The GOP’s Dictator Fetish
Plus: Threatening James Lankford.
Waiting for SCOTUS.
As I’ve said, the high court should invoke the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition of insurrectionists and bring the Trump Nightmare to an end, but it won’t. Not this Court.
John Roberts does not get out of bed every morning and think to himself: “The One thing I really really want now is to have my own Bush v. Gore case.” What he really wants today is to be out of town.
But the great thing about being a Supreme Court justice — even an originalist/textualist/Federalist Society justice — is that you don’t actually need to find bulletproof legal arguments to avoid political quagmires — you can simply conjure off-ramps out of your judicial imagination. No one can torture logic like the men and women in black.
So, hold your irrational exuberance in check.
But do not let the high drama at the Supreme Court distract you from this week’s main event: the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ categorical, airtight, and definitive rejection of Trump’s royal pretensions to absolute immunity.
L'État, c’est moi, Trump insisted.1 Nope, said the judges, you’re just a chump like the rest of us.
Happy Thursday.
Republicans have a thing for dictators.
I think we can safely say that this is the Headline of the Day:
This is not a drill.
The new University of Massachusetts–Amherst poll conducted with YouGov finds that “a startling 39 percent of Americans, including 74 percent of Republicans, think it’s a decent idea for Donald Trump to act as a dictator for a day to begin his prospective second term, according to a University of Massachusetts Amherst survey released Wednesday.”
The UMass Amherst poll posed the following questions to 1,064 respondents: “Donald Trump recently said that if elected, he would be a dictator only on the first day of his second term.” It then asked, “Do you think that this is a good or bad idea for the country?”
Only 44 percent of adults completely rebelled at the notion of giving the former president — who is currently facing 91 felony charges — dictatorial authority, calling it “definitely bad” for America. Another 16 percent judged that it was “probably bad.” Those most opposed were women (67 percent), African Americans (82 percent), and 2020 Biden supporters (91 percent).
A full 15 percent of those surveyed responded that making Trump dictator for a day was “definitely good” for the country, while another 24 percent said it was “probably good.”
And the rioters who attacked the Capitol, and beat police officers?
The UMass Amherst poll also delivered several other eye-popping findings relating to the fallout from the 2020 election — including that 40 percent of the nation believes that Americans convicted of crimes for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol are “probably” or “definitely” deserving of a pardon.
But there is also some good — or at least less crazy — news in the poll as well.
“A striking 58% of Americans believe that Trump is probably or definitely guilty of illegally attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,” Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, notes from the poll’s findings.
“More than half of Americans think that Trump is guilty of crimes relating to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but only 41% want Trump to be removed from their state’s presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment. So, what’s going on? It’s likely that some Americans believe that rather than being removed by the courts or election administrators, Trump should be repudiated by the people through elections. It’s also quite possible that some Americans fear that trying to remove Trump from the ballot will turn him into a political martyr, inflaming his supporters and increasing his political influence.”
Tom Nichols: Citizen Trump
On Wednesday’s podcast: The DC Circuit rejects Trump’s lunatic immunity theory. Plus, the GOP’s failure theater, the fate of Ukraine, the fall of Ronna, and Tucker’s suck up to Putin. Tom Nichols joins me for one last airing of grievances.
You can listen to the whole thing here. Or watch us on YouTube.
Programming note: Today’s edition of the TrumpTrials with Ben Wittes may be out a little late today, because are waiting for the SCOTUS oral argument on the Fourteenth Amendment to finish before recording.
Also: Friday’s podcast (my last) will feature a special cameo appearance by one of my colleagues, who will talk about the future — and a final farewell with my good friend David French.
James Lankford and His Bullies
ICYMI, the conservative Republican senator from Oklahoma gave a remarkable speech on the senate floor yesterday that probably deserves a mention in an updated version of How the Right Lost Its Mind.
Lankford… revealed that an unnamed conservative commentator threatened to “destroy” him if he helped solve the border crisis amid the 2024 presidential election.
“I had a popular commentator four weeks ago that I talked to you, that told me flat out, before they knew any of the contents of the bill, any of the content,” said Lankford. “Nothing was out at that point. That told me flat out, ‘If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.'”
“By the way, they have been faithful to their promise and have done everything they can to destroy me in the past several weeks,” the lawmaker added.
The thug who threatened the senator?
Me ! Me! Me! excitedly declared a somewhat obscure professional mediocrity named Jesse Kelly. “Conservative Personality Takes Credit For Threatening To ‘Destroy’ Republican Senator.”
Kelly clearly relished his moment in the deplorable spotlight, while providing the rest of us with a full-throated exposition of the ethos that now dominates and drives the GOP:
"It's important for Senator Lankford have his entire professional life destroyed," Kelly said.
"And you know why it is important? It's not just because of the unending amount of malice I have in my heart towards cowardice like that. It's important that the other GOP Senators see Lankford destroyed.
They must look at what happens when you betray us like this, and they must be afraid of us. So, Oklahoma, it's time to giddy up. It's time to get a real primary going.
It's time to run James Lankford out of GOP politics so every other flat in the front Senator like him looks on in horror as his career goes down the tubes and worries for themselves. It is time to come for James Lankford. Senator, now it's on."
BONUS: The Wall Street Journal editorial board is unhappy. “The Self-Sabotaging GOP: After killing the border bill, will Trump also kill aid to Ukraine?”
Quick Hits
1. Tucker Carlson’s Fatal Attraction
Must-read by Mona Charen in The Bulwark:
Tucker Carlson is not a useful idiot. Not precisely. The term implies naïveté, but he seems to know exactly what he’s doing. He claims to be in Moscow to interview Putin because the rest of the press refuses to do so. In fact, Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, was just one of many who have pointed out that major press organizations have repeatedly requested interviews and been rebuffed. Peskov explained that Carlson had been approved because “he has a position that differs from the rest of [Western media].” Yes, supine.
For the past several years, Carlson’s project has been consonant with Putin’s. Both seek to sow division in the United States. Both seek to flood the zone with s— so that people won’t know what to believe or whom to trust. Both seek to undermine confidence in institutions. Both seek to subvert confidence in democratic systems—most especially in elections. And both seek to stoke feelings of persecution and existential danger in their followers.
2. What Alina Habba Is Really Good at
Will Saletan in today’s Bulwark:
Most lawyers try to protect their clients by avoiding fights they don’t have to get into. Habba, by contrast, throws herself into politics. She parrots Trump’s buzzwords: “rigged” courts, “witch hunts,” the “Russia Hoax,” the “Box Hoax,” “Impeachment Hoax One,” “Impeachment Hoax Two,” “left-wing woke liberals,” “Sleepy Joe,” and the “Biden crime family.” She prods conservatives to “get out there and vote” in 2024. “Your borders are going to hell,” she tells them. “Our country is a mess.”
When Trump gets indicted or loses in court, Habba brags that these setbacks will help him politically. She routinely brings up polls. “Every time they try and take him down, his base grows stronger,” she asserted last year. After Trump lost the fraud ruling last fall, Habba stood in front of the courthouse and boasted that he was “leading in the polls, the more they hit him. So keep hitting him.”
No sensible lawyer would invite the government to pursue her client. But Habba isn’t just Trump’s lawyer. She’s also the general counsel to Trump’s Save America PAC, and she’s a senior adviser to the Trump-aligned Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC. In these roles, she thinks about politics and money.
In October 2022, two weeks before the midterm elections, Habba appeared on Newsmax as the spokesperson for MAGA Inc. She was asked why that super PAC, compared to other conservative PACs, had spent relatively little on ads for Republican candidates. Habba replied that MAGA Inc. was supplying something more important: “Donald Trump, who’s leading in the polls for the GOP.” She said Trump was juicing turnout by holding rallies. That, she argued, was “where the value is.”
Cheap Shots
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I jest of course, because Trump clearly does not speak any language but his native tongue, which is a variant of the dialect known as Queens Bullshit. (This is why you’re going to miss me.)
The problem with the University of Massachusetts - Amherst poll is that "dictator for a day" is neither a real world possibility nor a likelihood for anyone in a position to be that person. Legally or otherwise, if one can be a dictator for a day, he or she can be dictator for two. Or three. Or for a week. Or for a month. Or for a year. Or for life. The slippery slope of "dictator for a day" is too obvious to miss for anyone who actually thinks about it and is as impossible for an aspiring tyrant to give up as it is to eat just one tasty potato chip out of the entire just-opened bag of them. As if it actually needs to be said: best not to start down that road in the first place.
Lankford (and romney-mcdaniel, and others) being threatened is an example of what I can't understand about any of the toadies, whatever the degree. This is the problem of fascism. Lacking any real policy beliefs short of being in power, the ruling party can turn on anyone any time for any reason. So you dopes in the 'donor class' (i hate that phrase) you have to know that someday they can come for you. and you may not even know why.
It's why we need to preserve the rule of law, even when we don't like the results all the time