YES, SOMETHING MATTERS, BUT NOTHING SEEMS TO WORK

I generally like Jamelle Bouie, but this is privileged arrogance:

i have plenty of thoughts on why it matters that this is an illegal order but here i’ll just comment that i think liberals who throw their hands up and say “it doesn’t matter” have self lobotomized themselves into thinking that trump is god king of america

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 8, 2024 at 11:17 AM

main thing i have to say to a lot of you is that if you truly believe that nothing matters then you should delete your account, log off, cancel your voting registration and stop paying attention to anything political at all

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 8, 2024 at 11:28 AM

go get a real hobby

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 8, 2024 at 11:29 AM

As I told Bouie on Bluesky, in this particular case I don't believe Donald Trump is the god-king of America -- I believe Leonard Leo is the god-king of America. It doesn't matter that courts have ruled for nearly two hundred years that anyone born here is a citizen. It doesn't matter that the Fourteenth Amendment says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." If Leonard Leo's Supreme Court justices and lower-court judges conclude that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is an escape clause from automatic birthright citizenship -- as groups like the Heritage Foundation argue -- and conclude that there's some advantage to the Republican Party in eliminating birthright citizenship, then it'll be gone soon.

When I say that, I'm not saying that "nothing matters." This matters a lot. I'm saying that there probably isn't a damn thing I can do about it. I don't see groups I could potentially join massing to defend birthright citizenship in any way that scares Republicans or effectively challenges their power, and I absolutely don't see Democratic officeholders fighting to defend the principle.

Those of us who remain engaged in politics despite our gloom are looking for rays of hope -- good polls for Kamala Harris a few months ago, pockets of resistance now. We were happy when Matt Gaetz had to fall on his sword, though it appears now that Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and other lowlife scum could win Senate approval, possibly with some votes from the Democratic caucus. At this point, we're rooting for incompetence and infighting in Trump World, or surprises. On birthright citizenship and other migration matters, maybe the Leo courts won't side with the hard-liners because business interests don't.

Bouie is a New York Times columnist. He has a powerful platform and so do many of the people he knows. I don't think he understands that what many of us are feeling isn't "nothing matters" but "nothing I do seems to matter." Here are some responses to Bouie:

It's more fun to watch you yell at people about why they should go do something but never tell anyone what to do or how to help or what things might actually make stuff better. Because seriously, literally nothing we have done so far has done anything so I don't know what the fuck

— mav (@mav.wtf) December 8, 2024 at 10:00 PM

feds: Republican states: half Republican, mostly pointless press: largely responsible for this mess courts: you're kidding, right? protests: we've seen where that goes, in 2020 at this point we're pretty well down to hiding people in crawlspaces and prayer

— mav (@mav.wtf) December 8, 2024 at 10:05 PM

At least when Tim Miller recently wrote a column along similar lines at the Bulwark, he seemed to be criticizing people with some clout -- Republicans first:

In the chapter of Why We Did It in which I sketched out the different phenotypes of Trumpian enablers, I described these Republicans this way:

Then you had the LOL Nothing Matters Republicans. This cadre gained steam over the years, especially among my former peers in the campaign set. It is a comforting ethos if you are professionally obligated to defend the indefensible day in and day out. Their arguments no longer needed to have merit or be consistent because, LOL, nothing matters. . . . The LOLNMRs had decided that if someone like Trump could win, then everything that everyone does in politics is meaningless. So they became nihilists.

Miller then turned his focus on Democratic defenders of President Biden's pardon of his son, favorably quoting his colleague Will Saletan, who wrote, contemptuously:

“America elected a convicted felon in 2024 and I no longer care about ‘norms,” one commenter shrugged. “The voters have spoken and integrity is passé,” said another. A third asked: “Why should he [Biden] sacrifice a single thing more for ideals the populace no longer believe in?”

I have no patience for critics of this pardon. Is it a rejection of the rule of law? Literally every presidential pardon is a rejection of the rule of law, because every pardon overturns the judgment of the legal system. At the same time, every presidential pardon is entirely consistent with the law, even the bad ones, because the president's pardon power is effectively absolute and it's right there in the Constitution.

In this specific case, before you tell me that the pardon is morally indefensible, you need to apply your imagination to what might have happened to the president's son in a Trump presidency. I'm not just referring to additional prosecution. I'm saying the Trump administration could have looked the other way while Hunter Biden was murdered in prison. It could have arranged to have him hooded, flown to Gitmo, and waterboarded, citing "national security" because of his international business dealings. Do you really think there are limits? Even if a court declared it unlawful, couldn't the abduction and torture of Hunter Biden happen before the court ruled? Can you say with absolute certainty that this wouldn't have happened?

Public expressions of despair are not compliance. They're not "obeying in advance." In fact, they're the opposite -- they're attempts to send a message to people like Bouie and Miller: What's happening is very, very bad. It's possible that fighting it the normal way won't work -- and besides, the people with the power to fight it the normal way aren't fighting very hard, or at all. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but you don't appear to believe we're in desperate times. Maybe you're right, but maybe you shouldn't be so complacent. Maybe you and everyone else with real power should be ready to fight dirty and not just assume that fighting fair has a good chance of working.

The realtive lack of alarm among certain pundits (and nearly all office-holding Democrats) seems much more of a threat than ordinary anti-Trumpers' gloom.

THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT. WILL TRUMP BE CRUEL ENOUGH FOR HIS BASE?

NBC News has posted a preview of Kristen Welker's interview with Donald Trump, and I'm not sure MAGA voters will be happy with everything Trump says.

First, on MAGA's enemies list:

... [Trump] delivered something of a mixed message when it comes to political retribution. Trump made clear he believes he’s been wronged, but he also sounded a conciliatory note, saying he will not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate [President] Biden. “I’m not looking to go back into the past,” he said. “Retribution will be through success.”

On the one hand, he

singled out people he believes crossed the line in investigating his actions, calling special counsel Jack Smith “very corrupt.”

Members of the House committee that examined the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were “political thugs and, you know, creeps,” committing offenses in going about their work, he said.

“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said.

But on the other hand:

Asked if he would direct the Justice Department and FBI to punish them, Trump said, “No, not at all. I think that they’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to — I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill” — a reference to tapping more oil supplies.

If Biden wants to do it, he could pardon the committee members, Trump said, “and maybe he should.”

MAGA voters will be thrilled when Trump pardons the January 6 insurrectionists, which he told Welker he'll do on Day One. (We all should have known that.) However, if he leaves current and former anti-Trump officeholders and investigators of Trump crimes unpunished, MAGA will be very disappointed. Many of those figures will continue to speak out. New senator Adam Schiff will probably challenge some Trump appointees. This won't go over well in Trump country.

On immigration, Trump will mostly please the base.

... he didn’t flinch in saying he will carry out mass deportation of those who are living in the country illegally.

First will be convicted criminals, he said.

(After the first raids, we'll get footage of weapons stockpiles. We'll be told that the immigrants who have been rounded up were terrible criminals. That may be true -- or the cops might just tap into their own weapons stockpiles for the photo ops. It's a common police practice.)

MAGA will love this:

It’s also possible that American citizens will be caught up in the sweep and deported with family members who are here illegally, or could choose to go.

Asked about families with mixed immigration status, where some are in the U.S. legally and some illegally, Trump said, “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

However:

An exception might be the “Dreamers” — people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and have lived here for years. He voiced openness toward a legislative solution that would allow them to remain in the country.

“I will work with the Democrats on a plan,” he said, praising “Dreamers” who’ve gotten good jobs, started businesses and become successful residents. “We’re going to have to do something with them,” he said.

He won't really work with Democrats on a plan for the Dreamers. But merely hesitating to deport them will profoundly disappoint his base.

And Greg Sargent thinks he'll face corporate resistance to mass deportations:

Reuters reports that agriculture interests, which are heavily concentrated in GOP areas, are urging the incoming Trump administration to refrain from removing untold numbers of migrants working throughout the food supply chain, including in farming, dairy, and meatpacking....

Now over to Texas. NPR reports that various industries there fear that mass deportations could cripple them, particularly in construction, where nearly 300,000 undocumented immigrants toiled as of 2022.... Local analysts and executives want Trump to refrain from removing all these people or create new ways for them to work here legally....

Meanwhile, back in Georgia, Trump’s threat of mass deportations is awakening new awareness that undocumented immigrants drive industries like construction, landscaping, and agriculture, reports The Wall Street Journal. In Dalton, a town that backed Trump, fear is spreading that removals could “upend its economy and workforce.”

As I've said before, right-wingers like anecdotes and dislike data. No matter how much data you show them demonstrating the fact that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, they look at individual incidents -- crimes endlessly discussed on Fox News -- as all the evidence they need that "migrant crime" is at epidemic levels. They'll have the same response to Trump's deportation process: If they see a lot of footage of immigrants being rounded up and shipped out, they probably won't notice how many aren't being rounded up and shipped out.

I think Sargent is right about how this will work:

Exactly. Deportation raids in blue areas will allow Trump to boast that he's bringing pacification to urban cesspools with military-style force, complete with footage given to Fox News and other MAGA propagandists. Meanwhile some MAGA-friendly industries and areas will quietly secure forbearance.

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— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) December 8, 2024 at 8:47 AM

My response to this:

"Quietly secure forbearance."

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— Steve M. (@stevemnomoremister.bsky.social) December 8, 2024 at 8:49 AM

But what if one of the crimes MAGA voters obsess over happens because a CEO or industry prevailed upon Trump to leave local immigrants alone? Will those crimes simply not be reported in the right-wing media? Or will Trump supporters see them as evidence that Mr. MAGA himself isn't MAGA enough and we need a real immigration hard-liner to clean up America?

In all likelihood, Trump will make his base happy even if he doesn't display maximum cruelty. He'll probably be more than sufficiently cruel as far as the base is concerned. But if they want even more, there's a chance that he might not deliver. And since we know he won't lower the price of eggs, he might not be quite the hero they expect. https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3lcsdysh4y22z

HEGSETH COULD STILL BE CONFIRMED, AND I'M NOT SURE WHY

The Bulwark's Marc Caputo now believes that Pete Hegseth might be winning his nomination fight:

... on Friday, the president-elect went out of his way to give an attaboy to Pete Hegseth just hours after the defense secretary pick scolded reporters who have been hounding him in the U.S. Capitol over accusations of sexual misconduct and drunkenness.

“Pete’s fighting like hell,” Trump told an adviser when he saw the video clip of Hegseth. “He’s a fighter.”

There are few political acts that Trump values more than ance in the face of media scrutiny. And Hegseth’s charge on Thursday—clearly directed at an audience in Mar-a-Lago—bought him both time and goodwill. After rampant speculation that he could soon drop his nomination, there is little expectation of that now.

But is Hegseth on the verge of victory? Or is it just that his defiance is strategically useful to Trump? Caputo's interviewees aren't sure:

Aides believe that the longer Hegseth remains in contention for the post, the higher his chances of confirmation will be, simply because it subjects GOP senators to a sustained pressure campaign from the MAGA base, and because many will have a hard time scuttling him in a public vote. Those aides also believe that if Hegseth is drawing fire from critics, there will be less attention and heat on Trump’s other controversial nominees like Kash Patel (FBI), Tulsi Gabbard (director of national intelligence), or Robert Kennedy Jr. (HHS).

“Hegseth is a heatshield,” said a senior Trump adviser. “Pete can take the heat, and that’s better for everyone else.”

But why use Hegseth as a "heatshield" when you have Kennedy, who's just as arrogant as Hegseth, and whose agenda really isn't Trump's agenda?

I think Trump has a mancrush on anyone who's defiant in a way that advances his own agenda. I'm sure he's greatly enjoying Hegseth's performance right now. But others in the GOP are fighting for Hegseth in a way they didn't fight for Matt Gaetz. They're turning the screws on Iowa senator Joni Ernst, who's up for reelection in two years and who still won't say she's voting for Hegseth. From the Des Moines Register:

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird penned a column in the conservative website Breitbart urging the Senate to confirm Trump's Cabinet nominees. Although it doesn't call out Ernst by name, she castigates the "D.C. politicians" who "think they can ignore the voices of their constituents and entertain smears from the same outlets that have pushed out lies for years."

"What we’re witnessing in Washington right now is a Deep State attempt to undermine the will of the people," Bird, a Trump endorser, wrote. "We must not let Washington kill nominations before the Constitutional confirmation process even begins."

... Steve Deace, an Iowa conservative commentator and media personality, posted on the social media website X that he would be willing to run against Ernst in a Republican primary if she seeks reelection in 2026.

(Steve Deace? Really? He endorsed Ted Cruz in 2016, then quit the GOP when Trump won the nomination and voted for a third-party candidate in the general election. He came back around to Trump after that and was an election truther in 2020, but he endorsed Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primaries.)

Whatever the reason, the GOP establishment wants Hegseth to win. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and the architect of Project 2025, has pledged $1 million in spending to get Hegseth approved.

Why him, when any other Trump nominee for this position is likely to be on board with the same agenda (expulsion of trans troops and "woke" generals, use of troops on U.S. territory)?

Is it because Hegseth is also expected to be pro-theocracy? Roberts is connected to the far-right Catholic group Opus Dei and Hegseth belongs to a Christian nationalist Protestant church. Even The New York Times acknowledged that Hegseth "has praised the brutal religious military campaigns of the past and has called for a Christian approach to governing," in a story called "Pete Hegseth and His ‘Battle Cry’ for a New Christian Crusade."

Is Hegseth still confirmable because big-money Christian nationalists don't want him to withdraw, even for another Trumpian hard-liner? Do they think he's the best choice because he's the most unabashed theocrat?

*****

If Hegseth gets a confirmation hearing, I assume Democrats will be afraid to bring up his church. They shouldn't be, if they know how to talk about it in the right way.

Of course they shouldn't say anything like what Dianne Feinstein stupidly said to Amy Coney Barrett in her 2017 confirmation hearing: "The dogma lives loudly within you." Anyone who questions Hegseth about his church needs to make it absolutely clear that the questions aren't about faith or religious dogma -- they focus on what the head of the church says about life right here on earth.

Amanda Marcotte notes that Hegseth

became deeply involved with the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), moving to Tennessee to enroll his children in a branch of this fundamentalist organization. He also joined the associated denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Both are led by Doug Wilson....

The Times tells us:

on a podcast Mr. Hegseth said that he would not send his children to Harvard but would send them to Mr. Wilson’s college in Idaho.

The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, reported on that school, New Saint Andrews College, in 2006, telling us:

[Wilson] acknowledges that portraits of Lee and Confederate flags have adorned office and school walls at times and says that he believes in some – but not all – of the tenets on which the Southern confederacy was built: a society centered around God and belief, a simple farming life as opposed to a hectic modern one, and an emphasis on traditional family and community.

In a 2007 New York Times Magazine story on the school, Wilson described the depths of his conservatism this way:

Doug Wilson proudly declares himself more right-wing than most Idaho conservatives. “They voted for Bush; I’d vote for Jefferson Davis,” he chuckles.

A 2004 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center quotes a few inflammatory passages from a book Wilson co-wrote, Southern Slavery, as It Was:

"Slavery as it existed in the South ... was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence," the excerpts read in part. "There has never been a multiracial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. ...

"Slave life was to them [slaves] a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care."

A Democratic senator could ask Hegseth: Do you agree with what the head of your chuch says about slavery? Do you admire the president of the Confederacy?

The SPLC report also tells us:

The world as Wilson sees it is divided not by race but by religion — biblical Christians versus all others. As he says in one of his books, "[I]f neither parent believes in Jesus Christ, then the children are foul — unclean."

There are two Jewish Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard Blumenthal and Jacky Rosen. Maybe one of them could ask, "Do you agree with Wilson that my children are 'foul' and 'unclean'?"

I don't expect this to happen. But if it did, I think it might give middle-of-the-road voters even more reason to question Hegseth's firness to serve. If Republicans could use Jeremiah Wright's words against Barack Obama, why not use Wilson's words against Hegseth?

ANGRY ABOUT YOUR SHITTY HEALTH INSURANCE? YOU'RE ON THE "FAR LEFT," ACCORDING TO "POPULIST" FOX NEWS

I'm not 100% certain that we know the motive for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The obvious answer is that he was killed by a policyholder who was denied coverage, although it also seems possible that the shooting is connected to an insider trading investigation of Thompson and other executives. If so, evidence pointing to an angry customer might be deliberate misdirection, especially one of the melodramatic clues in the case -- shell casings found at the scene with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" on them. (A 2010 book on the insurance industry is titled Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.) The shooting seems to have been a more professional job than you'd expect from a customer at the end of his rope. Nevertheless, the obvious theory is probably correct.

I won't defend the shooting, but I understand it. I've felt for years that it might be impossible to use ordinary means to get out of the doom loop we're in -- Republicans massively redistribute money to the rich and the tax burden to the non-rich, while Democrats only tinker at the margins when they're in power, and so inequality never stops increasing. People have to run harder and harder just to stay in the same place, as healthcare, education, and housing become more and more expensive. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, if changing this through non-violent means is impossible, efforts to change it through violent means might be inevitable.

I'm saying this from a left-liberal perspective, but I don't believe that the many people who are making snarky comments about the Thompson murder are leftists, liberals, or Democrats. I'm not sure the shooter will turn out to be a Democrat. Hey, haven't pundits been telling us for years that the Republican Party under Donald Trump is a populist, pro-working-class party that despises "elites"?

Funny thing, though -- the Trump GOP's ministry of information, otherwise known as Fox News, doesn't seem particularly sympathetic to Americans with porous health coverage. Here's the headline for Fox's story on the snark:

Culture of life? UnitedHealthcare CEO's murder mocked and celebrated by far-left

Yup -- if you were on social media and wrote (or liked) a comment such as “I would offer thoughts and prayers but I’m gonna need a prior authorization first,” you're part of the "far left."

More from the Fox story:

In one post, left-wing journalist Ken Klippenstein quipped that he hoped Thompson's ambulance ride "was in network."

... The comment section on MSNBC's post included "thoughts. But prayers require prior authorization first" and "my prayers are denied for now," was posted in the thread of The New York Times's post.

... "I think this encapsulates the far left's worldview: If you run a company that isn't to their liking, you deserve to die," Fox News contributor and columnist Joe Concha shared with Fox News Digital.

Given how fond the right is of the expression "liberalism is a mental illness," it's no surprise that Fox trots out a regular guest who's a shrink:

Manhattan-based psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert said the ghoulish reactions belied progressive values.

"For progressive movements that often advocate for compassion, equality, and justice, such reactions are particularly contradictory and counterproductive, but again, not surprising," he told Fox News Digital. "I saw a similar phenomenon following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Many clients expressed disappointment over the shooter not succeeding in his mission. It brings front and center the question: why is it that the party that supposedly is all about acceptance seems to be rejecting of people who might think differently than them?"

No one is feeling schadenfreude about this death because Thompson used to think differently from the rest of us. They're feeling schadenfreude because his company denied their medical claims. They're feeling schadenfreude because the decisions that made him wealthy hurt ordinary people.

But, of course, that's not the takeaway at the one news source trusted by dedicated voters for the party of the working class.

SHOULD NEW MEDIA OUTLETS DO THEIR OWN HEARTLAND SAFARIS?

In The New York Times yesterday, Thomas Edsall published a piece titled "Trump’s Project 2025 May Not Be What It Seemed. It’s Worse." Despite the headline, it's not really a detailed look at Project 2025 -- it's primarily an effort to imagine a Project 2025 target list:

In this struggle, who are the targets?

The list is long, often focusing on academia, especially on elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Stanford; fields such as sociology and psychology; sanctuary cities; the nonprofit sector, which employs 12.8 million people, with an annual payroll of $873.1 billion; the roughly 11 million unauthorized immigrants; the three major television networks that are not Fox; the top ranks of the Justice Department, the C.I.A. and the armed forces; the array of civil rights enforcement departments embedded throughout the public and private sectors; and the already faltering diversity, equity and inclusion nests in corporations across America.

This seems to be a list of all the groups we identify as liberal "elites." Apart from immigrants, there seem to be no ordinary people on this list. We're given an employment count for the non-profit sector, but that seems to Edsall's way of saying, Look at how vast the world of liberal elitism is. (In fact, most non-profit workers are employed in hospitals or have other healthcare jobs. They're not in liberal organizations that are trying to change the culture, as Edsall apparently wants you to believe.)

This is what we talk about when we talk about liberalism these days: People who've ascended to the commanding heights in government, in academia, in the media, in the non-profit sector, in the HR departments of private corporations. People with big brains and lots of degrees who tell everyone else what to do and how to talk. This is who we think voted for Democrats this year: elitists, and only elitists.

But that's not true. Nearly 75 million people voted for Kamala Harris. America simply doesn't have that many college professors, non-profit executives, and chief diversity officers. Not everyone who voted for Harris is a liberal, but there are clearly millions of ordinary liberals in America -- people who have no control over the culture, people who don't have mutiple degrees from the finest colleges, people who just want a tolerant, generous, decent country. They're teachers, librarians, blue-collar workers, baristas, retirees. They want a higher minimum wage, they want abortion to be legal, they want police brutality to end, they want medical bankruptcy to be a thing of the past, they want gay and trans people's rights to be respected, they want people of all ethnic backgrounds and belief systems to coexist peacefully, they want slavery and the civil rights era to be taught honestly in schools, they want libraries not to be targeted...

Yet they're invisible. They're invisible because commentators across the political spectrum believe that they don't exist, that all Democrats are elitist winners of the meritocracy's Hunger Games.

It would be pointless to wish that the mainstream media might start sending reporters out looking for these invisible liberals. That didn't happen after Donald Trump won in 2016 and it didn't happen after Republicans struggled in 2018, 2020, and 2022. After every election, the media safaris go only one way: toward the rural diners where Trumpers hang out.

There are new media outlets -- ProPublica, for instance, or Judd Legum's Popular Information -- but they concentrate on hard news that's being ignored by bigger news outlets. Right now, the lead story at ProPublica is "Missouri Voters Enshrined Abortion Rights. GOP Lawmakers Are Already Working to Roll Them Back." At Popular Information, the lead story is "North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate Seeks to Disqualify 60,000 voters — Including His Opponent's Parents." That's what these outlets do best. That's the best use of the scarce resources they have.

But I wish someone in the new media had enough resources to report the news that ordinary liberals exist. It's clearly not something our political culture understands, and that's distorting our understanding of America.

THERE ARE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON WHO AREN'T OBEYING IN ADVANCE, BUT THEY DON'T SEEM TO BE DEMOCRATS

As we approach Inauguration Day, many Trump critics are quoting this passage from Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny:

Lesson 1: Do not obey in advance. Thread of lessons from my book #OnTyranny. Written in 2016.

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— Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) November 23, 2024 at 8:43 AM

There are people who Washington who are openly refusing to obey every command from Donald Trump in advance ... but they mostly seem to be Republicans. Here's a list of setbacks Trump has had since Election Day:

Over the last 24 hours, Donald Trump lost his pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration. His choice for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is struggling to gain support from Senate Republicans....

And these shake-ups to his not-yet-formed administration come after former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Trump’s choice for attorney general.

You might have missed the DEA story:

On Tuesday, Chad Chronister, Trump’s choice for DEA administrator, abruptly withdrew from consideration just days after being announced, saying in a post on X he made the decision “as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in,” without citing a specific reason.

Chronister is the sheriff of Hillsborough County, Florida. Why did he withdraw? Because he offended right-wingers:

Opponents on the political right pointed to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office’s arrest of Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne in March 2020 for holding a church service in violation of lockdown rules....

The Libertarian Party of Mississippi posted on X below the announcement of Mr. Chronister, “Trump’s nominee for DEA arrested a pastor for having the audacity to...checks notes...hold church service.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, responded to the Mississippi Libertarian Party’s statement by saying Mr. Trump’s DEA pick should be excluded from being nominated to lead the DEA based on the arrest of the pastor.

“I’m going to call ’em like I see ’em. Trump’s nominee for head of DEA should be disqualified for ordering the arrest of a pastor who defied COVID lockdowns,” Mr. Massie wrote on X.

(Here's as reminder: There were more than a thousand COVID deaths in the U.S. every single day in April 2020. Public officials were right to try to limit public gatherings in March.)

As for Hegseth, some Republicans are making it clear that his nomination is in trouble:

As many as six Senate Republicans, perhaps more, are currently not comfortable supporting Hegseth's bid to lead the Pentagon as new revelations about his past continue to be made public, three Republican sources with direct knowledge of his nomination process said....

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who is on the Armed Services Committee, would not commit to support Hegseth's nomination and said she planned to grill him about news accounts of allegations of alcohol abuse, mistreatment of woman and financial mismanagement....

After his first round of meetings on Capitol Hill last month, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chair of the Armed Services Committee, said he expected Hegseth to be confirmed. On Tuesday, after a series of other reports about Hegseth’s past but before NBC News reported on allegations concerning drinking at Fox News, Wicker sounded more cautious.

“I think there are questions that some members have, and we’re going to be looking for an answer,” Wicker said....

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he is still open to supporting Hegseth and believes he deserves a fair vetting, but he said Tuesday that Hegseth must explain media reports about his past conduct in a way that would make senators comfortable voting to confirm him.

And prior to this, Trump dumped Matt Gaetz as his attorney general nominee when "between four and six" Republican senators made clear to him that they wouldn't vote for him. (Trump can afford to lose only three Republicans if every Democrat votes no.)

Republicans are letting it be known that they won't rubber-stamp every nominee. Democrats will presumably vote no as a bloc on the worst picks, but they're being very quiet about any objections. That seems to be by design.

Senate Democrats staged dramatic showdowns to protest nominations during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office. This time around, Democrats are shifting tactics, reluctant to pick endless battles with Trump Cabinet picks that are unlikely to succeed....

“The mood is slightly different than the last time and there is a sense that if you are freaking out about everything, it becomes really hard for people to sort out what is worth worrying about,” Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, told CNN.

Is that your memory of how those confirmations went? I looked it up, and thirteen Democratric senators voted for a majority of Trump's initial Cabinet picks, as did Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats. Schatz himself voted for 9 of them (out of 22).

Obviously, Democrats are in the minority and can't make or break a nominee. But they can say something. They can do what Mike Bloomberg did this week:

Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, launched a lengthy broadside on Tuesday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., using his opening remarks at a public health conference to warn that installing Mr. Kennedy as health secretary would be “beyond dangerous,” and tantamount to “medical malpractice on a mass scale.”

Mr. Bloomberg, speaking at the two-day Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington, called on Senate Republicans to persuade President-elect Donald J. Trump to “rethink” his choice of Mr. Kennedy for health secretary. If Mr. Trump cannot be persuaded, he said, the Senate has “a duty to our whole country, but especially to our children,” to vote against confirming him.

Mr. Bloomberg also assailed Mr. Kennedy for discouraging measles vaccination during an outbreak in the island nation of Samoa, where 83 people died.

“Parents who have been swayed by vaccine skepticism love their children and want to protect them, and we need leaders who will help them do that,” he said, “not conspiracy theorists who will scare them into decisions that will put their children at risk of disease.”

By saying nothing, Democrats are reinforcing the notion that they have no moral authority and a political position becomes valid only when Republicans embrace it. (Democrats also reinforce this message every time they sing the praises of bipartisanship and tell us that Republican endorsements are proof that they're worthy of our votes.)

Democrats need to talk about the unfitness of Hegseth, Kennedy, and other Trump appointees. If they speak up in a compelling way, those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats will feel that they're fighting for us, while voters in the middle might start getting used to the idea that Democrats have valid opinions (and might get used to hearing Republican ideas rebutted). But elected Democrats seem to think voters won't like them unless they say as little as possible.

PARDON-GHAZI: BLAME "THE MOMMY PARTY" FOR THE FAILINGS OF DADDY

I'm thinking about two stories this morning -- and in some sense they're the same story.

One story is President Biden's pardon of his son Hunter, which continues to be the media's obsession. The other story is one that won't get the attention it deserves: Amanda Marcotte's report on Pete Hegseth's church. Marcotte reports that in the late 2010s, Hegseth

became deeply involved with the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), moving to Tennessee to enroll his children in a branch of this fundamentalist organization. He also joined the associated denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Both are led by Doug Wilson, an untrained and self-proclaimed pastor who advocates for Christian nationalism and has become famous for his trollish promotion of his far-right political views.

But Wilson isn't just a wingnut Christian nationalist.

At the center of Wilson's philosophy is a misogyny so overt that it's sometimes hard to believe he's serious....

In one famous passage from his book on marriage, Wilson suggests that sexual violence is women's fault for not being submissive enough. "[T]he sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party," he writes. "A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts." The alleged failure of women to submit, he continues, leads men to "dream of being rapists," deprived of the "erotic necessity" found in women's submission....

Hegseth has blamed sexual assault in the military on "equality," claiming that the issue was "exacerbated" by letting women enlist in the first place. This aligns with CREC teachings that male sexuality is ravenous and the tendency to blame victims for "immodesty" when sexual violence happens.

Hegseth paid off a woman who once accused him of rape, and his own mother called him "an abuser of women," so it seems fitting that he chose a church whose leader believes that women are responsible for male sexual violence.

But in a non-sexual way, the mainstream reaction to President Biden's pardon of Hunter resembles Hegseth and Wilson's response to male sexual violence. Hegseth and Wilson believe it's unnatural to deny men's natural rampant sexuality. The political world believes that norm-breaking and corruption are essential elements of Donald Trump's nature, so when Trump corruptly gave pardons or clemency in his first term to Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Dinesh D'Souza, and Charles Kushner, among others, the executive actions were one-day stories at best. "Trump is just being Trump" is the political equivalent of "boys will be boys."

And just as Hegseth and Wilson blame women for male sexual violence, the political world is prepared to blame Biden for corrupt pardons in Trump's second term, even though Trump has been loudly telegraphing his intent to use the justice system in a corrupt way for years. In particular, Trump has talked about pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists since early 2022.

The Washington Post's editorial board writes:

To be clear: Mr. Biden had an unquestionable legal right to pardon his son Hunter. But in so doing on Sunday, he maligned the Justice Department and invited Mr. Trump to draw equivalence between the Hunter Biden pardon and any future moves Mr. Trump might take against the impartial administration of justice.

Outgoing Michigan senator Gary Peters, a Democrat, says:

This was an improper use of power, it erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests.

And:

"With this decision, Biden has now made it easier for Trump to abuse the clemency power again," Jeffrey Crouch, a legal expert from American University, told CBS.... "If presidents from both political parties feel free to abuse clemency without consequence, the pardon power becomes less a tool of grace and more of a political instrument."

Let me say it again: In a second term, Trump was always going to "feel free to abuse clemency without consequence." Jonathan Last is right:

Will pardoning Hunter “embolden” Trump to break more norms? LOL no.

Will pardoning Hunter make it “easier” for Trump’s defenders?

They are having an easy time already. They defend everything Trump says/does. Because Hunter was pardoned, they will include this in their daily litanies. Had Hunter not been pardoned, the litanies would include something else.

Back in 1991, Chris Matthews called the Democratic Party "the Mommy party," writing:

There’s an accepted division of chores in American politics. Republicans protect us with strong national defense; Democrats nourish us with Social Security and Medicare. Republicans worry about our business affairs; Democrats look after our health, nutrition and welfare. Republicans control the White House; Democrats provide a warm, caring presence on Capitol Hill.

The paradigm for this snug arrangement is familiar. It’s the traditional American family. “Daddy” locks the doors at night and brings home the bacon. “Mommy” worries when the kids are sick and makes sure each one gets treated fairly. This partition of authority and duty may seem an anachronism from the “Leave it to Beaver” era, but it’s an apt model for today’s political household.

Now Republicans win the male vote by double digits, while Democrats win the female vote. Republicans openly brag about their toxic masculinity -- they're the frat party, not the Daddy party.

We conclude that we can't expect them to go against their essential fratty nature, or hold them accountable if they do harm as a result. So we blame the female party for male failings, as nature and God apparently intended.

ON THE HUNTER BIDEN PARDON AND POLITICAL "PICK ME"S

On the subject of the Hunter Biden pardon, I don't think we should dismiss this theory:

After spending some time wondering what could have tipped the balance leading to the Hunter Biden pardon, I finally started to think that the fascists may have been planning to use Hunter as their first ginned-up treason charge followed by execution.

— Jim "Not a Football Presenter" White (@jimwhitegnv.bsky.social) December 2, 2024 at 8:04 AM

In June, just after Hunter Biden was convicted on felony gun charges, The New York Times noted this:

During the final 11 days of the 2020 campaign, Mr. Trump referred to Hunter Biden more than five dozen times at rallies, during interviews and in social media posts. Instead of focusing on an argument for why he deserved a second term, he repeatedly posted the question, “Where’s Hunter?”

“It’s treason, or whatever you want to call it,” Mr. Trump said on the last day of the 2020 race. “We caught the whole thing. The son — where’s Hunter? Where’s Hunter?”

The Times story pointed out that Trump expressed more sympathy for the president's son during the 2024 campaign (“I had a brother who suffered tremendously from alcoholism and alcohol...”). But the story also noted that this was pure cynicism on Trump's part:

In a meeting last year, Mr. Trump acknowledged privately to an associate that attacks against the president’s son had the potential to backfire politically, according to a person who attended the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. Mr. Trump said Republicans needed to be careful, the person said, “not to go overboard” on the Hunter Biden attacks, especially on the drug addiction issue, because it could elicit sympathy and make people view the president as a caring father.

The campaign is over, so that strategy is no longer relevant. And in any case, future FBI director Kash Patel hasn't mellowed on Hunter, even strategically. Patel clearly wants to bring new charges against Hunter. He mentions the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the clip below, but who knows what else he has in mind?

One year ago, Kash Patel, while sniffling repeatedly as he does in every interview (he just can’t shake that cold) promised to prosecute Hunter for new crimes. Then Trump names him FBI Director. He told you ahead of time he’s going after Hunter. So tired of the pearl clutchers.

[image or embed]

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) December 2, 2024 at 12:26 PM

I won't be surprised if Trump, Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi try to bring President Biden up on treason charges, now that Hunter appears to be out of their reach. Right-wingers don't just believe that Hunter was trading on his family name for cash. They believe both Bidens were cashing in, and selling America out to China and Ukraine. The proof they've amassed is as nonexistent as the proof that Democrats rigged the 2020 election. But they might feel they're bulletproof now and can pursue any case they find emotionally satisfying.

I've seen condemnations of the pardon described as "pearl clutching," but what I'm seeing in those condemnations is a self-righteousness that's almost gleeful. I like this response to the increasingly insufferable Nate Silver, from a former legislative candidate in New York State:

Remember, kids: Democrats must meet a peak and unbreakable sense of morality.

Republicans don’t have to meet any of those standards. There are no consequences.

But if Democrats falter, even for a moment, they must pay the price. https://t.co/XEdfj08K7n

— Skyler Johnson (@SkylerforNY) December 2, 2024

I'm sure it will astonish you to know that Silver was much more tolerant of presidential pardons during the previous administration:

Really, Nate? Now this is a red line for you? https://t.co/dE1tUUoi0D pic.twitter.com/7LYxUuzjiw

— Skyler Johnson (@SkylerforNY) December 2, 2024

Nate Silver has no ties to the Democratic Party. I can't say the same for Colorado governor Jared Polis:

Trump pardoned Jared Kushner's dad while Jared worked in the White House, then yesterday appointed Jared's dad as an ambassador, but Polis didn't have the same energy for that. Pathetic stuff that I for one won't soon forget.

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 1, 2024 at 8:52 PM

Polis was last seen saying nice things about the man who wants to Make Polio Great Again:

I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than… pic.twitter.com/cILtTYplcn

— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) November 14, 2024

The young have a name for people like Polis: he's a "pick me." It's a name that isn't political, and is sometimes regarded as offensive. Urban Dictionary says:

A pick me is a woman that is willing to do anything for male approval. She will embarrass or throw other women under the bus to achieve this goal.

That's Polis, except he's a Democrat willing to throw other Democrats under the bus for the approval of Republicans (and members of the media, and other self-hating Democrats). Nate Silver isn't a Democrat, but he built an audience full of Democrats when he was making his name as a politcal forecaster, and now he wants to be noticed every time he slags a Democrat. It's the surest path to widespread approval in the world of politics.

Our politcal culture thinks genuine Democrats are pathetic and disgusting. It's always polite to insult Democrats. Fox News will praise you. James Carville will praise you.

The only people who won't praise you are ordinary committed Democratic voters. Unfortunately, very people in the world of politics care what we think.

WHY PETE HEGSETH WILL SURVIVE THAT EMAIL FROM HIS MOTHER

This New York Times story was published a couple of days ago, and it already seems like old news:

The mother of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character.

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.

She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

When I read the story and the email, it seemed possible that Hegseth would quickly withdraw his name from consideration for the job. But he hasn't done that, and there are no signs that he might.

And between then and now -- remember, it's been only two days -- Trump has given us two utterly batshit appointments: Jared Kushner's felon father, Charles Kushner, as ambassador to France, and Kash Patel as a replacement for Christopher Wray at the FBI, even though Wray was a Trump appointee and his term has three years to go. Kushner's awfulness has been attested to by Chris Christie, who prosecuted him as a U.S. attorney:

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he prosecuted more than a decade ago when he was a US attorney was committed by the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner....

Christie was referring to an elaborate revenge plot that the older Kushner hatched in 2003 in order to target his his brother-in-law, William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors in their case against Kushner, who was under investigation at the time for making illegal campaign contributions.

As a part of the plot, Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera rolled. A tape of the encounter was then sent to Kushner’s sister and Schulder’s wife, Esther.

Ultimately, the intimidation stunt failed. The Schulders brought the video to prosecutors, who tracked down the call girl and threatened her with arrest. She promptly turned on Kushner.

In a plea deal negotiated by Christie, Kushner pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness – his brother-in-law – and another count of lying to the Federal Election Commission.

Trump pardoned Kushner in 2020.

Patel has made support for Trump his entire personality. He's written three children's books about Trump. He's made clear that he'll use the job to punish Trump's enemies, both within the Bureau and elsewhere in politics, law enforcement, and the media.

Presto! We've all forgotten about the Hegseth email. If it's brought up in his hearings, it'll seem like a tired old tale that's been litigated and forgotten.

The Times seems to have done the responsible thing with this story: it was apparently run as soon as it was ready. But if the parties were reversed and Fox News had a story like this on a Democratic appointee, I don't believe it would have run the piece on the Friday of a four-day holiday weekend. I think Fox would have saved the story until Monday morning.

I don't think the Times ran this story over a holiday weekend as a favor to Hegseth or the incoming Trump administration. The real favor would be not running the story at all. But the timing means the story will be lost.

Maybe this wouldn't be happening if some Democrats were making noise about the unfitness of Trump's worst picks -- Hegseth, Patel, Kushner, Robert Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard. But they seem to be waiting until next year. It really might be too late then.

DEMOCRATS CAN PRAISE SETH MOULTON ALL THEY WANT -- THE RIGHT WILL STILL CALL THEM COMMIES

D.C. Democrats are largely maintaining radio silence about Donald Trump's incoming administration. But Republicans are still messaging. Take a look at the reaction to an innocuous story by The Hill's Amie Parnes: "Ranking the Democrats: Here’s Who the Party Could Nominate Next as President." Parnes's list of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates is, in order:

Kamala Harris
Gavin Newsom
Gretchen Whitmer
Josh Shapiro
Pete Buttigieg
JB Pritzker
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Boring, right? Not to the right-wing media. Right-wingers have seized on the list's seventh name and have synchronized their message to suggest to the Republican-base audience that DEMOCRATS WILL NOMINATE A COMMUNIST IN 2028!!!1!1!!!

And I mean literally a communist. Here was one reaction to this story on Fox:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) could prove to be a formidable candidate if she decides to run for president in 2028, according to Monica Crowley.

Crowley, who served as a top public affairs official in the Department of Treasury under former President Donald Trump, appeared on Fox News on Friday, where she was asked about AOC’s presidential prospects....

Crowley ... claimed that the 2024 election was a rejection of “communism” and “wokeness,” but that nevertheless, Republicans should not dismiss Ocasio-Cortez.

“However, just a word of warning to the Republicans, to my party,” she added. “Do not underestimate AOC. She’s young, she’s vibrant, she’s attractive. I think she’s wrong on everything, but she does have real grassroots support. And all of the energy and activism in the Democrat party remains with the revolutionary left, of which she is a part. So, every time the Republicans have underestimated the Democrats, we ended up with Bill Clinton, Barack Obama,

All of the energy and activism in the "Democrat Party" remains with the revolutionary left! Did you know that?

Pollster and fake Democrat Doug Schoen also appeared on Fox and weighed in:

A former adviser to President Bill Clinton, Doug Schoen, said it would be a “disaster” if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) runs for president in 2028.

“I believe the Democratic Party needs to move to the center on cultural issues and on fiscal issues, and be more fiscally disciplined and AOC represents the opposite,” said Schoen, who is a Democratic pollster and strategist, during a Friday appearance on The Ingraham Angle.

He continued, “I think if she runs, it would be a disaster for the party....”

The Democrat Party is the party of AOC! The entire right-wing media delivered this message in perfect sync. RedState: "‘Lost and Rudderless’ Democrats See AOC as 2028 Presidential Contender." Daily Mail: "AOC for President in 2028? Furious Speculation Sweeps Social Media That the Squad Member Could Be Running." Gateway Pundit: "Socialist Starlet AOC Could Make a Run for President in 2028 Along with Other Radical Leftists." John Solomon's Just the News: "As Democrats Search for Next Leadership, AOC Put on Venerable Hill Newspaper's '28 Presidential List." Townhall: "Will AOC Run for President in 2028?" Breitbart: "The Hill Floats AOC as Potential 2028 Presidential Candidate."

I don't see this. I see far more top-level Democrats embracing the message of Seth Moulton's recent Washington Post op-ed, which is "tack to the center and sell trans people out."

Two days after Donald Trump’s victory, I gave an example of how Democrats spend too much time trying not to offend anyone, even on issues where most Americans feel the same way. Speaking as a dad, I said I didn’t like the idea of my two girls one day competing against biological boys on a playing field. My main point, though, is what I said next: “As a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

The blowback, which was swift, included the chair of a local Democratic committee calling me a Nazi “cooperator” and about 200 people gathering in front of my office to protest a sentence....

What has amazed me, though, is what’s happening behind the scenes. Countless Democrats have reached out, from across the party — to thank me. I’ve heard it again and again, from union leaders to colleagues in the House and Senate; from top people from the Obama, Biden and Harris teams to local Democrats stopping me on the street; from fellow dads to many in the LGBTQ+ community: “Thank you for saying that!”

Kamala Harris, of course, didn't stick up for trans people on the campaign trail this year, though pro-trans statements from her 2020 campaign were dredged up by Donald Trump's campaign. On immigration, Harris embraced a bill that was largely written by Republican hard-liners and repeatedly pledged to sign it if elected. Moulton pretends that never happened:

Two years ago, I asked a House colleague who wanted to lead our messaging strategy how we should address the southern border. “We should not talk about immigration!” I was told. Republicans are just “weaponizing” the issue, so, if we respond, we are “playing into their hands.” Another version: Trump is “just tapping into fear and resentment.”

But it turns out that voters knew better, and wanted answers. When 94 percent of Americans said they worried about the border crisis, Trump said he’d fix it.

But the coordinated "BEWARE THE RED MENACE!" message from the right-wing media makes clear that tacking to the right while selling out parts of the Democratic coalition is an exercise in futility. Republicans will still portray Democrats as left-wing extremists.

Most Democrats seem to believe that the party can't possibly out-message the GOP -- there's no Fox News on our side, and Democrats don't have a large enough network of partisan news sites or podcasts. If that's the case -- and it might be, although I think Democrats give up too easily -- then loud rejections of progressivism by Democrats like Moulton are utterly futile. Republicans will always be louder, and they'll always say that Democrats' real leaders are far to the left.

Kamala Harris raised a lot of small-donor cash this year. Maybe it's time to crowdsource the financing of a new Democratic media apparatus, if left-leaning billionaires won't do it. Meanwhile, the right-wing media and Seth Moulton seem to agree on one thing: Democrats are too far to the left. Seth Moulton may think that message helps Democrats, but it doesn't.

ACTUALLY, TRUMP IS AN INSTITUTIONALIST -- AND HE'S THE INSTITUTION

In his latest column, David Brooks argues that true Trumpists have no respect of institutions.

What does heroism look like according the MAGA morality? It looks like the sort of people whom Trump has picked to be in his cabinet. The virtuous man in this morality is self-assertive, combative, transgressive and vengeful. He’s not afraid to break the rules and come to his own conclusions. He has contempt for institutions and is happy to be a battering force to bring them down. He is unbothered by elite scorn but, in fact, revels in it and goes out of his way to generate it.

In this mind-set, if the establishment regards you as a sleazeball, you must be doing something right. If the legal system indicts you, you must be a virtuous man.

In this morality, the fact that a presidential nominee is accused of sexual assault is a feature, not a bug. It’s a sign that this nominee is a manly man. Manly men go after what they want. They assert themselves and smash propriety — including grabbing women “by the pussy” if they feel like it.

In this worldview, a nominee enshrouded in scandal is more trustworthy than a person who has lived an honest life.

But Trumpers don't admire everyone who defies institutional rules, or who is "self-assertive, combative, transgressive and vengeful." They don't admire immigrants who try to improve their lives by defying our immigration laws. They might romanticize the Mafia, but they don't admire contemporary criminals or drug dealers (except, perhaps, their own). Blake Masters, the failed pro-Trump Arizona GOP Senate candidate who, like J.D. Vance, is a far-right Peter Thiel protégé, actually did see the world that way when he was a nineteen-year-old posting at LiveJournal:

In a series of short, polemical blog posts, Masters once suggested that “illegal immigration is an ethical contradiction in terms,” argued that “‘unrestricted’ immigration is the only choice,” and commended U.S. service members who had participated in a drug trafficking ring along the southwestern border as “heroes,” among other things.

But Masters doesn't believe any of that now, and neither does MAGA. Nor does MAGA admire Hunter Biden, who clearly used to play by his own rules regarding sex, drugs, and business.

That's because Donald Trump and his followers actually do believe in institutions -- the Trump Organization, pro-Trump companies like X.com and SpaceX, and the Republican Party and conservative movement, now that they're under total Trumpist control. Trumpists are transgressors, but the transgressors must be loyal to those institutions.

Obviously, being loyal to Trumpian institutions means transforming or attempting to destroy institutions that are outside the Trump orbit, because they're not made up of loyal lackeys. That's why Trump affiliated himself with Project 2025, the leaders of which aren't transgressive in their personal lives. Trump thinks Project 2025 will empty out the bureaucracy and restock it exclusively with Trumpists.

That's also why Trump likes Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee for director of national intelligence, who obviously isn't a hard-partying, sexually predatory man. David Lurie of Public Notice writes:

Trump has long held a grudge against the work of competent intelligence and counterintelligence professionals, including in the FBI, CIA, and the office of the DNI. That is unsurprising, given that their work has inevitably raised questions about Trump’s own curious associations and affinities with many of the nation’s sworn enemies, as reflected in the events that gave rise to the Mueller investigation and Trump’s first impeachment.

... On that background, his elevation of someone like Gabbard to the DNI position makes perfect sense.

I believe Gabbard is a Russian agent. I suspect Trump is merely a Russian dupe. Trump collaborates with Vladimir Putin and can easily be persuaded to do Putin's bidding, but I don't believe he has the larger perspective of Gabbard, who wants to make the United States part of a Moscow-based Axis of Evil. Trump just wants to be pals with a dictator and reap whatever rewards come from that.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is a bit more of a puzzle. A few days ago, The Bulwark's Jonathan Last tried to understand why Trump wants to turn Department of Human Services over to him. Is this why?

Cabinet secretaries exist to enact the vision and priorities of the president.

Ergo, Kennedy must have been given this appointment because he shares the president-elect’s views on vaccines, research, etc. in toto.

Ergo, if Kennedy’s nomination is defeated and someone else takes his place, then he or she would pursue the exact same policy revisions on vaccines, research, et al.

Or is this correct?

The other reading is that Kennedy has been nominated as an act of pure transactionalism:

* Trump needed Kennedy’s support, so he promised him HHS.

* Trump does not give a fig about anything HHS does.

* If Kennedy were to ban all vaccines, Trump would be fine with that.

* If Kennedy’s nomination is blocked and Trump then appoints a normal person like, say, Mike Leavitt, then Leavitt would not pursue any of Kennedy’s policies.

* And Trump would be fine with that, too.

* Because Trump has fully severed policy from ideology and reduced it to nothing but transactionalism.

I think it's mostly the latter, but the appointment wasn't just a payoff to Kennedy personally -- after all, Trump has appointed other skeptics and denialists to the public health bureaucracy.

I think Trump likes the idea that Kennedy will terrorize that bureaucracy, on the assumption that everyone remaining after Kennedy's purge will be loyal to Trump. (I don't think Trump quite realizes that they'll be loyal to a particular crackpot health viewpoint, not to Trump.)

I also think Trump is trying to keep his own voter base loyal -- remember, they've booed him when he said nice things about COVID vaccines. Trump's base is full of skeptics and denialists. Trump's base hates Anthony Fauci as much as Kennedy does and believes Fauci should be in prison, or executed for treason.

Trump might have some anger at the public health bureaucracy. He was frustrated in the fall of 2020 when it became clear that no COVID vaccine would be approved until after the election. And he was a low-level vaccine skeptic years ago, as he made clear in a 2015 primary debate:

"You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump — I mean, it looks just like it's meant for a horse, not for a child," Trump said, "and we've had so many instances, people that work for me. Just the other day, 2 years old, 2 1/2-years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic."

But mostly I think Trump hopes that Kennedy will help ensure that Trump's voters and government bureaucrats will be loyal to the one institution Trump cares about -- himself.

HOW DO DEMOCRATS SUCK AT MESSAGING? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.

Hi. I know I'm supposed to be thankful today, but it's raining and my household been dealing with minor but annoying health issues and the bad people are still winning in the world of politics, while the good people are barely showing up to compete.

Here's a widely quoted interview in The New York Times in which Senator John Fetterman suggests that Democrats should respond to Donald Trump's Cabinet picks by saying nothing right now:

Trump is assembling a cabinet of people many Democrats find deeply objectionable. How do you think Democrats should respond?

I’m just saying, buckle up and pack a lunch, because it’s going to be four years of this. And if you have a choice to freak out, you know, on the hour, then that’s your right. But I will not. I’m not that dude, and I’m not that Democrat. I’m going to pick my fights. If you freak out on everything, you lose any kind of relevance.

... Do you think Democrats have done too much freaking out when it comes to Trump?

It’s symbiotic. One feeds off the other. The Democrats can’t resist a freakout, and that must be the wind under the wings for Trump.

The Democrats can’t resist a freakout? Really? It seems to me that Democrats are extremely quiet at this moment, particularly about Trump's worst appointees.

Democrats don't have to "freak out on everything" -- they can let Trump have Marco Rubio at State and Elise Stefanik at the UN, because they'll be bad but they won't be catastrophically bad. But maybe Democrats should say something about Robert Kennedy Jr., who doesn't even think polio vaccines are safe and effective, and who "likened vaccinating children to abuse by the Catholic Church," as NBC News reports.

In a recent Emerson College poll, Kennedy has near-majority support -- 47% of poll respondents back him. He has a higher level of support than Rubio (45%). Republicans who despise Matt Gaetz didn't hesitate to express their opposition to him, and Republicans support Trump otherwise. Why would it be so terrible for Democrats to say right now that the Kennedy nomination is a five-alarm fire for American health? Sure, don't "freak out on everything" -- but freak out on him.

Regrettably, Democrats don't message very well between elections. That allows critics, right-wing and otherwise, to define who Democrats are, until Democrats desperately play catch-up during election season. So the result of a survey conducted by Stephen Hawkins and Daniel Yudkin is not surprising: Democratic voters' priority issue is "cost of living/inflation," but Republicans and others, including fellow Democrats, think Democrats' priority issues are abortion and LGBT issues.

... every single demographic group thought Democrats’ top priority was abortion, overestimating the importance of this issue by an average of 20 percentage points. (This included Democrats themselves, suggesting that they are somewhat out of touch even with what their fellow partisans care about.) ...

By far the most notable way that Democrats are misperceived relates to what our survey referred to as “LGBT/transgender policy.” Although this was not a major priority for Democratic voters in reality—it ranked 14th—our survey respondents listed it as Democrats’ second-highest priority. This effect was especially dramatic among Republicans—56 percent listed the issue among Democrats’ top three priorities, compared with just 8 percent who listed inflation—but nearly every major demographic group made a version of the same mistake.

Hawkins and Yudkin blame progressive groups for talking so much about these issues that voters think they're Democrats' top priorities. But while abortion may have seemed like Democrats' #1 issue because Kamala Harris made protecting abortion rights a major part of her campaign message, she rarely if ever talked about LGBT/transgender policy. Republicans attacked her incessantly in ads highlighting her pro-trans stance in the 2020 primaries -- but Fox and the rest of the right-wing media were obsessed with this issue long before the 2024 campaign began, and even the "liberal" media has been anti-trans, particularly The New York Times.

Democrats needed a message on this issue, and the Harris campaign decided it was impossible to craft one on the fly during the campaign. Democrats also needed to do some proactive messaging on the economy -- selling what was working while acknowledging the pain of those still struggling to pay off high grocery bills. Joe Biden is a terrible public communicator in his old age, but no Democrat picked up the slack because Democrats don't message between elections -- they just do stuff and hope voters will like it.

And now we have a whole new sphere in which Republicans are winning the messaging war while Democrats don't even seem to want to deploy troops:

While many on the left have spent the last few weeks debating whether Ms. Harris should have granted an interview to Joe Rogan, the right-leaning host of the world’s most popular podcast, some progressive influencers are now more interested in building up a Rogan of their own.

They are banding together to create their own networks to make content year-round and not just in the final months before elections. Their goal is to eventually forge self-sustaining advocacy groups and networks, a left-wing answer to the nonprofit Turning Point USA or the media company The Daily Wire on the right. But first they need buy-in — and cash — from the Democratic Party’s donors and institutions to compete in the new attention economy, where people’s time is the currency....

“Conservative influencers have year-round support, and those of us on the left have been left to fend for ourselves and it’s not working,” said Leigh McGowan, who goes by iampoliticsgirl and has more than two million followers across various platforms.

It's bad.

David Pakman, who has a progressive YouTube channel with 2.7 million subscribers ... has looked enviously upon the Turning Point network. “We just don’t have anything like it at all on the left,” he said.

He was among a small group of influencers invited to meet with Ms. Harris for an off-record meet-and-greet linked to the State of the Union address last March. But he had to pay his own way there and for his lodging.

“I think I got a tea bag and some hotel water,” he recalled. Now he worries that Ms. Harris’s loss has sapped enthusiasm on the left and that there’s no plan from the party to keep supporters engaged.

As Collin Rugg noted on X:

David Packman called out his own party for giving up when things get hard.

“It terrifies me because our instinct is the opposite of what the right does.” ...

“When the right loses, they get organized, they fund and they create insanely effective organizations like Turning Point USA, investing in the Daily Wire and building out this huge network of right wing idea ideas and influencers.”

“We are in an algorithmic de subscription spiral right now, because when people start unsubscribing on YouTube, YouTube thinks oh, we probably shouldn't recommend this content...”

But as Oliver Willis has noted, Democrats stand down after Election Day even when they win, and they did this long before the podcast/influencer era:

... Democrats have an annoying habit of powering down after these electoral successes in a way that allows the right to make gains in public sentiment and raw political power that ... allow them to advance just at a time when they should be in retreat. The right understands that the battle over political power in the United States is a long slog, and that even when they lose in spectacular fashion they still retain the power to set the stakes and parameters of the wider conflict. Much to their favor.

After John McCain lost to Obama in 2008, the biggest thumping at the presidential level since 1996, the right spent the political equivalent of about two weeks wondering how they lost. Then they got over it and began a concerted campaign to undermine Obama. The right was practically handing out tri-corner hats and yammering about tea bagging people before Obama had even gotten comfortable behind the Resolute desk.

At the same time, Obama essentially began winding down the campaign machine he had steered to victory and wasted his time cajoling Republicans to support the stimulus and health care reform. They responded to his olive branch by calling him a socialist, a foreigner, and a tyrant. Then we got 2010 and a Democratic disaster.

Republicans succeeded at forcing Obama to spend most of his time in office on defense rather than offense, because Republicans never stop fighting.

Democrats should attack Kennedy (and Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth). They should cultivate that influencer army. And they should stop letting Republicans create the perception of who Democrats and Republicans are. They should do all this, starting immediately, even if John Fetterman disapproves.