Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Bidenomics Is as American as Apple Pie

Big spending on infrastructure goes back to the Erie Canal.

House Democrats are hoping to pass President Biden’s infrastructure bill by July 4, because of course they are. The Biden team is making a point of wrapping its economic initiatives firmly in the flag. First came the American Rescue Plan; now we have the American Jobs Plan paid for by the Made in America Tax Plan.

And why not? Trumpism was, in part, about the appeal of economic nationalism, so it makes sense to try to snatch away that appeal on behalf of good policy. It’s also a pre-emptive defense against the inevitable Republican attacks; Donald Trump, who still exists, has already denounced Biden’s plan to raise corporate taxes as a “classic globalist betrayal.” No, he isn’t making sense.

There is, however, more going on here than marketing. Bidenomics consists, roughly speaking, of large-scale public investment paid for with highly progressive taxation. And both of these things are as American as apple pie. [..]

House Democrats are hoping to pass President Biden’s infrastructure bill by July 4, because of course they are. The Biden team is making a point of wrapping its economic initiatives firmly in the flag. First came the American Rescue Plan; now we have the American Jobs Plan paid for by the Made in America Tax Plan.

And why not? Trumpism was, in part, about the appeal of economic nationalism, so it makes sense to try to snatch away that appeal on behalf of good policy. It’s also a pre-emptive defense against the inevitable Republican attacks; Donald Trump, who still exists, has already denounced Biden’s plan to raise corporate taxes as a “classic globalist betrayal.” No, he isn’t making sense.

There is, however, more going on here than marketing. Bidenomics consists, roughly speaking, of large-scale public investment paid for with highly progressive taxation. And both of these things are as American as apple pie.

Eugene Robinson: Kneeling on George Floyd’s neck sent a message to everyone who saw it

A knee on the neck says who has power and who doesn’t deserve protection

Evidence presented this week in Derek Chauvin’s trial on charges that he murdered George Floyd showed a national audience how the former Minneapolis police officer saw his alleged victim: as a dangerous, “sizable” Black man who had to be controlled, subdued and forced to submit. The message Chauvin sent with his actions wasn’t intended for Floyd alone, and it’s one Black Americans have heard for centuries.

Chauvin didn’t see Floyd as a citizen suspected of a minor, nonviolent crime or as the gentle “mama’s boy” Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, described. To Chauvin and the other officers, Floyd was guilty from the start — guilty of inhabiting an imposing Black male body, a circumstance that has always been a punishable offense in this country. [..]

When I see that look Chauvin gave the onlookers, I see more than heartlessness. I see arrogance and superiority. I see him teaching an old lesson about who has power and who does not, about whom the law protects and whom it doesn’t. I see Chauvin demonstrating that he, not Floyd, got to decide whether Floyd was allowed to breathe.

Frazier, who is Black, told the court that when she remembers what she saw happen to Floyd, she can’t help but think about how her own father, brothers or uncles might find themselves in a similar situation and suffer the same fate. I have the same fears about my sons and myself.

Which means we all got Chauvin’s message. Loud and clear.

Amanda Marcotte: Biden’s infrastructure bill is popular — so Republicans are trying to make it a culture war fight

Green buildings and electric cars are the new Potato Head and Dr. Seuss in this round

Conflict drives engagement and ratings, so it should be no surprise that media coverage is framing President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill as controversial. “Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Meets Skepticism, Signaling Fight to Come,” reads the New York Times headline. “Biden’s infrastructure plan faces controversy over price tag and design,” reads the Washington Post headline. Politico’s Playbook declares, “Fault lines form on Biden’s massive infrastructure plan.”

But this kind of framing is misleading. It is true that congressional Republicans oppose this bill and there is nothing that Biden could do, any concession he could make, that would induce Republicans to vote for it. But with the actual public? Well, this bill is a big hit. It is even a bipartisan hit.

This follows polling from Data for Progress that shows 69% of Americans support the plan, including half of Republicans.

Republican politicians oppose the bill, alright, but it’s because the bill is popular. The entire GOP political strategy, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is to block popular bills, and then run against Democrats for not getting anything done. If that means Republicans screwing over their own constituents, so be it.

 
Robert Reich: Republicans have taken up the politics of bigotry, putting US democracy at risk

There is no ‘surge’ of migrants at the border and there is no huge voter fraud problem – there is only hard-right attack

Republicans are outraged – outraged! – at the surge of migrants at the southern border. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, declares it a “crisis … created by the presidential policies of this new administration”. The Arizona congressman Andy Biggs claims, “we go through some periods where we have these surges, but right now is probably the most dramatic that I’ve seen at the border in my lifetime.”

Donald Trump demands the Biden administration “immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks – they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy.”

“Our country is being destroyed!” he adds.

In fact, there’s no surge of migrants at the border. [..]

To be sure, there is a humanitarian crisis of children detained in overcrowded border facilities. And an even worse humanitarian tragedy in the violence and political oppression in Central America, worsened by US policies over the years, that drives migration in the first place.

But the “surge” has been fabricated by Republicans in order to stoke fear – and, not incidentally, to justify changes in laws they say are necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting.

David Litt: The McConnell filibuster is not the same as the Jim Crow filibuster – it’s much worse

For decades senators blocked civil rights legislation but allowed democracy to function elsewhere – now next to nothing passes

President Obama chooses his words carefully. So last July, when he punctuated his eulogy to the civil rights legend John Lewis by calling the Senate filibuster “another relic of Jim Crow”, he wasn’t messing around.

Many others (myself included) had written about the historical link between the Senate rule allowing a minority of lawmakers to kill a bill and the preservation of white supremacy. But Obama’s speech sparked a wholesale rebranding. Today, among progressive politicians and activists alike, “End the filibuster” is out. “End the Jim Crow filibuster” is in.

Yet those who so bluntly tie Senate obstruction to southern segregation are missing an important piece of historical context. It’s not fair to suggest that the filibuster championed by defenders of Jim Crow decades ago is identical to the filibuster championed by Mitch McConnell today. Because today’s filibuster – McConnell’s filibuster – is actually much worse.

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Why Can’t Republicans Be Populists?

The establishment has been routed, but its economic orthodoxy rules.

President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is incredibly popular, even among Republican voters. We don’t have details yet on the next big Democratic initiative, but we can expect it to poll well, because we know that it will combine major infrastructure spending with tax hikes on corporations and the rich — which are all popular things.

But like the rescue plan, the next plan probably won’t get a single Republican vote in Congress. Why are elected Republicans still so committed to right-wing economic policies that help the rich while shortchanging the working class?

Fair warning: I’m not going to offer a good answer to this question. The point of today’s article is, instead, to argue for the question’s importance.

I ask why Republicans are “still” committed to right-wing economics because in the past there wasn’t any puzzle about their position.

Eugene Robinson: The world saw George Floyd’s final minutes. Now it will see whether he gets justice.

Derek Chauvin and the criminal justice system are on trial, not George Floyd.

With the beginning of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on charges of killing George Floyd, remember that Chauvin is the man on trial, not Floyd. Remember that the only reason police approached Floyd in the first place was that they suspected him of a minor, nonviolent offense. Remember Floyd’s desperate pleas that he couldn’t breathe, that “they’re going to kill me,” that he was dying.

Remember — as if anyone could forget — that the U.S. criminal justice system is on trial as well. And remember that, quite literally, the whole world is watching. [..]

Put legalisms aside for a moment and think about that. How could anyone treat a fellow human being with such little regard for his life? After he stopped moving — after he stopped breathing — Floyd obviously posed no threat to anyone, let alone to the heavily armed police officers who surrounded his inert body. But Chauvin keeps kneeling on his neck anyway. Why? To keep an obviously inert man immobile? Or to make a point to the bystanders, Black and White, who witnessed the whole thing?

To me, it looks like a brutal demonstration of who has power and who does not. It looks like a performance showing that Minneapolis police had dominance over what Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, called the “high-crime” African American neighborhood the officers were patrolling. And that is the essence of the problem with police violence in this country. Policing is far too often seen by officers and their superiors as something done to a Black or Brown community — rather than with the community.

Megan Rapinoe: Bills to ban transgender kids from sports try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist

Megan Rapinoe plays for OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League and the U.S. women’s national team. An Olympic gold medalist and a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, she is also an ambassador for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit that advocates for equal opportunities in sports.

I remember how I felt when I played soccer for the first time. Long before I was winning World Cup matches, I was trying to keep up with my brother. Soccer has been a part of my life since I was 4 years old. I spent hours outside working to perfect that next move — I wanted to be the best.

Being able to play sports as a child shaped my life’s path. It taught me so much more than is seen on the field and brought me so much joy. Every child deserves to have that experience. That’s why I believe that all kids, including transgender youth, should be able to participate in sports they love.

But there are efforts across the country to ban transgender kids from participating in school sports. Already this year, lawmakers in more than 25 states have introduced legislation to ban transgender young people from sports. Mississippi enacted a law this month requiring schools to designate teams by gender assigned at birth. Efforts elsewhere are progressing.

Amanda Marcotte: Republicans have become more fascist since Jan. 6 — and they blame liberals for it

The “Liberals made us do it!” defense: Republicans rush to embrace fascism, but don’t want to take responsibility

For a brief, shining moment after Donald Trump incited an insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, it seemed that the forces of rising authoritarianism in America might be curtailed, shamed by the violence that had been unleashed by their lies and bitterness over losing the election. But nope, Republicans have quickly reverted back. After all, the fundamental problem facing the Republican party and the larger American right hasn’t been resolved. They still know full well that their ideology is unpopular, their arguments are indefensible, and that the only way they can hold onto power is by gutting the ability of the voters to throw them out. And so, as the past month has shown, conservatives are not only becoming more fascistic in the aftermath of the riot but more shameless about their intentions.

The GOP war on voting has become the number one priority, with a bevy of conservative groups reorienting their organizing around keeping Americans away from ballots. Republicans are leaning into the racist signaling around the voter suppression efforts, and when confronted with it, they barely bother to defend themselves, mainly because there is no moral defense possible. There’s lip-smacking from the right about “voter fraud” — which they continue to fail to show is a problem, much less one that voter suppression efforts will fix — but these excuses are pro forma, and you can tell their hearts aren’t in it.

Instead of trying to sell their behavior as good and righteous, instead, conservatives are coalescing around a different excuse: The liberals are making them do it! They don’t want to be fascists, you see, but gosh darn it, they have no choice!

 
Jamelle Bouie: The G.O.P. Has Some Voters It Likes and Some It Doesn’t

This is what happens when a political party turns against democracy.

The most outrageous provision of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, the omnibus election bill signed by Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia last week, is one that makes it illegal for anyone except poll workers to offer food or water directly to voters standing in line. Defenders of the law say that this is meant to stop electioneering at the polls; critics say it is a direct response to volunteers who assisted those Georgians, many of them Black, who waited for hours to cast their ballots in the 2020 presidential election.

Less outrageous but more insidious is a provision that removes the secretary of state from his (or her) position as chairman of the State Election Board and replaces him with a new nonpartisan member selected by a majority of Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature. The law also gives the board, and by extension the legislature, the power to suspend underperforming county election officials and replace them with a single individual. [..]

This is what it looks like when a political party turns against democracy. It doesn’t just try to restrict the vote; it creates mechanisms to subvert the vote and attempts to purge officials who might stand in the way. Georgia is in the spotlight, for reasons past and present, but it is happening across the country wherever Republicans are in control.