The Coop Scoop Sept 19: The RGB War Edition

The Coop Scoop 9/19 Special Edition

If the Republicans Want War We Must Join The Battle

First of all, calm down. Getting neurotic and biting your nails does nothing. This is a moment where we need absolute clarity, reason and strategy to deal with an electoral landscape that has been hit by a monster earthquake.

The death of RBG is a gift from heaven for Donald Trump; it does alter the contours of the election but … and this is a big one… it is by no means a slam dunk that this will re-elect him.

Trumpies are celebrating their chance to complete their four-year long makeover of the federal judiciary and, of course, millions of them are gearing up to have the administration push through her replacement for the election ASAP.

I would not be so sure that Mitch McConnell, or for that matter, Donald Trump are as ready to jump the gun and ram this through in the forty-odd days before the election.

The benefit to the Trump campaign is obvious. The brewing fight over a replacement –that would push the court closer to gutting Roe V. Wade—takes the spotlight away from the Number One issue that would have dominated the final run of the campaign season: the Mass Death ensuing from Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID crisis.

Every day, every hour that the national conversation is about the Supreme Court is that much time not centered on Trump’s colossal failures and endangerment to our public health and collective sanity. What should be a referendum on Trump threatens to become one on the Supreme Court. RBG’S death is the surprise inoculation Trump needed against further dissection of his catastrophic policies on the virus. He finally has something to campaign for.

But, it’s complicated.

On the one hand, conservative voters and bible thumping anti-abortion forces take the Supreme Court more seriously as an election factor than Democratic voters. At least historically.

This time around MIGHT be a different story. Women and the suburbs have turned against Trump and the expected move by him to quickly replace Ginsburg will no doubt motivate a lot of them to hasten to the polls to oust him.

Note that in just the 12 hours after Ginsburg’s death was confirmed, more than $31 million poured into Democratic coffers. And that was without a would be an awkward fundraising campaign. The money just came in, indicating a redoubled commitment to defeating Trump. That's very good.

Also, Trump remains wildly unpopular and not trusted. An expedited rollover of congress to put another flunky on the bench right before the vote is likely to cause a deep negative reaction in public and voter opinion. If millions won’t take a vaccine because it is pushed by Trump, just how many are gonna buy this sort of naked power grab?

There are also compelling reasons why, in spite of immediate declaration of war within a few hours of RBG’s death, Mitch McConnell himself might drag out whatever process he’ll pull out of his ass to slow it down so there is no vote before November 3.

Mitch wants to maintain his Senate majority, or as much of his contingent as possible, but he’s got a handful of unreliable colleagues that he has to think about. We all know the names of the perennially “concerned” Susan Collins (now 12 points behind in her re-elect), the equally precarious Cory Gardner, the disgusted pro-impeachment Mitt Romney and the pro-choice Lisa Murkowski. There are also 3 or 4 or 5 other Republican Senators who may not be in the Red Zone for being pushed out but are definitely at risk in the Yellow. And there might even be a couple of Old Far "institutionalists" like Chuck Grassley and Lamar Alexander who might be hesitant to jump onto the Trump bulldozer,

McConnell doesn’t want to lose any the in November and forcing them to toe the line on what will be a sleazy maneuver to slide in and confirm a nominee in a few weeks or days before a national vote could have lethal consequences for them and Mitch. Some of these candidates have already taken a yawning distance from Trump in their campaign propaganda and I doubt they are seeking at the last moment to openly join a rushed push to place a Trumpie extremist on the bench.

My guess, and it’s hardly just mine, is that the administration will TRY to slow roll this maneuver to its maximum advantage. That would entail Trump naming a replacement within a week or less. And then McConnell using parliamentary moves to dangle this nominee in front of prospective voters to motivate them but to withhold the actual floor vote until the lame duck session that runs from November to January. This way the GOP’s most vulnerable Senators are shielded before the vote.

Even this more elaborate strategy is fraught with complications. If a number of Republican Senators are unseated in November, they still vote in the lame duck, but just HOW they will vote as defeated Senators with nothing to lose is not fully predictable. I assume some would still vote for Trump’s candidate but there would be no guarantees. One other factor in the mix, is that Arizona Democrat Mark Kelley is almost certain to unseat the incumbent who was appointed mid-term and, so, if Kelley wins he would be seated November 30, rather than in January, and he would be one more anti-Trump vote in the lame duck session.

The missing factor in this analysis at this point is just what should the Democrats do and what should the anti-Trump voters do?

The answer to the second question influences the answer to the first. If there was ever a moment for anti-Trump, pro-democracy voters to ACT outside the electoral channels it is right now… not some mythical date in the future.

If we are not prepared to engage in massive, peaceful civil disobedience to protest and to block the authoritarianism with which this move entails, then we forfeit the right to complain when and if we lose. You know all the reasons why counting on Republicans to sabotage themselves is a long shot bet and that means we better take some responsibility for this.

We must make it clear to both parties that we are not going to sit back and passively tolerate the jaw-dropping cynicism and hypocrisy of Mitch Mc-Turdle and Company and let them run roughshod over simple logic, decency, due process and rule of law in their zeal to outlaw abortion…and God knows what other damage an increasingly reactionary court will impose upon us.

This civic action must be prepared today and be ready to flood the streets as soon as possible. Why even wait for Trump and Mitch to make their moves? That responsibility to throw our bodies onto the machinery is doubly important if the vote comes as I expect in the lame duck. It is ten times more important if Trump loses in November and tries to confirm his choice before the January transition.

Mass mobilization becomes crucial, in addition, to pressuring the Democrats to respond the right way. Talk about long shots!

But coming from someone who has been confident in Trump’s defeat, I am willing to say that as of today the way the Democrats do or do not respond to this crisis could easily determine their fate in November.

I want to end this note with an excerpt from my friend David Corn’s essay on this topic from this morning (no link as it was an email):

“The win-over-reasonable-Republicans-with-reason strategy is weak sauce. That leaves the Democrats with one other choice: total political warfare. The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer—with the backing of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi—needs to threaten massive retaliation. Should McConnell try to ram a Trump nominee through, Schumer ought to vow that the Democrats, if they win back the Senate and Biden is elected president, will demolish the filibuster, which will allow the Senate to proceed to make Washington, DC, a state (two more senators, who are likely to be Democrats!) and that they will move to add two or four more seats to the Supreme Court. (There is nothing in the Constitution that limits the court’s size to the current nine justices.) In other words: They will implement a Republican nightmare (which, as it happens, can be justified on arguments of equity and fairness).

Schumer should utter this declaration publicly to lock the Democrats in. Of course, this could further propel Republicans to the polls. But it might do the same with Democrats. (The stakes in this election are now higher than they already were.) Crucially, there would need to be buy-in from Biden. The veteran Washington player will have to put aside his somewhat admirable (if misguided) desire to return to the older and more genteel means of legislating and compromising in the nation’s capital. But with conservative voters fired up by the dream of replacing Ginsburg with a thirtysomething right-wing firebrand, the Dems will have to counter with more than a this-isn’t-fair argument. Bring a gun to a knife fight? They will need a bazooka. Sorry if that sounds violent. But, as one sage person likes to say, we are in a fight for the nation’s soul. And sometimes you don’t get to choose the weapons or levels of intensity.”

Don’t sit on your hands and cry in your beer. Get up and fight like you have never fought before. The fate of the Republic hangs in the balance. This is no time to abstain from your civiv responsibilities. +++

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