#the gop is the party of weakness

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ Exactly!

Republicans are the party of weakness and kowtowing to dictators.

Trump's idea of strength involves holding a pitiful military parade in Washington while decorating the Oval Office with military decorations earned by troops who he considers to be "losers" and "suckers".

Trump performs fellatio on Putin and Kim while stabbing NATO and other allied democracies in the back.

Right now, House Republicans are trying to undermine military aid to Ukraine on orders from Trump who is in thrall to the Evil Empire.

As for soft power, American prestige hit rock bottom during the Trump administration. Internationally, we were America Worst rather than America First under Trump.

The horribly botched early response of the Trump administration to the COVID-19 pandemic made the US look worse than the "shit-hole countries" Trump always rants about. Hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly died while the death rates in more competently run allies were notably lower.

America's enemies are rooting for Trump and will assist him in every way they can in 2024.

[qqueenofhades]

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/743255237060689920/the-thing-that-confuses-me-about-the-dont-vote

The “don’t vote” left’s point is basically that, if Biden gets a second term, it’ll basically signal that “They’ll vote for us as long as we’re not Republicans, why don’t we do some REAL fucked up shit, if we can get away with it?” It takes the power out of the people’s hands and places it firmly in the party’s.

I can’t completely disagree with that, my caveat is that there’s no real alternative system or party in place, because top-down change is ineffective; a third party president has to contend with a two party congress.

Except no. This whole "Biden just wants to do as much fucked up shit as possible while not being a Republican, and if you give him a second term he'll do more fucked up shit deliberately to spite you" mindset is only possible as an interpretation if you a) deliberately and comprehensively ignore everything he has done to date, and b) you approach the situation with the maximum bad faith possible. Not to mention, the ultimate outcome of this Big Important Teaching Biden A Lesson is that Trump gets back into power and makes everything orders of magnitude worse, because he does in fact want to deliberately do evil shit to everyone and says so at every opportunity. There is not some magical happy alternative that springs into existence by not voting. If you choose this as a year to Teach Biden A Lesson, you are enabling Trump. Trump will be much, much worse. If you don't care about that, I still do not care what your Great Ideology is. You are not helping anyone and you are directly and irreversibly hurting everyone.

I made a post a few days ago wherein I mentioned that I want to assess Biden fairly, taking into account both strengths and weaknesses, but the rampant bad-faith, lying, misreading, misrepresentation, and open sabotage of him (especially by the online left; the GOP sometimes only wishes they were as good at turning Biden's voter pool against him) makes it really difficult to do that. My frustration with those people makes me just want to go "BIDEN IS GREAT THE END." I know he is a flawed old man (though by literally every account of a career spent in public service, he really does care about making the world a better place and any remotely good faith reading of his accomplishments thus far can see that). It is also very likely that he goes MORE left in a second term because he won't have to face the electorate again, he has always gone more left when pushed before, and he's not actually the scheming genocidal mastermind that leftist social media paints him as. Shocking, I know.

I know there are things in the world we don't like and don't want and want to stop, and therefore we blame our own president for not making it stop. But I have zero, no, none, absolutely none whatsoever sympathy for this pseudo-populist "WE NEED TO TEACH BIDEN A LESSON BY ELECTING TRUMP AGAIN, I AM VERY MORAL MUCH ACTIVIST" mindset. There's this funny thing about America wherein it is still (for now) a democracy. If Biden wins a second term, he can't run again. I would take literally anything these people said more seriously if they focused on developing their dream progressive successor for 2028 (and also figured out how to get that person elected and in a place to make real change) rather than cynically sabotaging Biden in the most consequential election year, again, of our lifetimes. If you don't like him now, find a way to make his successor a better option. Throwing a toddler tantrum and handing the country back to a senile, deranged, fascist, revenge-riddled, theocratic Trump HELPS. NOBODY. I still don't know how many times I'm going to have to say that, but yeah.

[thebreakfastgenie]

It's worth remembering that Trump didn't want to run against Biden. No one remembers this anymore, but the first time he was impeached it was for threatening to withhold support to Ukraine (yeah) unless they investigated Biden (via Hunter, but he was alleging Joe was involved). Trump didn't want to run against Biden because he was afraid Biden would beat him. And he did in 2020. And ever since then Trump and the GOP have been throwing shit at Biden, the same way they threw shit at Hillary, hell even at Bill Clinton (don't send me into a Clinton impeachment tangent). They impeached his secretary of homeland security. They prosecuted his son. And that is why I believe this age/health thing was a successful Republican attack.

It's possible I will be proven wrong. We will see what the president says in his address. I think they finally managed to hit on something that was already a weakness with enough voters and people in the media and within the party fell for it. It doesn't matter if the president is actually infirm, if enough people believe it, it will still sway their votes.

All those reports of the Heritage Foundation planning nonsense lawsuits... getting the incumbent president who beat Trump once out of the way... the "Dems in disarray" headlines writing themselves. It all benefits the Republicans.

And that's really what I'm angry about. That it worked. And I'm scared, because we can't be letting this shit work. We cannot.

Right now the best thing we can do is unite behind ONE nominee. That's going to be the vice president. The president already endorsed her. We do not give them an inch of disarray.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The conservative movement is cracking up

I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

Politics always requires coalitions. In parliamentary democracies, the coalitions are visible, when they come together to form the government. In a dictatorship, the coalitions are hidden to everyone except infighting princelings and courtiers (until a general or minister is executed, exiled or thrown in prison.)

In a two-party system, the coalitions are inside the parties – not quite as explicit as the coalition governments in a multiparty parliament, but not so opaque as the factions in a dictatorship. Sometimes, there are even explicit structures to formalize the coalition, like the Biden Administration's Unity Task Force, which parceled out key appointments among two important blocs within the party (the finance wing and the Sanders/Warren wing).

Conservative politics are also a coalition, of course. As an outsider, I confess that I am much less conversant with the internal power-struggles in the GOP and the conservative movement, though I'm trying to remedy that. Books like Nathan J Robinson's Responding to the Right present a great overview of various conservative belief-systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo

And the Know Your Enemy podcast does an amazing job of diving deep into right-wing beliefs, especially when it comes to identifying fracture lines in the conservative establishment. A recent episode on the roots of contemporary right-wing antisemitism in the paleocon/neocon split was hugely informative and fascinating:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-in-search-of-anti-semitism-with-john-ganz/

Political parties are weak institutions, liable to capture and hospitable to corruption. General elections aren't foolproof or impervious to fraud, but they're miles more robust than parties, whose own leadership selection processes and other key decisions can be made in the shadows, according to rules that can be changed on a whim:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Which means that parties are brittle, weak vessels that we rely on to contain the volatile mixture of factions who might actually hate each other, sometimes even more than they hate the other party. Remember the defenestration of GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy? That:

https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555

Even outsiders like me know that there's a deep fracture in the Republican Party, with Trumpists on one side and the "establishment" on the other side. Reading accounts of the 2016 GOP leadership race, I get the distinct impression that Trump's win was even more shocking to party insiders than it was to the rest of us.

Which makes sense. They thought they had the party under control, knew where its levers were and how to pull them. For us, Trump's win was a terrible mystery. For GOP power-brokers, it was a different kind of a nightmare, the kind where you discover that controls to the the car you're driving in high-speed traffic aren't connected to anything and you're not really the driver.

But as Trump's backers – another coalition – fall out among each other, it's becoming easier for the rest of us to understand what happened. Take FBI informant Peter Thiel's defection from the Trump camp:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/12/silicon-valley-billionaire-donors-presidential-candidates/

Thiel was the judas goat who led tech's reactionary billionaires into Trump's tent, blazing a trail and raising a fortune on the way. Thiel's support for Trump was superficially surprising. After all, Thiel is gay, and Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, openly swore war on queers of all kinds. Today, Thiel has rebuffed Trump's fundraising efforts and is reportedly on Trump's shit-list.

But as a Washington Post report – drawing heavily on gossiping anonymous insiders – explains. Thiel has never let homophobia blind him to the money and power he stands to gain by backing bigots:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/12/silicon-valley-billionaire-donors-presidential-candidates/

Thiel bankrolled Blake Masterson's Senate race, despite Masterson's promise to roll back marriage equality – and despite the fact that Masterton attended Thiel's wedding to another man.

According to the post, the Thiel faction's abandonment of Trump wasn't driven by culture war issues. Rather, they were fed up with Trump's chaotic, undisciplined governance strategy, which scuttled many opportunities to increase the wealth and power of America's oligarchs. Thiel insiders complained that Trump's "character traits sabotaged the policy changes" and decried Trump's habit of causing "turmoil and chaos…that would interfere with his agenda" rather than "executing relentlessly."

For Trump's base, the cruelty might be the point. But for his backers, the cruelty was the tactic, and the point was money, and the power it brings. When Trump seemed like he might use cruel tactics to achieve power, his backers went along for the ride. But when Trump made it clear that he would trade opportunities for power solely to indulge his cruelty, they bailed.

That's an important fracture line in the modern American conservative coalition, but it's not the only one.

Writing in the BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller and Lee Hepner describes the emerging conservative split over antitrust and monopoly:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/is-there-an-establishment-plan-to

Antitrust has been the centerpiece of the Biden Administration's most progressive political project. For the left wing of the Dems, blunting corporate power is seen as the necessary condition for rolling back the entire conservative program, which depends on oligarch-provided cash infusions, media campaigns, and thinktank respectability.

But elements of the right have also latched onto antitrust, for reasons of their own. Take the Catholic traditionalists who see weakening corporate power as a path to restoring a "traditional" household where a single breadwinner can support a family:

https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/when-capitalism-becomes-tyranny-with-sohrab-ahmari

There's another reason to support antitrust, of course – it's popular. There are large, bipartisan majorities opposed to monopoly and in favor of antitrust action:

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Antitrust_Policy_poll_results.pdf

Two-thirds of Americans support anti-monopoly laws. 70% of Americans say monopolies are bad for the economy. The Biden administration is doing more on antitrust than any presidency since the Carter years, but 52% of Americans haven't heard about it:

https://www.ft.com/content/c17c35a3-e030-4e3b-9f49-c6bdf7d3da7f

There's a big opportunity latent in the facts of antitrust's popularity, and the Biden antitrust agenda's obscurity. So far, the Biden administration hasn't figured out how to seize that opportunity, but some Dems are trying to grab it. Take Montana Senator John Tester, a Democrat in a Trump-voting state, whose campaign has taken aim at the meat-packing monopolies that are screwing the state's ranchers.

The right wants in on this. At a Federalist Society black-tie event last week during the National Lawyer's Convention, Biden's top antitrust enforcers got a warm welcome. Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ's top antitrust cop, was praised onstage by Todd Zywicki, whom Stoller and Hepner call "a highly influential law professors," from George Mason Univeristy, a fortress of pro-corporate law and economics. Zywicki praised the DoJ and FTC's new antitrust guidelines – which have been endlessly damned in the WSJ and other conservative outlets – as a reasonable and necessary compromise:

https://fedsoc.org/events/national-press-club-event

Even Lina Khan – the bogeywoman of the WSJ editorial page – got a warm reception at her fireside chat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FwdAxOSznE

And the convention's hot Saturday ticket was "a debate between two conservatives over whether social media platforms had sufficient monopoly power that the state could regulate them as common carriers":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwoO7bZajXk

This is pretty amazing. And yet…lawmakers haven't gotten the memo. During markup for last week's appropriations bill, lawmakers inserted a flurry of anti-antitrust amendments into the must-pass legislation:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/fsgg-approps-bill-must-support-enforcers-not-kneecap-them/#

These amendments were just wild. Rep Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) introduced an amendment that would give companies carte blanche to stick you with unlimited junk fees, and allow corporations to take away their workers' rights to change jobs through noncompetes:

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/118th-congress/house-report/269

Another amendment would block the FTC from enforcing against "unfair methods of competition." Translation: the FTC couldn't punish companies like Amazon for using algorithms to hike prices, or for conspiring to raise insulin prices, or its predatory pricing aimed at killing small- and medium-sized grocers.

An amendment from Rep Kat Cammack (R-FL) would kill the FTC's "click to cancel" rule, which will force companies to let you cancel your subscriptions the same way you sign up for them – instead of making you wait on hold to beg a customer service rep to let you cancel.

Another one: "a provision to let auto dealers cheat customers with undisclosed added fees":

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr4664rh/pdf/BILLS-118hr4664rh.pdf

Dems got in on the action, too. A bipartisan pair, Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep Lou Correa (D-FL), unsuccessfully attempted to strip the Department of Transport of its powers to block mergers, which were most recently used to block the merger of Jetblue and Spirit:

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/118th-congress/house-amendment/640

And 206 Republicans voted to block the DoT from investigating airline price-gouging. As Stoller and Hepner point out, these reps serve constituents from low-population states that are especially vulnerable to this kind of extraction.

This morning, Jim Jordan hosted a Judiciary Committee meeting where he raked DOJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter over the coals, condemning the same merger guidelines that Zywicki praised to the Federalist Society:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7jxc8dp8erhe1q3wpndre/GOP-oversight-hearing-memo-11.13.23.pdf?rlkey=d54ur91ry3mc69bta5vhgg13z&dl=0

Jordan's prep memo reveals his plan to accuse Kanter of being an incompetent who keeps failing in his expensive bids to hold corporate power to account, and being an all-powerful government goon who's got a boot on the chest of American industry. Stoller and Hepner invoke the old Yiddish joke: "The food at this restaurant is terrible, and the portions are too small!"

Stoller and Hepner close by wondering what to make of this factional split in the American right. Is it that these members of the GOP Congressional caucus just haven't gotten the memo? Or is this a peek at what corporate lobbyists home to accomplish after the 2024 elections?

They suggest that both Democrats and Republican primary contesters in that race could do well by embracing antitrust, "Establishment Republicans want you to pay more for groceries, healthcare, and travel, and are perfectly fine letting monopoly corporations make decisions about your daily life."

I don't know if Republicans will take them up on it. The party's most important donors are pathologically loss-averse and unwilling to budge on even the smallest compromise. Even a faint whiff of state action against unlimited corporate power can provoke a blitz of frenzied scare-ads. In New York state, a proposal to ban noncompetes has triggered a seven-figure ad-buy from the state's Business Council:

https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/noncompete-campaign-raises-state-lobbying-18442769.php

It's hard to overstate how unhinged these ads are. Writing for The American Prospect, Terri Gerstein describes one: "a hammer smashes first an alarm clock, then a light bulb, with shards of glass flying everywhere. An ominous voice predicts imminent doom. Then, for good measure, a second alarm clock is shattered":

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-10-business-groups-reflexive-anti-worker-demagogy/

Banning noncompetes is good for workers, but it's also unambiguously good for business and the economy. They "reduce new firm entry, innovation by startups, and the ability of new firms to grow." 44% of small business owners report having been blocked from starting a new company because of a noncompete; 35% have been blocked from hiring the right person for a vacancy due to a noncompete. :

https://eig.org/noncompetes-research-brief/

As Gerstein writes, it's not unusual for the business lobby to lobby against things that are good for business – and lobby hard. The Chamber of Commerce has gone Hulk-mode on simple proposals to adapt workplaces for rising temperatures, acting as though permitting "rest, shade, water, and gradual acclimatization" on the jobsite will bring business to a halt. But actual businesses who've implemented these measures describe them as an easy lift that increases productivity.

The Chamber lobbies against things its members support – like paid sick days. The Chamber complains endlessly about the "patchwork" of state sick leave rules – but scuttles any attempt to harmonize these rules nationally, even though members who've implemented them call them "no big deal":

https://cepr.net/report/no-big-deal-the-impact-of-new-york-city-s-paid-sick-days-law-on-employers/

The Chamber's fight against American businesses is another one of those fracture lines in the conservative coalition. Working with far right dark money groups, they've worked in statehouses nationwide to roll back child labor laws:

https://www.epi.org/blog/florida-legislature-proposes-dangerous-roll-back-of-child-labor-protections-at-least-16-states-have-introduced-bills-putting-children-at-risk/

They also fight tooth-and-nail against minimum wage rises, despite 80% of their members supporting them:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/leaked-documents-show-strong-business-support-for-raising-the-minimum-wage/

The spectacle of Republicans in disarray is fascinating to watch and even a little exciting, giving me hope for real progressive gains. Of course, it would help if the Democratic coalition wasn't such a mess.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/14/when-youve-lost-the-fedsoc/#anti-buster-buster

Image: Jason Auch, modified https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctic_mountains,_pack_ice_and_ice_floes.jpg

CC BY 2.0

[hussyknee]

The wild thing about the Vote Blue rhetoric is that according to them, Biden is an uwu helpless baby who's had no power to stop any of the shit that's gone down the last three years but if Trump comes to power he can end democracy as you (don't) know it. You just have to get through this election cycle because the GOP can't find its own ass with both hands and a mirror on a stick and they're breaking apart, but they're also about to transform into the Third Reich. If Biden gets a second term you can totally push him further left when he isn't even up for re-election, but not with half the country on the streets a year out from when he does still need their votes. Biden can't get Netanyahu to stop because he has no power over Israel, but Trump will be able to destabilize democracy all across the world. The enemy is either weak or strong, y'all can't have it both ways.

Also, "If democrats haven't earned your vote, what has the republicans done to earn your complicity"????? You think this is how democracy works??? But oh, that's right you don't have a democracy, you have Evil (genocide without personal enjoyment) and Super Evil (genocide with personal fun). But you need to Vote Blue to save the democracy you don't have. Which they've had three years and one more to get around to saving, just like they had two years to legislate Roe vs Wade and eight before that, but they need another four to do anything.

"We cannot afford to divide the left and alienate voters!" you yell, as you harrass people whose relatives are currently being starved and blown to pieces as the entire world watches, a full year before elections, proving you have no intention of holding the Dems accountable even for a literal genocide. Because your winning strategy here is to scream at people for having a moral compass and basic empathy for their fellow human. These are luxuries you cannot afford because the GOP doesn't have any either, but the two parties are different bro, I swear bro, pay no attention to Hakeem Jeffries standing next to Mike Johnson and Christian Zionists bro, don't look at how much AIPAC has bought and paid for the whole of Congress bro, don't look at the bipartisan support for sending billions to Zionists overseas while cutting funding for every public service bro, don't look at how much more land for fracking they've sold off than Trump ever did bro, don't look at cop city and the border wall and ICE crackdowns and kids still in cages three years later bro, Biden totally controlled COVID and saved millions of lives unlike Trump and the pandemic is definitely not still raging bro, queer and reproductive rights are definitely not flaking off piecemeal under the Dems right now bro, Project 2025 can definitely happen when Obama couldn't even push through Medicaid with a trifecta bro, bro where are you going bro—

[mariacallous]

The leftists getting called out for not protesting at Trump rallies seems to have broken them this time. They're spiraling. Just lots of screaming crying throwing up on Twitter from them wailing about how they don't feel safe at Republican rallies, think about their anxiety, that protesting the GOP would accomplish nothing, etc. And others pointing out how leftists have, for years now, cried about how "both parties are the same" so why only protest the Dems then (and that's not even touching how many Jews and synagogues they've targeted)? And all that chest-thumping about "burn it all down" but now they're suddenly scared to be on the receiving end of a cop's baton? The leftists have no response. They've been exposed for the weak little cowards they are.

I think we've achieved another Firebomb.jpg moment.

[collapsedsquid]

I’ve been toying with a different theory of the president’s woes, one that makes better sense of his peculiar demographic weaknesses: Voters with low levels of trust in society and the political system are shifting rightward. Donald Trump redefined the GOP in the eyes of many, associating the party with a paranoid vision of American life and a populist contempt for the nation’s political system. In response, Democrats rallied to the defense of America’s greatness, norms, and institutions. As the parties polarized on the question of whether America was “already great,” voters with high levels of social trust and confidence in the political system became more Democratic, while those with low social trust and little faith in the government became more Republican. This miniature realignment was apparent in 2016 and 2020, according to some analysts. And there is some reason to think that it may have accelerated over the past four years. If it did, then Biden’s peculiar difficulties with young, nonwhite, and/or low-propensity voters would make more sense, as those demographic groups evince unusually little trust in their government or fellow Americans. 

[vomitdodger]

True.

And they united to kick out Santos (granted he is slime) but he was never convicted of any crime, denied due process and ignored Dems who did the same and much worse. And did and do nothing with the Jan 6 videos. Or the border. As a party the GOP is a Trojan horse for the commies. Silent. Weak. And complicit.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sebastian Murdock at HuffPost:

Former President Donald Trump used the word “Palestinian” as a slur in reference to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) during a campaign rally on Friday. It’s the second time this week he’s used the word as a slur.

During his rally in Virginia, Trump said Schumer, who is Jewish, had “become a Palestinian.” “Look at a guy like Senator Schumer,” Trump said. “I’ve always known him, known him a long time. I come from New York, I know Schumer. He’s become a Palestinian. He’s a Palestinian now. Congratulations. He was very loyal to Israel and to Jewish people. He’s Jewish. But he’s become a Palestinian because they have a couple of more votes or something, nobody’s quite figured it out.” [...] During Thursday night’s debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, the two candidates briefly discussed the war in Gaza. Trump called into question Biden’s support for Israel, saying he “has become like a Palestinian.” “Actually, Israel is the one, and you should let them go and let them finish the job,” Trump said during the debate. ”[Biden] doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But, they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. He is a weak one.”

Donald Trump has recently begun to use “Palestinian” as slur for politicians that don’t 100% give in to Israel lobby demands or give any concessions to Palestine, such as Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer.

Both Biden and Schumer have long had pro-Israel records, along with most of the Democratic Party.

Trump’s derogatory usage of “Palestinian” reveals that he is much more Israel-friendly than the already fairly pro-Israel Biden.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Lady Liberty Through The Fog

* * * *

Thats Another Fine Mess

THE GOP IS ON THEIR ASS

TCINLA

JUL 22, 2024

Captain Befuddlepants, and his sidekick, Little Shillbilly, are quaking in their boots over yesterday’s news. (Editorialk note: these are the new official names for the idiots here at TAFM.) The captain’s so upset that he doesn’t get to debate Biden again that he is now weaseling out of debating Kamala Harris in September by saying it should be held on the “fair and balanced” Fox News. The captain went on to complain that his campaign had been “forced to spend time and money” fighting Biden and now had to “start all over again” against another challenger, posting: “Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud in that everybody around Joe, including his doctors and the Fake News Media, knew he was not capable of running for, or being, President? Just askin’?”

I guess he’s changed his mind from back in 2011, when he donated $5,000 to Harris’ re-election campaign for Attorney General.

As fucking if, you ignorant asswipe.

Captain Befuddlepants is now the oldest person to ever run for president. He talks about Hannibal Lecter as if he’s a real person. So that’s the story now, right MSM?

The Little Shillbilly is also now cagey about committing to a vice presidential debate, citing uncertainty about whom he might actually end up debating.

Trump campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles put out a statement: “Kamala Harris is just as much of a joke as Biden is. Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two. Harris must defend the failed Biden Administration AND her liberal, weak-on-crime record in CA.”

Every other Republican fuckwit is busy losing their shit over the change in plans.

MAGA Mike Johnson went on CNN’s State of the Union where he said that the House GOP is actually thinking of investigating the inner workings of the Democratic Party:

JOHNSON: I mean, look, I didn't want to come out and talk about personal interactions with the president, because I have been concerned about what I just said, about this projection of weakness on the world stage at a very dangerous time. But now that the cat is out of the bag, you can hear from the Republican speaker to affirm what everyone else has known and seen. They -- the Democrats have been involved in a big cover-up here. They have been trying to prevent the people from seeing what all of us in close proximity have seen. He's not the Joe Biden of even four years ago when he ran for office. He's not capable of doing it now. And it's not his fault. I mean, no one can help how they age, how quickly they age and how their faculties diminish. But that's clearly happening here, and it's something that must be contended with. TAPPER: Well, calling it a cover-up, that's pretty strong words. Are you suggesting that there's something that needs to be investigated in a serious way by Congress or even law enforcement? JOHNSON: Well, that's something we have discussed. I mean, you have seen even in recent weeks, until the debate three weeks ago, I mean, top Democrats in Congress and elsewhere were coming on to television regularly and saying, Joe Biden's running circles around us, he could -- he could compete in the Olympics. I mean, it was just comical. They all knew that wasn't true. I mean, anybody who interacted with him over the last couple of years knew that that was not true. And it was -- every time I would see one of those statements, I couldn't believe they were doing it. And that is why they went through the process and got him through winning the primary, because they put up a false pretense about his capabilities. Now the whole country sees it, and they have painted themselves into a corner because they did that.

I like David Kurtz’s analysis this morning at TPM: “ It takes time to draft and hand out the new scripts and get the entire right-wing Wurlitzer cranking out the same noise ad nauseam. You saw in the flailing response yesterday from Trump on down to Fox News that they weren’t on the same page yet. They only have 15 weeks to cement new attack lines, memes, caricatures, shorthand, and conspiracy theories. That’s doable, but it’s not a lot of time to establish a drumbeat and repeat it long enough to make it accepted truth. The top-down nature of the right-wing political apparatus makes it reasonably well-positioned to turn on a dime, but repetition is key and there’s only so much time remaining to drill in a new collective viewpoint of Harris and the race.”

Rick Wilson also sees things clearly (as usual):

“There is a sense of shock rippling through the Republican party right now, greater than anything I could’ve possibly imagined a week ago. The nervous ripple in their world worsened last night as Trump began rage-posting on his Dollar Store social media platform, clearly unconstrained and uncontrolled.

“As Trump realized he’d been led astray, his keen, feral sense for the spotlight recognized that she had become a bigger story than him and that he and his team had no real Plan B.

“He could smell how consequential her entry into the race would be and how quickly attention would shift from him to a younger, faster, smarter, and more agile, camera-friendly candidate. My friend Jay Black said it well: “The Trump campaign had no plan for Biden dropping out because, on a fundamental level, nobody in Trump's world could conceive of a man willingly giving up power for the good of his country.”

“Kamala Harris is Donald Trump‘s Kryptonite.

“She is a woman of mixed race. She is attractive. She is a prosecutor. She is smarter than him by a long mile. Worst of all for Trump, he’s already envisioning the moment when she laughs in his face.

“She is what he hates the most: a woman. Don’t under-score this point when assessing his reactions. Donald Trump loathes women to the very core of his awful being, like all sexual abusers. His hatred of women springs into life in many forms, for he is abusive to them sexually, physically, verbally, and through both action and inaction. If you draw an arc from E. Jean Carroll (and his many other victims) to the Dobbs decision, you know all you must about his view of women.

“We'll witness his rage in full effect when she laughs at his grandiosity and delusion on a debate stage. One wag yesterday suggested that she greet him by saying, “Donald, I’m glad your parole officer let you come here tonight.”

Meanwhile, we Democrats are fortunate that The Most Overrated Writer On Earth, Aaron Sorkin, has decided he no longer believes the Democratic Party should select Republican Senator Mitt Romney as its candidate in the 2024 presidential race. I’m so relieved.

And we’ll cap off with the statement from the smartest Democrat in the past 60 yesars, Nancy Pelosi: “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal and political.”

[TCinLA]

[tomorrowusa]

Don't think that patiently explaining the legalities and details of the Trump indictment will change the minds of the MAGA crowd about it. Those folks, like Trump, simply don't believe in the rule of law.

There may be some Republicans who secretly believe the charges have merit but are scared shitless of what may happen if they say so in public.

A reasonably healthy party might give its indicted leader some benefit of the doubt, while calling for judgment to be withheld before he has his day in court. But Republicans correctly understand that their party will consider Trump an innocent martyr regardless. The sickness of the Republican Party as it is presently constituted is that there is no conceivable set of facts that would permit it to acknowledge Trump’s guilt. What has brought the party to this point is the convergence of its decades-long descent into paranoia with its idiosyncratic embrace of a career criminal.

Yep, the GOP has been drifting in this direction for a long time. Trump's emergence finally nudged them into being a full-blown paranoid cult.

The Republican Party’s internal culture has been shaped by what Richard Hofstadter famously described as “the paranoid style” in American politics. Hofstadter specifically attributed this description to the conservative movement, which, at the time, was a marginalized faction on the far right but has since completely taken control of the party and imposed its warped mentality on half of America. To its adherents, every incremental expansion of the welfare state is incipient communism, each new expansion of social liberalism the final death blow to family and church. Lurking behind these endless defeats, they discern a vast plot by shadowy elites. In recent years, the Republican Party’s long rightward march on policy has ground to a halt, and it has instead radicalized on a different dimension: ruthlessness. Attributing their political travails to weakness, Republicans converged on the belief that their only chance to pull back from the precipice of final defeat is to discard their scruples. A willingness to do or say anything to win was the essence of Trump’s appeal, an amorality some Republicans embraced gleefully and others reluctantly. Trump, by dint of his obsessive consumption of right-wing media, grasped where the party was going more quickly than its leaders did. This aspect of Trump’s rise was historically necessary. All Trump did was to hasten it along.

This is Trump's legal philosophy (if you want to call it that) in a nutshell...

Trump was not raised in a traditional conservative milieu. He came into a seedy, corrupt world in which politicians could be bought off and laws were suggestions. He worked with mobsters and absorbed their view of law enforcement: People who follow the law are suckers, and the worst thing in the world is a rat.

Trump is basically a petty mobster. That explains why he hates the FBI.

It is the interplay of the two forces, the paranoia of the right and the seamy criminality of the right’s current champion, that has brought the party to this point. Trump’s endlessly repeated “witch hunt” meme blends together the mobster’s hatred of the FBI with the conservative’s fear of the bureaucrat. His loyalists have been trained to either deny any evidence of misconduct by their side or rationalize it as a necessary countermeasure against their enemies. The concept of “crime” has been redefined in the conservative mind to mean activities by Democrats. They insist upon Trump’s innocence because they believe a Republican, axiomatically, cannot be a criminal.

That Manichean view fits in well with the radical Christian fundamentalist tendency in the GOP. Though instead of Jesus Christ, the credo of Republicans is to accept Donald Trump as their personal Lord and Savior. By that reasoning, Donald Trump is incapable of wrongdoing.

[qqueenofhades]

The thing is, I think the republicans DID have a plan for if Biden dropped out. They just didn't have a plan for if Harris could instantly unite the party, which is why they're still feebly trying to pretend like Biden might try to take back the nomination or someone else will challenge her and the DNC will be a mess, and trying to insist that no one likes Kamala when she's putting up these huge rallies. If the stupid contested mini primary idea had gone through I'm sure the GOP would have been ready with knives out and I would have descended halfway into alcoholism by now. Fortunately we live in the Good Timeline where Biden endorsed her immediately and everyone rallied around her and none of the GOP's weaksauce attacks have stuck. Same with the veepstakes- they banked on Harris picking Shapiro on the advice of the dem consultants and hoped that would open up some weaknesses for her, and when she picked the guy better suited for this moment have tried and failed to make it a scandal that she picked a guy endorsed by everyone from AOC to Manchin.

In full fairness to the GOP strategists, the dems having their shit together and united on messaging is a new and shocking development that I still can't quite believe myself. The complete collapse of the GOP messaging in response though? Delicious.

Well, yeah. Of course the Republicans had a plan if the plan was "do nothing, sit back, and let the Democrats descend into self-inflicted chaos," because that required zero effort or initiative from them other than to continue their usual petty fascist manipulative bad-faith bullshit. And yes, the fact of the Democrats being in disconcerting levels of array and not doing the self-sabotaging thing yet again came as a complete shock to everyone everywhere, so this wasn't the worst gamble, but it also exposes the GOP's complete and utter lack of any other ideas or constructive strategies if that did NOT happen. Their only plan was "wait for the opposition to crumble and do the worst thing imaginable like we always do!" and like. At some point, you aren't going to get away with that anymore. Especially when your candidates are Donald Fucking Trump and the guy who's somehow managing to be even more unpopular than Donald Fucking Trump. I mean, Trump's cultists like Trump. They don't even like Vance. Ouch.

The simple fact that the Republicans had no strategy whatsoever except OOOH OOOH SCARY BROWN WOMAN if the Democrats did pull together and support Kamala, and OOH OOH GARBLE ANTISEMITISM GARBLE (from the literal Neo-Nazi Party who was gearing up to go Full Speed Ahead Antisemitic if she had chosen Shapiro) if she picked Walz, demonstrates that they're completely bankrupt, at the end of the end of the rope. They have nothing new to offer. It's the same litany of garbage grievance culture-war fear and hate that they've run on for 8+ years, and as I have said before, eventually people get tired of that. It doesn't work anymore, especially when a genuinely exciting and dynamic alternative is offered. And now Trump is having an absolutely gobsmacking meltdown of a press conference at the critical battleground state of Mar-a-Lago, which kind of sums up where this whole thing is:

Man, I almost feel bad for him.

(No, no, I don't.)

[militantinremission]

The 2024 Presidential Debate: Time for New Blood?

In a word, The 1st Presidential Debate of 2024 was BRUTAL! Both Candidates took personal shots at each other; but Joe Biden- to his Credit, offered more Substance than Donald Trump. Trump avoided questions on rising Child Care Costs, Drug Overdoses, & Israel's 'War On Gaza' to name a few, but Biden wasn't able to capitalize on his lack of Policy Measures. Joe Biden came across as 'Too Old for Primetime', & appeared to be regurgitating Talking Points more than confidently articulating his Agenda for the next 4 Years. Donald Trump rambled on & embellished the truth for most of The Debate, instead of answering questions directly. BOTH had moments where they were less than honest. Trump focused on Biden's Job Performance more than articulating his Own Agenda for the next 4 Years. Joe Biden seemed more cognizant AFTER The Debate, than during it.

Donald Trump- to his Credit, was more reserved than he was in the 2020 Presidential Debates. Ironically, it was Joe Biden who initiated the insults, but Trump apparently didn't take The Bait. BOTH performances were subpar for a Presidential Candidate; I understand why Robert Kennedy Jr. was kept off that Debate Stage. NEITHER Candidate offered a Real Solution to Black Specific Issues. Instead, Both pivoted to the Reliable Standard of including 'Hispanics' & 'Minorities' into the Black American conversation. Donald Trump commented that Illegal Immigrants were stealing 'Black Jobs'. Mainstream Media & some Blackfolk were insulted by the statement, but Black Men have been literally pushed out of Union Jobs; particularly in the Field of Construction, in favor of Immigrants. People seem to forget that Black Men have traditionally been Blue Collar Workers. Trump is a virtual King of 'Off Color Comments', but many of Us understood what he was trying to say.

From a Black Perspective, the pivot away from Black Specific Issues speaks volumes about BOTH Party Agendas. Most Black Americans can't afford HBCU Tuitions, so funding them is a Moot Point to Us. Offering Black Students Free or Lower Tuition to State Universities would make more sense. Joe Biden offered a $10K Tax Credit to Black 1st Time Home Buyers, but didn't elaborate on it. He appeared strongest on the topic of Abortion, but allowed Trump to flummox him on the topic; particularly Late Term Abortions. Donald Trump appeared strongest on the issue of Immigration & put Biden on the spot several times, but didn't offer a Specific Agenda on how he will tackle it. Trump also lacked a Policy for lowering Inflation, other than extending his Tax Cuts to Corporations. Joe Biden's Economic Plan, is the continuation of 'Bidenomics'- A Plan that many are already concerned about.

Political Analysts & Pundits covering the Debate were quick to point out Joe Biden's performance. Most felt that he missed several opportunities to catch Donald Trump in blatant lies; they also questioned his Physical & Mental Fitness. He was supposed to reassure his Base that he had the Strength & Mental Competence to Serve another 4 Years, but critics are questioning his ability to finish the 1st Term of Office. Several Democratic Strategists called Biden "feeble & weak". Joy Reid said that Dems she spoke w/ are bordering on 'panic'. Rumors are spreading of a possible intervention asking him to step down, but it might be too late to change Candidates. CNN was accused of Stacking the Deck in favor of Joe Biden, but Trump appeared comfortable w/ the format. Both Moderators allowed Donald Trump to embellish w/o fact checking him; was that their job, or Biden's to do?

Democrats are calling Joe Biden's performance 'A Bad Night' (citing a Cold & scratchy throat), while the GOP applauds Donald Trump for 'Doing what he had to do'. I thought that BOTH Candidates were mediocre. Trump is being congratulated for Side Stepping questions & presenting a Vision of Smoke & Mirrors. Biden took a week off to prepare, but instead of repeating his State Of The Union Address performance, he stumbled through most of the Debate. Mainstream Media tried to predict This Debate would rival the Kennedy vs Nixon Debate of 1960, but it wasn't even close. The best dialogue between the Candidates, was about their Golfing Handicaps. America deserves a President that will move Us forward, but We have 2 'Old Dudes' caught up in their Own Egocentricity.

Donald Trump admitted that he's only running again, because he didn't see a GOP Candidate that could defeat Joe Biden. There are GOP Moderates out there that Republican Leadership & Voters could legitimately support. A few might even sway Independents, Libertarians, & disaffected Democrats; but grassroot support for the 'MAGA Agenda' has silenced most, out of fear of being labeled 'RINO'... I thought that This 'Pre Baby Boomer' Generation was willing to pass the baton when Barack Obama was Elected, but it seems like they've Doubled Down since he left Office. We currently have a Congress run by folks adamant about holding Power until it's pried from their Cold Dead Hands. The World Dynamic is changing & America needs to adapt. The Era of 'Neo Conservatives' & 'Neo Liberals' has run its Course- BOTH allowed the development of a Plutocratic Billionaire Class that has literally choked the Middle Class.

The Future Generations of American Society are NOT expected to outperform the previous Generations. Gen. Z in particular, is DROWNING before They can even Start; but Our 'Elder States[Wo]Men' don't seem fazed by This. They ALL seem content w/ taking The Country Down w/ them.

-It's TIME for New Blood!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When parties fail, movements step up

This Saturday (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

Does anyone like the American two party system? The parties are opaque, private organizations, weak institutions that are prone to capture and corruption, and gerrymandering's "safe seats" means that the real election often takes place in the party's smoke-filled rooms, when a sure-thing candidate is selected:

https://doctorow.medium.com/weak-institutions-a26a20927b27

But there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it. For one thing, the two parties are in charge of any reform, and they're in no hurry to put themselves out of business. It's effectively impossible for a third party to gain any serious power in the USA, and that's by design. After the leftist Populists party came within a spitting distance of power in the 1890s, the Dems and Repubs got together and cooked the system, banning fusion voting and erecting other structural barriers.

The Nader and Perot campaigns were doomed from the outset, in other words. Either candidate could have been far more popular than the D and R on the ballot, and they still would have lost. It's how the deck is stacked, and to unstack it, reformers would need to take charge of at least one – and probably both – of the parties.

But that's not cause for surrender – it's a call to action. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, Thomas Frank (Listen, Liberal) sets out another locus of power, one with the potential to deliver control over the party to its base: social movements:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/ordinary-people-by-the-millions

It's been done before. The parties are routinely transformed by power-shifts within their internal coalitions: since 1970, corporate Dems have consistently pushed the party to the right, making it the power of white-collar professionals and relying on working people showing up and marking their ballots with a D because they have "nowhere else to go."

Bill Clinton was the most successful of these corporate raiders, delivering the parts of the Reagan Revolution that Reagan himself could never have managed: dismantling tariffs and bank regulations, passing the crime bill and welfare "reform." He came within a whisper of (partially) privatizing Social Security.

This set in motion the forces that made Trumpism possible: when Dems told deindustrialized workers to "learn to code" and blamed them for the destruction of their communities, it opened a space for Make America Great Again, the (empty) workerist rhetoric of the GOP. The Dems' plan of putting "really smart people" in charge and letting them run things was a (predictable) disaster. "Really smart" isn't the same as "infallible" and really smart people can be spooked or bulled into doing the wrong thing – like Obama "foaming the runways" for the banks with the houses of mortgage holders, and leaving the bankers responsible for the Great Financial Crisis unscathed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

"Really smart people" can't get us out of this mess. Instead, we need the kind of muscular political action – the "whirlwind" – that characterized FDR's New Deal: "complete reformation of the banking industry.. just about every other industry as well. Regulation. Social Security. Public works. Antitrust. Soil conservation."

FDR got there by alienating his former classmates and refusing the go-slow entreaties of his cronies. He got there because there was a mass social movement that made him do it ("I want to do it, now make me do it"):

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/i-agree-with-you-i-want-to-do-it-now-make-me-do-it/

Every time in US history where one of the political party duopoly listened to its base, it was because of a mass social movement: the farmers' movement (1890s), labor (1930s), civil rights and antiwar (1960s). As Frank says:

Social movements succeed. They build and they change the intellectual climate and then, when the crisis comes, they make possible things like agrarian reform or the New Deal or the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s.

Today, we see the seeds of those social movements: the new union movement. Black Lives Matter. Neobrandeisians with their "hipster antitrust." These are the movements that are creating "ideas lying around": ideas that, in time of crisis, can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink:

https://doctorow.medium.com/ideas-lying-around-33a28901a7ae

They are setting in motion another transformation of the Democratic Party, from its top-down, "really smart people" model to a bottom-up, people-powered one, kept in check by movements, not party bosses. As Frank says, "They require the mass participation of ordinary people. Without that, I am afraid that nothing is possible."

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/17/popular-front-of-judea/#speaking-frankly

[darkmaga-retard]

What is it with Georgia’s Republican politicians? Are they determined to become image copies of the old Southern Democrats rooted in the traditions of “Boss Hog” style political leadership? Do they fail to recognize the rapidly changing political climate overwhelming not just the US but the Western world? America is facing enemies from the outside, rejuvenated by Biden’s weakness and Kamala’s rise while contending with its internal enemies on the inside disguised as Democrats.

Conservatives stand nearly alone in the battle of good over evil and make no mistake; our Democrat party is pure evil. Those same evil forces are now focusing their attacks on corrupting our local politics and politicians. Is China helping?

Former President Trump, at his Atlanta rally a week ago, excoriated Georgia governor Kemp as the: “most disloyal guy I have ever seen.” About Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump warned, “Raffensperger better make sure that the vote is honest, and they don’t want the vote to be honest. In my opinion, they want us to lose.”  

After becoming Georgia’s Governor with Trump’s help, Kemp quickly turned into a GOP moderate, that is the RINO euphemism for a Uniparty member, challenging Georgia State GOP organization by unilaterally creating a Georgia GOP “Incorporated,” separate and unequal. The conservative leaders in the party didn’t know Kemp did that, but Georgia Republicans are expected to roll over and conform. Where do our donations go? To the Georgia GOP or Kemp’s Georgia GOP Inc.? Trump got Kemp elected, although it shouldn’t have been all that difficult to defeat the radical Socialist Stacey Abrams, but it helped! Nonetheless, Trump expected some measure of loyalty in 2020 and he didn’t get it. In fact, he got an ‘in your face’ refusal by Georgia executives to obey the election laws.

[mariacallous]

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed his first major television spot against his new opponent in the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris. The advertisement zeroes in on what he says is her failed record as “border czar.” Drugs, crime, and terrorism are all a result. As viewers see ominous images of migrants crossing the border while Harris dances, the narrator closes by saying: “Failed. Weak. Dangerously Liberal.”

It isn’t a surprise that Trump would start with immigration as his opening salvo. And that’s not because this topic has been important to Trump since he announced his first presidential run in 2015, or because the issue is more pertinent than others in 2024. Rather, going after immigration taps into a set of ideas that has become deeply rooted in the GOP. To understand how anti-immigrant rhetoric became woven into Republican politics, it is necessary to look back to Harris’s home state of California during the 1990s—a time when nativism, law and order, and partisanship all converged as the Cold War came to an end. Rather than boasting about being tough on communists, Republicans since that period have invested much of their political capital in talking about being tough on the border.

The hardening of Republicans on this issue signaled a remarkable shift. For much of the 20th century, nativist factions within the Republican Party had been forced to compete with a formidable pro-immigration tradition. When then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan worked with Democrats in Congress in 1986 to pass sweeping bipartisan reform that imposed stricter penalties on businesses hiring undocumented immigrants, the president also granted amnesty for almost 3 million people and created an agricultural worker program for undocumented immigrants. “Our nation is a nation of immigrants,” Reagan had proclaimed. Business leaders allied to the supply-side revolution staunchly defended liberal immigration policies as something that brought tremendous benefits to the economy.

But following Reagan’s second term, the Republicans started on a different, rightward road. It began in California, and it brought them to today’s ad.

By the early 1990s, Californians were not feeling so golden. Major cities such as Los Angeles struggled with the crack cocaine epidemic as well as gang violence. Urban blight had left many neighborhoods in shambles. The entire state slipped into an economic recession during the 1990s. Boom times went bust as unemployment rose.

More and more white Californians blamed immigrants for the state’s woes. Latinos and Asians had grown into a significant portion of the population following President Lyndon Johnson’s Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Once welcome as the embodiment of the American dream, during the downturn immigrants were said to be responsible for rampant crime, the rising cost of social services, and the exodus of factories. Critics tapped into old nativist traditions that had flared in different periods such as the 1920s.

Several key players drove the conservative turn. In Los Angeles, Chief of Police Daryl Gates had ruled the city with an iron fist throughout the 1980s, allowing his forces to trample on civil liberties and target minority populations in his ongoing effort to clean up the city. Although Gates instructed police to avoid enforcing immigration laws to obtain cooperation in criminal investigations, his officers were downright brutal in how they treated disadvantaged populations. Under Operation Hammer, which Gates launched in April 1987 and closed down in 1990, the Los Angeles police conducted massive raids that rounded up Hispanic and Black American youth who happened to be in a given vicinity, regardless of how much evidence existed about their being possibly guilty of a crime. Racial profiling and physical harassment were standard. He was Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry come to life. In an era when tough policing was lionized among Republican candidates and valorized in popular culture, Gates emerged as a heroic figure in law and order circles—until the urban unrest in Los Angeles in 1992, following the Rodney King beating, finally led to his downfall.

Gov. Pete Wilson, elected in 1990, was likewise pivotal. Facing a tight reelection race in 1994, Wilson championed Proposition 187, a measure to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving basic non-emergency social services such as education and health care. His campaign in support of the “Save Our State” initiative broadcast blistering television ads that presented the darkest possible images of immigrants. Although he had rarely talked about these issues as a senator in the 1980s (in fact, he had supported greater access to immigrant labor for the agricultural industry), Wilson now staked much of his political future on the issue. “They keep coming,” warned the narrator in one ad, as viewers saw grainy images of people running through the border security. His bet paid off. On Nov. 8, 1994, California voters passed Proposition 187, 59 percent to 41 percent. Though the measure would become tied up in the courts, its popularity and Wilson’s victory signaled to Republicans all over the country that this was a winning issue.

Conservative grassroots activists kept the issue alive in the 1990s. One of the most important was Barbara Coe, who gained attention through her advocacy for Proposition 187. Coe emerged as one of the state’s fiercest champions of the nativist ethos. She founded the California Coalition for Immigration Reform to support Proposition 187. Often dressed in red, white, and blue garb, Coe, who was in her 60s, became a familiar face on the statewide media circuit, where she could be seen on television making one provocative statement after another about how “illegals” were destroying communities. In 1998, the organization purchased a massive billboard along Interstate 10 that read: “Welcome to California, the Illegal Immigration State: Don’t let this happen to your state.” Coe worked with an energetic network of activists including Ronald Prince, Les Blankhorn, and William King.

National Republicans picked up on the issue. Although many Republicans had initially stayed away from anything that Republican primary candidate Pat Buchanan had to say in 1992, including when he called conditions at the border “a national disgrace,” by the mid-1990s the party was singing a different tune. California was putting the immigration issue on the map. As a top advisor to President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, warned in 1993: “Immigration is emerging as the most powerful political issue in California, and the Administration must begin to deal with it.” On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed in 1996 for a major bill that ended the welfare system put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. His efforts gained traction as Clinton agreed to work on this bill, though it was much harsher than the kind of welfare reform the president had initially promoted. The result was the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which sharply curtailed social safety net benefits for non-citizens. In 1996, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Robert Dole ran an ad on “illegal aliens” that warned of “2 million illegal aliens in California” filling prisons, crowding schools, and costing billions of tax dollars. Clinton, the ad said, “fought California in court, forcing us to support them. Clinton fought Prop. 187, cut border agents, gave citizenship to aliens with criminal records. We pay the taxes. We are the victims. Our children get shortchanged.”

Congress also tightened restrictions on immigrants as part of the counterterrorism legislation passed after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the Oklahoma City attack in 1995, and 9/11, including increasing the number of people eligible to be deported and raising the bar for obtaining legal status within the country.

The hard-line Republican immigration agenda focused attention almost exclusively on undocumented immigrants and the dangers they posed, pushing aside discussions of immigrants who arrived legally or undocumented immigrants who ended up naturalizing and becoming upstanding citizens. The rhetoric exaggerated crime, murder, and drugs while shifting attention away from the economic, cultural, and social benefits that social scientists have repeatedly shown were a result of immigration. The stories from the early 20th century of immigrants making America great were replaced with shady images of immigrants undermining our well-being.

The Republican road from California to Trump was not inevitable. President George W. Bush, who expanded the Republican Hispanic vote in 2004 from 1996, pushed for a grand bargain in his second term that would have provided a legal path to citizenship for almost 12 million people in exchange for tougher border control and deportation measures. Congressional Republicans killed his initiative. Republican Party politics, as historian Sarah Coleman has argued in The Walls Within, congealed around a hard-line restrictionist agenda. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, failed in their efforts to obtain legislation providing for a path to citizenship inxchange for their support of tough deportation and border control policies. While Obama was able to put into place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program through executive action, protecting certain undocumented immigrants who arrived as children

When Trump’s administration imposed a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, implemented a policy of separating children from their families at the border, ramped up deportation, spent federal funds on building a massive border wall, ended DACA (though SCOTUS overturned his decision) most Republicans cheered. As a surge of immigrants became a bigger problem in Democratic cities in 2022, Republicans ramped up their attacks. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bused undocumented immigrants to blue cities across America. Democrats became defensive.

By 2024, Biden pushed for a bipartisan immigration bill that centered entirely on border control and deportation. The liberalization part of the bargain was gone. Yet even as Democrats caved, Trump persuaded congressional Republicans to kill the deal so that he could run on the issue in the fall.

So what should Harris do? It would be a mistake for her to simply play defense. Doing so won’t stop the ferocity of the attacks. As was often the case with national security during the Cold War, responding with claims to be the tougher party only fuels the narrative of opponents.

Harris’s own personal story is a powerful reminder that we are a nation of immigrants and that immigration has been part of the lifeblood of American society. Her father emigrated from Jamaica. Her mother arrived to the United States from India. Harris also understands, as she wrote in The Truths We Hold, that “for as long as ours has been a nation of immigrants, we have been a nation that fears immigrants.”

In fact, this presidential campaign provides an opportunity for a reset. Democrats have been struggling with this issue for years. Harris has an opportunity to fight back against Republican attacks, not by mimicking the GOP message, but by offering a different vision of what immigration means. She can move beyond what she called the “false choices” that have defined the debate. Yes, the nation needs tough border controls and deportation procedures, but it’s time to remember just how vital immigrants, documented and undocumented, have been and remain for us all.

While continually challenging the veracity of the claims that Trump throws out about what previous border policies have done, the vice president can also tether the broader dialogue to a deep appreciation of immigrants as one of the most defining elements of American history. Most of us have immigrant roots; many of us are immigrants. Immigration has made America great.

Hopefully, with a more constructive conversation, we can begin to bring back the vision of a grand bargain that rationalizes our immigrant system, from better border policies to a path to citizenship. And perhaps the candidate from California, where the rightward turn began in the 1990s, can lead the nation in a new direction in 2024.