If you care about certain things deeply and they are things that will be decided by the Supreme Court rather than by the U.S. Congress, then I can see how it’s possible to look at the presidential contest less as a choice about who will be president and conduct foreign policy and more about who will appoint Justices to the Supreme Court. There hasn’t really been a liberal majority on the Supreme Court since 1971, and that’s about to change. In fact, it already would be changed if the Republicans had behaved normally and given Merrick Garland a hearing and a confirmation vote.
So, when Speaker Paul Ryan got on a conference call with House members this morning and informed them that he was giving up on Trump and focusing on preserving his Republican majority, it’s understandable that some members flipped their whig. For example, there’s Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona:
Representative Trent Franks of Arizona, using graphic language to describe abortion, made an ardent case for staying with Mr. Trump because his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, would support a policy of destroying fetuses “limb from limb.”
It’s easy to forget that the anti-choice movement was on the cusp of seeing their dream of overturning Roe v. Wade come true. They had four votes for it (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and the recently departed Scalia) and if one of the other five had died instead of Scalia and they won this presidential election they would have had the five votes they needed.
It must be tough to get so close only to see the Court tip back to a liberty majority not seen since before Roe was decided in 1973.
Trent Franks sounds unhinged to me. His life’s work is slipping out of his grasp and he’s saying deranged things in response.
I don’t know how pro-choice folks would feel if the shoe was on the other foot and the Democratic nominee were, say, Charlie Sheen. The idea that this country would soon adopt abortion policies more akin to El Salvador or Saudi Arabia than a First World country? That would be so intolerable that it’d be tempting to rationalize a President Sheen.
But, you know, at a certain point you have to realize that however much you care about any particular issue, you can’t just let anyone become president of the United States. Trump has passed that point and lapped it several times.
The Speaker understands this, to his credit.
Nice pun on whig/wig, if that was deliberate.
And even if not, great pun.
Ryan’s decision has nothing to do with any new evaluation of Trump’s fitness for office. Only of his likelihood of winning it.
Very true.
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.
It’s now the duty of every democratic candidate to break their republican congressional opponent over this. For Trump or against. Base or center. Individually.
“I don’t know how pro-choice folks would feel if the shoe was on the other foot and the Democratic nominee were, say, Charlie Sheen.”
First, we’d try to replace him with his father. At least Martin knows how to play the President.
Second, Sheen against which Republican? If it’s Sheen vs. Trump or Cruz, my choices would be 1) hold my nose and vote for Sheen, 2) vote for the Green candidate, who might just be saner than either of them, or 3) emigrate because the U.S. has become “Idiocracy.” If it’s Sheen vs. Kasich or Bush, I might just vote for the Republican or deliberately vote for the Green candidate to throw my vote away. Then I’d become a Green, because the Democratic Party has proven to be dysfunctional.
What about the rest of you?
Well said.
>”The Speaker understands this, to his credit.”
I strongly disagree. Ryan is laser-focused on his domestic economic issues. Every move he makes is calculated to nudge the chances of passing his crazy ideas.
I strongly disagree. Ryan is laser focused on his future career.
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Can’t you both be right?
Maybe, but I don’t think so. I’m not sure Ryan wants to pass his ridiculous domestic agenda until he is elected POTUS, because if he passed it, it would make being president that much harder.
But he’s an idiot and conman, so who knows.
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It’s not at all clear that disassociating himself from Trump, however tepidly, will somehow benefit Ryan’s ambitions within the Republican Party.
Oh, I agree. But his choices are between bad and bigly bad, without knowing which choice is bigly bad. I did not mean he would pick correctly.
But first and foremost he wants to be POTUS. Campaigning with Trump would disqualify him IMO. But unendorsing makes it so, IMO, he will never get the republican nomination.
Hence his no choice choice.
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Ryan might want to save his skin, but he still refused to unendorse Trump which is an act of cowardice on his part.
They certainly are disoriented but not a few of them are coming around.
People like Franks are quite right to be worked up.
They absolutely were on the brink; the culmination of decades of hard and tedious work to roll back the 1960’s. It was multi-pronged and deeply resourced. Only through planning, cunning and determination have they gotten hold of as much of the government as they have.
And now, just like that, it is going to be snatched from them. When they say that this is the most important election in history, they are right, because their hold on power is tenuous and they know it.
Because of simple demographics, this is their high water mark. Most of the major social trends are running against them and their voters; whose demographic base is old and shrinking. Once the bubble pops and the gerrymandering is corrected the game will be over.
It is ironic that Trump mobilized the dark forces that the GOP had used to keep ahold of it’s voters. Now in his hands, Trump is set to burn the it all to the ground. We SHOULD thank him for his service.
I think you just made the case for them NEVER agreeing to any Supreme Court appointments.
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If the Democrats were in the same position the GOP is now, with the party not worth saving and everything we’ve fought for about to burn, I would be leaving the country. Of course, in that case, there probably wouldn’t be anyplace actually safe on the entire planet, but as far away as possible would be worth a try.
Priebus just finished his emergency conference call with the RNC, promising that were fully on board the Trump Train. In the 14 minute call, he said that “no mechanism exists” to dump Trump, making the idea “impractical”.
He took no questions.
He’s right. The RNC rules, I heard explained on NPR’s “On Point”, have no language at all about creating a vacancy.
As other wags have pointed out, they have to carry their unwanted baby to term.
But, as far as I know, there is no rule preventing the RNC from financially cutting the Trump campaign loose and spending all its money on the downticket races. It’s only Priebus’s fear of Trump’s base stopping him.
In any case, it’s good news for Democrats. Every dollar the RNC wastes on the Trump campaign is one fewer dollar they can spend on defending their House majority.
It seems like Ryan is trying to have it multiple ways without conttradiction. Shouldn’t a certain Democratic challenger be helped to point this out to the 350,000 voters in Ryan’s district and shouldn’t a bunch of folks in that district be working their butts off in assembling 170,000 votes for Ryan’s challenger?
I believe it’s down to 31 days.
And this election needs to be nationalized so that Trump is hung around the neck of every Republican. It is, after all, their party that failed to properly vet this guy for suitability to be President. Why should they be trusted to do the people’s business at all?
And what’s with the NYT and WaPo retreat back to bothsiderism about the tape and the debate?
Clinton without a Democratic Congress in both Houses will be bottled up on domestic policy and pushed toward an aggressive foreign policy. A lot of the peace folks have gone over to Trump thinking that he is a peace candidate because he’s been associated with Putin by the Clinton campaign. And because they want to punish her for her foreign policy actions (which were the ones the President implemented) in the Middle East and Ukraine (even though she was not Secretary of State when Euromaidan occurred, she did recommend to the President Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt to their current jobs).
Yeah. I’m fine hanging Trump around the neck of the Peace Folks as well. They prefer Putin, let them sink with Trump.
Who was pushing her towards an aggressive foreign policy when she encouraged Obama to destroy Libya?
Sorry, you’re not going to be able to blame Hillary’s first war – or her second – on the Republicans.
The absence of strong Democrats in the Senate and House and a substantial amount of propaganda (I fell for it) from Qatar allowed Clinton to advocate for Qatar’s interest in Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
My comments went to the need to have some forces in Congress to rein Clinton’s propensities in and actually conduct oversight of the national security aspects of government.
I gave you a 4 because I agree with this part:
And this election needs to be nationalized so that Trump is hung around the neck of every Republican. It is, after all, their party that failed to properly vet this guy for suitability to be President. Why should they be trusted to do the people’s business at all?
100%.
Richard Burr has saved us the trouble. He just handcuffed himself to Trump. Time for Deborah Ross to pay back for the Republican’s “Willie Horton” attack on her advocating for due process. Yes, another rape case.
No one ever blames the jury. Or the police work on the evidence.
And Hillary is likely to withdraw Garland’s nomination, which was a sop to Senate Republicans. Well, screw that now. She clearly wants to appoint a woman like Sandra Sotomayor, and why the Hell shouldn’t she? A young 40 something liberal who works for the Children’s Defense Fund or something would be about perfect.
She owes the GOP nothing. They waged a scorched earth campaign against her, and refused all calls to compromise. Well, payback is a beatch! Get together with Chuck Shumer and agree to eliminate the filibuster if GOP tries to stonewall a vote on her nominee. Any nominee. They should get rid of the filibuster on general principles anyway.
The public discussion of the political events of the last few days is very strange; like the Village hasn’t picked itself up off the floor yet. And for the GOP, perhaps a whammy hangover clouding their judgement.
Kind of eerily quiet yet the energy of an approaching storm.
Doubleplus ungood:
There’s a tingly feeling to Trump since he formally threatened to use the office of the presidency to persecute the Right’s political enemies. The strong man for the weak-minded.
According to WaPo some of the guys on the conference call want to stand by Trump even if it costs them the house.