What is largely a show of farce

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that California has released its new House district map that will give it five more Democratic seats. Which Republicans would lose their seats is also identified. Singer noted the sales job by Gov. Gavin Newsom has already started. He’s stressing why it needs to be done – that Texas started a power grab. Singer also noted that Border Patrol agents were outside the museum where Newsom announced the start of the effort. Does that show the nasty is worried? Of course, California Republicans are crying foul, accusing Democrats for doing what their colleagues in Texas are doing, something California Democrats wouldn’t consider if Texas hadn’t pushed first. JulglelandDan of the Kos community wonders why California is stopping at a five seat gain. They could surely go for a seven seat, maybe even an eight seat, gain. And, get busy New York. You too Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and any other state where Democrats hold majorities in both legislative chambers plus the governor. Yeah, there are administrative hurdles and Democratic belief in independent redistricting commissions. “But this is war. And we damn well better start acting like it.” Oliver Willis of Kos notes the number of Republicans who are saying they are scared of cities (at least those with Democratic mayors) and want “Daddy” Trump to come in with federal forces to make all those scary things go away. Yeah, they’re providing cover for the nasty guy’s takeover of DC, but they certainly don’t sound like the alpha males they claim to be. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev started with a quote of Joan Walsh of The Nation discussing federal troops in DC.

Although Trump justified his moves by citing the District’s allegedly escalating crime rate—crime of every sort is actually down dramatically in Washington—for better or worse, they’re not policing any of the District’s high-crime areas, residents complain. I say it might be better, because if they descended on Anacostia or other overly policed areas, they likely would criminalize and brutalize indiscriminately. Remember, these troops haven’t been trained in urban policing (not that such training always prevents brutal behavior). But it’s also quite bizarre, if Trump’s genuine focus were crime reduction. But it’s not. It’s intimidation. Trump’s troops have mostly shown up in touristy places and lively neighborhoods, in what is largely a show of farce. They’re writing people up for public drinking, smoking weed, and broken taillights. They’ve succeeded in reducing business at bars and restaurants by almost a third compared to the same period in August 2024. So much for the pro-business GOP. […] It’s clear: The addition of 1,000 red-state National Guard troops to the 800 already in DC, all untrained in urban policing, raises the odds of a “mass casualty event,” at minimum. We used to say people who described Trumpism as “fascism” were exaggerating, though now even mainstream media regularly uses the F-word. Right now, we should be wary of talking blithely about “civil war.” But these moves on the capital by Trump and his red-state cronies seem like an acceleration of danger to democracy, meant to familiarize Americans with the sight of federal forces patrolling blue American cities, as Trump has already said is coming.

This morning NPR had a segment on the nasty guy getting ready to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail. I’m not linking to that because here are a couple quotes that say as much as NPR did, and a bit more. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo lays out what all of us should have learned in high school civics or government classes.

President Trump has a new post up on Truth Social today in which he claims that states only run elections and count ballots as agents acting at his direction as president of the United States. The key lines are “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tell them …” He claims he’s going to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail and any voting machines he doesn’t like. Put simply, this is total bulls---. The president has basically nothing to do with election administration. States run American elections. Period. Congress, within certain parameters, can make laws with standards that states must apply. But states still administer them. This is a foundational, constitutionally-mandated and structural feature of the American republic. Trump’s claims are so far from anything even remotely legal or constitutional that I doubt even the corrupted federal judiciary will have much truck with it.

Joseph Gedeon of The Guardian explains the nasty guy’s sudden pronouncement.

Donald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots. In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.” The push follows Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, when the Russian president allegedly told him that the 2020 election “was rigged because you have mail-in voting”, according to Trump’s subsequent interview with Sean Hannity. […] Mail voting has exploded in popularity – from fewer than one in 10 voters in 1996 to nearly half during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 2022, it was used by about one in three voters, according to a report by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. Supporters have long said mail ballots make voting easier for people who can’t get to polling stations – those with disabilities, parents with young kids, or workers with long shifts, while also giving voters more time to research candidates at home.…

I’ve been voting from home for several years now. It’s “by mail” though I usually have to drive to city hall to use the ballot drop box. I appreciate being able to see the actual ballot ahead of time (yeah, there are ways to see it online) and research the candidates and issues – and not have to stand in line. One thing that NPR story discussed is all the safeguards to make sure vote by mail is not corrupt. Of course, the nasty guy did not say in what ways mail voting was corrupt and did not offer evidence of that corruption. He never does. Lisa Needham of Kos says that the national debt has set a new record of $37 trillion. Yeah, not all of it accumulated under the nasty guy – previous Republican presidents back to Reagan helped. Even Joe Biden helped a little – all that pandemic and infrastructure spending, very much needed. But the nasty guy keeps promising his economic policies will, any second now, unleash massive growth leading to massive reductions in debt while economists say those policies will do just the opposite.