Susan B. Glasser: “Debt-Limit Terror” Is No Way to Run a Superpower

What can you say about a week in American politics when the major breakthrough was that the two parties agreed to stop talking about talking, in order to actually start talking? In Washington, where, for months, President Biden and congressional Republicans have been hurtling toward a confrontation over the G.O.P.’s refusal to raise the debt ceiling without major concessions from Democrats on federal spending and the beginning of formal negotiations aimed at averting a disastrous government default counted as big news. For the rest of the world, it was merely a sign of the capital’s extreme dysfunction, and a reminder that America’s messed-up politics constitutes a geopolitical crisis as well as a domestic one.

One of the problems is that we’ve been here before, in 2011 and 2013, when, just like today, a Democrat was in the White House and Republicans controlled the House. The script is all too familiar: there were dire warnings, talks about talking, and then frantic last-minute negotiations. Each time, a default was averted, but only barely. (In 2011, a deal was reached two days before the predicted date of default, after financial markets went crazy and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history.) Few observers believe a default will happen this time, either. Which makes the present crisis a very artificial one indeed, manufactured by Republicans who now see a ritual act of economic self-sabotage as a surefire way to extract concessions that they could not otherwise secure.

The unravelling of a superpower’s credibility does not happen in an instant but over time and as a result of repeated crises. That the crises plaguing Washington are often self-inflicted has not made them any less damaging. Biden is right to fly back to his embattled capital. The greatest threat to the international order is right here. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/debt-limit-terror-is-no-way-to-run-a-superpower
 

Luke Broadwater and Adam Goldman: G.O.P. Witnesses, Paid by Trump Ally, Embraced Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theories

House Republicans have spent months promising to use their majority to uncover an insidious bias against conservatives on the part of the federal government, vowing to produce a roster of brave whistle-blowers who would come forward to provide damning evidence of abuses aimed at the right.

But the first three witnesses to testify privately before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the panel who have listened to their accounts. Instead, the trio appears to be a group of aggrieved former F.B.I. officials who have trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories, including about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, and received financial support from a top ally of former President Donald J. Trump.

The roster of witnesses, whose interviews and statements are detailed in a 316-page report compiled by Democrats that was obtained by The New York Times, suggests that Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the panel, has so far relied on people who do not meet the definition of a whistle-blower and who have engaged in partisan conduct that calls into question their credibility. And it raises questions about whether Republicans, who have said that investigating the Biden administration is a top goal, will be able to deliver on their ambitious plans to uncover misdeeds at the highest levels.

“Each endorses an alarming series of conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the Covid vaccine, and the validity of the 2020 election,” Democrats wrote in the heavily footnoted report, which cites scores of statements made by the witnesses. “One has called repeatedly for the dismantling of the F.B.I. Another suggested that it would be better for Americans to die than to have any kind of domestic intelligence program.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/us/politics/house-weaponization-committee-jan-6.html

Dennis Aftergut: Why Trump Wants U.S. to Default on Debt

You don’t need to be a stable genius to know that a bad economy typically hurts the incumbent in a presidential race. And Trump is desperate to get the immunity from prosecution that being elected president would provide him. He’s terrified of what’s coming from Special Counsel Jack Smith. So he’ll apparently nuke the world economy to protect himself.

His MAGA minions in the House of Representatives also understand that voters’ first instinct for an economic crisis is to blame the incumbent president. But just in case that point was missed by the few GOP representatives who still worry a bit about what’s best for the country, Trump’s Truth Social post on Friday was sending them a message. He might as well have written, “I’ll come after you if you vote to raise the debt ceiling.” https://www.thebulwark.com/why-trump-wants-u-s-to-default-on-debt/
 

Ezra Klein: Liberals Are Persuading Themselves of a Debt Ceiling Plan That Won’t Work

If the administration declares the debt ceiling unconstitutional, only to have the Supreme Court declare the maneuver unconstitutional, then Biden owns the market chaos that would follow. Who will voters blame in that scenario? Republicans, who say they just wanted to negotiate over the budget, as is tradition? Or Biden, who did something no other president had done and failed?

Right now, at last, the positions are clear. The White House is open to budget negotiations but opposed to debt ceiling brinkmanship. Republicans are the ones threatening default if their demands are not met. They are pulling the pin on this grenade, in full view of the American people. Biden should think carefully before taking the risk of snatching it out of their hands and holding it himself. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/21/opinion/biden-mccarthy-debt-ceiling.html

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The poor are being held hostage in the debt ceiling standoff

The moment negotiations over the debt ceiling with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy started, it was obvious President Biden would have to give in to Republican demands for some spending cuts. The question now is how big they’ll be and how long they’ll last.

Here’s what must not happen: Our country’s least advantaged citizens should not be forced to pay the largest price to prevent an economic catastrophe. Making the poor poorer should never happen; it certainly shouldn’t happen on a Democratic president’s watch.

That issue is at the heart of this needless and destructive battle. House Republicans decided to hold the economy hostage to slash assistance for low-income Americans while protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.

That’s a factual statement, not a partisan complaint.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) is not only refusing to put any of the Trump-era tax cuts for the best-off and corporations on the table; he also wants to make them permanent, adding $3.5 trillion to the deficit over a decade. So much for “deficit reduction” as the central purpose of this exercise.

Meanwhile, the GOP’s desire to concentrate cuts on what is blandly called “domestic discretionary spending” would force the heaviest reductions on programs that help the least well-off, such as Head Start and assistance for food, child care and housing. Republicans mercifully say they want to protect veterans’ programs, but that only forces deeper reductions elsewhere.

A revealing example: The House appropriations bill for agriculture released last week guts the 2021 pandemic-era increase to benefits for fruits and vegetables under the Women, Infants and Children program, which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reported affect “nearly 1.5 million pregnant, postpartum, or breastfeeding participants and roughly 3.5 million children aged 1 through 4.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/21/debt-ceiling-negotiations-biden-mccarthy-poor/
 

Robert Reich: The Republican Party becomes the Christian Nationalist Party

An important aspect of the anti-democracy movement in America deserves attention. The wall separating church and state is getting hit with a Republican battering ram.

Idaho and Kentucky have signed into law measures allowing teachers and public school employees to pray in front of and with students while on duty.

Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers are falling over themselves to pass book bans, abortion prohibitions, and anti-trans laws — and justify them with scripture.

“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes,” Florida governor (and soon-to-be-announced Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis said at the Christian Hillsdale College — substituting “left’s schemes” for the “devil’s schemes” of Ephesians 6:11. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-the-republican-party
 

Amy Davidson Sorkin: Guns, Trump, and the G.O.P.

Some visions of how to live well in America are inextricably linked to owning a gun. Donald Trump certainly took that view recently, in a CNN town hall at Saint Anselm College, in New Hampshire, before an audience of Republicans and independents. Indeed, he presented guns as necessary for survival in a dark and violent landscape. “Remember, we have seven hundred million guns—seven hundred million. Many people, if they don’t have a gun, they’re not going to be very safe,” he said. “Many of them would not be alive today.” He condemned Chicago and New York for having tight gun restrictions, praised Brazil for loosening its laws, and called for arming teachers, many of whom, he claimed, are “soldiers, ex-soldiers, ex-policemen” who “really understand weapons.”

The internal dynamics of the G.O.P. appear to be pushing Presidential contenders to increasingly extreme positions. Not that most of them need much prodding on guns: former Vice-President Mike Pence, who has indicated that he is considering running, has long been something of a Second Amendment fundamentalist. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and a declared candidate, recently said that focussing on guns as a means to reduce gun violence was “lazy.” And, as the town hall demonstrated, even Trump is not exempt from the pressure. The Bruen decision is part of his legacy—he appointed three of the six Justices who signed the majority opinion. From the perspective of Republican activists, expanding on that victory is now his task, or that of whoever else wants to be President. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/guns-trump-and-the-gop

Bess Levin: Rudy Giuliani Accused of Being a Rapist, Racist, and Really Bad Lawyer

Of all the people who have worked for Donald Trump over the past several years, the one most commonly viewed as a complete joke is former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. That designation probably has to do with, among other things, the fact that he accidentally wed his second cousin (and was married to her for 14 years); showed up in a scene from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan with his hand down his pants; mistakenly held a press conference outside of Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons hotel; held a press conference with what appeared to be hair dye dripping down his face; had his law license suspended in New York and DC for election-fraud lies; made the decision to shave in the middle of an airport restaurant; and did a stint on The Masked Singer. But according to the allegations in a new lawsuit, he’s also a horrifying monster who regularly raped one of his employees, among other disgusting behavior.

In a 70-page complaint filed in New York state court late Monday, Noelle Dunphy, who worked for Giuliani as his director of business development, accused the mayor turned Trump attorney of a shocking number of unspeakable acts, all of which she laid out in graphic, stomach-churning detail. One of them was allegedly nonstop sexual abuse, including rape. According to the complaint, “Giuliani began abusing Ms. Dunphy almost immediately after she started working” for him and “made clear that satisfying his sexual demands—which came virtually anytime, anywhere—was an absolute requirement of her employment and of his legal representation.”

Taken together, Dunphy has accused the former mayor of, among other things, rape, “crimes of violence” and “crimes of violence motivated by gender,” battery, assault, gender discrimination, sexual assault, retaliatory discharge, and wage theft   https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/rudy-giuliani-noelle-dunphy-lawsuit

Eliot A. Cohen: It’s Not Enough for Ukraine to Win. Russia Has to Lose

Russia’s theories of victory in Ukraine have collapsed one by one. Putin began by believing that the country would fall in a week; then that it would succumb to a month or two of hard fighting; then that Europe would abandon it during a cold winter without Russian gas; then that Ukraine could be bludgeoned into submission by attacking its cities. The final theory of victory—that the West does not have the heart to pour vast resources into Ukraine indefinitely—needs to be disproved as well, because there is nothing beyond that.

To that end, with the utmost urgency, the West should give everything that Ukraine could possibly use, including long-range missiles to break for good the 11-mile Kerch bridge between the mainland and Crimea, and cluster munitions to devastate Russian fighting vehicles and infantry. Breaking the Russian army, as we have, by spending only a small fraction of our defense budget and none of our blood is an astounding strategic bargain.

Russians must, moreover, conclude that Ukraine—formerly, in their view, a pseudo-state containing “cousins” or “little brothers”—is gone forever. That means speedy accession to the EU and NATO, but also a deep Western commitment to rebuilding Ukraine economically and, most important, arming it to the teeth for years to come.

The key to this strategy is courage. We must conquer our fears of Russian threats and escalation, of its nuclear bravado, and even of Russian collapse. We must be strategic and shrewd, but nothing can be accomplished without courage. In the words of John Paul II—the unarmed, lone old man who did so much to bring Soviet communism to its knees—“Never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/ukraine-victory-russia-defeat/674112/

Ramesh Ponnuru: Ron DeSantis can’t rely on an electability argument to win

The critique that DeSantis is making of Trump — that he would lose in November 2024 — might be popular among the governor’s supporters, but it would probably fall flat among the Republican voters he needs to persuade to win.

For one thing, Trump has defied such predictions before. He was written off as a joke candidate in the Republican primaries when he entered the presidential race in 2015. When he won the nomination, it was assumed that Hillary Clinton would handily defeat him. (I’m among those who said he wouldn’t win either time.) Then he won against her, too.

To convince Republican voters that Trump is a loser would thus require getting them to believe that the same argument everyone made back then and saw blow up in their faces is right this time. For many conservatives, Trump’s 2016 victory reinforced the idea that ‘electability’ is a ploy used by the media and squishy Republicans to discredit candidates who are willing to fight for them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/18/desantis-campaign-announcement-trump-electability/

Julia Azari: Trump’s Dominance in the GOP Isn’t What It Seems

As he embarks on a third presidential bid Trump is focused on grievance, not policy. His main vow is to impose vengeance on his — and by extension the MAGA movement’s — enemies. This approach violates much of what political scientists have come to expect from politicians: that they’ll seek to build broad coalitions in pursuit of electoral advantage. Turning away from that strategy is one of the most striking features of Trump-style Republicanism.

Movements, like parties, have historically had a complicated relationship with presidents. They can be useful sources of political support and energy. Republicans, in particular, have relied on the groups associated with the Christian conservative movement for four decades. At the same time, politicians sometimes prefer to keep a safe distance from the most extreme elements of a social movement. Reagan avoided directly addressing the March for Life in person in 1981, at the advice of aides who were concerned that too much emphasis on social issues would be divisive. On the left, politicians have endeavored to ally with environmentalists and civil rights activists without endorsing all of their tactics and messages.

More than other Republican politicians, Trump has encouraged relationships with violent far-right forces like the Proud Boys (“Stand back and stand by”), alongside more traditional activists like evangelicals and gun owners. Some of these groups are important to the Republican Party, providing them with campaign resources, communicating the party message and rallying the faithful — sometimes literally. But they’re not the party, exactly. And this helps to explain why Trump’s influence in the GOP has been so strong, yet has consistently put elected leaders in the position of having to defend and explain things they don’t want to defend and explain, from Charlottesville to Jan. 6. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/18/donald-trump-paradox-gop-00097458

Jonathan Cowan, Rahna Epting and Patrick Gaspard: This plan for a third-party presidential bid in 2024 is dangerous

Our country is staring down a series of once-in-a-generation threats that strike at the heart of American democracy — corruption on our nation’s highest court, fundamental rights tested at the ballot box and, of course, the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt. Yet instead of responding to these attacks with clear-eyed determination to protect our country, the organization known as No Labels is spearheading an effort to put a third-party ticket on the ballot in every state.

No Labels is offering an illusion, not a choice. At a time when our nation is being tested, this organization could help defeat a mainstream president and elect or reelect a radical and vindictive MAGA Republican. For the sake of our country, leaders across the political spectrum should call on No Labels to stand down. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/04/no-labels-third-party-bid-dangerous/

Jennifer Rubin: Ron DeSantis’s big idea: Make Florida students ignorant

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who earned two Ivy League degrees, has apparently decided that making Florida schools and universities the laughingstock of the country is good politics. The Republican already went after public school teachers with his “don’t say gay” bill, championed an effort to prevent instruction about history that might upset students (make that White students), and banned Advanced Placement classes in African American studies. Now, he has decided to shred the curriculums of Florida’s public universities, inviting students interested in unapproved subjects to go to California (!) or other states that don’t control what can and cannot be taught.

This week, he signed a bill banning state spending on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in public universities. The Post reported: “These programs often assist colleges in increasing student and faculty diversity, which can apply to race and ethnicity, as well as sexual orientation, religion and socioeconomic status.”

Worse: “The law also forbids public colleges from offering general education courses — which are part of the required curriculum for all college students — that ‘distort significant historical events,’ teach ‘identity politics’ or are ‘based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.’”

Who decides what “distorts”? How can the state prohibit instruction about, say, the consequences of Jim Crow in a U.S. history survey class? Well, that’s up to the regime DeSantis has installed. We now see the full extent of the governor’s authoritarian impulse to control independent sources of information and to eviscerate professional standards that provide the basis for challenging state action and abuse of power. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/18/desantis-authoritarian-ignorant/