Bad advice

Bret Stephens in an oped column in the NYT advises the Democratic Party to concede to Trump and his Republican counterparts the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. He claims such a fight is not only futile, but counterproductive. This strikes me as bad advice. If I had Stephens’ platform, I would have advised a full bore campaign against the nominee, but with an accent on making a case — patiently and persuasively — against it to the American people. Outrage alone — and there is a place for that — isn’t enough. And while each of us has a “skin in the game,” no one is better situated to do this than the Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee. The hearings will command television coverage and reach an audience of millions. We should insist that they step up!

 

Irony

The incredible irony of Trump declaiming that Germany is a captive of Russia.

Unnerving and Propitious

Blocking Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court is an uphill fight. But that shouldn’t lead either the Democratic Party or the larger democratic movement to consider it anything but a critical field of struggle nonetheless. Even if Kavanaugh in the end is confirmed by the Senate, the confirmation process nevertheless provides a unique opportunity to reveal the class and anti-democratic nature of Kavanaugh and his hard right wing mates on the court who would become a nasty majority for years to come.
 
But no less important, it also gives Democrats and democratic mined people a platform to unmask the Republican Party and Trump, who are, after all, the architects of this constellation of right wing, anti-popular power. It is no secret that their judicial rulings would mirror — or, more accurately, give legal sanction (as they have) — to the politics and values of Trump and Congressional Republicans.
 
That it overlaps with the midterm elections is fortuitous, not something to bewail. It can serve to concentrate voters minds in this crucial election on the many dangers of the concentration and entrenchment of hard right wing power in every branch of government. At the same time, it can reinforce the overarching imperative of defeating the Republicans in the fall. The future of the country, as we have known it, may well depend on our success in November.
 
While the immediate dangers to women’s reproductive rights, health care, and LBGTQ rights should figure prominently in both campaigns, tens of millions should also be reminded over and over that NO rights are safe as long as the court, Congress, and White House are in the hands of this wrecking ball of authoritarian right wing power. It will be a hard fight for sure, but one that each of us can engage in a practical way. And while it isn’t the only way, volunteering for the Congressional race in the districts where we live is perhaps the most productive thing that we can do at this moment that is both unnerving and propitious.

 

What would Lenin say

The bellyaching at Debbie Wasserman Schultz continues for her inconsistencies on immigration to the point where her opposition to separations of children from their parents at the border is summarily dismissed.

Which prompted this reply by me to Wasserman’s leftist critics — Lenin wrote a pamphlet about this sort of purist, REVOLUTIONARY politics in the early 1920s. At the time, his arguments didn’t resonate to the degree that he hoped among the super left of his time. Indeed, it took the rise of fascism a decade later to knock some sense into their heads. One would hope that the rise of Trump might serve the same purpose today. But so far that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Independence Day

I wonder what Lady Liberty is thinking today?