so often by demagogues and dog-assed Republicans

Richard Uilein:

GOP megadonor pours millions into effort to hinder Ohio abortion amendment

New campaign finance records show Illinois Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein is funding the bulk of the campaign aimed at thwarting a constitutional amendment on abortion in Ohio.

Ohio is likely the only state this year to have a measure on the ballot to enshrine abortion access into the state constitution, setting up a test case for how the issue may drive voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election. A USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University poll released this week found 58% of Ohioans support a constitutional amendment.

That support may not be enough to pass. Currently, such amendments require support from a simple majority — 50% + 1 vote. But the GOP-led state legislature set up a special election for Aug. 8 to raise the threshold to 60%. That measure is known as Ohio Issue 1.

Uihlein, an Illinois shipping supplies magnate with a history of donations to anti-abortion groups, was the top funder of Protect our Constitution, the main group supporting Issue 1. Uihlein gave $4 million to the group, the bulk of the $4.85 million raised.

Last month, a CBS News investigation found Uihlein had an outsized role in getting Issue 1 on the ballot. In April, he gave $1.1 million to a political committee pressuring Republican lawmakers to approve the August special election. Financial disclosures show a foundation controlled by Uihlein has given nearly $18 million to a Florida-based organization pushing similar changes to the constitutional amendment process in states across the country.

Uihlein didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ohio Republicans pushing to change the rules over constitutional amendments originally billed the effort as one that would prevent outside interests from influencing the state constitution. But supporters, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose, have since acknowledged the change would make it harder for a constitutional amendment on abortion to pass.

Last year, voters in Kansas and Michigan chose to preserve abortion access in their state constitutions with just under 60% approval.

Once the August special election was approved, money began to flow in on both sides. The central group opposed to raising the threshold for passing an amendment to 60%, One Person One Vote, raised a total of $14.4 million. The Sixteen Thirty Fund gave $2.5 million to the effort, campaign finance records show. The group, based in Washington D.C., has spent millions on left-leaning causes, including the campaign against the confirmation of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

It's Not Both Sides

Not all Press Poodles are created equal.

Heather Cox Richardson:

"This is not your mother's Republican Party. It has be come an extremist faction that has within its goals to get rid of the kind of government under which we've lived since 1933. So you have to start from the premise that you can't Both-Sides this issue. We have a national problem that is embodied by one hard-right extremist party."

A Small (ish) Win

Republicans continue their mighty struggle to beat back the forces of creeping democracy.

Seriously - I can't think of a shittier thing to do than to say you're serving the interests of your constituents by doing things that take away their right to choose their leaders - degrading democracy and claiming you're protecting it.

Our little experiment in democratic self-government seems to be hanging by a thread, even as we get a few faint glimmers of hope from a SCOTUS that has also seemed inclined to fuck us over.

But I'll take a win anywhere any time.

US Supreme Court won't halt ruling that blocked Alabama electoral map

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request by Alabama officials to halt a lower court's ruling that rejected a Republican-crafted electoral map for diminishing the clout of Black voters, likely clearing the way for a new map to be drawn ahead of the 2024 congressional elections.

The court's action leaves intact a Sept. 5 decision by a federal three-judge panel in Birmingham that the map approved by the state's Republican-led legislature to set the boundaries of Alabama's seven U.S. House of Representatives districts was unlawfully biased against Black voters and must be redrawn.

That map was devised after the Supreme Court in June blocked a previous version, also for weakening the voting power of Black Alabamians.

President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats are seeking to regain control of the House in next year's elections. With Republicans holding a slim 222-212 majority, court battles like this one are helping to shape the fight for control of the chamber.

Black people make up 27% of Alabama's population but are in the majority in only one of the seven House districts as drawn by the state legislature in both the maps it has approved since the 2020 census.

Electoral districts are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes as measured by a national census. In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain. Voting rights litigation that could result in new maps of congressional districts is playing out in several states.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 June ruling affirmed a lower court order requiring state lawmakers to add a second House district with a Black majority - or close to it - in order to comply with the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Black voters tend to favor Democratic candidates.

Following that ruling, the legislature adopted a plan that increased the portion of Black voters in a second House district from around 30% to 40%, still well below a majority. The three-judge panel ruled that this new map failed to remedy the Voting Rights Act violation present in the first map and directed a special master - an independent party appointed by a court - to draw a new, third version of the map ahead of next year's elections.

The latest Republican-drawn map drew swift objections from Black voters and civil rights activists. They said the plan failed to fix the Voting Rights Act violation identified by the Supreme Court, and that it raised concerns under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The Alabama map concentrated large numbers of Black voters into one district and spread others into districts in numbers too small to make up a majority.

The Supreme Court's June ruling was authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and joined in full by the court's three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the judgment in a separate opinion.

Conservative litigants had succeeded in persuading the Supreme Court to limit the Voting Rights Act's scope in some important previous rulings.

The Supreme Court's 2013 ruling in another Alabama case struck down a key part that determined which states with histories of racial discrimination needed federal approval to change voting laws. In a 2021 ruling endorsing Republican-backed Arizona voting restrictions, the justices made it harder to prove violations under a provision of the Voting Rights Act aimed at countering racially biased voting measures.