A Time For Choosing
Inside the mailbag: Trump crime family ... Zohran Mamdani ... Beutler for DNC?
Ron Sluiter: “I don’t think Democrats should pursue partisan domination.” Why not?
We have a two party political system where one party is a weak, ineffectual, failure and the other party has become a fascist cult. Why shouldn’t Democrats cast off their history of weakness and failure - why shouldn’t they defend the rule of law and hope for democracy, instead of paying both lip service?
TO BE CLEAR (and honestly I think I have been) Democrats should obviously try to win every election, every cycle, as far as the eye can see. I believe that as a normative matter, but it’s also a bit tautological. Republicans “should” try to win every election as well because that’s what parties exist to do.
This is why I spend a lot of time arguing that Democrats should reconsider what constitutes the best way to “win every election”—not because I’m certain I know, but because they seem certain they do, while the record suggests they do not. If they did, they would not have lost two of three elections to the worst, most dishonest, most corrupt, most deranged person ever to seek the presidency. The approach Democrats believe (incorrectly) to represent the optimal path to victory selects for timidity, empty-suitism, and personal ambition, so I infer they should experiment with strategies that select for more admirable qualities: strength, conviction, selflessness.
What I don’t advocate for them to do is to win power, then tilt the playing field of elections so that Republicans can’t be competitive. That’s what I meant by “partisan domination.” That’s what Republicans do. They’re the ones trying to create a one-party autocracy. Liberals shouldn’t do this—again, both normatively and tautologically—tautologically, because this would be illiberal; normatively because they would descend into their own form of repressive rule, and civil unrest would persist or accelerate.
The good news is that they don’t need to seek “partisan domination” in order to embody strength. One way Democrats could embody strength (and thus make themselves more competitive) is to stand up for themselves, and for the concept of fair play. First, insist on unrigging the game. Then, upon winning elections, change the rules and govern wisely. But the procedural and democratic reforms I promote wouldn’t leave Republicans at a structural disadvantage. They wouldn’t suddenly have to get 52 or 55 percent of the vote to win on their preferred platform. They wouldn’t have to water down their platform for the purposes of overcoming undemocratic handicaps. They’d just have to win more arguments on the merits, and become capable of steady governance. One person, one vote. All Americans with equal representation. Winning parties can and indeed must govern. Etc. Etc.
Winning on an even playing field might (almost certainly would) require Republicans to become less extreme and less dishonest and less corrupt. But no party is entitled to a strident or self-serving agenda. No party gets to say “it’s not fair that our agenda is unpopular, so we need a leg up.” We’re in this mess in large part because Republicans faced a choice between tribal conquest and democracy and they chose the former. We have to insist that’s not a choice a party in a free and open society is allowed to make. Not Republicans. Not Democrats either.
Jo B: Everyone is talking about how unbelievably corrupt the ‘weaponization fund’ is, and it is, but very few are including the unbelievably corrupt IRS agreement to never ever audit anyone in the Trump family or their businesses up through now when talking about this whole shakedown.
My guess is Trump couldn’t actually care less about that fund and would do his usual bitch and whine if it got nuked, but would quickly move on so long as the inability to audit remains.
So my question is why isn’t that part of the so called settlement a much bigger story and can it be undone if Dems takeover as easily as it was done?
In the days since you posted this, Todd Blanche made clear that shelving the fund changes nothing about the tax immunity provision, which places the whole Trump family above the law1.
That has turned it into a bigger story. Arguably not big enough. But Democrats have noticed and I’m confident that when the Senate returns and Republicans resume work on their ICE reconciliation bill (assuming that’s what they’ll do) Democrats will force them to vote on an amendment rescinding this arrangement.
I don’t know what Republicans will do. That immunity provision is perhaps less toxic than the slush fund, but it’s at least as toxic as the ballroom funding, and Republicans are scared to vote for that. So we might not have to wait until next year. Or: Trump will have to choose between stealing ~$100 million and Stephen Miller’s dreamt of police state.
Practically speaking, though, I’m not sure how much work the settlement does. This becomes clear when you focus less on its text, and more on its likely effect: What potential wrongdoing will this settlement allow the Trump crime family to get away with that they would not otherwise have gotten away with? Let’s walk through various scenarios together.
The settlement is retroactive. As written, it allows the Trumps to keep perhaps $100 million in unpaid taxes plus penalties. More importantly, it allows them to conceal evidence of recent criminal activity.
The Trump family’s goals are to keep the evidence concealed—get away with the crimes—and, ideally, keep the $100 million. The question is, does the settlement advance these goals?