America Didn’t Elect This Joe

Trump and Manchin. Looks like a Junior Prom photo.

I had hoped after I finished my last article on West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin I was done talking about him, just like I had hoped we were all done talking about Donald Trump after November 2020.

But here we/I are, talking about both Joe and Donald still, one for being obstinate and clueless, refusing to let the outdated past go and the other…

Well, for pretty much the same thing.

This weekend Trump gave what had to be the laziest, more low energy speech I’ve ever seen him give, playing the hits for the crowd (stolen election, covid not his fault, Trump good, Biden bad) like a 60s band of on the second to last date of a year long 50th Reunion Tour of dive bars; tired, bored of their own crap, and ready to go back to the greenroom party. Really, I think Trump is a horrible human being, but he can fire up a crowd, and play it like Satan’s golden fiddle. This time, he seemed to be playing Satan’s cousin’s borrowed tambourine. Dead, boring, droning and not wanting to be there. Even Fox News didn’t bother showing it, one of the few times I’ve agreed with Fox.

Trump made no real news, said nothing that wasn’t predicted by nearly everyone, and the biggest takeaway seemed to be that he was wearing something beneath his pants. Maybe an adult diaper, maybe not, but still odd. Can’t say I really care. We’ll see what kind of things he says at the rallies he’s starting to book, to the people who show up to worship His Orangeness. He’s down, but his not out.

Fucking Joe Manchin.

Really, so tired of this man. The world’s most aggravating politician, friend of Donald Trump, shooter of bills he doesn’t like, and almighty Emperor of Bipartisanship, Manchin has now fully come out against the Democrats voting rights reforms, stating he refuses to modify or “weaken” the filibuster, that undemocratic relic that has been used to stop progress for decades. Seriously. Joe Manchin is more interested in protecting the rights of the minority in the Senate, than protecting the rights of minority voters. A bill that protects the voting rights of the American people is too ‘partisan’.

Too partisan.

Making sure people can exercise their right to vote, that states will have to be free and fair in their districting, that they must be answerable to the Constitution, is ‘partisan’? That’s nuts. It makes no sense, unless bowing to the GOP’s screwing of those who dare not vote for them is somehow ‘non-partisan’.

Insanity.

I don’t understand his endgame here. Does he really believe his own crap? Is he really thinking the Republicans are operating in good faith? Where are his ten Republicans, good and true, who are ready to help Biden fix this country?

They aren’t there, and won’t be.  

I’m sure Joe believes he’s the hero here, the one saving democracy from those damn liberals intent on destroying it, hell, we’re all the hero in our own Hollywood screenplay. But the nation did not elect Joe Manchin. For the past ten years, with McConnell in the Senate, (and then Trump in the White House) we have had a minority-ruled government, where people not elected by the majority of Americans, thwart what the majority of American voters want. The minority gets to say ‘no’ to the majority, over and over again. With little to no consequences. They have done this with the filibuster, using this archaic instrument to smash and kill everything not proposed by them.

Long past time for that to change.  

I don’t think Joe’s a stupid person, in fact, I think he’s fairly intelligent. This is all about being a Democrat in a deep red state. If he can stall the popular Biden agenda with silly ‘bipartisan’ nonsense, it gives him cover at election time. Maybe I’m wrong, but I bet I’m not. A political calculation is holding back the necessary reforms needed to keep this ‘American Experiment’ safe and functioning. Much like his Friend Trump, he’s willing to gamble country for reelection.

But if he really wanted to do something about the filibuster, but keep it in place, he easily could.

He could have proposed a ‘talking’ filibuster, as used to be the case (see ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’, no, really, go see it), or he propose could flipping the vote requirements. Right now, the majority has to get 60 votes, but the minority doesn’t have to do anything, nada, squat. Make the minority prove they have the 40 it would take to uphold their filibuster. Make them gather them up for every vote, and then spring votes on them, make them work to keep their filibuster going. My bet is they’re going to get sick of the whole thing pretty quickly and give in.

There are ways to fix it and still keep it, lords knows why.

But Manchin has proposed nothing. Nothing. He made a couple feints at the beginning of congress, sounding almost reasonable, and but just wants to stamp his foot and hold his breath. If this were a terrible sitcom, we’d have a shot of Manchin, arms crossed and shaking his head, saying “You can’t make me, you can’t make me!” and then cut to him voting ‘yes’ on the bills.

But this isn’t ‘Gilligan’s Isle’, and we’re all the worse for it. At least Gilligan listened to his Skipper.

Manchin has proposed nothing but hope. He ‘hopes’ he can get more of his bipartisan, Republican pals to come to his party, over time, but until then he’s going to keep the rec-room lights on, the punchbowl filled, the chips and dip laid out, and Buck Owens on the turntable. And he’ll sit in that old recliner (with the handle on the side), just waiting for his buddies to leave the frat and show up.

Like we have all the time in the world to save democracy.  

The Fifty Six Percent

Trump supporter shows his opinion of the media. Uh huh.

Oh boy.

The latest Ipsos poll is out, with some good news, and of course, worrying news, because this would not be 2021 without some bad news lurking around the corner preparing to jump you. 

Here’s the good stuff, to bolster your sagging faith in humanity: 75 percent of Americans believe that Joe Biden is the “true” president, while 55 percent think he is the “legitimate and accurate” president; 25 percent disagree with each. Well, not crazy about the 25%, so let’s break this all down and look at the ‘by party’ numbers. This is where the face-palming comes in:

“56% of Republicans believe the election was rigged or the result of illegal voting, and 53% think Donald Trump is the actual President, not Joe Biden. Only 30% of Republicans feel confident that absentee or mail-in ballots were accurately counted, compared to 86% of Democrats and 55% of independents. As a result, 87% of Republicans believe it is important that the government place new limits on voting to protect elections from fraud. Finally, 63% percent of Republicans think Donald Trump should run for President again in 2024, compared to only 8% of Democrats and 23% of independents.”

56% of Republicans think the election was stolen from Donald Trump, somehow, someway, 53% of them think Trump is actually still president, and 87% of Republicans want to limit the right of non-Republicans to vote. These are the people Democrats are supposed to ‘listen’ to and ‘empathize’ with. Really. They are still firmly embedded in November of 2020, to just before Fox News called Arizona for Biden, still sitting in front of the TV or hitting refresh on the Fox site to see the numbers. They are so far beyond rational political thought they’d have to get off the bus and walk back ten miles to find it.

That’s the definition of ‘delusional’.

There’s simply no way to reason with or ‘understand’ the MAGA voter when they sit down opposite you with this already in their heads. If this is their starting point, where could the conversation even begin? If months of no evidence of fraud hasn’t shaken lose this dog bite clamp on the leg of the election, you calmly explaining their faulty reasoning/logic isn’t going to do it. This won’t be solved over a burger and a handshake.

Maybe though, just maybe, they’re playing us, trying to own the ‘libs’ though the polling. They might not actually believe what they claim to believe. Maybe they’re just telling the pollsters something outrageous to invite controversy or prove a point about mean liberal polling, as they seem to think the House/Senate races were just fine. Expressing their anger at the loss by stating something they don’t truly believe but wish to be so. Maybe we’re all being played.

I seriously doubt it, but maybe…

Of course, if this were true, it causes a big problem as well. The far right at the moment is a swirling cesspool of grievance, anger, blame, conspiracy theories, and potential violence just looking for an excuse to explode. The ‘Big Lie’ over the election is fueling that time bomb. The Republican leaders, in pushing and supporting that Lie, are working to light the fuse in the belief that that is what their supporters want. They are rightly scared to death of their own base (after January 6th, I don’t blame them). What if their base doesn’t actually believe the ‘Big Lie’? We have the perfect feedback loop, the base feeding the Lie to the leaders, and the leaders working on feeding it right back to the base. With each cycle, the belief in the Lie grows stronger, more ridged, harder to break, or break away from.

The GOP is using the whole mess as an excuse to push voter suppression (they are the same people who disastrously put together a commission trying to find 3 million ‘illegal’ votes in the 2016 election), to try and make sure they can hold power without having to worry about elections. But in doing so they are also riling up a base desperate to be riled, desperate to be told that yes, they are right; people are out to get them, to do them harm, to destroy them over their religion, politics, way of life, skin color. Yes, they are the true minorities and they are the true persecuted. The more the Republicans push this lie for their own ends, the more dangerous the situation becomes.

In the end, whether the base believes the lie, or the leaders are cynically pushing the lie to gain power, it doesn’t really matter. The end will be the same, destruction of our democratic ideals.

An AEI poll this year found most Republicans agree "the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it." They’re primed, 56% think they have an illegitimate president in the White House and 53% think the former president is still in power, or should be. Will they sit by and do nothing?

56% would rather live their shared delusion, stuck in their 2020 infinity loop than come forward into the sunlight.

And that’s where we are.

It’s Not You, Democracy, It’s Them

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, attempting to demonstrate with his hands how far the GOP is from reality. His hands can’t go that wide.

Kevin McCarthy needs to see if he can rent back his balls from Donald Trump long enough to support the investigation into the January 6th insurrection. After all, it was negotiated by his own representative, signed off on by him, and was supposed to move forward. But now?

Now he doesn’t like it anymore.

Evidently, he got another friendly call from Mar-a-Largo because Donny doesn’t want an investigation. Of course he doesn’t. And now Kevin doesn’t either. Not anymore, anyway. Trump is against it, as is most of the GOP, because they are complicit; they supported it, they either went along with the lies that inspired the mobs, broadcasted the lies themselves, or said nothing and hoped it would go away like a bill that comes due when your bank account is empty.  

If we just don’t answer the knocking, it’ll stop, they’ll just go away. But they didn’t. They came back with a battering ram, looking for blood. Not metaphorical blood, actual blood. McCarthy is guilty of going along, of trying to stop democracy, of voting to kill it before it threw his unpopular party and its equally unpopular president out of power. After a period of a day or so where they pretended regret, trying to see where political chips were going to fall, they’ve sprung back into ‘Big Lie’ mode, denying the insurrection and supporting Trump’s continued spewed lunacies.  

The ‘Big Lie’ of the stolen election is now the Republican battleplan of taking power in DC and the states; keep telling your voters they were cheated, that they have actual grievances, that the election and their rightful president were stolen from them. Keep the base angry, seething, ready to storm the polling places and vote for anything Trump and the GOP tell them. Get them angry and near violence and keep them there.

Just not too angry and violent. It’s a subtle and deadly dance, like a replay of the classic French film ‘The Wages of Fear’, only this time it’s not truckers hauling degrading nitro, it’s the GOP playing with the nitro emotions and violence that their most extreme voters are capable of, both already on abundant display long before 1/6.

The Democrats must move ahead on the investigation, without the GOP. They will never cooperate anyway. Hell, they only regret the insurrection didn’t succeed, democracy be damned. A new CBS poll asked GOP voters that if they were a party consultant, would they focus on developing a message and “popular policies and ideas” to win over more voters? Or would they prioritize changes to the voting rules in states and districts?

Almost half the GOP, 47%, went with screwing voters, with making sure ‘those’ people don’t vote. You know, you and me. 2/3rds pledged loyalty to Trump, and thought getting rid of Liz Cheney, a far-right conservative who voted with Trump some 93% of the time, was a good idea. Not loyal enough. Insufficiently ready to steal coming elections.

They are done with democracy. It’s no longer giving them what they need. No, it’s not you, democracy, it’s them. Totally on them, they’re done, they want a divorce.

It’s now up to the Democratic Party to show that democracy can be saved, that it can work. The 1/6 investigation is needed to show the agenda of the GOP, to show the country where the rot is and how deep it goes. The Democrats will have to stop playing nice as usual, stop playing defense and start playing offense. Nancy and Chuck need to go it alone, while they still can.

2022 is coming at us like a freight train, we can hear its mournful whistle in the distance and soon it’ll be too late to get off the tracks.

We have to make sure we’re on that train and not in front of it.

The Last Free Election

Vote here, while we still can.

 “When you give up integrity the rest is easy”.

- JR Ewing

Was our last free election in November of 2020?

It was if the GOP has its way.

What we are seeing right now is an extension of the January 6th coup attempt, a slow-motion insurrection going on in the states where the Republicans hold the legislature. They are purging the party of anyone who doesn’t at least pretend that Donald Trump won an election he lost by 7 million votes. They are working to suppress the votes of those who dare not to vote Republican, to remove barriers that hold them from throwing out the will of the voters, to make flesh the bones of what Trump tried to do in the months after he lost. To make the ‘Big Lie’ our new reality.

Georgia, for example, in 2020 had Brad Raffensperger as Secretary of State. He oversaw a fairly uneventful (as actual electoral problems go) election. It was after the call was made and the outcome was one not expected by Trump and the Republicans that the problems occurred. Now, for a bit of context here, Raffensperger oversaw an election system set up by the current Georgia Governor Republican Brian Kemp when Kemp was Secretary of State, a system designed to elect Republicans. Kemp threw every dirty trick he could in his run for governor and as Secretary, there were a lot he could throw.  

That is the system that Raffensperger oversaw. It should have worked, but it didn’t, at least not the way the Georgia GOP thought it would. Shock turned into anger, turned into accusations of fraud, fanned by the lies of Trump and his supporters. Raffensperger, to his credit, stood up to it, denied the lies and held open recounts of the votes. He didn’t try to ‘find’ the votes Trump demanded he find. He actually ‘stopped the steal’, the attempted theft of the election in Georgia by Trump and his supporters.

Yeah. Well, the Georgia legislature fixed that. They removed the Secretary of State as head of the board of elections, making that position a political appointment. No more Raffensperger getting in their way. They also gave themselves the power to remove local election officials and reject vote totals if they suspect ‘fraud’. How do they define fraud?

When Democrats win, of course. It is obviously a crime and cannot be allowed.

Silly voters, you got it wrong! Don’t worry, we’ll fix that for you.

They are tossing anyone who will not toe the Trump ‘Big Lie’ line, from local election boards (remember Republican Aaron Van Langevelde in Michigan, the election board member who voted to certify the Biden votes? They got rid of him) to national leaders like Liz Cheney. They are setting up the mechanics to deny any Democrat who would win the 2024 presidential election the position. What seemed like fantasy in 2020, refusing to certify the election and throwing it to a GOP congress who would then decide the election themselves, is now the goal. This is the Republican dream, power without having to actually rely on people voting for them. Why bother with voting when you can just take power? Why pass go to collect $200? Just reach over to the tray and take $200, or maybe more? Who’s going to stop you?

The GOP is a party that has given up on voters and democracy. As demographics change they see their base shrink. If this was a business, they would introduce new products, try to grow into new markets, try to figure out what the people want and work to give it to them. Identify the need, and fill it. The problem here is the majority no longer wants what the Republicans are selling. Lower taxes for the rich, fewer services, and no social safety net for Americans just isn’t a good sell (never was, which is why they push the never-ending culture war), and they’re slowly running out of angry White people, so do they change their message to appeal to a broader audience? No, they just won’t bother with that messy democracy stuff anymore, too uncertain. Better to just take power, to declare the opposition as ‘un-american’ and ‘enemies’ and any defeat of Republicans as ‘fraud’.

There will not be another national election, or probably even local, where if a Republican loses they will not cry ‘fraud’. It’s already happening, Trump has shown them the way, what they must do in the future, and that’s exactly what they will do. Why not? Who will stop them?

They will audition this in 2022 in the sticks to see how it will play. 2024 is opening night.

This is the worst kind of ‘doom and gloom’ porn, I know, where the writer pelts you with godawful news, hardballs thrown fast and furious, one smacking you as you duck the others. I know, but this is what is happening right now, as I type this in a slow dawning morning here in Seattle. A fix for all I write here is sitting in the US Senate right now, S. 1, about to be introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, where it will die under the weight of a Republican filibuster. Right now, with this ‘Senate tradition’ the anti-democratic filibuster in place, celebrated by those who enjoy the fruits of nothing getting done, the proposed bill making it easier to vote will gasp and will die.

What to do?

We all know who is holding this up. Senator Joe Manchin claims bipartisanship is more important than actual reform, and his definition of ‘bipartisanship’ is not that the majority of the country (Democrats and Republicans) support it, it’s that the majority of his friends in the Senate support it, country be damned. Now that may be harsh, but I really don’t care. That is the motive I attribute to such an attitude that puts a Senate rule over the will of the people, over the health of our governing principles, our democracy. What else can we say about it?

We can say it to Joe, and the rest of the Senate. Manchin’s contacts are below. Letters are usually better than emails or calls, but anything will help. Mailing mine out later today.

We’ll talk more tomorrow.  

https://www.manchin.senate.gov/contact-joe

Don’t Cry For Liz Cheney

Boom goes the dynamite. The Republicans continue their relentless march to turn Trump lies into the GOP reality, no matter who is in the way.

And just like that, Representative Liz Cheney is gone. If not in body, in power. She was the 3rd most powerful Republican in the House leadership and she lost that position for taking an odd, and at odds position to her colleagues; she insisted on telling the truth about the former president.

Nothing is punished so much as being right in a wrong world.  

She went down shooting though;

“We cannot embrace both the big lie and the Constitution," Cheney said on her way out the door. She says she'll do "everything I can" to ensure Trump never gets near the Oval again. "We cannot be dragged backward by the dangerous lies of a former president."

And then the door slammed on her, as a victory howl went up from Mar-a-Largo. High fives all around!

And she’s out, by a non-recorded voice vote, McCarthy and the House GOP were on-brand cowards to the end. This is what happens in today’s Republican party for daring to put your head up and say, “Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t right…” You get that head chopped off. Dare to admit Trump actually lost the election by 7 million votes (which he did) and you’ve suddenly got Donald Sutherland pointing and screaming at you.

This is also what happens when a party becomes not a political entity of like-minded people, formed with the goal of governing, but a personality cult huddled around one god-like (or maybe, ‘god-claiming) person from whom all favor flows. To speak against that person, to poke that bear, gets you the fate of most who do venture their hand into the den; you get eaten.

Trump has consumed the GOP, well, since he’s lazy as hell, they consumed themselves for him, re-making the party from the ground up in gold plate, velvet curtains, and long red ties. They had their chance to walk, and almost did so after Trump incited the riot on January 6th, even McCarthy briefly grew a spine and blamed the President for his actions… and then went to Mar-a-Largo to kiss his ass and tell him how sweet it tasted. He was quickly followed by Cruz (who never misses a chance at humiliating himself, seems to enjoy it in fact), Lindsey Graham, (who literally has no shame, probably born without it) and others who have made the journey in spirit if not action.

"We cannot be dragged backward by the dangerous lies of a former president." Cheney said.

Sure we can. It’s happening right now, aided and abetted by the entire Republican party. The GOP is already there. They took that one little step, that toe-in-the-water after 1/6, shivered and went back in the Trump cave, never to venture out again. “Dragged”? Hell, they’ll happily march in lockstep by Trump. They like it, they want it, and have for decades. Trump, and everyone who has eyes and a keyboard (hello!) has said this; Trump did not spring up suddenly and unexpectedly, and this is true. The GOP arrived at Trump. Trump had his arms opened wide, and welcomed them… home. You can finger-trace the curve from the John Birchers in the 50s, to Goldwater in the 60s, though the Nixon ‘Southern Strategy’ in the late 60s-70s, to Reagan (a darling of the far-right from his time as governor of California) and his embrace into the GOP of far-right Christianity, to the demagoguery of Newt Gingrich and the rise of far right media in the 70-80s, all of these elements joining together with Fox News and Rupert Murdoch in the 90s to drive the right’s narrative ever farther and farther right to end at the warm embrace of… Trump.

End of the line. Everyone out.

Trump became the vessel for all the worst of the GOP; all the bile and hate and grievance and paranoia had found an umbrella to shelter under, a home to put their feet up, relax and plan/plot. They had seen each other across a crowded room and it was love at first sight.

Yeah. Ick.

Do not cry for Liz Cheney, I know I won’t. She is a person who supported torture, and threw her own lesbian sister under the bus to advance her career. She is an extremist in her own right, and is now enveloped by the hate her party has been nurturing for decades. The burning to the ground of the GOP has been coming for decades and it’s not over yet. Just as the Reagan/Gingrich movement purged anyone thought of as ‘liberal’ from the party, they will now also be purged for the sin of blasphemy, the sin of pointing out the nakedness of their own emperor. The purge is had been going on in the states for the past couple months, Cheney is just the most public national example of it.

No, Liz will be fine. She might lose her seat in the next election, but she will be seen as a martyr to the cause, and have many high paying speaking gigs and consultancies with the old guard Republicans (the true GOP) to tide her over before her inevitable run for president as the ‘Sane Republican” ™. She’s good.

The problem isn’t her, the problem is the GOP, once again, straining to reshape reality to a more comfortable (for them) environment for them to thrive. They’re trying to terraform democracy by getting rid of the ‘democracy’ part and forcing the country to accept it, basically trying to ‘Cheney’ the entire country until the only votes that count will be theirs, the only laws they obey will be the ones they pass and force on the rest of us, backed by the judges they appointed.

Don’t cry for Liz, she helped make this bed, She’s snug.

Cry for democracy.

They Can Run, But the GOP Can’t Hide from Trump

Trump, probably lying. Again.

We all have a lot of hope that the new Biden/Harris administration will bring some sanity, dare I say ‘normalcy’ to the country, but we also are staring at a Republican party determined to stop them from doing, anything, that will actually help the country. Mitch McConnell and the Republicans under Obama made the recovery from the Bush crash longer and more painful than it needed to be, simple as that, and did so deliberately knowing they were hurting people. As McConnell said, his job was to make Obama a ‘One-Term President’. It wasn’t to legislate, it wasn’t to help right the country after eight years of ruinous leadership, no, his only job was to ‘win’, not help. Obama had to fix the economy and pass the ACA without help from the GOP.

Obama had Mitch and the co-opped ‘Tea Party’ to contend with, Biden and Harris will have a GOP that is even father right. The Tea Party believed Obama was a Muslim radical, born in Kenya. The new version of the Tea Party, Oanon (with has taken over a lot of the base, and electing followers) believe all Democrats are Satan worshiping pedophiles who torture children to harvest a drug called Adrenochrome. Qanon is what is firing up the Republican base, and the god of Qanon is Trump. The leaders of the GOP have a choice;

One: cast off Trump and all the ugly he has revealed about the party,

Two: try to court Qanon and keep it under control, or

Three: just dive in and go nuts.

Far so, they’re doing both two and three.

The push since the election is just go plain full-on crazy, the more the better. I don’t see any signs of that stopping anytime soon. Going forward, the GOP/Trump/Qanon party, already a party of White grievance, will become all about that, it will fuel and drive it. It will be about ‘stolen elections’, about the shrinking White demographic, about ‘biased media’ (even Fox is taking hits for not towing the Trump line and lies), it will retreat even further into its bubble world, and it will strike out with the blind fury of a wounded animal. Trump knows a good grift when he sees it, and so does his family and all their enablers. He’s already shown he doesn’t care about the country, he’ll burn it all down just to get his way, so he’ll keep pushing, keep lying and keeping telling the people who want to believe that he, and they, were robbed.  

And they’ll believe him.

The Georgia and national Republicans are looking at polls showing the two senate races there either tied of the Democrats slightly ahead. Those polls are also showing them something else; Trump’s lies of ‘voter fraud’ and ‘rigged elections’ are causing some of his more fevered supporters to stay home. This can’t be good for them, but they can’t say anything out loud, even Perdue and Loeffler, the Republicans in the race, have to finesse their way around the crazy, calling the election and unfair while at the asking people to vote for them.

Crazy, right?

In 2022 we’ll see a wave of the crazy unlike anything we’ve seen before. Those Republicans running for reelection will have to either take the pledge and be just as crazy as the rest, or run the risk of being primaried by someone who is crazier than they are, or at least does a good job of acting that way.

So, what’s the Biden/Harris administration going to do the get even some of their agenda through the coming wall of craze?

Biden has a couple different ways to deal with this. Hopefully, he will not try to be collegial and work with them. I know, I know, that’s always the goal, to ‘work across the aisle, be bi-partisan. If Biden learned nothing from the Obama years, he should have learned that the Republicans are bad actors, they do not negotiate in good faith. Even those that might agree in private are going to be pushed, squeezed to the wall by the base who will demand blood… and they don’t really care which side bleeds; the Satanist Democrats, or the RINO’s who let their beloved Trump down. It’ll a race to prove which Republican is the most irresponsible, and that’s the Republican that will go forward. 

Right now, McConnell is saying the new administration won’t even get cabinet positions confirmed unless he personally approves of them, won’t even get a vote. No, unless he gets the Senate, (and maybe not even then) Biden will have to go it alone as much as possible, get things done administratively rather than through congress. And it won’t be easy, as every more will be protested, will be dragged into the courts. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Republicans filling out lawsuits now, to fill in the blanks later.

Biden is going to have to move fast, blitz the field before 2022, when chances are he might lose his House majority. He can do this with multiple teams pushing his agenda at the same time. I assume right now they’re readying Executive orders to sign, and they should do as much as they can as fast as they can, confuse and disorient the opposition into trying to figure out and deal with the numbers of different things coming out. Just as Trump does with outrages, committing new ones before the furor over the last one died out, Biden can do with policy. A Trump tactic for the good of the country.

That might be the best thing we’ll learn from Trump.