Dan Froomkin: Reporters blame Biden for not uniting the country; Biden blames Trump — and Fox

Asked repeatedly on Wednesday why he has failed to unite the country, President Biden took a foray into political science and media criticism, identifying the Republican Party’s lockstep fealty to the former guy as his biggest obstacle, along with the difficulty Americans have “trying to sift their way through what’s real and what’s fake.”

From the outset, the press corps’ agenda was clear. The intent of the first two questions was to humble Biden and force him to admit error.

The first question: “Did you overpromise to the American public what you could achieve in your first year in office?”

The second: “Do you need to be more realistic and scale down these priorities in order to get something passed?”

(University of Wisconsin political scientist Mark Copelovitch tweeted: “I struggle to recall a single DC journalist asking Donald Trump ‘Do you need to be more realistic?’ at any point in four years of performative public lying & malevolent incompetence. It’s a valid question, but the fact that it is only ever asked of one party tells you everything.”)

But overall — even if you factor out the ludicrous questions from right-wing disinformation outlets — the mainstream political reporters once again seemed out of touch with the times, overly focused on getting Biden to admit he’s a failure, rather than on how we solve the many problems ahead. https://presswatchers.org/2022/01/reporters-blame-biden-for-not-uniting-the-country-biden-blames-trump-and-fox/

Paul Waldman: In Florida, Ron DeSantis is creating a paradise of authoritarianism

You may think of Donald Trump as the most committed authoritarian in the Republican Party, one who looks in admiration at foreign dictators and dreams of creating a strongman’s paradise here at home.

But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is giving him a run for his money.

In recent days, DeSantis and his allies have been particularly active, as though they’re accelerating their effort to pull Florida not just to the right but toward a particular brand of authoritarian conservatism.

The authoritarian impulse has been a hallmark of DeSantis’s tenure since the beginning. Last April, he signed an “anti-rioting” law that was one of the most sweeping attacks on the right to protest in memory. Among other things, it offers civil liability protection to those who mow down protesters with their cars, and would allow peaceful protesters to be charged with a felony if other people at a protest they attended committed an act of violence. He also signed one of the most draconian voter suppression laws in the country.

In his State of the State address earlier this month, DeSantis called Florida “the freest state in these United States,” “freedom’s vanguard” and “the rock of freedom.” Unless, that is, the freedom you’re interested in involves encouraging people to get vaccinated, protecting your employees and customers from a pandemic, teaching history honestly, voting, protesting or anything else Republicans might not want you to do.

We could argue about whether DeSantis’s authoritarianism is a truer version of conservatism than other varieties, but for now it’s what has made him the leading Republican contender for president in 2024 if Trump chooses not to run. Who knows what other policies he’ll be rolling out to solidify that position. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/19/desantis-paradise-of-authoritarianism/

Jonathan Chait: The Filibuster Is Living on Borrowed Time

The Senate filibuster to block a voting rights bill was a piece of orchestrated political theater, but Mitch McConnell has done everything within his power to give the proceedings an air of portentous finality. When Senator Kyrsten Sinema reiterated her support for the legislative filibuster, McConnell praised her courage and said she “saved the Senate as an institution.” And then when Joe Manchin joined her, he declared, “I think it’s pretty safe to say this is the biggest day in the history of the Senate because we’re dealing with a Senate as an institution.”

The history of the Senate is a pretty long time, and it’s seen some historically significant moments. McConnell would not be elevating this moment unless he was trying to magnify both the historical continuity of the current filibuster rules and make his audience believe the latest decision was permanent. In both ways, however, he is engaging in spin.

Supporters of the Senate’s current rules like to present them as handed down from the Founders. In fact, the Senate’s rules have changed repeatedly. The Founders considered and deliberately rejected a supermajority requirement. It emerged by accident and was first used after the Founders had disappeared from the scene. Originally, the filibuster was a rare tool to express especially strong disagreement (most often by Southerners against civil rights measures, which is why liberals call it a “Jim Crow relic” — only the shared understanding that Southerners needed a special tool to protect white supremacy sustained the filibuster for so long in defiance of democratic norms.)

The norm that the filibuster would be employed sparingly held through most of the Senate’s history. Only since the 1990s did it metastasize into a routine supermajority requirement. As recently as the early 1990s, legislation still passed with fewer than 60 votes.

The recent emergence of the routine 60-vote requirement has, in turn, forced the Senate to open up escape hatches. Senators of both parties eliminated the filibuster for appointing judges and confirming executive branch officials. Budget reconciliation procedure, a 50-vote method for tax and spending bills, has become the primary tool for parties to exploit unified control of government.

These rules evolved fitfully through negotiations by both parties. But McConnell did more to create them than any single person. McConnell escalated the filibuster into a routine legislative blockade and first discovered the possibility of ending the filibuster for judicial nominees (which he successfully used to force Democrats to stop filibustering judges under George W. Bush.)

Democrats are almost certain to lose their control of government in the midterm elections, and it is difficult to say when they will have their next chance. McConnell is trying to cast his victory as an eternal one, ending the debate. But nearly the entire Democratic Party has figured out that, in the long run, the filibuster hurts them more than it hurts Republicans. The next time Democrats gain control, they will do away with whatever remains of it. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/senate-filibuster-voting-rights-micconnell-sinema-manchin-democrats-reform.html

Paul Waldman: Don’t be fooled by the GOP’s next ‘Contract With America’

“I honest to god don’t know what they’re for,” President Biden said about Republicans at his Wednesday news conference. “What is their agenda?”

The truth is that if there’s one thing that unites the GOP, it’s that they hate Democrats, which isn’t much of a policy platform. But Republicans are now trying to create the impression that they have a concrete agenda to implement if they take control of the House.

As The Post reports, they’re “putting together a list of policy pledges to run on in the 2022 elections” and consulting with none other than Newt Gingrich to formulate this compelling platform.

The obvious analogue is the “Contract With America,” which Gingrich released before the first midterm election of Bill Clinton’s presidency, in which Republicans won a sweeping victory that gave them control of Congress.

But we have to understand the real history of the contract, because Republicans will endlessly repeat the myth they have since created around it.

Here’s how the myth goes: In 1994, serious-minded Republicans presented a detailed blueprint for reform. The voting public was so moved by this contract that they delivered to those Republicans an overwhelming victory and a mandate for change, which Republicans then pursued.

Here’s the truth: Most voters had never heard of the contract before the election, and almost none said that it made them more likely to vote Republican. But after the election — an undoubtedly big win, but one boosted by the GOP’s status as the opposition in a midterm — Gingrich convinced people that Republicans won because of the contract, despite the complete lack of evidence for that assertion.

The contract itself was a mix of standard Republican policies (tax cuts, welfare cuts) and reform proposals that have surface appeal but are terrible ideas (term limits, a line-item veto), with a little demagoguery thrown in (“No U.S. troops under U.N. command”). Almost none became law.

But the myth endures. And at times like this, when Republicans decide they need an agenda, it means trotting out some new version of the “Contract With America.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/20/contract-with-america/

Jeff Stein and Laura Meckler: House GOP plots policy agenda for 2022 midterm elections — with help from architect of 1994 plan

Senior House Republicans are putting together a list of policy pledges to run on in the 2022 elections, and they are consulting with the architect of one of their biggest historical midterm victories.

Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract with America” in 1994 is linked with the GOP takeover of Congress in that midterm cycle, said he has been advising House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) on a set of policy items for Republicans to take to voters ahead of the November elections. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and other members of House Republican leadership are also involved in the project, which is not expected to launch until the spring or summer.

“I don’t think they’ll call it the ‘Contract for America,’ but there is going to be some kind of very robust Republican promise list for what they will do if or when they take control of the House,” said Stephen Moore, who served as an outside economic adviser to Trump.

Among the biggest questions facing the GOP is what it will put forward on inflation, which has quickly emerged as a defining economic challenge for the White House. Republicans have blamed Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief plan for fueling rising prices. But beyond putting the brakes on spending, it is unclear exactly what the GOP wants to do to combat the price pressures. Republican officials have talked about reducing energy costs by repealing limits on fossil fuel production, despite the threat caused by climate change.

“There is nothing that messages well, significantly reduces inflation and is painless,” said Brian Riedl, who served as an aide to Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). “It’s easier to criticize inflation than to map out an actual solution going forward, and that’s the box Republicans are currently in.”

The idea of “parents’ rights” as a political strategy emerged from last year’s gubernatorial race in Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin won election in part by promising that parents would have more say in their children’s education.

McCarthy has released a “Parents Bill of Rights” that would not make big changes in education but would send some new mandates to school districts, some of which duplicate actions that are already routine or covered by existing rules and laws.

For instance, they would require that districts post curriculum and school budgets, which are typically available through public records requests, as well as lists of books in school libraries, which are less likely to be available. Parents are also to be informed that they have the right to meet with their child’s teacher twice a year, already a common practice.

The document also asserts that parents have a “right to be heard.” School boards almost uniformly allow for public comment, though some have shut meetings down because of disruptions including screaming and threats of violence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/01/20/republican-midterm-plan-education-economy/

Karen Tumulty: “What are Republicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they’re for.”

That Republicans had become completely dismissive of policy was obvious at least by 2020, when the party didn’t even bother to write a platform for its convention. The one-page document the GOP produced asserted merely that the Republican National Committee “enthusiastically supports President Trump and continues to reject the policy positions of the Obama-Biden Administration, as well as those espoused by the Democratic National Committee today.” Shorter version: We’re for whatever shifting sands Trump happens to be standing upon at the moment.

That was embarrassing for the GOP; what has happened since is dangerous. Conspiracy theories and disinformation have replaced the great philosophical debates of Republicans’ past. Their leaders view scientific imperatives, such as that people should wear masks and get vaccinated amid a pandemic, as opportunities to open new fronts in the culture wars that will stoke the anger of their base and bring that base to the polls.

Polls consistently show that a solid majority of Republicans have embraced the lie that the 2020 election — one of the most secure in history — was stolen from Trump through massive fraud. Many in their ranks have excused the behavior of the mob that attacked the Capitol in an effort to overturn the result. They have also elevated to national prominence a freakish cast of characters.

The thing is, all of this might well pay off for them this year, or seem to, thanks in part to Biden’s sagging poll numbers, to pandemic fatigue and to inflation. Democrats have also done themselves no favors by attempting to overreach the mandate they were given with their narrow majorities in Congress.

A little more than nine months before Election Day, Republicans appear to have a solid chance of taking back the House, and it’s probably even money that they will regain the Senate. But standing for nothing is not a long-term survival strategy for a party that has managed to win the popular vote in only one presidential election since 1988. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/22/what-is-republicans-agenda-power/

David Cole: The Supreme Court’s vaccine mandate ruling is the start of something far worse

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to block the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-test requirement for large private businesses will threaten the safety of hundreds of thousands of workers. But the damage it could do goes well beyond the pandemic.

The court’s 6-3 majority acknowledged that the order would save more than 6,500 lives and prevent more than 250,000 hospitalizations — but went ahead and blocked it anyway. There is probably no other court in the world that would stop its national government from taking such common-sense emergency measures to protect workers from the life-threatening risks of COVID-19. On Friday, a federal judge, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision, went still further, ruling that the president could not even require the federal government’s own employees to be vaccinated, despite a statute giving him broad authority to regulate employment policy for all federal workers.

Even more worrisome, though, is what the court’s reasoning means for our ability to address national challenges going forward. The majority stopped the order based on a wildly anachronistic vision of how the federal government should operate — one that would require Congress, rather than federal agencies, to micromanage complex problems.

That view would render the federal government incapable of addressing many of the nation’s biggest challenges — including public health, the economy and climate change. At a time when Congress is hopelessly gridlocked, the conservative majority’s framework is a recipe for disaster. https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=7d3ffc04-088c-4740-b162-6bdebc27df8e

Mark Z. Barabak: If you think 2020 chaos was bad, imagine if Trump was put in charge of elections

On Jan. 6, 2021, Arizona lawmaker Mark Finchem — a practiced peddler of nutso conspiracy theories — stood outside the U.S. Capitol and tweeted his support for the mob seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

Returning home, Finchem not only supported the supposed “audit” of Biden’s 2020 win in Arizona but also found a way to make a fast buck off the Maricopa County clown show by selling T-shirts reading “#Proveit.”

So naturally, when it came time to support a candidate to oversee future Arizona elections, Donald Trump went all-in for Finchem, who marinates in QAnon Kool-Aid when he isn’t grifting or hanging out with members of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia.

“A man who is tough and smart and loves our country, the former president said at his recent rally in the Arizona desert.

It would be funny if it weren’t so scary.” https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-01-24/trump-secretary-of-state-candidates-threaten-election-integrity