By Frank Bruni
Opinion Columnist
I don’t think the shudder was confined to the political class. And the day after Ginsburg died, I felt a shudder just as deep.
That was when Trump supporters descended on a polling location in Fairfax, Va., and sought to disrupt early voting there by forming a line that voters had to circumvent and chanting, “Four more years!”
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Continue reading the main story
This was no rogue group. This was no random occurrence. This was an omen — and a harrowing one at that.
Image
Trump supporters chanting, “Four more years” at those waiting to vote in Fairfax County, Va.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times
Republicans are planning to have tens of thousands of volunteers fan out to voting places in key states, ostensibly to guard against fraud but effectively to create a climate of menace. Trump has not just blessed but encouraged this. On Fox News last month, he bragged to Sean Hannity about all the “sheriffs” and “law enforcement” who would monitor the polls on his behalf. At a rally in North Carolina, he told supporters: “Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.”
Color me alarmist, but that sounds like an invitation to do more than just watch. Trump put an exclamation point on it by exhorting those supporters to vote twice, once by mail and once in person, which is of course blatantly against the law.
Is a fair fight still imaginable in America? Do rules and standards of decency still apply? For a metastasizing segment of the population, no. That’s the toxic wellspring of the dread that French mentioned. That’s the moral of the madness in Virginia.
Frank Bruni’s Newsletter: Get a more personal take on politics, newsmakers and more with Frank’s exclusive commentary every week.
Continue reading the main story
Right on cue, we commenced a fight over Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat that could become a protracted death match, with Mitch McConnell’s haste and unabashed hypocrisy potentially answered by court packing, among other acts of vengeance, if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate.
That’s a big if, because we’re also hurtling toward an Election Day that may decide exactly nothing — and I don’t mean that night. I mean for months. I mean forever.
Talk about a shudder: On Wednesday Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he lost to Joe Biden. Shockingly but then not really, he wouldn’t. He prattled anew about mail-in ballots and voter fraud and, perhaps alluding to all of the election-related lawsuits that his minions have filed, said: “There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.”
Image
The president has turbocharged partisanship to drive America into the ground.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
We’re in terrible danger. Make no mistake. This country, already uncivil, is on the precipice of being ungovernable, because its institutions are being so profoundly degraded, because its partisanship is so all-consuming, and because Trump, who rode those trends to power, is now turbocharging them to drive America into the ground. The Republican Party won’t apply the brakes.
The week since Ginsburg’s death has been the proof of that. Many of us dared to dream that a small but crucial clutch of Republican senators, putting patriotism above party, would realize that to endorse McConnell’s abandonment of his own supposed principle about election-year Supreme Court appointments would be a straw too many, a stressor too much and a guarantee of endless, boundless recrimination and retribution. At some point, someone had to be honorable and say, “Enough.”
Hah. Only two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, broke with McConnell, and in Collins’s case, there were re-election considerations and hedged wording. All the others fell into line.
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Continue reading the main story
I don’t blame it on a lack of courage. I attribute it to something worse. Most politicians — and maybe most Americans — now look across the political divide and see a band of crooks who will pick your pocket if you’re meek and dumb enough not to pick theirs first. The person who leaves his or her wallet out in the open, as a gesture of good will, can’t complain when he or she winds up broke.
“It’s the Wild West,” said a Republican strategist who is no fan of Trump’s but was using that metaphor to defend McConnell to me. I had reached out to the strategist to vent my disgust.
Image
Would a handful of Republicans push back against McConnell? Hah. Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
“It’s all about situational power dynamics,” he continued. “If the situation were reversed, the Dems would be doing the same thing.” He argued that Chuck Schumer and McConnell “play the same game. McConnell just plays it a little better.”
So the lesson for Democrats should be to take all they can when they can? That’s what some prominent Democrats now propose: As soon as their party is in charge, add enough seats to the Supreme Court to give Democrats the greater imprint on it. Make the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states, so that Democrats have much better odds of controlling the Senate. Do away with the filibuster entirely. That could be just the start of the list.
I wouldn’t begrudge the Democrats any of it. The way I’m feeling right now, I’d cheer them on. But Republicans reach back to Harry Reid’s actions when he was the Democratic majority leader of the Senate to justify their wickedness now. Democrats will cite that wickedness to justify the shattering of precedents in the future. Ugliness begets ugliness until — what? The whole thing collapses of its own ugly weight?
And who the hell are we anymore? The world’s richest and most powerful country has been brought pitifully and agonizingly low. On Tuesday we passed the mark of 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, cementing our status as the global leader, by far, on that front. How’s that for exceptionalism?
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Continue reading the main story
Image
Flags honoring the 200,000 victims of the coronavirus at the Washington Monument.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
On Wednesday The Atlantic rushed its November cover story onto the web with an explanatory, almost apocalyptic note by its editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, that some journalism is too important to wait. The article is about the very real chance — essentially confirmed hours later by Trump’s “continuation” comment — that he might contest the election in a manner that keeps him in power regardless of what Americans really want.
“The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery,” the article’s author, Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer winner, wrote. “The mechanisms of decision are at meaningful risk of breaking down. Close students of election law and procedure are warning that conditions are ripe for a constitutional crisis that would leave the nation without an authoritative result. We have no fail-safe against that calamity.”
Just a few days before those words screeched across the internet, The New Yorker published a similar, equally chilling opus by one of its star writers, Jeffrey Toobin, who explained how this election might well degenerate into violence, as Democratic poll watchers clash with Republican poll watchers, and into chaos, as accusations of foul play delay the certification of state vote counts.
Several hours after Gellman’s article appeared, Slate published one by Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of California-Irvine School of Law, with the headline: “I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now.”
More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Opinion Columnist
- Sept. 25, 2020
I don’t think the shudder was confined to the political class. And the day after Ginsburg died, I felt a shudder just as deep.
That was when Trump supporters descended on a polling location in Fairfax, Va., and sought to disrupt early voting there by forming a line that voters had to circumvent and chanting, “Four more years!”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
This was no rogue group. This was no random occurrence. This was an omen — and a harrowing one at that.
Image
Trump supporters chanting, “Four more years” at those waiting to vote in Fairfax County, Va.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times
Republicans are planning to have tens of thousands of volunteers fan out to voting places in key states, ostensibly to guard against fraud but effectively to create a climate of menace. Trump has not just blessed but encouraged this. On Fox News last month, he bragged to Sean Hannity about all the “sheriffs” and “law enforcement” who would monitor the polls on his behalf. At a rally in North Carolina, he told supporters: “Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.”
Color me alarmist, but that sounds like an invitation to do more than just watch. Trump put an exclamation point on it by exhorting those supporters to vote twice, once by mail and once in person, which is of course blatantly against the law.
Is a fair fight still imaginable in America? Do rules and standards of decency still apply? For a metastasizing segment of the population, no. That’s the toxic wellspring of the dread that French mentioned. That’s the moral of the madness in Virginia.
Frank Bruni’s Newsletter: Get a more personal take on politics, newsmakers and more with Frank’s exclusive commentary every week.
Continue reading the main story
Right on cue, we commenced a fight over Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat that could become a protracted death match, with Mitch McConnell’s haste and unabashed hypocrisy potentially answered by court packing, among other acts of vengeance, if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate.
That’s a big if, because we’re also hurtling toward an Election Day that may decide exactly nothing — and I don’t mean that night. I mean for months. I mean forever.
Talk about a shudder: On Wednesday Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he lost to Joe Biden. Shockingly but then not really, he wouldn’t. He prattled anew about mail-in ballots and voter fraud and, perhaps alluding to all of the election-related lawsuits that his minions have filed, said: “There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.”
Image
The president has turbocharged partisanship to drive America into the ground.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
We’re in terrible danger. Make no mistake. This country, already uncivil, is on the precipice of being ungovernable, because its institutions are being so profoundly degraded, because its partisanship is so all-consuming, and because Trump, who rode those trends to power, is now turbocharging them to drive America into the ground. The Republican Party won’t apply the brakes.
The week since Ginsburg’s death has been the proof of that. Many of us dared to dream that a small but crucial clutch of Republican senators, putting patriotism above party, would realize that to endorse McConnell’s abandonment of his own supposed principle about election-year Supreme Court appointments would be a straw too many, a stressor too much and a guarantee of endless, boundless recrimination and retribution. At some point, someone had to be honorable and say, “Enough.”
Hah. Only two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, broke with McConnell, and in Collins’s case, there were re-election considerations and hedged wording. All the others fell into line.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
I don’t blame it on a lack of courage. I attribute it to something worse. Most politicians — and maybe most Americans — now look across the political divide and see a band of crooks who will pick your pocket if you’re meek and dumb enough not to pick theirs first. The person who leaves his or her wallet out in the open, as a gesture of good will, can’t complain when he or she winds up broke.
“It’s the Wild West,” said a Republican strategist who is no fan of Trump’s but was using that metaphor to defend McConnell to me. I had reached out to the strategist to vent my disgust.
Image
Would a handful of Republicans push back against McConnell? Hah. Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
“It’s all about situational power dynamics,” he continued. “If the situation were reversed, the Dems would be doing the same thing.” He argued that Chuck Schumer and McConnell “play the same game. McConnell just plays it a little better.”
So the lesson for Democrats should be to take all they can when they can? That’s what some prominent Democrats now propose: As soon as their party is in charge, add enough seats to the Supreme Court to give Democrats the greater imprint on it. Make the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states, so that Democrats have much better odds of controlling the Senate. Do away with the filibuster entirely. That could be just the start of the list.
I wouldn’t begrudge the Democrats any of it. The way I’m feeling right now, I’d cheer them on. But Republicans reach back to Harry Reid’s actions when he was the Democratic majority leader of the Senate to justify their wickedness now. Democrats will cite that wickedness to justify the shattering of precedents in the future. Ugliness begets ugliness until — what? The whole thing collapses of its own ugly weight?
And who the hell are we anymore? The world’s richest and most powerful country has been brought pitifully and agonizingly low. On Tuesday we passed the mark of 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, cementing our status as the global leader, by far, on that front. How’s that for exceptionalism?
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Image
Flags honoring the 200,000 victims of the coronavirus at the Washington Monument.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
On Wednesday The Atlantic rushed its November cover story onto the web with an explanatory, almost apocalyptic note by its editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, that some journalism is too important to wait. The article is about the very real chance — essentially confirmed hours later by Trump’s “continuation” comment — that he might contest the election in a manner that keeps him in power regardless of what Americans really want.
“The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery,” the article’s author, Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer winner, wrote. “The mechanisms of decision are at meaningful risk of breaking down. Close students of election law and procedure are warning that conditions are ripe for a constitutional crisis that would leave the nation without an authoritative result. We have no fail-safe against that calamity.”
Just a few days before those words screeched across the internet, The New Yorker published a similar, equally chilling opus by one of its star writers, Jeffrey Toobin, who explained how this election might well degenerate into violence, as Democratic poll watchers clash with Republican poll watchers, and into chaos, as accusations of foul play delay the certification of state vote counts.
Several hours after Gellman’s article appeared, Slate published one by Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of California-Irvine School of Law, with the headline: “I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now.”
More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
