The Putin wing of the GOP.

April 7, 2022

[Audio version here]

          Although developments in Ukraine rightly continue to dominate the news, I am trying to find a way to regain the focus of this newsletter on domestic politics in the U.S. I recognize that Ukraine has become (and will remain) a central part of domestic politics in the U.S. for a long time to come, so I will continue to discuss Ukraine on an ongoing basis. However, I am trying to find the right balance of stories, so please don’t hesitate to let me know what you think. (Although, to date, that hasn’t been a problem!)

President Biden’s pandemic-related efforts.

          Can you answer this question: How many people in the U.S. died of Covid-19 in the last week? The answer is at the end of this paragraph, but it is a number that should shock us. It does not—even though most of those deaths were preventable. The number of deaths has become background noise, lulling us into a false sense of security. Covid-19 remains one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. (Kaiser Family Foundation). We may have forgotten about the coronavirus. Joe Biden has not. [Answer: The seven-day trailing average of deaths from Covid as of April 6th is 456; two months ago, it was over 2,500.]

          Earlier this week, the administration secured a deal for $10 billion in additional testing and immunizations as the next variant (BA.2) begins to ramp up in pockets around the U.S. But Senate Republicans blocked the bill at the last minute to force a vote on President Biden’s efforts to reverse a Trump immigration policy. As presidential Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted, the failure to authorize those funds “will have consequences” (read: people will die). Whether the BA.2 variant will lead to another surge is uncertain. But as Katelyn Jetelina writes in her excellent blog about Covid,

          BA.2’s footprint in the U.S. is starting to show. National indicators are pretty steady right now, but this can change quickly. Will it be a wave? We don’t know. But it doesn’t really matter if you prepare: get boosted, have a plan to get post-infection treatment, like Paxovid, order free antigen tests, and start wearing masks if county cases are increasing.

          Biden also announced that he would extend the moratorium on student loan interest accumulation and principal repayment from May 1st to August 31st. Predictably, Republicans are objecting to anything proposed by President Biden, calling the extension that benefits 37 million Americans an “elitist handout.” (I am not citing the alt-right media source for this quote. I don’t want to drive traffic to the site. You can Google the phrase “student loan elitist handout” to read the underlying source.)

          As usual, Republicans are applying Social Darwinism to a program to help those in need. One Republican member of Congress said the extension was “unfair” because he had paid off his loans. To state the obvious, if the Republican member of Congress has paid off his loans, he does not need pandemic-related relief, which does not change the needs of those who still have student loan debt. If the moratorium allows hundreds of thousands of borrowers to avoid bankruptcy or economic dislocation, that will be good for the borrowers—and good for the ungrateful member of Congress who will not be forced to absorb the societal costs of increased unemployment, bankruptcies, homelessness, unpaid medical bills, etc.

          As with Obamacare, Biden should forge ahead to do the right thing for the American people. We underwrite oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, and tech ventures with billions of dollars in tax loopholes. Granting another five months of forbearance to people who invested in their own educations is smart and compassionate.

Even Chief Justice John Roberts believes the reactionary majority is abusing the “shadow docket.”

          The reactionary majority on the Supreme Court has discovered that it can engineer huge changes in long-settled jurisprudence by acting under cover of darkness—or, more precisely, under cover of the shadow docket. The shadow docket of the Court is intended to allow “administrative” dispositions (or stays) of cases that do not require full briefing on the merits. But the reactionary majority has recently used the shadow docket to effectively overrule Roe v. Wade before the parties had the ability to be heard. See NYTimes, How the Supreme Court Quietly Undercut Roe v. Wade (“In an extraordinary use of the so-called shadow docket, the court refused to block a law effectively banning abortion.”)

          When the reactionary majority used the shadow docket to allow the Texas anti-abortion law to remain in effect, Chief Justice Roberts issued a subdued note of concern, saying that the matter should not have been decided in such a rushed way. On Wednesday, Chief Justice Roberts finally joined the liberal justices in criticizing the use of the shadow docket to undermine the Clean Water Act without so much as issuing a sentence explaining their rationale for doing so. Roberts joined in Justice Kagan’s dissent that criticized the majority for

signal[ing] its view of the merits, even though the applicants have failed to make the irreparable harm showing we have traditionally required. That renders the Court’s emergency docket not for emergencies at all. The docket becomes only another place for merits determinations—except made without full briefing and argument.

          That the feckless Chief Justice is so alarmed that he would join Justice Kagan’s dissent speaks volumes. It is time to enlarge the Court. It is the only way to restrain the lawless reactionary majority, which has become too radical for the radical John Roberts. For an excellent discussion of the abuse of the shadow docket in this case, see Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, The Supreme Court’s attack on the Clean Water Act was too radical for John Roberts.

The Putin wing of the GOP finds its footing.

          After an initial period of uncertain timidity, the Putin wing of the GOP is becoming emboldened in their criticism of NATO and in their obstruction of efforts to help Ukraine. In doing so, they are signaling to Putin that if he can drag out his assault on Ukraine until Republicans regain control of Congress or the presidency, the U.S. will relent in its efforts to punish Russia for its ongoing crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

          Ten GOP House members have proposed a bill that would prohibit any and all aid to Ukraine until the U.S. “completes” a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. If that bill were to pass, the U.S. would not be able to deliver aid in a timeframe to help the Ukrainian people. Similarly, sixty-three Republicans in the House voted against a resolution expressing support for the democratic principles of NATO. The resolution also called for creating a Center for Democratic Resilience within NATO.

          Who does that? Who opposes the “democratic principles of NATO” and a center to promote democracy in the world? Who seeks to deny Ukraine aid by tying it to a Republican fantasy border wall that will never be completed? Answer: The same people who are promoting the conspiracy theories about “Hunter Biden’s laptop.” The Republican attack on Hunter Biden is part of Putin’s disinformation campaign. See The Guardian, U.S. rightwing figures in step with Kremlin over Ukraine disinformation, experts say. As explained in The Guardian, the attacks on Hunter Biden have morphed into a claim that he was involved with a fictitious “US-led bioweapons program in Ukraine.” That narrative merged a pre-existing conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden into a Putin-promoting disinformation campaign against Ukraine. It is a “win-win” for the GOP and Putin.

          In other words, the Putin wing of the GOP is doing Putin’s dirty work for him by promoting disinformation from the floor of the House. As reported in Politico, the Republican who would chair the Oversight Committee if Republicans win control of the House in 2022 said,

The House Oversight Committee is going to be all over Hunter Biden. We’re going to focus on Hunter Biden not for political reasons, but because we feel he’s a national security threat.

          Whether Hunter Biden may have engaged in illegal business dealings is debatable (and already under investigation by the DOJ), but the assertion that he is a “national security threat” is a reference to the “bio-weapons” conspiracy theory being peddled by the Putin wing of the GOP. There is not a scintilla of evidence that private citizen Hunter Biden is a national security threat—unlike senior presidential advisor Jared Kushner who was denied a security clearance by the White House Personnel Security Office. The denial of a security clearance was later overruled by Trump for his favorite son-in-law. Now that is a national security threat.

           While it is impossible to make sense of the twisted minds of the members of the GOP Putin wing, it is plain that their efforts will provide aid and comfort to Putin’s wounded ego. The disloyalty of those Republicans may encourage Putin to resurrect his campaign against Ukraine with renewed vigor.

The actions of the Putin wing of the GOP align with the views of Donald Trump, who is the de facto leader of the GOP. Every Republican candidate in 2022 must be forced to take a stand on Putin, Ukraine, and Trump’s Russian sympathies. In this instance, the moral imperative and political objective overlap: protect Ukraine by defeating members of the Putin wing of the GOP.

Concluding thoughts.

          A perennial complaint from readers is about messaging by Democrats. Jennifer Rubin wrote about that problem in her must-read essay in WaPo, What’s a White House to do about clueless voters? As Rubin notes, more jobs were created in President Biden’s first year in office—6.6 million—than during the first year of any other president in history. But, according to recent polling, most Americans believe that the U.S. lost jobs during Biden’s first year in office. Why??

          The reasons for that disconnect are many, including the incessant negativity in the mainstream media. As I noted two weeks ago, voters use responses to surveys to express their feelings of dissatisfaction with their lives. But emotions are real, and we dismiss them at our peril. So, as Jennifer Rubin asks, what is the White House supposed to do?

          Rubin has a few simple prescriptions. First, Biden should say the most important thing first, and often: “I have created 6.6 million jobs in the first year of my presidency—more than any other president.” (Note: please don’t send emails saying presidents don’t create jobs; I know. But every president takes the credit or blame for job creation and loss during.) If Trump had achieved that same level of job creation in his first year, he would have spoken of nothing else.

          Second, Biden needs to focus on two or three accomplishments and then stop talking. Every time he lists the twenty programs that didn’t get enacted in the Build Back Better bill, people stop listening at the fourth item.

          Finally, Biden needs to stop holding mid-day events at the White House to make important announcements. No one is listening at that time; they are watching Dr. Phil, Ellen DeGeneres, or The Price is Right. Biden needs the energy of crowds, not the gotcha questioning of reporters. He needs to break free of his handlers and get out on the road. And, to put a fine point on it, “the road” includes destinations other than Philadelphia and Wilmington. There is a great big world of Democrats out there who don’t live along the tracks of Amtrak’s Acela Express.

          The good news is this problem is fixable—it is a bug, not a feature, of the Democratic Party. The question is, “When will Democrats fix it?” That answer must come from the top. I hope that someone in the White House is busily translating Rubin’s essay into an action plan. And, lest this discussion worry you unnecessarily, recall that just a few paragraphs ago, I was discussing the growing number of Republicans who are rooting for Vladimir Putin. Yes, Democrats have messaging challenges, but supporting a man who is committing war crimes as a party platform is not one of them.

          Talk to you tomorrow!