Keep him out of power or prepare for Brownshirts

Sister and Niece came over for the afternoon of Christmas Day, a pleasant visit. Sister and I got to talking about Muppets because when I was in Austin Nephew and family, as part of their tradition of setting up their Christmas tree also watch a movie, frequently the Muppet Christmas special from some time in the 1980s. Sister is of the opinion that Muppet shows prior to the death of Jim Henson in 1990 are good, those after not so much. I added the missing element of later shows appears to be charm. I was pleased that Charles Jay of the Daily Kos community posted some of the great guest appearances on Sesame Street. So I took some time to watch some of them. They included Lena Horne singing to Kermit, opera singer Marilyn Horne doing an “Aida” themed song about cookies, Billie Eilish singing with the Count, Patti Labelle singing the alphabet, Ray Charles explaining braille, and Itzhak Perlman talking about easy and hard. Once some of those played You Tube offered more suggestions, such as Sesame Street singing a Tiny Desk concert at NPR. After all that I didn’t have enough time to watch the two hour movie I was considering. So I pulled out a DVD from the first season of the original 1970s The Muppet Show. I bought it when the old bookstore Borders went out of business. I had watched only one episode. So tonight I watched two more, with guests Connie Stevens and Joel Grey. Yes, they were charming, though two at a time was plenty. Alas, this was the era of the laugh track and the laughter came way too fast after the joke. I didn’t see the movie I was planning on, but I had an enjoyable evening. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that police are investigating threats and incidents against the Colorado Supreme Court justices who ruled to remove the nasty guy from the primary ballot. Mark Sumner of Kos also mentioned the death threats against the Colorado justices. Then he reported that the nasty guy is declaring (again) that Biden is the source of all his woes. Sumner also adds more incidents where a complaint by the nasty guy has inspired threats against the people the nasty guy named. Ruling against the nasty guy in court will take a unique level of fortitude. Sumner also reported on a poll conducted by the Des Moines Register and NBC news about what Republican caucusgoers think about the nasty guy quoting Hitler. 42% say the phrase that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” makes them more likely to support him. Only 28% said the phrase made them less likely. The phrase that his enemies are “vermin” drew a 42% favorable response with only 23% made them less likely to support him. With that kind of response the nasty guy will continue to use those phrases and expand his repertoire of vile Hitler quotes. A while back I discussed the latest issue of The Atlantic that is full of articles about how bad a second nasty guy administration would be for the country and world. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed one of those, the one written by Juliette Kayyem about how the government would be changed into an institutionalized tool for violence. Kayyem was part of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama. Dartagnan also mentioned the violent threats against the Colorado justices. These threats are familiar, seen frequently when the nasty guy claims a grievance against someone. Yousef Odette of NPR says violent threats is because his followers “have been conditioned by Trump and right-wing media to exist in a near-constant state of defensiveness, bordering on paranoia.” They’ve been conditioned to believe Biden has gotten away with it again. So an attack on the nasty guy is equated to an attack on themselves. An example is the many Capitol attackers who have been sent to prison, sometimes with lengthy sentences. Because they went to prison I might be next. The big question facing the nation is whether those voting for the nasty guy are prepared for the institutional violence. For many they do support such violence because they assume it will directed at people lower in the social hierarchy and not at themselves. All violence maintains and enforces the social hierarchy. There are currently checks on violence. Some of it is legal action against violent actors, some is societal disapproval. But those checks will be reset if the nasty guy returns to the White House. Some of the institutional violence will come from the pardoned insurrectionists. Groups like the Proud Boys would be delighted to do the nasty guy’s bidding and if they go out on their own they will have his blessing. Some of the violence will be from a weaponized Department of Justice and FBI. As for the police and courts, if they don’t approve of the violence they could be overwhelmed by the number of violent incidents. Viktor Orbán of Hungary might project a “soft” fascism onto a populace still recovering from a half century of communism. But America has no history of institutional violence and its people will rightly protest and rebel against it. The country could be so riven with violence as to be ungovernable (which some fascists will see as a good thing). The choice next fall will be about decisively keeping the nasty guy out of power or preparing for Brownshirts. Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted a cartoon that is indirectly about how hard it will be to convince a good part of the populace of the nasty guy’s threat. A young boy sits on Santa’s knee and says, “You’re too old! I’m supporting the Grinch!!” In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people on their reaction to the Colorado justices banning the nasty guy from the primary ballot. First is from Lisa Needham on Public Notice who wrote that it was Justice Neil Gorsuch, back when he was on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that a naturalized citizen could be barred from the presidential ballot. The Constitution says the president must be a natural-born citizen.

The Tenth Circuit ruled against him [the hopeful candidate], with Gorsuch writing that states have “a legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process” and that because of that, they can “exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.” It’s that quote that makes its way into the Colorado Supreme Court opinion.

Bill Scher of Washington Monthly wrote that the Colorado case could help restore or destroy the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. George Conway of The Atlantic wrote how reading the text of the Colorado ruling changed his mind about the decision as he heard it in the news.

But last night changed my mind. Not because of anything the Colorado Supreme Court majority said. The three dissents were what convinced me the majority was right. The dissents were gobsmacking—for their weakness. They did not want for legal craftsmanship, but they did lack any semblance of a convincing argument.

Elie Mystal of The Nation reminds us of the text of the 14th Amendment.

It doesn’t say “convicted” of insurrection. ... It says what it says: Government officers who engage in insurrection cannot be officers of the government again.

Special Counsel Jack Smith had asked the Supreme Court the primary question facing the case of the nasty guy trying to overturn the 2020 election. Is the nasty guy immune from prosecution for actions while he was president? The Court said they won’t hear the case now – it is before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. When they’re done with it you can come back. But waiting for the lower court means the Supremes may not have time to rule before they adjourn at the end of June, which means the insurrection case could hang open until October – or well past the election. Even by June most convention delegates are chosen. Last week Sumner reported on what Elon Musk said recently. It was initially ignored because it was said at the same time that Musk said nasty things to his advertisers. The part that didn’t get reported then was Musk saying the idea of unions “creates a lords and peasants sort of thing.” Said the lord about his peasants. Sumner said it’s “the lack of unions that turn workers into peasants.” Then Sumner discussed the big advantage of being in a union. Since the 1980s and the big decline in union membership there has been a big jump in CEO compensation. Money that unions don’t demand be paid to workers gets paid to executives. If Tesla and SpaceX were unionized the workers would have participated in the wealth generated by the companies rather than most of it going to Musk. Which means he may not have become rich enough to buy Twitter and trash it. Tesla workers are trying to unionize in Sweden, supported by workers in Norway and Denmark. Musk is furious, trying to sue everyone. He’s also terrified because after the big wins by the UAW with the Big Three automakers, the UAW chiefs have signaled Tesla in the US is a target.

Musk has a right to be afraid. Because when workers unionize, the bosses of the Gilded Age lose. And the unions are coming for Elon Musk.

Yesterday I helped Sister understand Musk a bit more. To put it simply: He is from South Africa and was on the losing side when Apartheid ended and black people took over the government. An AP article reported that back in October NASA’s Psyche spacecraft blasted off to study a rare metal asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Loaded on board was a short video. Earlier this month, when 19 million miles from Earth it conducted a test of how fast a laser could transmit the video back to earth. The test transmission was a success. The test video was, naturally, a cat video. It was of the cat named Taters chasing a laser light. This article doesn’t include the video, but it is easily found online. Paul Berge posted a cartoon of the infant 2004 reading over a list of the previous year’s accomplishments. “Court ruling on sodomy and same-sex marriage ... A gay Episcopal Bishop ... Boy Meets Boy ... Chip & Reichen ... Man 2003, you were totally off the Kinsey scale!” and the departing year replies, “Girlfriend, I was queerer than all the gay ‘90s put together!”