Today’s Edition: The wheels of justice.

August 5, 2021

          After Joe Biden told Republican governors on Tuesday to “Help or get out of the way,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched a counterattack on Wednesday. DeSantis’s comments may presage battles in 2022 and 2024 over the GOP’s anti-vax, anti-science, anti-government platform. DeSantis reverted to type, doing his “tough‑guy” Trump imitation, alternately bullying and lying as he cast himself as a romantic hero standing up to “big” government. DeSantis began by lying about what Biden meant by “help,” claiming that Biden wants to reinstitute lockdowns. DeSantis’s statement is false; the CDC guidelines for schools say, “Students benefit from in-person learning, and safely returning to in-person instruction in the fall 2021 is a priority.” The CDC guidelines for businesses say, “CDC recommends masks to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread.”

          The CDC guidelines do not suggest or require lockdowns, but the facts didn’t interfere with DeSantis’s effort to pick a fight with Biden. DeSantis said, in part,

          Joe Biden suggests that if you don’t do lockdown policies, then you should ‘get out of the way.’ But let me tell you this: If you’re coming after the rights of parents in Florida, I’m standing in your way. I’m not going to let you get away with it. If you’re trying to deny kids a proper in-person education, I’m going to stand in your way and I’m going to stand up for the kids in Florida. If you’re trying to restrict people, impose mandates, if you’re trying to ruin their jobs and their livelihoods and their small business, if you are trying to lock people down, I am standing in your way and I’m standing for the people of Florida.

          DeSantis made his comments shortly after hospital administrators told him that in North Broward hospitals 95% of Covid patients are unvaccinated, while Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said 99% of the area’s Covid patients are not vaccinated. See News4Jax, “Florida hospital CEOs tell DeSantis what they are seeing during latest COVID-19 spike.” DeSantis nonetheless stuck to his anti-government playbook, counting on the fact that Republican faithful hate being told what to do more than they hate dying. He may be right. But DeSantis may be miscalculating how many “Republican faithful” voters there are. In the most recent poll regarding DeSantis’s popularity, he has seen a 10% decline in his favorability rating in the last two months. See Talking Points Memo, “Support For DeSantis Drops Amidst Pro-COVID Policy Push.” As always, we should not overweight a single poll (and I have not investigated the quality of the poll).

          I received a dozen emails from readers in response to yesterday’s newsletter cautioning me not to underestimate DeSantis. Readers in Florida told me how popular DeSantis is in his home state (including among younger voters). Other readers are simply worried that DeSantis’s populist message will be difficult to overcome. Several readers fretted over a DeSantis vs. Harris presidential contest in 2024. Those worries are all reasonable. But as I wrote yesterday, DeSantis’s fortunes will not be determined by Republicans, but by Independents. They will be repulsed by the garbage emanating from the Florida Republican Party—for whom DeSantis is the standard-bearer. See CNN, “Florida Covid-19: RNC official spreads conspiracies, calling vaccines the 'mark of the beast'.” (“A top Republican National Committee official [from Florida] has twice call[ed] the vaccines “the mark of the beast,” comparable to a “false god.”)

          More importantly, DeSantis’s plan to “stand in the way” of mask mandates and vaccinations sounds great until a parent has to make a very personal choice: “Do I send my child to school and refuse to take reasonable precautions to protect that child from sickness (or worse)?” Sadly, some parents will choose politics over the health of their children. But many (most?) parents will follow the deeply rooted instinct to protect their children. In my view, Ron DeSantis has picked the wrong side of family preservation, public health, and history. There are no guarantees, of course. So, we must continue to battle the misinformation being promoted by DeSantis and others at every opportunity. Here’s my point: Don’t underestimate Ron DeSantis, but don’t overestimate him, either. He is vulnerable. We can beat him in 2022. I say we stop worrying about him and start taking him down a notch (or two). That’s all it will take to erase his narrow margin of victory in 2018.

Reader reaction to yesterday’s newsletter.

          I was surprised by emails I received regarding two stories in yesterday’s newsletter. Although the emails were in the minority, there were enough of them that I feel obligated to share them with readers. This newsletter is a community effort, so members should know how others are feeling.

          First, several readers wrote to say that Governor Cuomo should not resign. Some argued that he is entitled to a presumption of innocence until convicted. Others complained that Democrats are holding themselves to a higher standard than Republicans apply to their members who are accused of similar misconduct. Another reader argued that Cuomo could be rehabilitated and that calling for his resignation was an overreaction to the events described in the report.

          Second, several readers were upset with my acknowledgment of the role that progressive Democrats played in reversing the administration’s position on the eviction moratorium. (One reader “unsubscribed” over the comment.)

          Another reader worried that Joe Biden is flouting the law by extending the eviction moratorium in the face of the Supreme Court order in June that declined to rule on the legality of the moratorium but that nonetheless signaled the Court’s willingness to strike down the moratorium if it was extended beyond July 31st. The short answer is that Biden is not flouting the law. There is no binding Supreme Court decision on the subject, so Biden is free to test the legality of the CDC moratorium. Moreover, the suggestion by Justice Kavanaugh in the June opinion that only Congress can impose an eviction moratorium is disingenuous and wrong. Congress extended the CDC moratorium back in December 2021 in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. For Kavanaugh, that is not good enough. In his view, Congress must initiate the moratorium (“via new legislation”), not merely extend it. That distinction is dubious and politically motivated. (It is part of the reactionary wing’s effort to dismantle the administrative state.) For background, see Slate, “The Supreme Court Caused the Looming Eviction Disaster. Why Won’t Democrats Say So?”

Protesting Tucker Carlson and Fox News

          Two readers noted that they sent notes of protest to Charles Schwab & Co. for its advertising support of Tucker Carlson. A P.R. person at Schwab wrote back to say that Schwab doesn’t advertise on Tucker Carlson’s program but does advertise on other Fox News programs. While it is true that Schwab doesn’t advertise on Tucker Carlson’s program, here’s the point: Schwab advertises on a news network that airs Tucker Carlson’s program.

          Fox News is acting irresponsibly by supporting a commentator who promotes vaccine falsehoods and extols the virtutes of an anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, white nationalist leader in Hungary. Tucker Carlson may be the offending party, but Fox News is his enabler. One solution is to urge your cable company to remove Fox News from your cable lineup. Even if you don’t watch Fox News or Tucker Carlson, you are subsidizing both if your cable provider offers Fox News as part of its basic package. To raise this issue with your cable provider, see UnFox M Cable Box.

          Let me acknowledge that whenever I suggest such actions, I receive thoughtful emails from fierce defenders of the First Amendment who argue that attempting to remove editorial voices from the airwaves is dangerous. I agree—to a point. Tucker Carlson has the right to spew his offensive views, but he doesn’t have the right to a lucrative contract with Fox News. He can continue to undermine the rule of law from the dark and disreputable corners of the internet—which is where he belongs.

          Speaking of actions to hold corporations accountable for supporting efforts to undermine democracy, see Popular Information, “These corporations just donated to a Republican group that helped create the January 6 mob.”

Another group of lawyers sanctioned for frivolous lawsuits challenging 2020 election.

          Part of the GOP plan in 2020 was to overwhelm the judiciary with frivolous lawsuits challenging the election. The strategy assumed that if you file enough lawsuits, one of them will succeed. Not only did they not succeed, but the lawyers who filed them are being ordered to pay monetary penalties (“sanctions”) for filing frivolous lawsuits. On Wednesday, a group of lawyers was sanctioned for filing such a lawsuit in Colorado. The amount of sanctions has yet to be determined, but they will be substantial. See Talking Points Memo, “Federal Judge Slaps Two Lawyers With Sanctions Over Big Lie Lawsuit.” Good. “The wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine.”

Concluding Thoughts.

Ali Velshi devoted a significant portion of his one-hour show (standing in for Rachel Maddow) to the attempted coup by Trump, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and others. I will link to the story tomorrow. Let’s hope that the momentum building in the media regarding the attempted coup will prompt Congress and the DOJ to scrutinize the actions of Trump, Clark, and Republican members of Congress.

          Speaking of members of Congress, Rep. Lauren Boebert vehemently denied that she gave “reconnaissance tours” to insurrectionists in the days immediately preceding the January 6th assault on the Capitol. Her denials were carefully worded. It turns out that she gave a tour to “family members” in December—three weeks before the insurrection and before her term as a Representative began. See Salon, “Why did Lauren Boebert lead a late-night Capitol tour three weeks before Jan. 6?” The unconventional tour violated Capitol protocols on many levels. Per Salon, “It's perhaps even stranger that it occurred on a Saturday night, when the Capitol complex is closed.”

          As evidence begins to emerge regarding the events surrounding the January 6th insurrection and the failed coup, it appears that Americans may finally be getting the accountability they deserve. In this case, we need the wheels of justice to grind exceedingly fine but quickly. Let’s hope that Democrats on the Select Committee understand that urgency.

          Talk to you tomorrow!