Persuade the people, not five members of the Supreme Court

I watched the Tournament of Roses Parade today, as I almost always do on New Year’s Day. This year, as in previous years, the floats were beautiful and whimsical, the horse teams were great, and the bands were stirring. I especially enjoyed the band that danced as they played (and I wonder how they would be feeling after five miles), a Japanese band that put out some cool moves, and a big Pennsylvania band that held panoramic banners down the middle of the marchers. All quite cool. As I have for the last few years I watched the parade on the KTLA livestream. The big advantage is no commercials for the entire duration of the parade. This went smoothly two years ago. Last year the stream glitched frequently (as at least once a minute), making me wonder of my internet provider was slowing down my speed because I wasn’t working through their own TV streaming of the networks. But I suffered through it. This year the feed went smoothly for almost 40 minutes, then started glitching. I was prepared this time and quickly switched to my provider’s network feed. And, of course, endured commercials. After a while I timed it – about seven minutes of parade followed by three minutes of commercials. So I paused the network feed and went back to KTLA. Glitching there sent me back to the network. A couple more rounds of commercials later I went back to KTLA, but this time I didn’t pause the network stream, letting it run in a minimized window. Yeah, I now had twice as much internet streaming data coming to my computer. Yet, no KTLA glitching. Anyone want to explain that? Egberto Willies of the Daily Kos community discussed Rep. Jamie Raskin making the case that the nasty guy should be disqualified from the presidential primary and general ballots. While Willies included a video of Raskin speaking on CNN he didn’t include a transcript. Raskin is an authority on the Constitution, teaching constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law for over 25 years. He’s also written three books on the fragility of democracy. Raskin’s opening point is unlike age or place of birth (the Constitution requires presidential candidates to be 35 or older and native born) the restriction on not being an insurrectionist is a choice. One can choose to be an insurrectionist. Willies wrote:

Raskin’s argument gains further weight considering the broader democratic implications. As the only national office representing all Americans, the presidency demands a holder who embodies the nation’s democratic ideals. Allowing someone who has actively worked against these principles to contend for or hold this office again would not only be a disservice to the Constitution but also to the democratic ethos of the nation. Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s potential involvement in this matter underscores the urgency and complexity of ensuring the integrity of presidential qualifications. As Raskin notes, the Court’s decision could significantly impact the democratic fabric of the nation. It’s not merely a legal decision but a statement of the values and principles that define American democracy. This discourse is crucial not only for legal and political scholars but also for the general public. It serves as a reminder of each citizen’s responsibility in safeguarding democracy. ... For those who believe disqualifying the president from the ballot would create chaos, let’s be clear: the former president drew first blood. Noting that there is a distinct possibility he will lose in a popular vote landslide in 2024, it is clear that under all circumstances, he will be reactionary. As such, the country must abide by the Constitution.

Charles Jay of the Kos community noted that the nasty guy likes people being disqualified from the ballot – when it’s not himself. He led the charge to disqualify Obama, claiming Obama was foreign born. He wanted to disqualify Ted Cruz as he claimed that Cruz won the Iowa caucuses by cheating. And he repeatedly called for Hillary Clinton to be disqualified. But when there are attempts to disqualify himself he expresses his outrage, calling it – well all kinds of things. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted EJ Dionne of the Washington Post discussing the strange national mood:

If you wonder why there is so much political discontent, look no further than a year-end YouGov survey, which found that both liberals and conservatives believe the country is moving the wrong way — meaning away from their own views. Forty-four percent of liberals said U.S. politics had moved further to the right over the past decade; only 16 percent said things had moved leftward. Among conservatives, 55 percent said politics had moved to the left, while only 15 percent saw a move rightward. (Moderates, appropriately, were split about evenly.) Democratic pollster Guy Molyneux captured the mood. “Everybody thinks they’re losing,” he told me.

In another roundup Chitown Kev quoted Paul Kahn of The Hill who wrote that older generations of liberals relied on and worked with federal courts to maintain human rights, such as minority voting. But liberals haven’t done that in a while.

A younger generation on the left has known only a conservative, reactionary court. They distrust it for good reason. They have gotten little from it, even as conditions of inequality have worsened in the country. Their distrust of the Supreme Court colors their attitude toward the politics of their parents’ generation. Too much reliance on the court, they believe, resulted in only shallow victories. That which the court gave, it could take away. In a democracy, the only secure foundation for progressive reform is in the people themselves. The hard work of democratic politics, they believe, is to persuade the people, not five members of the Supreme Court.

Back at the end of November Tovia Smith of NPR reported on who decides what is age-appropriate in libraries. This is an important question in an era of people wanting to ban books.

The process of classifying books can be somewhat inconsistent. Books usually get an initial designation from authors and publishers. Then, professional book reviewers usually weigh in with their own age-bracket recommendation, and distributors and booksellers can do the same. But ultimately, local library staff make the final call about the books they buy and where they should go.

And those eager to ban want to influence that last step. Libraries respond that parents are involved because many librarians are parents. Other ideas, beyond banning, are being considered. One is to put the troublesome books in the adult section and let parents ask for library cards that restrict what a child can check out. Want to restrict what your child can read while in the library? That’s on the parent. Another proposal, being considered in Washington state, is a rating system similar to the G, PG, etc system used by movies. The problem is who gets to decide which book gets what rating, a liberal group a conservative group, or the publishers? Some say government should apply the ratings and others respond government should not legislate morality. And we’re familiar with new laws to make book banning easier. Also from the end of November Laura Clawson of Kos reported:

The story was ridiculous enough on the surface: A 20-year-old woman showed up at a Texas school board meeting and insisted that a kiss depicted in a specific children’s book had set her on the path to a pornography addiction that left her depressed and suicidal within two years, at age 13.

Clawson said that 11 year old, if tormented by a depiction of a kiss, is likely to have other factors going on. It also appears the woman wasn’t telling the whole truth. She is an employee of Brave Books, a far-right publisher attempting to be a competitor of Scholastic. So honesty isn’t one of the family values they want to teach. Even so, that particular book was another banned by the district. In early December Clawson reported:

Republicans like to rail against public schools as “government schools,” with the implication that they are sites where the government brainwashes children with liberal and “woke” ideology. Now, Florida Republicans are in court arguing that Florida public schools are their government schools and can be required to push their message—all the way down to the books in the school libraries. In response to two lawsuits against the Escambia County and Lake County school boards and, in one case, state education officials, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the two school boards are arguing, as Moody put it in her brief, that “Public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message.” According to Moody, who is representing the state, public school libraries are “a forum for government speech,” not a “forum for free expression.” The logical extension of that position is that whoever is in charge of the government gets to decide on all of the information that is not only taught in schools but available in their libraries. Republicans are of course safe in pushing this idea because while they will ban books with LGBTQ+ characters and anti-racist messages, Democratic administrations tend to leave decisions up to the professionals in the schools. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, for example, is not pushing for the removal of books with straight characters because she is herself LGBTQ+.

In mid December Nadra Nittle in an article for The 19th posted on Kos reported some good news in the book preservation front. Last June Grandparents for Truth formed. They are elders and allies mobilizing to give children “the freedom to learn.” They do the same things Moms for Liberty do – show up at school board meetings and become candidates for school board – but with a message to include people of color and LGBTQ people and with a stance against bigotry. The group is sponsored by People for the American Way, established by Norman Lear back in 1981 to counter the Moral Majority. Most of this article is an interview with Alana Byrd, PFAW’s national field director, and Marge Baker, PFAW’s executive director, about Grandparents for Truth. I’ll let you read it, though I’ll mention Byrd said her mother is a child of Holocaust survivors who frequently heard the story that book banning is how authoritarianism starts. Every year Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, MI issues an annual list of words they believe should be banished from use due to misuse, overuse, and general uselessness. Some of the words on this year’s list: Impact – overused and there is a good word that makes more sense: affect. At the end of the day – overused, “often employed as a rhetorical device that attempts to encapsulate the complexities of a situation summarily, lacking nuance and depth.” Iconic – too often used to refer to things that aren’t really iconic. Cringe-worthy – “The irony is served hot, as the very term ‘cringe-worthy’ finds itself under the spotlight. It’s like a word caught in its own cringe-worthy moment.” Side hustle – “Our contributors feel that the only hustle is the one needed to get to their second job.”