Dan Pfeiffer/”The Message Box” on Substack:

Debt Limit Update: McCarthy's Very Weak Hand

The Speaker is talking tough to appease the right, but he needs the Dems to bail him out

Is this theater? Are we screwed? Should we panic? Buy gold? Bury our money in the backyard?

The debt ceiling reports from the legacy media are nothing short of horrendous. And confusing. Much of it is laundering the viewpoints of the GOP leadership aides upon which Capitol Hill reporters depend for scoops. Their “journalism” excuses the irresponsible position of Republicans and puts all of the onus of preventing default on Joe Biden and the Democrats. I don’t blame anyone for being confused.

Here’s what you need to know based on my experience working in the White House during the last two Republican-engineered debt ceiling crises.

Politico Playbook:

GOP ratchets up debt ceiling demands

Congressional Republicans have not only rejected a new White House offer to essentially freeze domestic spending at FY2023 levels, they’re now demanding work requirements for SNAP recipients that are more rigid than those they originally proposed. They’re also insisting on adding new immigration provisions from the GOP’s recently passed border bill — which, mind you, Republicans didn’t include in their own debt ceiling bill. (More on both in a second … )

The GOP’s dug-in position comes at the end of a week when both President JOE BIDEN and Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY acknowledged that a budget deal would have to be bipartisan. Vote-counters on the Hill believe that any eventual deal will need the backing of about 100 House Democrats since a number of conservatives will never support a compromise. Yet given what Republican negotiators are now countering, they’re far from that number.

The White House is not happy with the new GOP demands. This morning, Biden told reporters that the GOP needs to move off their “extreme positions.”

Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post:

Biden uses good cop, bad cop against the GOP’s debt ceiling extortion

Some Democrats would prefer to ignore Republicans entirely, doing away with the perennial hostage-taking and encouraging Biden to exercise his presidential power to deny Republicans any advantage. That, however, includes significant risks, including the loss of support among the usual suspects, notably Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). White House aides point out that a legal challenge over the 14th Amendment would be inevitable, and while the legal battle played out, the markets would be in turmoil. Indeed, the White House detected some troubling movement in the bond markets recently, though that calmed down once reports of constructive negotiations emerged.

The true test will come if and when a default deal materializes. If Biden avoids making cuts, essentially agreeing to a continuing resolution for the remainder of his term with some window dressing (e.g., coronavirus funds claw back) but no implementation of counterproductive work requirements for benefit programs, it would amount to a huge win for the president and for Democrats. A bipartisan deal that leaves his agenda in place and puts to bed the default issue for the remainder of his term would give him the best outcome, given that Republicans do, after all, control the House.

A reminder of how much media is addicted to horse race. The story is who the GOP electorate is, not who the candidates are.

EJ Dionne/Washington Post:

The poor are being held hostage in the debt ceiling standoff

Here’s what must not happen: Our country’s least advantaged citizens should not be forced to pay the largest price to prevent an economic catastrophe. Making the poor poorer should never happen; it certainly shouldn’t happen on a Democratic president’s watch.

That issue is at the heart of this needless and destructive battle. House Republicans decided to hold the economy hostage to slash assistance for low-income Americans while protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.

That’s a factual statement, not a partisan complaint.

With Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis announcing, can 61% of Chris Sununu and 100% of Chris Christie be far behind? It's a chance for anti-Trump attacks to get tested and maybe carry over to the general.

Hey, you never know. Trump might be indicted or something.

Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:

Why was this massive Trump scandal hiding in plain sight for 28 months?

A shocking allegation that then-President Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was selling pardons for $2 million got lost. Why it matters now.

To the very end, Trump ignored the practices of past presidents — who’d worked mostly off petitions that had been investigated by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney — and granted clemency largely for connected folks that he tended to know, from close cronies like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon to his reality-TV pal Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced Illinois governor, to his son-in-law’s dad, Charles Kushner. Then there was an additional category: those who’d paid good money to Trump World insiders to plead their case.

On Jan. 17, 2021, the New York Times published an article headlined: “Prospect of Pardons in Final Days Fuels Market to Buy Access to Trump.” Based on more than three dozen interviews with key players, the Times confirmed that wealthy convicted felons were paying tens of thousands of dollars to insiders like a former Trump personal attorney, John Dowd, in the rush to gain clemency. To be clear, hiring a lawyer promising special access — while perhaps unseemly — is not new and probably not unlawful. But a Times passage about convicted ex-CIA leaker John Kiriakou, who paid an unnamed Trump associate $50,000 with a contingent promise of $50,000 more if a pardon was granted, included a jaw-dropping if unproven allegation:

“And Mr. Kiriakou was separately told that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani could help him secure a pardon for $2 million. Mr. Kiriakou rejected the offer, but an associate, fearing that Mr. Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, alerted the F.B.I. Mr. Giuliani challenged this characterization.”

Susan Stubson (Wyoming Republican)/ New York Times:

What Christian Nationalism Has Done to My State and My Faith Is a Sin

 I first saw it while working the rope line at a monster-truck rally during the 2016 campaign by my husband, Tim, for Wyoming’s lone congressional seat. As Tim and I and our boys made our way down the line, shaking hands and passing out campaign material, a burly man wearing a “God bless America” T-shirt and a cross around his neck said something like, “He’s got my vote if he keeps those [epithet] out of office,” using a racial slur. What followed was an uncomfortable master class in racism and xenophobia as the man decanted the reasons our country is going down the tubes. God bless America.

I now understand the ugliness I heard was part of a current of Christian nationalism fomenting beneath the surface. It had been there all the time. The rope line rant was a mission statement for the disaffected, the overlooked, the frightened. It was also an expression of solidarity with a candidate like Donald Trump who gave a name to a perceived enemy: people who do not look like us or share our beliefs. Immigrants are taking our guns. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. You are not safe in your home. Religious freedom is on the gallows. Vote for me.

The messages worked. And in large part, it’s my faith community — white, rural and conservative — that got them there. I am a white conservative woman in rural America. Raised Catholic, I found that my faith deepened after I married and joined an evangelical church.

Russia is, apparently, still listening.

Jamelle Bouie/New York Times:

There Is a Reason Ron DeSantis Wants History Told a Certain Way

As it happens, I’m reading the historian Donald Yacovone’s most recent book, “Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity,” on the relationship between history education and the construction of white supremacist ideologies in the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s an interesting book, filled with compelling information about the racism that has shaped the teaching of American history. But I mention it here because, in one section on Southern textbook writers and the demand for pro-slavery pedagogy, Yacovone relays a voice that might sound awfully familiar to modern ears.

As Yacovone explains, pre-Civil War textbook production was dominated by writers from New England. Some Southerners had, by the 1850s, become “increasingly frustrated with the ‘Yankee-centric’ quality of the historical narratives.” They wanted texts “specifically designed for Southern students and readers.” In particular, Southern critics wanted textbooks that gave what they considered a fair and favorable view to the “subject of the weightiest import to us of the South … I mean the institution of Negro slavery,” as one critic put it. 

Steven Beschloss/”America, America” on Substack:

Banning Books, Suppressing Thought and The Rejection of Empathy

A new PEN America report finds that the right wing's systematic effort to block reading, learning and thinking is spreading

Among the most frequently banned books this school year is Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe. Banned in 15 school districts, this autobiographical story with comic illustration is a sensitively written and touching portrayal of Kobabe’s journey of gender identity—the kind of thoughtful rendering that can provide a struggling young person light in the darkness as they search to better understand themselves.

Also topping the list: Flamer by Mike Curato (banned in 15 districts), Tricks by Ellen Hopkins (banned in 13 districts) and The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood and Renee Nault (banned in 12 districts).

My hometown, Newtown, Connecticut, is in the midst of a book-banning controversy which also includes Curato’s book, “Flamer.” His letter to the editor of the Newtown Bee is directed to students of the local high school—where his book remains in circulation, at least for now—and reprinted here in full, with Curato’s explicit permission.

The following letter to Newtown High School Students has been received for publication by The Newtown Bee:

To the Students of Newtown High,

This letter is for you. Regardless of the outcome of this book challenge, and the other challenges that will come, there are things I need you to know.

Remember you have agency. It’s hard to have others making decisions for you. But your life is in your hands. You have a voice. Use it. Don’t let anyone silence you. Let it out. Speak it, sing it, write it, paint it, dance it. Censorship is fought with expression. That is your first amendment right, no matter your age or station.

Remember you are the future. Remember this moment. Remember how you feel. Remember what everyone said. Soon you will be an adult member of the community. What rights will you uphold? What injustices will you fight to repair? Who else in your community has been relegated to the margins? How can you help them? Lead with facts and compassion.

And above all else, know this: You deserve to be here. No matter who you are, what you believe, or who you love. When I was young, it was implied that there was no room in this world for someone like me. Not unless I followed their rules. I tried to be the person I thought everyone wanted me to be, and it broke me. Don’t do that. Don’t let anyone use shame to dictate how you should live your life. I almost lost my life to that lie. But I survived, and in living my truth, I have found the greatest joy. Flamer is my truth and my joy. It may make some people uncomfortable, but their comfort is NOTHING compared to your safety and happiness.

Remember: They can ban my book, but no one has the right to ban YOU.

Thank you

Mike Curato

Author and illustrator of Flamer

Still in the news:

Simon Rosenberg/”Hopium Chronicles” on Substack:

Last Few Weeks Have Been Good Ones for Democrats

Strong Biden Launch, Important Electoral Wins, Rs All Sorts of Ugly

All of this is why I think this election is all about expansion. Rs are giving us an incredible opportunity to grow; we have the infrastructure to do it; now that the campaign is up it is time to get going. So much is possible for us now.

We Just Keep Winning, Everywhere- As we did in 2022, so far this year Dems are performing at the upper end of what is possible. We’ve won Supreme Court races, mayoral races, state rep races. We’ve won in Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. We’ve flipped two cities, Jacksonsville and Colorado Springs, which have been Republican for decades. Just look at how awful the GOP brand is now (below). These are horrific numbers. We need to stay on offense and keep taking more political real estate away from them.

Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer:

From Philly to Colorado Springs, America voted no on extremism Tuesday

Voters in cities and suburbs — in the Philly mayor's race, Jacksonville, and Colorado Springs — chose moderation Tuesday.

In Pennsylvania’s Delaware County, in a special state House election that would determine whether lawmakers in Harrisburg would have the votes to put their own version of an abortion ban before voters, a surge in mail-in ballots was the first sign of a landslide victory for the pro-choice Democrat. Just north in Montgomery County, Republican primary voters decided they’d finally had enough of right-wing county commissioner Joe Gale, a rabid Donald Trump supporter who’d wanted to ban mail-in ballots and survived calls for his 2020 ouster after labeling Black Lives Matter “a hate group.”

It was a bad night for extremists all over America. In Colorado Springs, Colo., known for conservative politics (and as the site of six high-profile mass shootings since 2007), Yemi Mobolade, a Nigerian immigrant, shocked the local Republican establishment to become the city’s first elected Black mayor. In Jacksonville, Fla. — the nation’s largest city with a GOP mayor, run mostly by Republicans for 30 years — the candidate backed strongly both by DeSantis and the ultraconservative, book-banning Moms for Liberty lost to Democrat Donna Deegan in a huge upset.

Ronald Brownstein/The Atlantic:

Why Outspoken Women Scare Trump

Mocking the sexual-harassment reckoning is a feature of Donald Trump’s political persona.

In part, the laughter demonstrated the strength of Trump’s grip on his supporters. But the reaction also displayed something discussed much less often: how much of the GOP coalition is resistant to more assertive roles in society for women, which has produced, among other things, more frequent and visible accusations of sexual impropriety against men.

The stunning laughter when Trump belittled Carroll underlined how for many Republican voters, skepticism about women’s claims of unfair or improper treatment now intertwines with hostility to other forms of cultural change, including growing racial diversity and demands for equal treatment from the LGBTQ community. “We’re in the middle of a backlash to racial and gender progress, in which Trump has normalized the expression of racist and sexist beliefs,” Tresa Undem, a pollster for progressive organizations who specializes in attitudes about gender and race, told me. “He’s constantly tapping into these beliefs.”

Julia Azari/POLITICO:

Trump’s Dominance in the GOP Isn’t What It Seems

He’s presiding over a movement, not a party.

For years, political scientists have judged presidents on their strength as party leaders — how they’ve been able to grow a coalition and cement a majority — but Trump is changing the way we think about politics.

Instead, it now seems that Trump is not so much a party leader, but a movement figure. This might seem like the kind of distinction that only academics care about. But it’s key to understanding the current state of American politics, and the dilemmas now facing GOP leaders as the MAGA movement threatens to completely overtake the Republican Party itself.

Bill Scher/Washington Monthly:

Republicans Want to Impeach Mayorkas. How About Giving Him a Medal?

The Homeland Security secretary and Cuban refugee is being pilloried by the right and some on the left for his immigration policies, but the Biden administration is succeeding in slowing the influx of refugees and ending the cruelty of the Trump era.

What the administration was up to over the past two years may have looked confusing. First, the Biden administration tried to rescind Title 42, upsetting conservatives. Then federal judges stayed the order while it was being litigated. In the meantime, the administration expanded the use of Title 42, upsetting progressives. And then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended the entire COVID-19 public health emergency. Conservatives applauded the end of Dr. Anthony Fauci-era restrictions but not the end of Title 42 powers which disappeared along with them.

Because Title 42 was being used as a deterrent to migration, the Biden administration’s moves to end it were seen as willfully—to some, recklessly—inviting more migration. But that was an oversimplification. The goal has always been to craft a more orderly system of migration.  

Greg Sargent/The Washington Post:

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s impeachment stunt wrecks a big MAGA myth

Greene’s call for Biden’s impeachment is a joke: It’s unlikely McCarthy will seek it, and it’s not at all clear that Republicans would have the votes for it. Still, as Greene told reporters, GOP leaders have engaged in serious dialogue with her about what impeachment would look like.

What’s more, McCarthy reportedly feels genuine pressure to impeach Mayorkas, partly because of Greene’s campaign against him. All this shows that Republicans must take seriously her ability, as a leader of the party’s MAGA wing, to tap into sentiments surging inside the GOP base.

Patricia Murphy/Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Real show at CNN town hall was the audience, not the stage

The early reviews of the event weren’t pretty. Even CNN’s own media critic, Oliver Darcy said it was “hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.”

But I disagree. America was served by seeing, live on television, the ongoing devotion of Trump’s biggest supporters, no matter what he says, what he’s done, or what he continues to lie about.

Tara Palmeri/Puck with GOP political consultant Matthew Bartlett:

What was your takeaway from the whole debate?

There were plenty of people in that room that were ardent supporters of President Trump, and no matter what he said, they were ready to jump out of their seats and applaud. But there were also people that sat there quietly disgusted or bewildered. In a TV setting, you hear the applause, but you don’t see the disgust. So Trump did not have the entire room on his side, make no mistake, even if it certainly came across that way on TV.

When I turned on my phone after the event, the text messages came flying in. You saw the coverage afterwards. People thought it was more of a rally than a town hall—maybe at one point even a debate between Kaitlan Collins and Donald Trump. But in that room, I remember walking out and people in the front row were like, He’s talking some crazy stuff, and I think a lot of these lawsuits are adding up. There was heavy skepticism. He kind of lost the audience at some point when he was rambling about January 6th and the back and forth around the tweets. And then there were some people that were like, This is vintage Trump. I’m so happy to see him stick it to CNN right in their face. So it was a mix.

Unfortunately, I think that when people hear applause on TV, they just assume that the entire room was on his side, but that just wasn’t the case. I saw Joe Scarborough today make some comments about the room; there were people in that room that were like Joe Scarborough—that are ardent Republicans who really have broken away from the party because of Trump. So that was present. You just may not have heard it.

Oliver Darcy/CNN:

• The town hall drove the news cycle on Thursday. "Last night provided a clearer view of where Trump stands on the key issues that America is grappling with right now," Kaitlan Collins said on Thursday night.
• Several Republican senators pushed back against Trump's remarks. (CNN)
• And E. Jean Carroll threatened to sue Trump again after the disparaging remarks he made about her. (NYT)
• The town hall drew 3.3 million viewers, "making CNN the most-watched cable news network of the evening," Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
• "But network executives faced a tsunami of criticism for giving the Republican candidate a platform to spread lies," Stephen Battaglio reports. (LAT)
• "Inside CNN, the mood was dark": Paul Farhi and Jeremy Barr report on the internal anger over the event, with one network staffer telling the duo, "I’ve been a CNN journalist for many years. I’ve always been so proud to say that. I’ve never, ever been ashamed of CNN until tonight." (WaPo)
• "The ordeal also further damaged the CNN CEO’s standing among rank-and-file at the network," Max Tani reports. (Semafor)
• Politico Playbook: "ABOUT LAST NIGHT — To call it a s**tshow would be generous." (POLITICO)
• Matt Drudge's take: "CNN OUTFOXES FOX!" (DRUDGE)
• "Well, that was a disaster, a politically historic one," Peggy Noonan writes. "It situated Donald Trump as the central figure of the 2024 presidential cycle ... It will have an impact on the campaign’s trajectory. When it was over I thought, of CNN: Once again they’ve made Trump real." (WSJ)

Jay Rosen /MSNBC on the CNN debacle:

New York Times:

Vulnerable Republicans Caught in the Middle in Debt Limit Fight

House G.O.P. lawmakers in competitive seats who could be crucial to averting a catastrophic default are being fawned over by Democrats one minute and pummeled the next.

The shout-out — and Mr. Lawler’s decision to attend the event in the first place — underscored the unusual dance playing out just weeks before the nation is at risk of defaulting on its obligations for the first time, with the economy hanging in the balance. White House officials simultaneously are hoping to rally a bloc of moderate Republicans to vote with Democrats to raise the limit — while also gaining a political advantage for the 2024 election by painting them as extremists.

That messaging has infuriated some Biden-district Republicans.

Everything infuriates Republicans. You can’t base your life on avoiding it.

Steve Benen/NBC:

To see debt ceiling crises as normal is to miss modern history

It’s imperative that observers stop seeing the Republicans’ debt ceiling crises as normal and start seeing them as scandalous.

To be sure, I can think of a great many instances in which I’ve made a comment on the air that I wish I’d worded better, and my point is not to slam the host or the guest, who might’ve used different phrasing if given a second chance at it. But the broader point is worth understanding in more detail.

First, when Kernen rejected the idea that the debt ceiling was addressed “cleanly” three times under Trump, I suppose there might be some debate over the meaning of the word “clean.” In 2017, 2018, and 2019, Congress approved debt ceiling increases by simply attaching the increases to other bills — a standard move lawmakers have employed for generations.

By most measures, I think this process can fairly be described as “clean”: There were no threats, no hostage tactics, and no demands for ransoms. Congress didn’t add any conditions to the process. Lawmakers did seek or receive any rewards or concessions. The debt limit wasn’t raised by way of stand-alone bills, but there also weren’t any hints of crises — because there were no demands or meaningful strings attached.

Shawn McCreesh/New York magazine:

When Fox News Turns On Its Own

Tucker Carlson’s allies can’t believe this is happening to them.

A fog of war has descended over Fox News and the star it nurtured, then spit out. He’s hunkered down with his producer Justin Wells, who was dismissed the same day as Carlson, April 24. Last week, the pair persuaded two more Fox colleagues to come help them do … whatever it is they are now doing.

Meanwhile, back on the 20th floor of Fox’s midtown headquarters, the many young people who worked for Carlson and Wells must now fend for themselves. “There are lots of tears and fears on the team right now,” says one. “We feel like we’re out there by ourselves, just trying to survive really.” No one at Fox has explained to them why their bosses were actually pushed.

Lacking information, they’ve all become a bit paranoid. Who’s pulling the strings here? Who has been un-redacting Carlson’s creepy text messages for the Daily Beast and the New York Times? How does Fox’s nemesis, the left-wing watchdog Media Matters for America, keep obtaining hot-mic clips from their show? Could it all be part of some plan hatched from within Fox to smear Carlson and kick him while he’s down?

Amanda Carpenter/The Bulwark:

CNN’s Trump Town Hall: All Spectacle, No Sunlight

It’s 2016 all over again.

CNN gifted a twice-impeached former president who incited a riot at the U.S. Capitol a primetime media event. Moderator Kaitlan Collins did an impressive job, but the horror is in the set-up. The event’s audience was stacked with Republican primary voters already inclined to support him, as evidenced by the fact that they repeatedly clapped, laughed, and cheered for him while he reaffirmed his most outrageous lies. None of this was urgent, even from a political perspective. The first primary is seven months away.

Susan Rinkunas/Jezebel:

Ohio Is Spending $20 Million to Thwart a Statewide Vote on Abortion

Protesters flooded the Statehouse rotunda as Republicans moved to make it harder for an abortion rights ballot measure to pass in November.

Abortion rights supporters in Ohio need to collect 413,000 signatures by July 5 to put their measure codifying abortion access in the state constitution on the November ballot. (The initiative would also enshrine the right to make decisions about contraception, fertility treatment, and miscarriage care.) But on Wednesday, Republicans passed a resolution to hold an August special election on whether to make it harder to amend the state constitution.

Aziz Huq/Politico Magazine:

The Supreme Court Stopped Short of a Radical Act

Both the mifepristone ruling and the Wisconsin judicial election suggest the politics of court reform are shifting.

But Wisconsin’s judicial election earlier this month suggests that the White House’s assessment of how judicial politics plays among Democratic voters no longer holds water. That election may signal a broader shift in the tectonics of voter mobilization in respect to courts and judges more generally.

The most obvious reason for thinking something has changed is that it was Democrats, and not Republicans, who were galvanized by the judicial election. These voters, moreover, were moved by the issue of judicial power but were not motivated as much by the goal of electing Democrats. In a state Senate race held that same day, the Republican candidate eked out a win. That too was a highly consequential election, giving Republicans a Senate supermajority and the votes to oust officials through impeachment.

James Traub/Politico Magazine:

The Hottest Political Reform of the Moment Gains Ground

Inside Jeanne Massey’s relentless campaign to fix democracy, starting in Minnesota.

At issue was ranked choice voting, a wonky reform that advocates are convinced will help drain the toxins from our national politics. Ranked choice voting allows voters to list their top three or more candidates, eliminates the last-place finisher and then redistributes votes to the remaining candidates until one emerges with a majority. The approach has been quietly making gains across the country, but it burst into the public consciousness last year after it helped a centrist Democrat thwart Sarah Palin’s bid for Congress in Alaska.

Tim Miller/The Bulwark:

Don’t Daydream of a Third Party President

Plus: The rubber band theory of politics.

Miller: And I get it. Really, I do. But in a counterintuitive way, the candidate-quality issues and the extent of our polarization actually make it less likely for third-party success.

Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Ivy Rauch on The Big Bang Theory): Yeah, you’re gonna have to walk me through that.

Miller: There are two main reasons why. One, we’re living in a time of extreme negative partisanship. Negative partisanship is a concept where voters are committed to one side, not so much because they love their candidate, but because they despise the other candidate.

Homer Simpson (from The Simpsons): I hate them so much!

Miller: So if you are the type to (correctly) think that Donald Trump might literally end our democracy, you are less likely to risk “wasting” your vote on a third party, even if you don’t love Joe Biden because you don’t want to take a chance that it could help Trump.

A little overseas news, this from the UK where a Labour MP gets discipled:

The Guardian:

Labour suspends Diane Abbott in attempt to stifle fresh antisemitism row

MP loses party whip after writing letter suggesting Jewish, Irish, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people had not experienced racism

Labour has sought to head off a fresh antisemitism storm by suspending the party whip from Diane Abbott, after the former shadow home secretary played down suggestions of racism against Jewish people.

In comments that were swiftly condemned by senior Conservatives and faith groups, the MP argued that minority groups – such as Jewish people, as well as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people – faced similar levels of prejudice to people with red hair.

Hours after her remarks about how “white people with points of difference” are discriminated against in society were published, Abbott apologised and claimed they were made in error.

Want to know more about Roma and Traveller groups? I know you do! From a website (TravellerMovement.org on topic:

Gypsy Roma and Traveller History and Culture

Gypsy Roma and Traveller people belong to minority ethnic groups that have contributed to British society for centuries. Their distinctive way of life and traditions manifest themselves in nomadism, the centrality of their extended family, unique languages and entrepreneurial economy. It is reported that there are around 300,000 Travellers in the UK and they are one of the most disadvantaged groups. The real population may be different as some members of these communities do not participate in the census.

The Traveller Movement works predominantly with ethnic Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller Communities.

Did you know Roma languages are more closely related to Northern India than European origin?

From Haaretz, the protests go on:

Former Likud minister: Gov't promised security but only interested in crushing the justice system

Former Education Minister Limor Livnat, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and an outspoken right-wing critic of the government's judicial overhaul plan, accused the government of promising "security, peace and governance" while solely focusing on the "coup to crush the legal system."

Speaking in front of a crowd of demonstrators in Jerusalem, Livnat, who worked alongside Netanyahu for much of his tenure as prime minister, said that she "was born and raised on the right, I have remained in the right-wing camp all my life, and I will never have another ideology, but Likud is no longer my home," arguing that the party's founded, former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, believed in a strong, independent judiciary.

And back to the US.

Tara Palmeri/Puck:

The DeSantis Endorsement-ghazi Blame Game

Poor Ryan Tyson. That’s the name I keep hearing from Tallahassee insiders as DeSantis-world reels from the tidal wave of Florida congressmen endorsing Trump over their own governor. Tyson, a top pollster and advisor to DeSantis (who allegedly “never conducts polls”) was deputized to try to shore up support among the Florida delegation for DeSantis ahead of his high-profile visit to Washington this week, following the traumatic defection of Rep. Byron Donalds to Trump. (He and his wife Erika are good friends with Casey and Ron, who offered their support if he wanted to be chairman of the party’s state G.O.P.)

Alas, Tyson wasn’t very successful, because seven more members of the Florida delegation chose to endorse Trump instead—including Reps. Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, Brian Mast, Greg Steube, Cory Mills, Vern Buchanan and John Rutherford. The main gripe was that DeSantis didn’t personally make the calls, but left it to Tyson. “Part of the problem with Tyson is that nobody knew who the fuck he was,” said one G.O.P. advisor to a member of Congress who was called. Tyson declined to comment.

But this has always been DeSantis’s problem. He lacks the personal touch, whereas Trump always calls, often for no reason at all. Steube, who recently suffered serious injuries falling off a ladder, told Politico that he made his decision in part because DeSantis, unlike Trump, never called to check in. (This frosty behavior hasn’t been helping DeSantis with donors, either.)

Pen America:

Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools

These efforts to chill speech are part of the ongoing nationwide “Ed Scare” — a campaign to foment anxiety and anger with the goal of suppressing free expression in public education. As book bans escalate, coupled with the proliferation of legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities, the freedom to read, learn, and think continues to be undermined for students.

Below, PEN America updates its tally and analysis of book bans during the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, from July to December 2022. This research builds on PEN America’s 2022 report, Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools, which covered book bans from July 2021 to June 2022.

Stephanie McCrummen/WaPo has one of the most remarkable political stories you’ll read this year. Here’s a tale about not giving up on red states or those you assume aren’t persuadable:

In rural Georgia, an unlikely rebel against Trumpism

Why didn’t the Republican red wave materialize in the midterms? The life of Cody Johnson offers one answer.

“I don’t want extremists in office,” he said, walking back to his truck. “And I have some small glimmer of hope that maybe things aren’t as screwed up as I think they are.”

And just in time for the holidays!

Cathy Young/Bulwark:

Putin’s Useful Idiots: Right Wingers Lose It Over Zelensky Visit

The anti-Ukraine right can’t stand America standing as the arsenal of democracy.

The question of why the Trumpian populist right is so consumed with hatred for Ukraine—a hatred that clearly goes beyond concerns about U.S. spending, a very small portion of our military budget, or about the nonexistent involvement of American troops—doesn’t have a simple answer. Partly, it’s simply partisanship: If the libs are for it, we’re against it, and the more offensively the better. (And if the pre-Trump Republican establishment is also for it, then we’re even more against it.) Partly, it’s the belief that Ukrainian democracy is a Biden/Obama/Hillary Clinton/”Deep State” project, all the more suspect because it’s related to Trump’s first impeachment. Partly, it’s the “national conservative” distaste for liberalism—not only in its American progressive iteration, but in the more fundamental sense that includes conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: the outlook based on individual freedom and personal autonomy, equality before the law, limited government, and an international order rooted in those values. Many NatCons are far more sympathetic to Russia’s crusade against secular liberalism than to Ukraine’s desire for integration into liberal, secular Europe.

Whatever the reason, the anti-Ukraine animus on the right is quite real and widespread.

Remember, Zelenskyy is an actor. Instead of a suit and tie for his White House visit, he's wearing an army fatigue colored sweater and cargo pants. The costume just hits better when you're in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar shakedown of American taxpayers.

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 21, 2022

Ron Brownstein/CNN:

The 5 ‘known unknowns’ that will define 2024

The powerful evidence for a possible criminal case that the bipartisan January 6, 2021, congressional committee presented against former President Donald Trump on Monday underscores the biggest uncertainty looming over the approaching 2024 presidential campaign.

Many factors that will shape the 2024 contest, of course, remain impossible to know almost two years before the voting. But it is possible with greater confidence to identify the questions whose eventual answers will exert the most impact on the result.

During the Iraq War in 2002, Donald Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, coined a famous phrase to describe exactly that kind of situation. Rumsfeld puckishly described a circumstance in which we do not know the answer to a question, but we do know that the answer will matter to the outcome, as a “known unknown.”

Dan Kennedy/blog:

Why did a House committee release Trump’s tax returns? Because it could.

Yeah, it’s a short piece but it’s a good question. They were entitled to the tax returns, and they are entitled to use it for legislative purposes. But why release it to the public?

Is it all politics or is there a greater good? By the way, I’m fine with it, I just like the question.

Sam Brodey/Daily Beast:

The Incredible 37-Page Guide for Staffing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema

Aides to the Arizona senator were expected to get her groceries, fix her internet, and learn her very specific preferences for airline seats, according to an internal memo.

The 37-page memo is intended as a guide for aides who set the schedule for and personally staff Sinema during her workdays in Washington and Arizona. And while the document is mostly just revealing of Sinema’s exceptionally strong preferences about things like air travel—preferably not on Southwest Airlines, never book her a seat near a bathroom, and absolutely never a middle seat—Sinema’s standards appear to go right up to the line of what Senate ethics rules allow, if not over.

One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.

The Senate ethics handbook states that “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”

Yeah, I get it. You don’t like her. I don’t, either. But, no question that she’s useful. See WJBF:

Schumer breaks Title 42 spending bill logjam with Sinema’s help

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Thursday morning that he’s reached an agreement with colleagues on amendments to the 4,155-page omnibus so the Senate can pass the bill later in the day and give the House a chance to act Friday.   And it looks like his savior may be independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who on Thursday introduced an amendment to increase border funding and resources for border communities and extend the Title 42 health policy that expedites the deportation of migrants seeking asylum in the United States.  Sinema’s amendment could give political cover to centrist Democrats to vote against a proposal sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to cut funding for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s office unless the Biden administration reinstates the Trump-era Title 42 policy.

And more:

Rick Hasen/Election Law Blog:

My Reflections on the Release of the January 6 Committee Report on Trump’s Attempted Election Subversion and the Expected Passage This Week of Electoral Count Act Reform: Gratitude, Awe, and Partial Relief

The report is careful, lawyerly, and fact-based, and the picture it paints is damning of those, beginning with the former President, who were willing to manipulate legal theories and engage in baldfaced lies about voter fraud in an attempt to steal a presidential election. Even though most of the information in the first 5 chapters of the report was familiar to someone who has been following this closely, the set of narratives makes an unmistakeable record for history of unprecedented treachery and sedition. This is true whether or not criminal charges are brought and convictions obtained. There are strong reasons to prosecute the former President, and as I argued in the New York Times, the risk of not prosecuting Trump is greater than the risk of prosecuting him.

There was some new information to me, such as the fact that former professor John Eastman, who advanced wrong and dangerous theories about the Vice President’s powers to throw out electoral college votes, changed his views when politically expedient:

Colin McEnroe/Stamford Advocate:

Sandy Hook grief almost too big, and too sad to ponder

I hate this so much.

You could take this whole miserable anniversary and push it off the highest cliff and into the darkest air, as far as I’m concerned.

But if you did, it would come wafting back up through the black night and land at your feet. There is no getting rid of a thing like this.

Colin speaks for many of us here in Newtown. I’ll cover this today so that I don’t have to cover it on Wednesday, 12/14/22, the 10th anniversary.

Natasha Korecki/NBC News:

Republicans struggle in the Southwest as Latino voters stick with Democrats

“The GOP could potentially lose the Southwest for decades to come" if it doesn't take a different tack with Latinos, one independent pollster in the region said.

The Southwest was once deep-red territory. But Republicans are struggling to regain their grip. It's in part because they've alienated Latinos by taking more hardline stances, including on immigration, according to Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic strategist who was part of the party’s early team that helped develop modern strategies for reaching Latino voters. Rosenberg said the Southwest today is a far cry from what it once was under former President George W. Bush.

“This was once hostile terrain for us,” Rosenberg said. “Over the last 20 years, the Republican position has significantly deteriorated in the Southwest. And that’s indisputable.”

Thanks, Brandon.

GPB News:

A look at the data behind Herschel Walker's defeat

A full and complete picture of who showed up — or didn't — and where won't come until counties finish updating the voter history file that tracks who was credited for voting and if they voted on runoff election day or early. But a look at the county-level results from Tuesday's runoff sheds light on how Walker became the only statewide Republican candidate to lose in the midterm election.

The record-setting early in-person vote saw Warnock open up a nearly 270,000 vote lead before Dec. 6, a total that ballooned to more than 321,000 when you include mail-in absentee ballots. That margin held even as an equally record-setting election day saw 1.6 million people cast ballots, which Walker won by nearly 225,000 votes.

As you can see in the chart below, Warnock ran up the in-person early voting score in urban, Democrat-heavy counties like Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, but also won the in-person early vote in suburban Fayette County (which narrowly voted for Walker) and four other Republican counties in middle and Southwest Georgia.

Brian Rosenwald/Substack:

Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party. What it means and why it happened.

My take on Friday's bombshell.

Why did this happen?

This won’t be popular with some people, but the left has treated Sinema shabbily. Her willingness to poke the base in the eye has made her enemy number one — despite basically being a fairly conventional liberal and one who actually achieves stuff at that. She’s pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ rights, voted to convict Donald Trump in two impeachment trials, votes for President Biden’s judges, supports universal paid leave, and on down the list. She’s voted with Biden 93.1 percent of the time — more than fellow moderates Jon Tester (D-MT), and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), both Democratic senators from Nevada (Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto) and left-wing independent Bernie Sanders. And there is a chasm of 25 points between how often Sinema votes with Biden and any Republican.

She also was a crucial player in negotiating not only a bipartisan infrastructure deal, but also the first meaningful gun control bill passed in two decades, and the Respect for Marriage Act, a historic civil rights achievement. She’s even trying to negotiate a bipartisan immigration bill right now, which if it passes would be a massive win given that the Senate has tried and failed to address immigration for 16 years now.

Brian Klass/Substack:

Is America Still on the Path to Authoritarianism?

The worst election deniers were defeated in the midterms. Trump is calling to terminate the Constitution. Is America heading toward authoritarianism? If so, can the trend be reversed in time?

So, where does that leave us? Is American democracy saved? Is our long national flirtation with authoritarianism over?

I’m afraid I must disappoint you. We’re still in serious trouble—and the specter of authoritarianism will continue to loom large for many years to come. Many of you already know this. But I want to walk through the arguments behind that claim, so we can better understand the threat and learn how to combat it. And I promise that before I end this post, I’ll explain why there’s room for optimism and hope.

But first, let’s understand the scale and scope of the authoritarian threat in America.

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way/Foreign Affairs:

America’s Coming Age of Instability

Why Constitutional Crises and Political Violence Could Soon Be the Norm

One year into Biden’s presidency, however, the threat to American democracy has not receded. Although U.S. democratic institutions survived the Trump presidency, they were badly weakened. The Republican Party, moreover, has radicalized into an extremist, antidemocratic force that imperils the U.S. constitutional order. The United States isn’t headed toward Russian- or Hungarian-style autocracy, as some analysts have warned, but something else: a period of protracted regime instability, marked by repeated constitutional crises, heightened political violence, and possibly, periods of authoritarian rule.  

NY Times:

The Prince, the Plot and a Long-Lost Reich

Prince Heinrich XIII was arrested last week as the suspected ringleader of a plan to overthrow the German government. Nostalgic for an imperial past, he embraced far-right conspiracy theories.

The crenelated hunting lodge of Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss sits atop a steep hill, looking out over homes laced with snow and Christmas lights in Bad Lobenstein. Popular with the local mayor and many nearby villagers, the prince spent his weekends in the spa town, giving an aristocratic flair to this sleepy corner of rural eastern Germany.

But there was a darker side to his idyll.

Heinrich XIII, prosecutors and intelligence officials say, also used his lodge to host meetings where he and a band of far-right co-conspirators plotted to overthrow the German government and execute the chancellor. In the basement, the group stored weapons and explosives. In the forest that sloped beneath the lodge, they sometimes held target practice.

Last week the Waidmannsheil lodge, a three-hour drive south of Berlin in the state of Thuringia, was one of 150 targets raided by security forces in one of postwar Germany’s biggest counterterrorist operations. By Friday, 23 members of the cell had been detained across 11 German states and 31 others placed under investigation. The police discovered troves of arms and military equipment as well as a list of 18 politicians and journalists deemed to be enemies.

A Twitter thread from my Senator, Chris Murphy, CT:

There's one night I will remember most when thinking about Nancy Pelosi - the night I watched her single handedly save health care for 20 million Americans. It was at the first Democratic caucus meeting after Scott Brown won the special Senate election in Massachusetts.

Many rank-and-file Democrats were in a panic, and they lined up at the microphone to tell Pelosi that it was time for us to give up on the Affordable Care Act. Or chop it up into little pieces - as some in the White House were suggesting. 

I remember it like it was yesterday…

2 months later, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. And today, it's so popular the new Republican Congress won't dare touch it. I had never seen any person do what Pelosi did that night. I've never seen it since. There hasn't been, and will not be, anyone like her. 

Maybe it’s the Affordable Care Act passing because of her, or maybe it’s the honor of being first female Speaker, and/or maybe it’s because she’s so damn good at what she does.

Whatever the reason, she’s not easy to replace. She made running a razor-thin majority look easy. But the next Speaker won’t have it easy at all.

Nicholas Grossman/Arc Digital:

5 Ways the Midterms Were a Win for Democracy

The threat isn't over, but it's better than it could've been

After Trump’s coup attempt failed, Republicans could have shunned it, but instead the party chose to rally around defending—or at least excusing—it, and worked to remove barriers that thwarted it. Most concerningly, a hardcore subset of deniers aimed to get state posts overseeing elections. They won GOP primaries for governor in swing states Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Eight nominees for secretary of state, the top election administration position, formed the “America First Secretary of State Coalition,” openly promising to overrule voters if they don’t pick Donald Trump in 2024, and justifying it with lies about fraud. One, Arizona Republican nominee Marc Finchem, participated in Jan. 6 and says he’s part of the Oath Keepers, a militia that has seen multiple members convicted of seditious conspiracy for planning and executing the violent assault on Congress.

Every one running in a swing state lost. The only America First Secretary of State candidate to win was Diego Morales in Indiana, a solidly Republican state. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—a Republican who earned MAGA ire by resisting Trump’s demand to “find 11,780 votes” after Biden won the state by 11,779—got reelected by almost 10 points, having defeated an election denier in the Republican primary. Gubernatorial nominees Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania) and Tudor Dixon (Michigan) got crushed, and supposedly rising star Kari Lake (Arizona) lost a close race against an opponent who refused to debate.

David Rothkopf/Daily beast:

GOP Authoritarianism Isn’t Going Away After the Midterms

Yes, many prominent election deniers lost their races, but a disquieting number of them won at both the national and local levels. And the GOP supermajority on the Supreme Court isn’t going anywhere—which means more fundamental rights are threatened, and partisans will have friends in high places should they want to distort election results in the future.

Thomas E Patterson/Journalist’s Resource:

How the news media – long in thrall to Trump – can cover his new run for president responsibly

"If they are to serve the public interest, journalists cannot apply the ordinary rules for covering candidates," writes media scholar Thomas Patterson. "They are reporting on a politician who regularly defies democratic norms and lies with abandon."

Margaret Sullivan/WaPo:

If Trump Runs Again, Do Not Cover Him the Same Way: A Journalist’s Manifesto

I believed in traditional reporting, but Trump changed me — and it should change the rest of the media too.

I was called the c-word repeatedly. One reader suggested I have my breasts cut off. I tried to let all this nastiness roll off my back and even found it amusing when a Post reader sent me an email calling me a “venomous serpent.” John Schwartz, then a reporter for the New York Times who had become a friend, suggested I treat it as a badge of honor and write a book titled “Memories of a Venomous Serpent.”

Now, six years later, we journalists know a lot more about covering Trump and his supporters. We’ve come a long way, but certainly made plenty of mistakes. Too many times, we acted as his stenographers or megaphones. Too often, we failed to refer to his many falsehoods as lies. It took too long to stop believing that, whenever he calmed down for a moment, he was becoming “presidential.” And it took too long to moderate our instinct to give equal weight to both sides, even when one side was using misinformation for political gain.

Charlie Sykes/Bulwark:

Will This Time Be Different?

Trump’s third campaign.

Yes, Trump beat the DOJ and his GOP rivals to the punch, and remains the presumptive Republican nominee in 2024. He knows he faces kvetching in the ranks, but he’s seen this before, and Trump is confident that he can reprise the takeover of 2015-16.

But the vibe isn’t the quite the same, is it?

Gary Abernathy (staunch conservative and previous Trump defender)/WaPo:

Trump proves that even his base can’t trust him now

Trump voters are understandably confused. Trump is not wrong when he boasts of helping to create DeSantis and Youngkin. They are molded largely in his image. He should be proud of them, not disparaging. They’re his progenies, the natural heirs to the movement he started. His base loves them, considers them their own and thinks Trump should love them, too. After all, he birthed them.

Trump has never been averse to criticizing his fellow Republicans. He deployed an unforgettable mix of insult humor and shock comedy — as well as an unerring sense of what Republicans wanted to hear from their leaders but weren’t — to take down a series of GOP governors and senators in 2015 and 2016.

But attacking DeSantis and Youngkin is different than taking on Jeb Bush. It’s as though Trump suddenly started mocking Don Jr. or Ivanka. If Trump will turn on his proteges, his followers are realizing, he’ll turn on any of his acolytes. Even his base can’t trust him now.

George Conway/WaPo:

Trump is out for vengeance — and to protect himself from prosecution

Donald Trump craves the power. Even more, he craves the attention. And more than ever — after an unprecedented two impeachments, a humiliating reelection defeat that he can’t even admit, and amid multiple criminal investigations and civil suits — he seeks vengeance. The l’état c’est moi president who apparently tried to sic the IRS on his enemies (and perhaps succeeded), and who tried to extort Ukraine into smearing Joe Biden, can’t wait to get back on the job.

Trump won’t succeed, as his successive losses of the House, Senate, presidency and last week’s midterm results show. Too many Americans would crawl on broken glass to vote against him, no matter who his general election opponent may be. They have seen enough.

John A Tures/Missouri Independent:

How the GOP’s expected red wave crashed on the rocks of the insurrection

As of the writing of this column, the Democratic Party is likely to lose a fraction of the House seats they were projected (even after gerrymandering), will keep the Senate and is poised to gain in governor mansions.

While some conservatives are crowing about any GOP electoral success, others in the party are becoming aware of the precarious position they are now in. And what’s likely to have contributed to converting the red wave into little more than a ripple was Jan. 6.

Richard L Hasan/Slate:

I’ve Been Way More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now

In all of the swing states, the election denialist candidates lost for governor or secretary of state. In Michigan, Democrats took back control of the state legislature, making state legislative action impossible to try to steal a 2024 election victory for Trump in the state if he loses the vote. Democrats may take control of the state House in Pennsylvania, blocking an avenue there, too.*

Mike Pence is finally, belatedly, speaking out about how Trump endangered him and his family by egging on the rioters who were trying to get him to unilaterally reject Electoral College votes for Biden and throw the election to Trump. And now the lame-duck session of Congress is poised on a remarkably bipartisan basis in the Senate to pass a set of reforms to the arcane 1887 Electoral Count Act that Trump tried to exploit to turn his election loss into victory.

How did we make such progress? The same election deniers that pleased Trump and the Republican base repelled enough sane Republicans who oppose stolen elections to hold back their votes. The New York Times reported Monday that Trump had told U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick, running in the Pennsylvania Republican primary, that “If you don’t deny it, you won’t win.” McCormick didn’t deny it, failed to get Trump’s support, and lost the primary to Trump-supported Mehmet Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes. Oz went on to win the Republican primary but lose the general election to Democrat John Fetterman.

Ben Jacobs/Vox:

Kevin McCarthy is so close to being speaker — and yet, so far

Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker of the House, briefly explained.

Tuesday’s initial vote will allow both McCarthy and his critics to put their cards on the table — and allow for nearly two months of wheeling and dealing.

The narrow Republican majority gives McCarthy’s critics a lot of leverage; he needs their votes to become speaker and it gives them the power to make demands of him.

Most of those opposed to McCarthy are in the Freedom Caucus, which will have roughly three dozen members in the next Congress. Their demands largely involve a variety of changes to House procedure that would weaken the speaker and empower rank-and-file members.

Going back to John Boehner’s tenure, rank-and-file right-wingers have griped that establishment Republicans in leadership have ignored them to reach bipartisan deals that have been insufficiently conservative. The dissidents in the Freedom Caucus want to change the rules to prevent this from happening in the future.

The most freighted proposal offered by conservatives is changing the House rules on who can offer a motion to vacate the chair — essentially, who can trigger a vote to remove the speaker and hold elections for a new one.

Bill Scher/Washington Monthly:

Democrats Meddled in Republican Primaries. Good.

The New York Times, plenty of pundits, and even some Democrats clutched their pearls and condemned the practice as unseemly. It wasn’t—and it worked.

In Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, Democrat Hillary Scholten lost in 2020 to Republican Peter Meijer, who broke party ranks and voted to impeach Donald Trump. Merciless Democrats boosted Meijer’s GOP primary opponent, the election denier John Gibbs. With Meijer out of the way this year, Scholten ran again and beat Gibbs by 13 points last week.

Okay, so it worked out this time. But wasn’t it morally wrong? Didn’t it undermine the Democrats’ credibility as defenders of democracy if they were willing to risk election deniers being nominated and elected?

It wasn’t, and it shouldn’t.

…

Democrats, led by dramatic speeches from Biden and Barack Obama in the campaign’s closing days, made the case that “democracy is on the ballot.” Why? Because there were many Republicans on the ballot who were openly not committed to democracy. Some election deniers tried to scrub their past, such as Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Arizona. During the Republican  primary, Masters said in an ad, “I think Trump won in 2020.” In the general election, he tried to pivot with “Joe Biden is absolutely the president. I mean, my gosh, have you seen the gas prices lately?” This pirouette was a flop. Masters was too extreme for such gymnastics to work.

So was it abortion, Trump or Jan 6 that hurt Republicans? The answer is yes.

Sahil Kapur/NBC:

Did Trump hurt Republicans in the 2022 elections? The numbers point to yes

Analysis: Trump loomed large in the minds of voters and dragged down his party’s candidates — nationally and in states with key Senate races, according to exit polls.

Trump loomed large in the minds of voters and dragged down his party’s candidates — nationally and in key swing states with Senate races — despite being out of power. In many cases that blunted the impact of Biden’s unpopularity, and widespread economic pain, helping Democrats defy political gravity and hold their own.

Nationally, 32% of voters in 2022 said their vote was “to oppose Joe Biden.” But 28% said their vote was “to oppose Donald Trump,” even though Trump was out of office. That suggests Trump’s continued dominance over the GOP made the 2022 election, in the minds of voters, almost as much about a defeated former president as it was about the current president and party in power.

“It was a Trump problem,” a Republican operative involved in the 2022 election told NBC News, speaking candidly about the de facto leader of the GOP on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “Independents didn’t vote for candidates they viewed as extreme and too closely linked with Donald J. Trump.”

Greg Sargent/WaPo:

The quiet vindication of Liz Cheney

But on a deeper level, Cheney’s basic theory about this moment in U.S. and GOP politics, to some degree at least, might be proving correct.

The underlying premise of Cheney’s past year holds that there exists a meaningful sliver of swing voters — including GOP-leaning independents and Republicans alienated by Trump — who could be influenced by a focus on election denialism and MAGA extremism.

In this theory, keeping up a months-long drumbeat of revelations about Trump’s effort to overturn U.S. democracy, while steadily arguing that GOP candidates who play footsie with election denialism are fundamentally unfit for public office, wouldn’t just be civically healthy. It might also have real electoral consequences, even if only on the margins.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells/New Yorker:

The Republicans’ Post-Midterm Reckoning with Donald Trump

Will the era of Stop the Steal—and the G.O.P.’s overt challenges to democracy—finally start to recede?

The specific gripe that these Republicans have with Trump is not of a moral or a legal nature. The problem, in their eyes, is that Trump effectively handpicked the candidates who underperformed in some of the country’s most crucial races. Many of these duds had won Trump’s favor for only one reason: fealty to a lie. As Chris Christie put it, “The only animating factor [for Trump] in determining an endorsement is ‘Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen or don’t you?’ ” This loyalty test led Trump to back a huckster doctor (Mehmet Oz, in Pennsylvania); a foggy ex-football star who supported a nationwide ban on abortion yet allegedly pushed former paramours to have the procedure (Herschel Walker, in Georgia); and a young venture capitalist who proved susceptible to dorm-room musings about the wisdom of the Unabomber (Blake Masters, in Arizona). On the morning after the election, Trump reportedly lashed out at people in his circle who he says advised him to back the likes of Oz—including his wife, Melania. What a guy.

Oh, and that announcement?

Check the coverage:

WaPo:

FBI searched Trump’s home to look for nuclear documents and other items, sources say Attorney General Merrick Garland wouldn’t discuss the search but said he personally signed off on asking a judge to approve it

Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Prior to the news:

We don’t know anything more than an incomplete news report.

We need to see the search warrant (and we could as soon as this afternoon).

Axios:

Florida swing voters: Bring on the search warrants

Florida swing voters in our latest Engagious/Schlesinger focus groups said the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago was justified — and that it would be a "serious crime" if former President Trump did take classified documents from the White House.

Why it matters: Trump's GOP allies are almost universally echoing his unsubstantiated claims of law enforcement overreach or politicization. The aggressive rhetoric may be boosting Trump's base support and fundraising, but it's not cutting through for this mix of Democrats, independents and Republicans who once backed him.

Also prior to the news:

Uhm…  okay, then.

Reposting this because it gets to the heart of the matter:

David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:

The FBI’s Search of Mar-a-Lago Is a Reminder That Trump Has Always Been a National Security Threat

The former president was the most dangerous person in the world when he held power, and he never had respect for the rule of law.

Republican howls of protest in the wake of the FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida residence were as loud as they were cynical, hypocritical, and irresponsible.

They knew full well that Trump had illegally removed classified documents from the White House—because not only was it acknowledged, but some of the documents were returned. They knew that to conduct such an operation, the FBI had to obtain a warrant from a judge, demonstrate that there was probable cause that a crime was committed, and almost certainly clear a higher bar than usual both within the Department of Justice and in the court because the target of the search was a former president. They were also aware that there was a clear pattern of destruction of records within the Trump administration in its final days and that credible reports suggested that Trump on a regular basis destroyed documents that he by law should have preserved, sometimes by flushing them down the toilet.

Jonah Goldberg/The Dispatch:

Yearning for a Banana Republic

Emboldened by fever dreams of persecution, Republicans want nothing more than to anoint a strong man to punish their enemies.

I’ll put it plainly: If your “belief” in our country is so fragile and pathetic that you will lose “hope for our nation” unless Donald Trump is given free reign to cleanse the land of evildoers, then you don’t actually believe in this nation. If your love of country is contingent on your preferred faction being in power, you’ve confused partisanship for patriotism. Taken seriously, all of this banana republic talk is un-American.

I don’t mean it’s a wrong or flawed argument or simply an argument I don’t like—though it is all those things. I mean it is literally an un-American argument because it fundamentally betrays the whole idea of this country. And I’d say this if the claims were made about any politician. Indeed, I did. When Barack Obama’s boosters claimed he would fix our “broken souls” (in Michelle Obama’s words), I spared no effort in denouncing them. When Joe Biden sermonized about how “unity”—under his banner—was the answer to all our problems, I trotted out all my arguments against the “cult of unity,” which constantly threatens our constitutional system of separated powers and divided government.

Presidents are not redeemers, messiahs, incarnations of mystical aspirations, or righteous settlers of seething grievances. They’re not god-kings or the fathers of our American family. They’re politicians elected to do some specific things as the head of one branch of one level of government. They get that job for a limited and defined period of time, and afterward they’re simply citizens.

It’s a source of constant consternation and amazement for me that so many people either don’t understand this or simply pretend not to.

Tim Alberta/Atlantic:

What Comes After the Search Warrant?

Why August 8 may become a new hinge point in U.S. history

So why did I feel nauseous yesterday, watching coverage of the FBI executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate?

Because this country is tracking toward a scale of political violence not seen since the Civil War. It’s evident to anyone who spends significant time dwelling in the physical or virtual spaces of the American right. Go to a gun show. Visit a right-wing church. Check out a Trump rally. No matter the venue, the doomsday prophesying is ubiquitous—and scary. Whenever and wherever I’ve heard hypothetical scenarios of imminent conflict articulated, the premise rests on an egregious abuse of power, typically Democrats weaponizing agencies of the state to target their political opponents. I’ve always walked away from these experiences thinking to myself: If America is a powder keg, then one overreach by the government, real or perceived, could light the fuse.

Think I’m being hysterical? I’ve been accused of that before. But we’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans abandon their faith in the nation’s core institutions. We’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans become convinced that their leaders are illegitimate. We’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans are manipulated into believing that Trump is suffering righteously for their sake; that an attack on him is an attack on them, on their character, on their identity, on their sense of sovereignty. And I fear we’re going to see it again.

EJ Dionne/WaPo:

The GOP makes its choice: Trump, yes. Rule of law, no.

The GOP seems to be settling on a snappy slogan for November’s elections: Vote Republican. Because Donald Trump is above the law.

That’s the logical conclusion after a regiment of Republican politicians, led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), denounced the FBI’s court-sanctioned search of Mar-a-Lago on Monday even though the fulminators had no idea what Trump may have done to lead a judge to approve it.

Politico:

Trump world gripped with anger, fear and a host of conspiracies about the FBI search

There is anxiety in the ranks about how this happened, even as they seek to benefit politically from it.

A wave of concern and even paranoia is gripping parts of Trump world as federal investigators tighten their grip on the former president and his inner circle.

In the wake of news that the FBI agents executed a court-authorized search warrant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump’s allies and aides have begun buzzing about a host of potential explanations and worries. Among those being bandied about is that the search was a pretext to fish for other incriminating evidence, that the FBI doctored evidence to support its search warrant — and then planted some incriminating materials and recording devices at Mar-a-Lago for good measure — and even that the timing of the search was meant to be a historical echo of the day President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.

Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:

Pelosi has found the Democrats’ midterm strategy

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has remained unflappably upbeat about the midterms, now has good reason to tout Democrats’ prospects. Even when other issues have popped up (e.g., impeachment of Trump for inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol), Pelosi has consistently been an advocate for running on “kitchen table” issues, as she regularly put its, such as lowering the cost of health insurance premiums and prescription drugs…

Above all else, she tells her members, Democrats should run on what they’ve done. Naturally, that will mean highlighting all the measures Republicans opposed (the $35 price cap on insulin being among the juiciest targets).

But she also says Democrats must focus on their future agenda. If Democrats can hold the House and add two more Senate seats, she said at the signing ceremony, “we can get much more done in the United States Senate for the Voting Rights Act and voting protections, and the list goes on — a woman’s right to choose and the rest.”

You can read the thread here.