Susan B. Glasser: What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?

Nuclear blackmail, illegal annexation of territory, hundreds of thousands of Russian men rounded up and sent to the front lines in Ukraine, undersea gas pipelines to Europe mysteriously blowing up. After endless speculation, we can now say it for sure: this is how Vladimir Putin responds when he is backed into a corner.

Throughout seven awful months of war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden has held to a steadfast line when it comes to the Russian invasion: his goal is to help Ukraine win while also insuring that victory does not trigger a Third World War. But as Russian forces have experienced U.S.-aided battlefield setbacks in recent days, Putin has reacted by ratcheting up the pressure. It’s far from clear how Washington will be able to continue to pursue both goals simultaneously, given that Putin is holding Ukraine—and the rest of the world—hostage to his demands. On Friday, Putin plans to affirm the results of what the Biden Administration has sternly termed sham ‘referenda’  as a pretext to declare Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine part of the Russian state. How could Biden, or the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, or anyone else who believes in international order agree to that?

And yet Donald Trump and the growing faction of pro-Putin cheerleaders in the conservative media—Tucker Carlson, I’m thinking of you—are demanding still more concessions to Russia in response to Putin’s escalating threats. The other night, Carlson, citing no evidence, blamed the United States for somehow playing a role in attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Charlie Kirk, one of the most outrageous of the junior Trumpists, speculated that it was a potential midterm election operation and that U.S. intelligence agencies should be considered guilty until proven innocent—an appalling smear gleefully parrotted on Russian state TV. The ex-President—who during his time in office did so much to weaken NATO and undermine American allies while also praising Putin—even offered himself up as a mediator. On Wednesday, in a post on Truth Social, his Orwellian-named social-media platform, he insisted, get a negotiated deal done NOW.

Which, of course, is exactly what Putin wants Trump to say. After a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the eastern Kharkiv region this month pushed Russian forces back to their own border, Putin responded with new provocations designed to force the West to the bargaining table, since his exceptionally brutal yet inept application of military force failed to do so. That, at least, is the consensus view of many of America’s smartest Kremlin watchers. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/what-if-were-already-fighting-the-third-world-war-with-russia

Eric Lutz: Clarence Thomas, Whose Wife Still Believes 2020 Election Was Stolen, To Hear Major Election Law Cases

Just days before Clarence Thomas considers two cases that could shape American elections for years to come, his wife, Ginni Thomas, appeared before the January 6 committee to testify about her role in trying to overturn the results of the last one — a race she still maintains, without evidence, was stolen from Donald Trump by Joe Biden. She said that, January 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson recalled to reporters after the interview.

During the closed-door sit-down, Ginni Thomas apparently acknowledged her communications with the Trump White House, in which she urged then chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawmakers in key swing states to do more to help the former president remain in office after his 2020 loss. But she maintained that her husband was unaware of her efforts: She never discussed it with him, she told congressional investigators, adding that she abided by an iron clad rule in their house to not discuss her activism. I generally do not discuss with him my day-to-day work in politics, the topics I am working on, who I am calling, emailing, texting, or meeting, Thomas said, claiming that her husband is uninterested in politics.

If it’s outrageous to expect Americans to just take her word for it, then it’s especially so with the high court poised to reconvene in October for a session that will include two major cases concerning elections: A North Carolina lawsuit that would give state legislatures more power over the election process, and an Alabama case that could further weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even a narrow ruling on either case could have significant implications for how district maps are drawn and elections are held. But a more far-reaching decision could constitute a challenge to the democratic process itself. You cannot look at these cases objectively without acknowledging the fact that, taken together, they could determine whether or not the United States remains as the democracy we have come to love, former Attorney General Eric Holder told Politico. I think, unfortunately, we take for granted a democracy that fulfills the promise of one person, one vote. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/09/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas-election-law-cases-january-6

NY Times Editorial Board: The Supreme Court Has a Crisis of Trust

The Supreme Court’s authority within the American political system is both immense and fragile. Somebody has to provide the last word in interpreting the Constitution, and — this is the key — to do so in a way that is seen as fair and legitimate by the people at large.

What happens when a majority of Americans don’t see it that way?

A common response to this question is to say the justices shouldn’t care. They aren’t there to satisfy the majority or to be swayed by the shifting winds of public opinion. That is partly true: The court’s most important obligations include safeguarding the constitutional rights of vulnerable minorities who can’t always count on protection from the political process and acting independently of political interests.

But in the bigger picture, the court nearly always hews close to where the majority of the American people are. If it does diverge, it should take care to do so in a way that doesn’t appear partisan.

That is the basis of the trust given to the court by the public.

That trust, in turn, is crucial to the court’s ability to exercise the vast power Americans have granted it. The nine justices have no control over money, as Congress does, or force, as the executive branch does. All they have is their black robes and the public trust. A court that does not keep that trust cannot perform its critical role in American government. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/opinion/supreme-court-legitimacy.html

Karen Tumulty: Trump’s latest attack on McConnell sets a new standard of despicable

Mona Charen: Conservatives Are the New Useful Idiots

At the moment when freedom-loving people around the world are elated (if on tenterhooks) at the progress of Ukrainian forces in pushing back the Russian invaders, Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, has joined with other self-styled conservative groups to oppose helping Ukraine fight for its life. I know, I know, the Trumpification of the GOP has been a fact for six years, and yet this heel turn is remarkable. It’s as if People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced that they support puppy mills for medical research. Responding to President Biden’s request that Congress appropriate another $13.7 billion to help the Ukrainians cope with energy price hikes and other security needs, Heritage Action urged a no vote, railing that “These funding requests ignore the concerns of the American people.”

The pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian voices in the GOP are not yet a majority—about a quarter of House Republicans and 11 of 50 Senators voted against the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine in May—but they’re not a small minority either, and the wind is at their backs. CPAC has all but canonized Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orban, and in the first hours after Putin rolled into Ukraine, Trump reveled in the murderer’s “savvy” and “genius.” The 2022 election could bring more authoritarian-friendly Republicans to Congress, and meanwhile, hatcheries of conservative orthodoxy like Fox News and The Federalist are doing the spade work of persuading the base that Kremlin propaganda is more trustworthy—pravda, if you will—than the New York Times. https://www.thebulwark.com/conservatives-are-the-new-useful-idiots/

Chauncey DeVega: Trump "will be convicted of multiple felonies": George Conway on the bumpy road ahead

John Cassidy: Trump’s Threats of Violence Are too Dangerous to Disregard

As the various investigations around Trump continue to close in on him, his campaign to discredit and intimidate his accusers will only intensify. On Monday, he sued CNN in a Florida court, claiming that the news network had sought “to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.” In a statement, Trump said he will file additional lawsuits “against a large number of other Fake News Media Companies,” and may also “bring appropriate action against the Unselect Committee of January 6th.” Of course, Trump is famous for issuing legal vaporware, and the general counsels of the big media companies won’t be quaking in their Manolos. But for Trump, the threat of fresh lawsuits serves the dual purpose of allowing him to lash out and of further cranking up the political temperature for his followers.

We’ve long known that Trump has no compunction about inciting or praising violence, so long as he also gives himself a bit of legal deniability. The full list of examples is too long to go over, but here are some of them. During the 2016 Presidential campaign, he said he’d pay the legal fees of his supporters if they “knock the hell” out of protesters at his rallies. In 2017, he said there were “fine people on both sides” of the clashes in Charlottesville between white supremacists and counter-protesters, during which a neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd, killing a thirty-two-year-old woman. In May, 2020, during the demonstrations against the police killing of George Floyd, he offered to send the U.S. military to Minnesota and tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” On December 19, 2020, he called on his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6th, saying, “Be there, will be wild.” Last month, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host, Trump said the American people wouldn’t stand for him being indicted. When Hewitt pointed out that this statement could be interpreted as an incitement to violence, Trump replied, “That’s not inciting. I’m just saying what my opinion is.”

Sometimes, it’s tricky to separate Trump’s efforts to feed his craving for attention, including negative attention, from the malevolence of his individual communications. In his mind, these are two sides of the same coin. Long ago, he grasped that talking tough and raising the spectre of violence—on the part of individuals or the state—is an attention-grabber. In her new book about Trump, the Times reporter Maggie Haberman reminds us of his odious grandstanding after a notorious 1989 rape in Central Park, which eventually led to the wrongful conviction of five Black and Latino youths. While the police investigation was ongoing, Trump placed a full-page ad in multiple New York newspapers, in which he called for the restoration of the death penalty and the unshackling of the N.Y.P.D., and declared, “I want to hate these muggers and murderers.”

Thirty-three years on, Trump hasn’t changed much, but, because of his altered circumstances, the objects of his hate-mongering now include political rivals who dare challenge him. During his speech in Michigan on Saturday, he accused Democrats of cheating in elections “like dogs” and of “waging a full-scale assault on the most sacred rights and liberties of the American people.” He called the Biden Administration, “sick, they’re sick people,” and he falsely claimed that the F.B.I. “broke into my home in Florida in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” In case anyone in the crowd hadn’t got the message, he said all this added up to “the persecution of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.” https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-threats-of-violence-are-too-dangerous-to-disregard

Jamelle Bouie: The Supreme Court Seems Awfully Nervous About Its Own Legitimacy

Ed Kilgore: The Supreme Court Is Back and Ready to Do More Damage