Im-Politic: Looking Backward and Forward on Trump and Trumpism

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cancel culture, Capitol Hill, Capitol riots, China, climate change, Congress, Conservative Populism, Constitution, Democrats, election 2016, election 2020, election challenge, Electoral College, establishment Republicans, Hillary Clinton, identity politics, Im-Politic, Immigration, impeachment, incitement, insurrection, Joe Biden, Josh Hawley, left-wing authoritarianism, mail-in ballots, nationalism, Populism, Republicans, sedition, separation of powers, tariffs, Ted Cruz, Trade, trade war, Trump, violence

(Please note: This is the linked and lightly edited version of the post put up this morning.)

The fallout from the Capitol Riot will no doubt continue for the foreseeble future – and probably longer – so no one who’s not clairvoyant should be overly confident in assessing the consequences. Even the Trump role in the turbulent transition to a Biden administration may wind up looking considerably different to future generations than at present. Still, some major questions raised by these events are already apparent, and some can even be answered emphatically, starting off with the related topic of how I’m viewing my support for many, and even most, of President Trump’s policies and my vote for him in both of his White House runs.

Specifically, I have no regrets on either ground. As I’ll make clear, I consider Mr. Trump’s words and deeds of the last few weeks to represent major, and completely unnecessary, failures that will rightly at least tarnish his place in history.

All the same, legitimate analyses of many developments and resulting situations need to think about the counterfactual. Here, the counterfactual is a Trump loss to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. And I’m confident that her presidency would have been both disastrous in policy terms (ranging from coddling China to moving steadily toward Open Borders immigration policies to intervening militarily more often and more deeply in numerous foreign conflicts of no importance to the United States) and heatedly divisive in political terms (because of her grifting behavior in fundraising for the various supposedly philanthropic initiatives she started along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton; because of her campaign’s payment for the phony Steele dossier that helped spur the unwarranted and possibly criminal Obama administration investigation of the Trump campaign; and because of intolerant and extremist instincts that would have brought Identity Politics and Cancel Culture to critical mass years earlier than their actual arrivals).

As for the worrisome events of the last several weeks:

>As I’ve written, I don’t regard Mr. Trump’s rhetoric at his rally, or at any point during his election challenges, as incitement to violence in a legal sense. But is it impeachable? That’s a separate question, because Constitutionally speaking, there’s a pretty strong consensus that impeachment doesn’t require a statutory offense. And since, consequently, it’s also a political issue, there’s no objective or definitive answer. It’s literally up to a majority of the House of Representatives. But as I also wrote, I oppose this measure.

>So do I agree that the President should get off scot free? Nope. As I wrote in the aforementioned post, I do regard the Trump record since the election as reckless. I was especially angered by the President’s delay even in calling on the breachers to leave the Capitol Hill building, and indeed the entire Capitol Hill crowd, to “go home.” In fact, until that prompting – which was entirely too feeble for my tastes – came, I was getting ready to call for his resignation.

>Wouldn’t impeachment still achieve the important objective of preventing a dangerously unstable figure from seeking public office again? Leaving aside the “dangerously unstable” allegation, unless the President is guilty (as made clear in an impeachment proceding) of a major statutory crime (including obstruction of justice, or incitement to violence or insurrection), I’d insist on leaving that decision up to the American people. As New York City talk radio host Frank Morano argued earlier this week, the idea that the Congress should have the power to save the nation from itself is as dangerously anti-democratic as it is laughable.

>Of course, this conclusion still leaves the sedition and insurrection charges on the table – mainly because, it’s contended, the President and many of his political supporters (like all the Republican Senators and House members who supported challenging Electoral College votes during the January 6 certification procedure) urged Congress to make an un-Constitutional, illegal decision: overturning an election. Others add that the aforementioned and separate charge not includes endorsing violence but urging the January 6 crowd to disrupt the certification session.

>First, there’s even less evidence that the lawmakers who challenged the Electoral College vote were urging or suggesting the Trump supporters in the streets and on the lawn to break in to the Capitol Building and forcibly end the certification session than there’s evidence that Mr. Trump himself gave or suggested this directive.

>Second, I agree with the argument – made by conservatives such as Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul (often a Trump supporter) – that authorizing a branch of the federal government unilaterally to nullify the results of elections that the Constitution stipulates should be run by the states is a troubling threat to the Constitutional principle of separation of powers. I’m also impressed with a related argument: that sauce for the goose could wind up as sauce for the gander.

In other words, do Trump supporters want to set a precedent that could enable Congress unilaterally to overturn the election of another conservative populist with something like a second wave of Russia collusion charges? Include me out.

>Further, if the Trump supporters who favored the Electoral College challenge are guilty of insurrection or fomenting it, and should be prosecuted or censured or punished in some way, shouldn’t the same go for the Democrats who acted in the exact same ways in other recent elections? (See here and here.) P.S. Some are still Members of Congress.

>Rather than engage in this kind of What About-ism, and help push the country further down the perilous road of criminalizing political behavior and political differences, I’d much rather consider these challenges as (peaceful) efforts – and in some cases sincere efforts – to insert into the public record the case that these elections were marred by serious irregularities.

>How serious were these irregularities? Really serious – and all but inevitable given the decisions (many pre-pandemic) to permit mass mail-in voting. Talk about a system veritably begging to be abused. But serious enough to change the outcome? I don’t know, and possibly we’ll never know. Two things I do know, however:

First, given the thin Election 2020 margins in many states, it’s clear that practices like fraudulent vote-counting, ballot-harvesting, and illegal election law changes by state governments and courts (e.g., Pennsylvania) don’t have to be widespread. Limiting them to a handful of states easily identified as battlegrounds, and a handful of swing or other key districts within those states, would do the job nicely.

Second, even though I believe that at least some judges should have let some of the Trump challenges proceed (if only because the bar for conviction in such civil cases is much lower than for criminal cases), I can understand their hesitancy because despite this low-ish bar, overturning the election results for an entire state, possibly leading to national consequences, is a bridge awfully far. Yes, we’re a nation of laws, and ideally such political considerations should be completely ignored. But when we’re talking about a process so central to the health of American democracy, politics can never be completely ignored, and arguably shouldn’t.

So clearly, I’m pretty conflicted. What I’m most certain about, however, is that mass mail-in ballots should never, ever be permitted again unless the states come up with ways to prevent noteworthy abuse. Florida, scene of an epic election procedures failure in 2000 (and other screwups), seems to have come up with the fixes needed. It’s high time for other states to follow suit.

As for the politics and policy going forward:

>President Trump will remain influential nationally, and especially in conservative ranks – partly because no potentially competitive rivals are in sight yet, and possibly because Americans have such short memories. But how influential? Clearly much of his base remains loyal – and given his riot-related role, disturbingly so. How influential? Tough to tell. Surely the base has shrunk some. And surely many Independents have split off for good, too. (See, e.g., this poll.) Perhaps most important, barring some unexpected major developments (which obviously no one can rule out), this withering of Trump support will probably continue – though the pace is tough to foresee also.

>The Republican Party has taken a major hit, too, and the damage could be lasting. In this vein, it’s important to remember that the GOP was relegated to minority status literally for decades by President Herbert Hoover’s failure to prevent and then contain the Great Depression. Those aforementioned short American memories could limit the damage. But for many years, it’s clear that Democratic political, campaigns, and conservative Never Trumper groups like the Lincoln Project, will fill print, broadcast, and social media outlets with political ads with video of the riot and Mr. Trump’s rally and similar statements, and the effects won’t be trivial.

>What worries me most, though, is that many of the urgently needed policies supported and implemented by the Trump administration will be discredited. Immigration realism could be the first casualty, especially since so many of the establishment Republicans in Congress were such willing flunkies of the corporate Cheap Labor Lobby for so much of the pre-Trump period, and Open Borders- and amnesty-friendly stances are now defining characteristics of the entire Democratic Party.

The Trump China policies may survive longer, because the bipartisan consensus recognizing – at least rhetorically – the futility and dangers of their predecessors seems much stronger. But given Biden’s long record as a China coddler and enabler, the similar pre-Trump views of those establishment Republicans, and their dependence on campaign contributions from Wall Street and offshoring-happy multinational companies, important though quiet backtracking, particularly on trade, could begin much sooner than commonly assumed. One distinct possibility that wouldn’t attract excessive attention: meaningfully increasing the number of exemptions to the Trump China and remaining metals tariffs to companies saying they can’t find affordable, or any, alternatives.

>Much of the political future, however, will depend on the record compiled by the Biden administration. Not only could the new President fail on the economic and virus-fighting fronts, but on the national unity front. Here, despite his reputation as a moderate and a healer, Biden’s charge that Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have used Nazi-like tactics, and race-mongering comments accusing law enforcement of handling the overwhelmingly white Capitol Rioters more gingerly than the racial justice protesters earlier this year represent a lousy start. And as his harsh recent rhetoric suggests, Biden could also overreach greatly on issues like climate change, immigration, and Cancel Culture and Identity Politics. Such Biden failures could even shore up some support for Mr. Trump himself.

>How big is the violence-prone fringe on the American Right? We’ll know much more on Inauguration Day, when law enforcement says it fears “armed protests” both in Washington, D.C. and many state capitals. What does seem alarmingly clear, though – including from this PBS/Marist College poll – is that this faction is much bigger than the relatively small number of Capitol breachers.

>Speaking of the breachers, the nature of the crimes they committed obviously varied among individuals. But even those just milling about were guilty of serious offenses and should be prosecuted harshly. The circumstances surrounding those who crossed barriers on the Capitol grounds is somewhat murkier. Those who knocked down this (flimsy) fencing were just as guilty as the building breachers. But lesser charges – and possibly no charges – might be justifiable for those who simply walked past those barriers because they were no longer visible, especially if they didn’t enter the Capitol itself.

>I’m not security expert, but one question I hope will be asked (among so many that need asking) in the forthcoming investigations of the Capitol Police in particular – why weren’t the Capitol Building doors locked as soon as the approach of the crowd became visible? The number of doors is limited, and they’re anything but flimsy. The likely effectiveness of this move can be seen from an incident in October, 2018 – when barred Supreme Court doors left anti-Brett Kavanaugh protesters futilely pounding from the outside when they attempted to disrupt the new Supreme Court Justice’s swearing in ceremony. Window entry into the Capitol would have remained an option, but the number of breachers who used this tactic seems to have been negligible.

What an extraordinary irony if one of the worst days in American history mightn’t have even happened had one of the simplest and most commonsensical type of precaution not been taken.

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Im-Politic: Never-Trumper Evidence That the Feds Haven’t Worsened Portland’s Violence

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Chris Cillizza, CNN, Im-Politic, Josh Campbell, law enforcement, Mainstream Media, Oregon, peaceful protests, Portland, protests, riots, Trump, violence

I’ve long believed that one of the best ways to confirm or at least support a claim made by someone else isn’t to present evidence from a source that’s sympathetic to that point of view. It’s to present evidence from a source that’s not the slightest bit sympathetic.

That’s why I’m focusing today on a CNN post from yesterday and what it says about the charge that the presence of various federal law enforcement units (some allegedly not identified) is mainly responsible for the upsurge in violent protests in Portland, Oregon – not the activities of at least some of the protesters themselves. In two noteworthy ways, it compellingly reinforces that case that the protesters and not the federal units dispatched by President Trump actually are the ones at fault.

The post is from Chris Cillizza, an Editor-at-Large with a clear Never Trump worldview at a news organization that’s unmistakably hostile to the President. (Just take a look at CNN‘s home page at any given moment if you doubt me.) Moreover, the reporter-on-the-ground who Cillizza interviewed to find out “What the heck is going on in Portland?” – Josh Campbell – seems to have made up his mind on the subject, too. How else can you explain his contention that

“Portland is now witnessing a standoff between protesters and an administration that continues to ratchet up its heated rhetoric to (falsely) describe the city as being in a state of total chaos and anarchy. While there have been incidents of rioting at night, including people launching fireworks at the federal building, setting fires outside, and allegedly attacking federal agents, the focal point of that activity largely centers on the city block housing the federal building. Despite the President’s descriptions, Portland is not a city under siege.”

In other words, “Nothing unusual to see here – except maybe on one city block.” And of course not a chance that this violence would spread if not actively resisted.

That’s why I found so noteworthy these two statements by Campbell – based, it’s important to remember, on his eyewitness observations. First:

“As I was interviewing the mayor Wednesday night among a crowd of hundreds of peaceful protesters, a group of rioters gathered near the fencing outside the federal building and began lobbing projectiles at the building and setting fires. In a pattern we have seen over and over, when federal agents in the building are provoked, or a fire set by rioters risks destroying the building, tactical officers will come out in full force and launch tear gas to disperse the crowd.”

Second:

“[Y]ou have a mixture of federal agents from different agencies serving as guards and riot control officers at the downtown courthouse. At night, when a portion of the crowd turns violent, agents will often line up and push protesters back blocks away from the building using tear gas, rubber bullets and batons.”

On the one hand, I’m grateful that bias hasn’t distorted Campbell’s senses enough to prevent him from recounting events in a way that plainly undercut this bias. On the other, I can’t help but wonder: If someone evidently inclined to blame President Trump for most of Portland’s latest troubles is (however unwittingly) making clear that the violence has (at least often) been started by the federal police, isn’t it possible that the protesters’ activities have been even more provocative – and less excusable – than Campbell and CNN are reporting?

Im-Politic: Signs That The Mob is Starting to Rule

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cancel culture, Chicago, Christopher Columbus, Confederate monuments, Connecticut, election 2020, freedom of the press, history wars, ImPolitic, Nelson Lee, peaceful protests, press freedom, protests, public safety, Seattle, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Times, shield laws, Ulysses S. Grant, violence, Washington Post

The next time you hear or read that the vast majority of protests during these turbulent times in America are peaceful (which will surely be within the next five minutes if you’re a news follower), keep in mind this pair of developments. They give me the willies and should so unnerve you, even if you (like me) believe that the vast majority of the protests have indeed been peaceful.

The first matters because it makes clear as can be that some of the protest groups contain individuals who make the cohort of brazen looters that’s emerged in so many violence-wracked cities look nearly harmless. What else can be reasonably concluded from this Washington Post account (yes, the same Washington Post whose journalism I slammed yesterday) of a court case in Seattle dealing with whether news organizations in the city could be ordered to turn over to the Seattle Police Department photos and video their staffers had taken of protesters who had “smashed windows, set police cars on fire, and looted businesses.” The cops’ intent – use this material to find the perpetrators and arrest them.

I was hugely relieved to read that the judge presiding over the case did rule that most of the material (all unpublished or posted) must be provided. But I was aghast at the reason given for the news organizations’ resistance. The Seattle Times, for its part, did cite freedom of the press concerns – involving Washington State’s shield laws, which entitle news organizations to protect source materials. These laws, which in various forms are practically universal throughout the United States, are indeed essential for enabling journalists to secure information that governments would rather keep secret for self-serving reasons.

The Times also made the reasonable (though in this case, not necessarily dispositive) claim that such cooperating with the police would put its credibility at risk. As contended by Executive Editor Michele Matassa Flores:

“The media exist in large part to hold governments, including law enforcement agencies, accountable to the public. We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover.”

But these weren’t the only reasons cited by the paper. In an affidavit, Times Assistant Managing Editor Danny Gawlowski attested “The perception that a journalist might be collaborating with police or other public officials poses a very real, physical danger to journalists, particularly when they are covering protests or civil unrest.”

Moreover, Gawlowski stated, this danger wasn’t hypothetical. It had already happened. According to the Post‘s summary of his affidavit;

“The request could significantly harm journalists, the Times argued, at a time when reporters already face violence and distrust from protesters. One Times photographer was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a protester and punched in the face by another demonstrator.”

In other words, the Seattle Times, anyway, wanted to refuse to help law enforcement protect public safety because at least in part it was afraid that some protesters might attack them even more violently than they already had.

That sure sounds like intimidation to me, and successful intimidation at that. And even though the judge thankfully ordered substantial (though not full) cooperation, who’s to say that the Times won’t pull its protests coverage punches anyway? Even more important, what if violence-prone protesters elsewhere in the country read about this case, try to strong-arm local or national news media, too, and succeed? And what if not every judge holds the same priorities as Seattle’s Nelson Lee? Talk about a danger to democratic norms – as well as public safety.

The second development concerns decisions by governments in at least two parts of the country to take down controversial statues – a major front in the nation’s history wars. Don’t get me wrong: Elected authorities removing these monuments is sure better than unelected mobs toppling or defacing them – as long as these actions follow legitimate procedures and aren’t arbitrary. And as I’ve written repeatedly, in the case of Confederate monuments, it’s usually not only completely justified, but long overdue.

But in these cases, it’s the rationale for these actions that’s deeply disturbing. In both Connecticut and in Chicago, statues of Christopher Columbus and former President and Civil War Union supreme Union commander Ulysses S. Grant, respectively, were removed (as Windy City Mayor Lori Lightfoot explained her reasoning) “in response to demonstrations that became unsafe for both protesters and police, as well as efforts by individuals to independently pull the Grant Park statue down in an extremely dangerous manner.”

Translation: “I was afraid of the mob. And I decided to let them win.” No better definition could be found of the kind of appeasement that only spurs further violence. And no more important challenge will confront the President and candidates for Congress who will be elected or reelected in November. 

Following Up: Clerics Who are Still Losing It

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D.C. riots, District of Columbia, Episcopalians, Followin g Up, George Floyd, Gregory T. Monahan, Lafayette Park, Lafayette Square, Marian Budde, political violence, protests, religion, St. John's Church, Trump, U.S. Park Police, violence, Washington Post

As ticked off as I was yesterday over the truly deranged reactions of the District of Columbia’s Episcopalian leaders to the torching of their own church and to President Trump’s decision to express support for the need to protect the entire nation from arsonists, I’m ever angrier today – and justifiably so.

For Episcopal Rev Bishop Marian Budde and her colleagues, along with many prominent clerics from other religions, not only apparently lack the instinct for self-preservation that’s a hallmark of minimal sanity. They’re intellectually dishonest and unethical as well – unless you think it’s perfectly OK for them or anyone else to jump to the most convenient conclusions possible about those you disagree with politically.

To start off, although the Episcopalians’ responses to the church fire were especially unhinged, they weren’t unique among the nation’s so called faith leaders. It’s easy to find statements from these clerics blasting Mr. Trump’s actions. Just Google the relevant words. But good luck trying to find these figures criticizing the St. John’s attack. (BTW, if you come across any, please let me know. No one would like to be proven wrong on this score more than I.) At least some clerics have done a better job denouncing the violence that erupted nationwide over the last week. (See here and here for examples.)

As for the St. John’s Church positions of many religious leaders, on top of singling out the so-called Trump photo op for their slings and arrows, they have uncritically swallowed the (widespread) claim that federal police used unjustifiable and excessive force when they cleared out supposedly peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square to make way for the President. (See, here for the Episcopalians, and e.g., here and here.)  

Here’s the problem: It’s clear that not all the protesters were peaceful the day of the Trump walk. In fact, not all of them were peaceful half an hour before the Trump walk. At least that’s the claim of United States Park Police (USPP) acting Chief Gregory T. Monahan. Yesterday, Monahan – whose agency was one among several involved in the clearing operation – released a statement contending:

“On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park.  At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.”

P.S. Monahan is hardly your supposedly typical brutish cop. Before his appointment by President Trump, he was accused by the Fraternal Order of Police of being soft on defendants – including defendants who allegedly assaulted officers of the USPP San Francisco field office he then heads.

But maybe it’s likely that Monahan has undergone a Jekyll-Hyde-like transformation? Nothing’s impossible. But it’s certainly noteworthy that the Washington Post, whose news coverage of the clearing operation explicitly tarred it as “a show of aggression,” in literally its next breath proceeded to describe the victims as “ a crowd of largely peaceful protesters. Talk about weasel words. By the way – I’m pretty sure the bad guys (and gals?) weren’t wearing signs announcing, “We’re the crazies!”

The religious leaders who treated this episode as a latter-day Boston Massacre didn’t see Monahan’s statement – which came a day after theirs. But isn’t that the point? Is there any evidence that the clerics tried to confirm their suspicions – and apparently prejudices – before getting on their high horses? Again, let me know if you find some. In its absence, it’s clear they were determined to shoot first and ask questions later.

A book with which I trust all these clerics are familiar quotes someone who I trust they all revere as advising, “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone….” Time for these religious leaders to resume paying attention. Unless they view themselves as exceptions? 

Im-Politic: When Clerics Lose It

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African Americans, arson, curfews, DC protests, DC riots, Episcopalians, George Floyd, Im-Politic, Lafayette Park, law and order, law enforcement, liberals, Marriann Budde, Muriel Bowser, police brutality, racism, riots, Rob Fisher, St. John's Church, Trump, violence, White House

However spirited it’s been, new – and, to me, surprising – odds-on favorites have emerged in the competition for the title of “Most Guilt-Saturated Liberal of 2020.” The pace-setters? Leaders of the Episcopalian Church in the District of Columbia (D.C.). How have they forged ahead? By expressing much more outrage at President Trump for allegedly using the St. John’s Church located just across Lafayette Park from the White House as a photo op – and for his supposed insensitivity to D.C. protestors’ legitimate racial justice and police brutality concerns – than at the torching of the church on Saturday night.

Think I’m kidding? Then just check out this news wire service account. Don’t bother expecting a syllable of condemnation from these clerics at the destruction of a spiritual center of their own diocese. There weren’t any. In fact, the Rev. Mariann Budde, the bishop of the diocese, belittled this act of violence: “We can rebuild the church. We can replace the furnishings of a nursery,” she said, referring to the damaged area. “We can’t bring a man’s life back.”

I guess she doesn’t agree with her colleague from Connecticut, the Rev. Miguelina Howell, who told her congregants in November, 2015, “Our buildings are holy ground, spaces where we find a sense of community, where we are fed and nourished. It is not only a space in which to dwell, but also a space to be formed, prepared and sent out into the world to bear witness of God’s faithfulness and greatness.” Except in a Tuesday radio interview, Budde also referred to the St. John’s grounds as “our sacred space.” Because the President had the temerity to stand on them.  

Nor has Budde evidently thought about the horror that might have been had the church – and especially the nursery, suffered the greatest damage – not been empty. Or maybe she thinks that the arsonists took great care to make sure that no lives were threatened? Or were able to set a fire skillfully enough to ensure that no bystanders in the park or on H or 16th Sts. NW would eventually become victims?

And these weren’t simply Budde’s initial reactions. By this morning, presumably, she’s had time to reflect further. And here’s what she said on National Public Radio:

“Look, I wasn’t happy about the fire. The violence on our streets right now is heartbreaking to me. I want to keep our focus on the precipitating causes of the events of this week and to concentrate my outrage at the wrongful death of George Floyd and the string of African Americans who have preceded him and the history of abuse and violence. I want to acknowledge the loss of property but in no way equate it with the loss of life….”

The most charitable reasonable translation of these words into plain English: “Morally speaking, I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Moreover, however valid – indeed, essential – it is to distinguish between property and human life, she – again – shouldn’t be dismissing the grounds of her own church, or any church, as just any property, especially when she’s willing to wave the “sacred space” flag when it suits Never Trumper purposes.

In case you think she’s an atypical voice for her Diocese’s leadership – don’t. Its Facebook page, which it uses actively, contains not a word of condemnation for the church arson, either.

And here’s the reaction of St. John’s rector Rev. Rob Fisher the day after the arson:

“Who knows who set the fire? We have no idea. But I think it’s important to say, we know that one thing for sure is that they weren’t people who were representative of what this is all about..It’s really sad to look in and see the nursery with children’s toys and books and a crib and changing table all just completely torched. But it didn’t get beyond that.”

Not a lot of outrage there, either.

It’s also important to examine critically the references of both Budde and Fisher (and so many others, including DC Mayor Muriel Boswer) to the idea that federal authorities acted “shamefully” when they ordered the St. John’s/Lafayette Park area cleared so that Mr. Trump could walk to the church roughly half an hour before Bowser’s 7 PM widely communicated curfew set in. Their main offense, it seems, was directing federal police to move with dispatch (and, it turns out, in certain instances brusquely) against civilians who were still exercising their pre-curfew legal right to protest peacefully.

What this indictment completely overlooks:

>When you’re protesting peacefully before a curfew begins, if you’re someone with any good will and/or half a brain, you don’t wait until the last minute to leave.

>That goes double when the area is right next door to the official residence of a duly elected head of government.

>That goes triple when the area was the scene of arson and violent attacks on law enforcement just the night before.

>The bomb throwers and the looters and the vandals don’t wear “Trouble-Maker” signs readily readable by the police.

In other words, anyone still hanging around Lafayette Park when the clearing operation began should have known they were asking for trouble.

Finally, I can’t resist noting that before coming to D.C. in 2011, Budde served in…Minneapolis. For eighteen years. Fat lot of good she did there.

Im-Politic: The Uses of Anger

Tags

Alexandria shooting, anger, conservatives, Democrats, Im-Politic, liberals, politics, rage, Republicans, Steve Scalise, violence

The more I think about the surge in political rage that’s just produced the terrifying attempt to assassinate Republican Members of Congress in Alexandria, Va., the more I’m convinced that the resulting deluge of well-intentioned commentary and introspection has missed a big reason for doubting that, as so many have urged, Americans will stop demonizing and dehumanizing their political opponents. Moreover, I’m also more convinced that there are real limits to how far this admittedly troubling tendency actually should go.

To clarify right away, this isn’t to say that violence is ever justified in U.S. public life — although history teaches us to be wary even of this generally worthy sentiment. For example, I’m not at all convinced that Americans would have responded even in the inadequate way they did to problems in the country’s then-heavily black inner cities had riots not convulsed many of them. The nation almost certainly wouldn’t have responded as quickly as it did. And I haven’t forgotten that too many of the rioters were simply looters.

I am prepared, though, to say that violence isn’t ever justified in public life nowadays. Ditto for urging violence, either explicitly or through various dog whistles.

But it’s going to be a lot harder to exorcise extreme, hate-filled rhetoric and emotions. For many of the most prominent assumptions and arguments made about most of our major public issues entail the claim that those who disagree aren’t simply motivated by different philosophies and ideologies. They’re motivated by – often appallingly and/or dangerously – selfish interests. And many of these claims by no means should be dismissed out of hand.

Are there inexcusable, purposeful excesses? How could there not be? We’re dealing with human beings here. But take the left-ish view of the whole cluster of economic inequality issues. Do many champions of cuts in various safety net and other social programs sincerely believe that they have on net eroded incentives to work and form families? Obviously the answer is Yes.

But are many others simply selfish? Of course they are. Are many working openly or on the sly for interests that would lose income or profits if taxes were raised to finance such spending – although they would clearly remain affluent by any reasonable measure? Yup. Has American history been filled with the efforts of the affluent and the powerful to maintain their positions at the expense of the poorer and weaker? How could anyone dispute this? Should plutocracy and its defense not be called out? Absolutely not.

Similar points can be made about causes favored by liberals and Democrats. Are many on the left acting mainly out of compassion or other altruistic sentiments when urging legalization and citizenship for illegal immigrants? Do many other genuinely believe that various forms of amnesty-like policies will benefit the economy, including more workers? Definitely.

Do many others back amnesty etc in the hope of creating new pro-Democratic voting blocs or expanding existing ones, regardless of the impact on public safety or social cohesion? No doubt about it. And can’t signs be seen of misplaced senses of guilt so powerful that they shunt completely aside the needs of the existing legal population? Clearly they can. Should this kind of hypocrisy or childishness be ignored? How would that strengthen democracy?

No doubt you all can come up with many other comparable examples – because the creation and maintenance of a democracy can’t possibly guarantee that men (and women) have or will become angels. But the genius of this country’s politics so far (with the mammoth exception of the Civil War) has been to keep political battles battles in name only, and to sustain the consensus that, though opponents may be deeply and justifiably hated, their removal from power or the frustration of their aims according to accepted procedures is the only acceptable goal – not their literal destruction.

The trick, then, or much of it, is for Americans to learn (or re-learn) the ability to decompress once even the most heated political campaigns or legislative contests have ended, to accept as legitimate any winner – even the most seemingly odious – who has triumphed within the specified rules, and to continue pushing causes as fiercely as ever while respecting those bounds. You say you don’t like some of the rules and bounds? Work (again, within the system, or via peaceful civil disobedience if you so choose) to replace them. The system makes such mechanisms available.

As I write these words, I find myself thinking of the human maturation process and to the development of perspective so central to its arrival. And I can’t help but think that’s no coincidence.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Post’s Tradition of Immigration Inanity Continues

Tags

Border Crisis, Central America, drugs, immigrant children, Immigration, immigration reform, violence, {What's Left of) Our Economy

It’s now at the point where I cringe each morning when I open the Washington Post, dreading what transparently tendentious pro-Open Borders/amnesty immigration inanity will greet me not only on the editorial pages, but on the news pages. This morning’s edition certainly didn’t disappoint.

Just below the fold, on page one, appeared a report from correspondent Pamela Constable titled “Deportation policies may have fueled rise of gangs.” The implication couldn’t be more obvious: Many, at least, of the Central American children streaming toward the United States have been fleeing violence increasingly threatening them from drug criminals. So the longstanding U.S. practice of deporting immigrant drug gang members responsible for further immiserating many American inner cities was portrayed by Constable as a possible policy blunder, or at least a classic example of unintended consequences deserving the spotlight.

Predictably, Constable had no trouble finding supposed experts critical of what they viewed as the shortsightedness – at best – of the deportations. Since this view is widespread among the influential supporters of immigration reform, that was reasonable enough. What wasn’t reasonable was Constable’s neglect of the screamingly obvious rejoinder: Just what were U.S. officials supposed to do? Keep the gang members in the United States where they either would add to prison overcrowding even if they were convicted, or would quickly return to the streets after wrist-slapping plea bargain deals?

Of course, the policy critics quoted by Constable believe they have the answer: More U.S. foreign aid that can turn Central American countries into the kinds of places where drug trafficking and gangs won’t breed in the first place. But such initiatives – also requested by the Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran presidents at their meeting with President Obama yesterday – have a long record of failure, mainly because Central America was so ruined by centuries of Spanish colonial rule that it’s been stripped of the social and cultural prerequisites of successful economic development.

Therefore, as is so often the case, Washington is faced with an enduring condition that’s mistaken as a problem — which by definition has a feasible solution. It’s bad enough that American leaders can’t keep the distinction clear. Neither can an American chattering class whose only valid raison d’etre is realistically monitoring the government’s performance, but that keeps pretending that the intrinsic limits of human knowledge, wisdom, and good will are “news.”

Equally moronic – but more excusable, given its appearance on the op-ed page – was Colman McCarthy’s effort to compare what he depicts as the despicably un-American cruelty of today’s immigration restrictionists (the “send’-‘em-all-back crowd and the build-bigger-walls cabal”) with the vastly more welcoming attitude that he implies prevailed in the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. Singled out for special praise today and back in the day are “justice-seeking” immigration lawyers – like his late father.

McCarthy’s article was of special interest to me because his family lived on the north shore of Long Island, close to where I grew up. And I’m sure his father was a fine man. But what McCarthy somehow forgot to emphasize is that the newcomers for whom his father did so much pro bono or largely free work, both in the courtroom and in terms of job placement, came to the United States legally. McCarthy did mention that his father “met and befriended them at Ellis Island” – meaning that they were admitted only after passing through that official inspection station. Yet the author apparently regards immigrants who ignored the law and jumped the line as meriting the exact same status as immigrants who played by the rules.

Something else of supreme relevance overlooked by McCarthy – last year, the United States allowed more than 990,000 immigrants to become permanent, legal U.S. residents. Maybe in his next column, he’ll explain the apparent paradox of today’s allegedly inhumane restrictionists overwhelmingly supporting this influx.

A final note: McCarthy quite accurately describes how the immigrants to the Long Island of his childhood often found decent-paying jobs from the Gatsby-esque one percenters who were building palatial estates all along what would become known as the Gold Coast. Nowadays, as I documented in a recent Fortune Magazine column, America’s wealthiest employ more than their fair share of the current generation of immigrants, especially illegals. But the wages paid are generally so low that these newcomers still need plenty of social services – which are paid disproportionately by taxes from the lower 99 percent.

McCarthy has long been a pillar of the social justice community. To be genuinely true to his avowed principles, he should wholeheartedly back my proposal to boost taxes on the rich to pay most of the costs of the greater immigrant presence that he – and they – so strongly favor.