Friday Talking Points -- Merry Arrestmas!

[ChrisWeigant]

Today's Republican Party is not just the Party of Trump, it also is now the Party of Trumpism -- or to put it in plainer terms: authoritarianism. "We're going to do whatever we want to do, because we can" seems to be the new rallying slogan for Republicans. Never mind what the public thinks or wants, never mind the possible political backlash, it's just going to be full steam ahead for as long as they can get away with it.

The week began with the new episode of the continuing saga of The Trump Circus (this week's episode: "Merry Arrestmas!" ), where the nation was treated to the spectacle of a former president being charged with 34 felonies in New York City. The best single sentence summing up the day's events came from a Washington Post article:

The current president said not a word about Trump all day -- ignoring repeated questions from reporters -- but [Joe] Biden's underlying message was hard to miss: The likely Democratic candidate for president in 2024 was doing his day job, while the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination was getting fingerprinted.

The media covered it with all the breathless expectation of watching O. J. Simpson's white Bronco on a Los Angeles freeway, but it was actually a pretty boring day all around. Donald Trump was only briefly seen six times in all this live coverage (before he returned to Florida and delivered his own remarks on the situation): leaving Trump Tower, moving from his motorcade to the courthouse building, walking about six or seven steps in a hallway as he entered the courtroom, walking back through the hallway afterwards, getting in his car, and boarding his plane. There were also a handful of still shots of Trump sitting at a table in the courtroom with his legal defense team, as well as a few oddly hideous renditions of Trump by the courtroom artist (one of which bore more than a striking resemblance to the Grinch). That was it, for all the hours and hours of live television coverage. Not much to show for it all, but the media didn't care, they were happy with their ringside seats to the center ring of The Trump Circus once again.

Afterwards, both the district attorney who brought the charges and then later Trump himself spoke to the cameras. The D.A. defended his position in no uncertain terms:

"These are felony crimes in New York state, no matter who you are. We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct," [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg told reporters.

. . .

In a statement released just after Trump's arraignment earlier Tuesday, Bragg said that "Manhattan is home to the country's most significant business market. We cannot allow New York businesses to manipulate their records to cover up criminal conduct. As the Statement of Facts describes, the trail of money and lies exposes a pattern that, the People allege, violates one of New York's basic and fundamental business laws. As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law."

Trump took time during his comments to threaten the D.A., the judge who has been assigned the case, and (for good measure) the judge's wife and daughter. This was too much for even Steve Doocy on Fox News, who later pointed out: "Six hours later, at Mar-a-Lago, the judge was attacked, the judge's wife, and the judge's daughter. The judge's daughter wound up on Truth Social and a bunch of social media sites yesterday because she works for a consulting firm that did work... for the Biden-Harris campaign. It is a very bad look to attack the family of the judge."

Trump also used his address to attack a few other prosecutors who are leading investigations into much more serious charges against him, and he mightily tried to turn the event into some sort of celebratory "arraingment party." Without much notable success, however. The response from his own handpicked crowd was tepid, at best, and Trump's scathing vitriol didn't leave a whole lot of room for applause lines (one example, while bemoaning the state of the country under President Joe Biden, Trump darkly warned that "all-out nuclear war" was just around the corner, frantically warning: "It can happen! We're not very far away from it!" Not exactly a "stand up and cheer" line, and the crowd reacted accordingly.

The whole day had a rather tawdry and anticlimactic feel to it, truth be told. We suppose that's appropriate, considering what spurred all the (allegedly) illegal activity in the first place. Donald Trump is certainly not the first United States president to fool around extramaritally -- he's not even the first to arrange for hush-money payments to his mistress, in fact (the Washington Post helpfully reminded everyone of Warren G. Harding's peccadillos). You could even go back to Grover Cleveland fathering a child out of wedlock and having to face taunting campaign slogans as a direct result ("Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?"... which Cleveland's supporters gleefully embraced after he won, adding: "Gone to the White House -- Ha! Ha! Ha!" ). But he will be the first to have the entire sordid affair microscopically examined in a court of law.

Trump has long predicted that Trump Nation would rise as one if he was ever actually held accountable for anything he has done. He predicted widespread demonstrations as his supporters took to the streets in his defense. Before the arraignment even happened, Trump warned of possible "death & destruction" on his pet social media site. But when the time came, only perhaps 300 protesters showed up at the courthouse; they were prevented from even catching a glimpse of Trump himself; and even Marjorie Taylor Greene with a bullhorn wasn't enough for the insanely-loud whistles and jeers from anti-Trump protesters. Greene was the only notable Republican to even address the protesters, and she only stayed for 10 minutes or so because she was getting crushed by the crowd. George Santos did stroll by earlier, just to troll the media into giving him some airtime (which most were happy to do). That was it. If there were any protests happening anywhere else in the country, they were obviously so miniscule as to not even warrant the slightest media coverage.

The charging document itself was mostly legal "boilerplate." The D.A. has chosen to hold his cards very close to the vest and not reveal his prosecutorial strategy quite yet. This drove all the experts bonkers on television, because they couldn't quite put a finger on whether the indictment showed a strong case or a weak one. The entire day was, as we said, pretty anticlimactic. By the end of the week, most everyone had actually moved on and the Trump indictment was already seen as "old news." That's not exactly the splash Trump was looking for, obviously.

Republicans, of course, are collectively losing what is left of their minds over the whole thing -- or at least the ones willing to debase themselves by appearing on television with tears in their eyes begging everyone to give Trump some more of their hard-earned money. Or comparing Trump to Jesus, for that matter ("Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government!" ). The Republican Party as a whole seems to have taken a rather absolutist position, which might be stated as: "No Republican politician can ever be investigated by anyone for anything, even after they have left office, because Republicans have an eternal 'Get out of jail free' card permanently tattooed on their body for all time." We'll see how absolutist they all are when the next Trump indictments are handed down (for crimes far more serious to the American form of government).

Also an open question is how Republican voters -- even Trump voters -- actually see all of this. Anecdotal evidence can be found either way, but we do wonder how many GOP voters are just getting tired of all of Trump's antics at this point, and how many more are taking a more practical "someone else might have a better chance of winning" attitude. From an article with a few of those anecdotes:

"It's unprecedented. It's a shame," Marc Fromowitz, 52, a Rockland County [New York] small-business owner and registered Republican who voted for Trump twice, said of the indictment. "But there are folks like myself... [who would] rather Trump just go away and open a library in New York or Florida, wherever his residence is, and let someone else take over and lead the charge to save America."

. . .

Others cited Trump's behavior for their desire to possibly look elsewhere, mentioning his "ego" and how he "belittles" people.

"I'm tired of the drama," said Dawn Lafasciano, 50, a Republican resident of Rockland County who voted for Trump twice. Lafasciano said she would support Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) in 2024 if he decides to run for president.

"I don't like the backstabbing and everything," she said about Trump. "I want that to change."

So far, Trump is enjoying a big bump in the polls of Republican voters, so it remains to be seen how widespread such sentiments actually are. Guess we'll all just have to tune in for the next episode Trump's ongoing soap opera....

By week's end the political media was watching another Republican circus, this one down in Tennessee. Inspired by protests at the statehouse after yet another horrendous school shooting, three Democratic Tennessee house of representatives members interrupted the floor proceedings with their own protest chants -- two of them using a bullhorn to do so. The Republicans in the chamber absolutely freaked out in response. They quickly stripped the lawmakers of their ability to appear on the floor and then hastily arranged a vote to expel them from the body. The votes happened yesterday, and the two Black male lawmakers were expelled while the White woman (who, to be fair, did not use the bullhorn) was allowed to keep her seat (by only a one-vote margin). Not exactly the best optics, in other words. The lawmaker who did keep her seat later responded, when asked why she made it when the others didn't: "It might have to do with the color of our skin."

The expelled lawmakers may stage a comeback, however. The procedure in Tennessee when a vacancy appears is that the local governments in the district appoint someone to serve in the interim while an election is scheduled to replace the representative. But there's nothing to stop the local politicians from appointing the same two men who just got expelled, and there's nothing to stop them from running again during the special election. But there is this -- the state constitution forbids the legislature from expelling members twice for the same reason. Meaning they could both be back on the job in short order knowing that they are immune from the same thing happening all over again. So we likely haven't heard the final chapter in this story.

One does hope that this isn't the beginning of a spiral of escalation from Republicans. Any legislative supermajority -- the number required to overturn vetoes or expel its members -- can act with virtual impunity, after all. And the move in Tennessee might inspire other such naked abuses of power. One may even be brewing in Wisconsin, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

Reaction from Democrats was swift, as it is pretty easy to condemn what just happened in Tennessee. President Biden released a statement which said: "Today's expulsion of lawmakers who engaged in peaceful protest is shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent. Rather than debating the merits of the issue, these Republican lawmakers have chosen to punish, silence, and expel duly-elected representatives of the people of Tennessee." Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a bit more pointed: "Republicans may think they won today in Tennessee, but their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation. If you thought youth organizing was strong, just wait for what's coming." Most of the protesters were schoolchildren and their parents.

But speaking of backlashes (as well as possible naked power grabs by Republicans), the best news of the week came from Wisconsin, and (to a lesser degree) Chicago. In both places, a progressive candidate won an important election (state supreme court justice in Wisconsin, and the mayor of the city of Chicago). We're going to get to the details later, during the awards, but there was a dark lining to the silver cloud (so to speak) in Wisconsin. On the same day, a special election was held for a vacant seat in the state senate. The Republican candidate narrowly won. Adding this one seat means that the GOP now does hold a supermajority in the state senate, but they haven't hit this mark in the lower legislative chamber (meaning they cannot use a purely partisan vote to overturn a veto from the Democratic governor). But guess what they can do with just a majority in their house and a supermajority in their senate? Impeach and convict anyone they feel like. This has led to worries that they could move quickly to impeach the new supreme court justice before she is even sworn in. They could also boot out the governor, if they chose to do so.

The legislature is so lopsided in one of the closest swing states in the country because it is by some measures the most-gerrymandered state in the entire country. But this may be changing in two notable ways. The first is the electorate might just be getting tired of Republican rule. The supreme court justice won her election by an astounding 11 points, in an election with very high turnout. This is in what used to be a perfectly-balanced 50-50 state, mind you. And the second way it might be changing is that the new supreme court justice is downright eager to hear a case on the rampant GOP gerrymandering. So the next time the Republicans face the voters, it might be on a much more level playing field.

Wisconsin isn't the only worrisome place on this particular front, though (sad to say). But we'll leave that one for the awards section as well.

Let's see... a few other noteworthy things happened in the political world this week, so let's whip through them in lightning fashion here.

Mike Pence is now reportedly ready to testify to a federal grand jury about what he witnessed and heard on January 6th, although it is unclear whether Trump will continue fighting to bar him from appearing (by appealing, which seems destined to fail at this point). Pence might just be the key witness against Trump, so this is pretty big news.

Progressives and the extreme right wing Republicans in the House are actually discussing working together on a few things (which led Representative Pramila Jayapal to state the obvious: "Sometimes you have interesting bedfellows in Washington" ). Here's the story, from Politico:

The House's most conservative Republicans and its most liberal Democrats can barely stand each other most days. But lately they're building an unlikely alliance that could cause real problems for Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The Donald Trump-aligned Freedom Caucus and the Progressive Caucus are openly uniting in favor of repealing two decades-old war authorizations in Iraq. That's on top of growing agreement between the two groups' members in favor of revamping government surveillance powers and curbing defense spending.

One of the Freedom Caucus members put it thusly: "Sometimes the political spectrum is more of a circle than a line."

Under the category: "presidential campaign news made by people who will never be their party's nominee," we have this week the official campaign launches from Republican Asa Hutchinson and Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Remember their names, for political trivia pub quizzes in the future, folks!

And finally, to close on, when he was nominated for the highest court in the land many (most famously Anita Hill) tried to make the case that Clarence Thomas simply had no concept of ethics. This week was another revelation at how much this has proven to be true, as it was revealed that for decades now he has been accepting lavish travel and vacations and plane rides and all sorts of expensive things from a well-heeled Republican donor. Which Thomas never saw fit to report to anyone.

If there's a more obvious poster child for: "This is why we need a code of ethics for the Supreme Court, dammit!" we are unaware of one.

OK, that's enough, let's move along to the awards segment, shall we?





We first have a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out. Michigan Democrats continue to get lots of good things done, and this week it was Governor Gretchen Whitmer signing a bill which removes the law from Michigan's books which outlaws abortion (which was passed almost a century ago). The voters had already restored the constitutional rights of women in the state by changing the state's constitution, but this outdated law was still technically on the books -- so the legislature acted to remove it once and for all. As one state representative put it: "We cannot allow archaic laws to remain on our books under the assumption that they'll never be used again. We don't know what the future will hold and we don't know what plans abortion opponents have."

Honorable Mention awards are also merited for the two Tennessee lawmakers -- former representatives Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson -- who were just expelled from the state legislature in spectacular "the punishment does not fit the crime" fashion. We certainly hope that both either get appointed back to their seats or win them back at the next election.

And we have one final Honorable Mention for Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat, who beat a pro-police Democrat in a runoff election this week to become the next mayor of Chicago. When the current mayor, Lori Lightfoot, failed to advance to the runoff election, many assumed that the voters wanted a more centrist, less-progressive person for the job. But in the end, this assumption proved incorrect as Johnson won a very tight race. It remains to be seen whether his campaign will be replicated elsewhere by other progressive candidates, but his victory was impressive just on its own.

But our main award has to be slightly renamed. Since the positions and the candidates for judicial office in Wisconsin are technically nonpartisan, we have to replace our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week with a Most Impressive Nonpartisan Liberal Of The Week instead (giving us the acronym "MINLOTW," which is almost even pronounceable!).

Wisconsin's new Supreme-Court-Justice-Elect Janet Protasiewicz just won the most expensive state judicial race in American history. It was a race worth fighting, too. Conservatives held a 4-3 majority on the court but one of them decided not to run for re-election this year. This left an open seat, and a very conservative, very anti-abortion, very partisan candidate was defeated by a liberal who was not afraid to actually campaign on her ideological positions. Which included supporting abortion rights instead of forcing women to give birth, and which included getting rid of the horrifically-gerrymandered maps the Republican Party saddled the state with. Many pearls were clutched in consternation over a liberal defending her positions in such a fashion, because to many it is only conservatives who should be allowed to do so.

Wisconsin has been a swing state balanced on a 50-50 edge for quite some time now. Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by a little over 20,000 votes. Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by almost 23,000 votes. That's about as close as it gets, folks. Janet Protasiewicz won her election Tuesday by 11 percentage points -- which translates to over 200,000 votes. That is the kind of difference the issues of abortion and fairness in democracy can have on an election.

And this one election is not only going to flip the state from being forced-birth to pro-women's-rights but it will also level the playing field for future elections, which will give the Democrats a chance to reclaim power in the state legislature and in their state's congressional delegation. This is an election which will have deep and lasting consequences, in other words.

So we absolutely had to give Janet Protasiewicz this week's MINLOTW award -- even if we did have to rename it. Her victory was easily the most impressive feat of any liberal this week, and we celebrate along with the voters of Wisconsin for this sea change in their state government.

[Janet Protasiewicz is still a private citizen until she is sworn into office, and it is our standing policy not to provide contact information for such persons, so you'll have to look it up yourself if you'd like to congratulate her and let her know you appreciate her efforts.]





There was another heavily-gerrymandered state with a Democratic governor in the political news this week, but in this case the news was pretty bad. Here's the story, which pretty much speaks for itself:

A North Carolina state lawmaker elected as a Democrat is defecting to the GOP, handing Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the state's legislature.

Rep. Tricia Cotham's party change gives the GOP more power over key issues such as abortion and elections.

. . .

In last year's midterm elections, North Carolina Republicans won a supermajority in the Senate -- meaning they hold 60 percent of seats -- and were one seat shy of the same in the House. Now, Cotham becomes the 72nd Republican in the 120-seat state House, getting the GOP to the 60 percent threshold there, too.

At the news conference, multiple Republicans noted the implications of adding Cotham to their caucus in the House.

"That's a supermajority, in case you're keeping count," North Carolina House Majority Leader John Bell said.

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out.

As we said, this one really speaks for itself. We suppose technically she's not a Democrat anymore, so we'll have to change this award as well this week, to the Most Disappointing Former Democrat Of The Week.

[Contact North Carolina Representative Tricia Cotham on her official contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]




Volume 701 (4/7/23)

We've got a mixed bag of talking points this week, since we had a number of momentous events take place. Enjoy, and as always, use responsibly.



No one is above the law

Chant it like a mantra.

"The principle that 'no one is above the law' is an absolute bedrock foundation of American democracy. We have statues of 'Blind Justice' in Washington for a reason. Justice is supposed to be blind -- blind to any defendant's personal power or wealth or status. Everyone should be treated equally. If you do the crime, you should be prepared to do the time. There is no 'free pass' just because you happen to be campaigning for office. If that were true, every criminal in the country would file for candidacy every single election cycle and thus be immune from punishment. No one is above the law, period. Not you, not me, and most definitely not former presidents."



What's unprecedented is Donald Trump

The only thing both sides can agree on in the Trump indictment is one single word, it seems.

"Yes, it is correct that the indictment of a former president on 34 felony charges is unprecedented. But it's not the law -- similar charges are brought every day by the Manhattan D.A.'s office. What is truly unprecedented is that we have a former president who is facing so many criminal charges for his own actions. We've never had a president who felt immune from the law. We've never had a president who tried to personally profit from his time in office. We've never had a president who ignored national security laws just because he wanted to keep some souvenirs of his time in office. We've never had a president who blatantly tried to overturn a popular election before -- and got caught so red-handed in the attempt. We've never had a president urge a violent crowd to overthrow the American form of government before. We've never had a president who did any of these things, much less one who did them all. So you're right -- the situation is unprecedented. Because Donald Trump is unprecedented. We've never had a president who broke laws in willy-nilly fashion before, so we've never had to force one to face such legal consequences before. It's really as simple as that."



Republicans in disarray!

This is going to become an ongoing taunt, and it's going to get more and more potent over time (that's our guess anyway...).

"Republicans are proving that they just cannot get their act together. They are threatening the American economy by holding the debt ceiling hostage -- a rather drastic thing to do, right? -- but they have no idea what they're even demanding for the release of that hostage. Where is their budget proposal? It doesn't exist. What do they all agree is so honking important that the debt ceiling must be threatened to fix it? They have no idea. Some say this, some say that, but Kevin McCarthy doesn't have 218 votes for any of it. They can't even get their act together on a farm bill, much less a whole budget. This reminds me of the chaos the Tea Party caused, the last time Republicans held the House. Kevin McCarthy can't herd his own cats. Republicans can't get their act together. All they know how to do is to threaten to burn everything down."



On, Wisconsin!

Hammer the unfairness of it all home.

"Sometimes, democracy works the way it is supposed to. In Michigan, Democrats painstakingly changed the way their state was redistricted by taking that power away from the politicians and handing it to a nonpartisan panel. The result is that Michigan Democrats were able to win elections in competitive districts and end one-party gerrymandered rule in their state government. Now it seems to be Democrats' turn in Wisconsin. By successfully flipping one seat on their state supreme court, they have flipped control and thus ended an extreme court that came within one vote of overturning the 2020 election and just handing the state to Donald Trump. The conservative candidate for this seat aided and abetted this plan, but the liberal won the day with a very wide margin of victory. As a result, not only will the women of Wisconsin have their full constitutional rights restored, but the days of Republican gerrymandering are also about to come to an end. The state votes 50-50 but their delegation to the United States House of Representatives has six Republicans to only two Democrats. Republicans just gained a supermajority in their state senate, and are near that in the lower chamber as well. In 2018, Democrats won 53 percent of the votes for state legislature seats but only won 36 percent of the seats due to these extreme gerrymanders. But with one election, all of that is about to change. To which I would say in celebration: On, Wisconsin!"



The more extreme, the bigger the backlash

Republicans are trapped in a no-win situation.

"For years, the Republican Party courted the anti-abortion movement, no matter how extreme it got. But then the dog actually caught the car, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Now they are trapped -- their base is strongly anti-abortion but the country as a whole is just as strongly for women's right to body autonomy. This makes extreme positions on abortion tempting for Republican officeholders, since it helps them win primary elections. In ruby-red districts, this also means winning their general election too. But at a statewide level and a national level, the extreme policies and stances on abortion are not in line with what the public wants. We have seen this backlash ever since the Dobbs decision was handed down. We saw it this week in Wisconsin, where a pro-choice judicial candidate won a seat on the state supreme court by an astounding 11 points in a 50-50 state. Republicans are cornered into the most extreme forced-birth position by their base, but it's increasingly losing them elections statewide. And the more extreme they go, the bigger this backlash will be."



Gun safety becomes more mainstream

Democrats should also press this issue as hard as they can.

"I want to speak to all the moms out there. The moms who fear for their kids' lives when they go to school. The moms who are well aware of the shameful fact that gun violence is now the number one cause of death for America's youth. And I want to tell all those moms -- if you vote Republican then nothing is ever going to change. In fact, things might even get worse. Republicans are so in the pocket of the gun lobby they won't even consider commonsense laws that an overwhelming majority of the voters want to see put in place. The only way the gun insanity is going to end is if all the moms out there make it their number one issue at the ballot box. A vote for a Republican is a vote for more and more gun violence. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for some sanity in stopping the ongoing slaughter of American children. It's as simple as that."



Lowest on record

President Biden just beat another record Trump set, and everyone should point it out.

"Today's unemployment number marked a record low for Black unemployment, going back ever since records were kept on the statistic. While unemployment overall hit 3.5 percent again, Black unemployment now stands at only 5.0 percent. Historically, Black unemployment has been roughly twice the overall, so this represents not just the economy continuing to recover but actual progress towards racial equality in employment. That is an impressive achievement, and I think President Biden should make a bigger deal out of it."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

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