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: The G.O.P. Is in a Doom Loop of Bizarro

But will it doom the rest of us, too?

Here’s what we know about American politics: The Republican Party is stuck, probably irreversibly, in a doom loop of bizarro. If the Trump-incited Capitol insurrection didn’t snap the party back to sanity — and it didn’t — nothing will.

What isn’t clear yet is who, exactly, will end up facing doom. Will it be the G.O.P. as a significant political force? Or will it be America as we know it? Unfortunately, we don’t know the answer. It depends a lot on how successful Republicans will be in suppressing votes.

About the bizarro: Even I had some lingering hope that the Republican establishment might try to end Trumpism. But such hopes died this week. [..]

This process of radicalization began long before Donald Trump; it goes back at least to Newt Gingrich’s takeover of Congress in 1994. But Trump’s reign of corruption and lies, followed by his refusal to concede and his attempt to overturn the election results, brought it to a head. And the cowardice of the Republican establishment has sealed the deal. One of America’s two major political parties has parted ways with facts, logic and democracy, and it’s not coming back.

Jamelle Bouie: I’m Not Actually Interested in Mitch McConnell’s Hypocrisy

To make his case for the filibuster, he has essentially rewritten the history of the Senate.

On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, now the Senate minority leader, spoke in defense of the legislative filibuster. [..]

I’m not actually that interested in McConnell’s hypocrisy. I’m interested in his history. To make his case for the indispensable importance of the legislative filibuster, McConnell has essentially rewritten the history of the Senate. He has to create a new narrative to serve his current interests.

The truth is that the filibuster was an accident; an extra-constitutional innovation that lay dormant for a generation after its unintentional creation during the Jefferson administration. For most of the Senate’s history after the Civil War, filibusters were rare, deployed as the Southern weapon of choice against civil rights legislation, and an occasional tool of partisan obstruction.
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Far from necessary, the filibuster is extraneous. Everything it is said to encourage — debate, deliberation, consensus building — is already accomplished by the structure of the chamber itself, insofar as it happens at all.

Michelle Goldberg: The First Post-Reagan Presidency

So far, Joe Biden has been surprisingly progressive.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, I sometimes took comfort in the Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s concept of “political time.”

In Skowronek’s formulation, presidential history moves in 40- to 60-year cycles, or “regimes.” Each is inaugurated by transformative, “reconstructive” leaders who define the boundaries of political possibility for their successors. [..]

Skowronek doesn’t present his theory as a skeleton key to history. It’s a way of understanding historical dynamics, not predicting the future. Still, if Trump represented the last gasps of Reaganism instead of the birth of something new, then after him, Skowronek suggests, a fresh regime could begin.

When Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee, it seemed that the coming of a new era had been delayed. Reconstructive leaders, in Skowronek’s formulation, repudiate the doctrines of an establishment that no longer has answers for the existential challenges the country faces. Biden, Skowronek told me, is “a guy who’s made his way up through establishment Democratic politics.” Nothing about him seemed trailblazing.

Yet as Biden’s administration begins, there are signs that a new politics is coalescing. When, in his inauguration speech, Biden touted “unity,” he framed it as a national rejection of the dark forces unleashed by his discredited predecessor, not stale Gang of Eight bipartisanship. He takes power at a time when what was once conventional wisdom about deficits, inflation and the proper size of government has fallen apart. That means Biden, who has been in national office since before Reagan’s presidency, has the potential to be our first truly post-Reagan president.

Amanda Marcotte: Media tries to “both sides” an insurrection: No, anger over the Capitol riot isn’t “partisan rancor”

The Washington Post ran a “both sides do it” headline — but only the GOP is tacitly supporting Trump’s failed coup

The endless mainstream media urge to cast any and every partisan conflict in “both sides do it” terms — no matter how one-sided any conflict actually is — hit a shocking new low on Friday morning when the Washington Post ran this front-page headline: “Congress hits new levels of partisan rancor.”

The Post’s appalling headline really underscores the mainstream media’s slavish dedication to false equivalence. It minimizes the growing Republican support for the violent insurrection of January 6 and the continued Democratic anger over those events as merely a partisan spat. Readers who clicked the story saw more of the casual equation between the intended victims of the mob Donald Trump sent to the Capitol and Trump’s supporters with the internal headline: “Hostility between congressional Republicans and Democrats reaches new lows amid growing fears of violence.” The headline manages to insinuate that both parties are rolling out the welcome mat for violence — when truly, it’s only the Republicans.  [..]

That is the real story here: Instead of shunning Trump and his fellow travelers for stoking an insurrection, congressional Republican leadership is supporting and encouraging the very people who are most responsible for the attempted overthrow of the government.

Jennifer Rubin: Reporters are hounding the wrong people about the covid-19 rescue package

Where is Republican cooperation?

Since he took office last week, President Biden and multiple members of his administration have engaged Republicans on his proposed rescue package. They have solicited approval from business groups, mayors, governors and even former Trump officials. Now that the House, as an insurance plan, is preparing to pass a budget resolution (which in turn could be used to push a relief measure through the Senate with a simple majority vote), Republicans are complaining.

Typical of the utter disingenuousness among Republicans, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) whined about a possible reconciliation bill: “It’s just wrong. I think it’s bad for the administration and I’ve made that point repeatedly to the White House in the last several days, including last night. We’ll see what they do. But I think it’s much better to work with us.” He pouted that using reconciliation would “poison the well.” Puh-leeze.

Where is the Republican counteroffer to the White House plan? What response, other than “No, no, no,” have they offered to multiple entreaties to start negotiating over the elements of the package? [..]

Indeed, Democrats in Congress and outside groups should be putting far more pressure on Republicans. The ex-president they still embrace allowed the pandemic to run wild and the economy to tank. Call them out for their indifference to covid-19 deaths. Take them to task for harboring QAnon extremists and re-running their obstruction routine.

If they do have to resort to reconciliation, Democrats should make clear it is because Republicans are rooting for failure. That’s what Republicans would say if the shoe were on the other foot.

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

Eugene Robinson: Thanks to Biden, the U.S. has gotten back into the fight against climate change

The Biden administration can’t stop global warming alone. But leadership matters.

The world’s richest and most powerful country is back in the fight against climate change. That is hugely important news for everyone already on the planet, and for our grandchildren yet to come.

The executive orders President Biden signed Wednesday will not, by themselves, solve the climate crisis. The high-powered White House team he put in charge of climate policy — led by Climate Coordinator Gina McCarthy and Climate Envoy John F. Kerry, the first people to hold these new roles — has no magic wand to make greenhouse gases go away. But we now have a better chance of avoiding worst-case environmental ruin, and we have a better chance of seeing the U.S. economy thrive in the inevitable shift toward clean energy. [..]

Biden promises a return to sanity. One of his first official acts last week was to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, which sets voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On Wednesday, he signed executive orders designed to make climate an “essential element” of foreign policy and national security. Among a host of other measures, Biden has declared a moratorium on new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands, ordered federal agencies to procure electricity from renewable sources and decreed that the government will buy a fleet of zero-emission vehicles.

None of that will begin to solve the global climate crisis — but the leadership it represents will help more than skeptics realize.

Karen Tumulty: The GOP struck a bad bargain. That’s how it got stuck with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The Republicans’ unwillingness to confront extremist forces within their party is not only unseemly but dangerous.

Donald Trump has departed Washington, but he has left behind a new set of rules for Republicans. One of them is that words and deeds, no matter how reckless or disconnected from the truth, carry no consequences.

Which is how the party wound up with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a dangerous loon whom the voters of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District decided to send to the U.S. House. [..]

But the predictable outcome, given the general mind-set of Republicans these days, is that such a drive would only elevate her as a martyr and bring wails of “cancel culture” from the prime-time pundits on Fox News.

She already is styling herself as a fever-swamp version of Joan of Arc. During the House debate on Trump’s impeachment — a proceeding that was nationally televised — Greene delivered her remarks while wearing a mask emblazoned with the word “CENSORED,” in protest of Twitter’s decision to suspend her for 12 hours for posting incendiary and false material about the election.

The real blame here, however, should rest with Republican leaders.

Amanda Marcotte: Forget about a GOP crack-up: Republicans rally around a defeated Trump because they understand power

Sorry, but the GOP won’t tear themselves apart — they’re too attached to power to let Trump and QAnon break them up

File it under too good to be true: The much-anticipated great Republican crack-up is not coming.

Last weekend, the Washington Post ran a story headlined, “Trump jumps into a divisive battle over the Republican Party — with a threat to start a ‘MAGA Party.'” It focused on the internal battle between the (relatively few) Republicans who are angry about Donald Trump inciting an insurrection on the Capitol and the more numerous Republicans who are gung-ho about this turn towards fascism and cannot wait to push it further. This followed earlier reporting about a “[b]itter split GOP” promising “Republicans in open warfare” and similar reporting from the New York Times promising that “bitter infighting underscores the deep divisions” in the GOP.  [..]

I was skeptical, believing as I do that there are three inevitabilities in life: Death, taxes, and that Republicans are far too attached to power to demobilize.

They may believe that there’s an international cabal of blood-drinking Satanist pedophiles, but Republicans aren’t so dumb as to think that there’s anything to be gained from third parties or withholding their votes altogether. That level of self-defeating stupidity is a solidly progressive flaw. Republicans know that power means winning elections and winning elections means sticking together. That is how it always is and always shall be, or at least until they can end this whole “holding elections” business altogether.

Elizabeth Rosenthal: Yes, It Matters That People Are Jumping the Vaccine Line

When hospital administrators and politicians’ spouses get immunized before people more at risk, it undermines confidence in the system.

The Biden administration’s much-needed national strategy to end the Covid-19 pandemic includes plans to remedy the chaotic vaccination effort with “more people, more places, more supply.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency will open more vaccination sites, the government will buy more doses and more people will be immunized. Still, by all estimates the demand for vaccines will far exceed the supply for months to come.

For weeks Americans have watched those who are well connected, wealthy or crafty “jump the line” to get a vaccine, while others are stuck, endlessly waiting on hold to get an appointment, watching sign-up websites crash or loitering outside clinics in the often-futile hope of getting a shot.

To eliminate this knock-out-your-neighbor race to score a vaccine, the administration needs to find ways to build trust in the system. It will take more than “more people, more places, more supply” to end the Darwinian competition and restore confidence and order.

Michael Tomasky: Why a Trump Third Party Would Be a Boon for Democrats

We really have room for only two major parties at a time in the United States.

Former President Donald Trump reportedly wants to form a new political party. For the first time in my sentient life, I say: Proceed, Mr. Trump. As he may or may not know, what he would almost certainly accomplish is to ensure that Democrats held the White House and the House of Representatives for as long as his party existed. [..]

One should never say never on these matters. The Whigs split in the early 1850s when their internal divisions over slavery became unbridgeable, which helped lead to that decade’s multiparty mayhem. That “mayhem” led to the rise of a new two-party system and, in 1860, elected the savior of the Republic. So it has happened. Most recently, about 165 years ago. (The Bull Moose Party, by the way, fizzled out in six years.)

But Mr. Trump would basically be creating a party that would make Democratic dominance much more likely.

He probably doesn’t know all this. Or maybe he does, and still wants to do it. If the latter, it would be what the Republicans so richly deserve for embracing someone who wasn’t really one of them to begin with and who practically has shaken our democracy to its core with their acquiescence.

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: Pandemic Rescue: It’s ‘And’ Not ‘Or’

Why you shouldn’t nitpick over the details.

President Biden is proposing a large relief package to deal with the continuing fallout from the coronavirus. The package is expansive, as it should be. But it is, predictably, facing demands that it be scaled back. Which, if any, of these demands have some validity?

We can discount opposition from Republican leaders who have suddenly decided, after years of enabling deficits under Trump, that federal debt is a terrible thing. We’ve seen this movie before, during the Obama years: Republicans oppose economic aid not because they believe it will fail but because they fear it might succeed, both helping Democrats’ political prospects and legitimizing an expanded role for government.

But there are also some good-faith objections to parts of the Biden proposal, coming from Democrats like Joe Manchin and progressive economic commentators like Larry Summers. What these commentators object to, mainly, are plans for broadly distributed “stimulus checks” (they aren’t checks and they aren’t stimulus, but never mind): payments of $1400 to many families.

I’m posting this note to explain why I believe that these objections are wrong. To be more precise, I’d argue that these critics are giving the right answer to the wrong question.

Amanda Marcotte: The myth of bipartisanship: Will a fully radicalized GOP finally blow up D.C.’s silliest fantasy?

Republicans voted to back Trump’s violent insurrection — there’s no use wasting time trying to compromise with them

Well, now it’s official: On Tuesday, nine out of ten Republican senators blessed Donald Trump’s efforts at sending a mob to violently overthrow democracy. Despite the very real threat to their lives posed by the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 45 out of 50 Republican senators, answering the call of the ever-showboating Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against proceeding with an impeachment trial of Trump for the crime of inciting an insurrection. This, even though Republicans know Trump is guilty. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., even previously admitted that Trump “provoked” the riot that led to 5 deaths and unhinged mobs roaming the Capitol looking to murder prominent politicians like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence. [..]

Republicans’ consistent support of Trump really should be putting more of a damper on the mewlings about compromise with the GOP from centrist Democratic holdouts like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Sen. Joe Manchin. These two senators have been in the news lately because of their stated opposition to ending the filibuster. Even President Joe Biden, despite his welcome interest in forging ahead with a series of progressive executive orders, has expressed concerns about eliminating the filibuster, which gives the Republican minority veto power over any meaningful legislation.

The idea that that filibuster is some marvelous tool of bipartisanship has long been a childish fantasy. Republicans have manipulated it so they can pass their priorities — tax cuts and federal judicial appointments — with a straight majority vote, yet it magically remains in place as an insurmountable obstacle for Democratic priorities, such as ethics reform and a minimum wage hike.

Moreover, the notion that a Democratic majority can “work together” with a Republican minority is a cruel joke.

Chauncey DeVega: Trump’s horror show isn’t nearly over: The coup wasn’t defeated, only slowed down

Trump is both a symptom and a cause of America’s terrible ailment. Whether or not he returns, the disease is real

Monsters are real. One does not defeat them by hiding. They are not defeated by denying that they exist. Throwing them down the memory hole offers little if any safety. To vanquish the monsters of this world requires hard work and eternal vigilance.

Donald Trump proved himself to be one of the worst presidents in American history — if not the very worst. His “movement” was and remains a force of prodigious civic evil. To call Trump’s political cult “deplorable” is, quite honestly, to elevate it above its real standing.

Last week, Joe Biden finally became president of the United States and the Democrats, at least on paper, maintain a tenuous hold on both houses of Congress.

But despite the historical verdict of the 81 million Americans who voted for Biden and the Democrats, Trump is likely to remain a fixture in American life and politics for years to come. Trump’s followers do not understand that they were beaten in the November election, and quite likely will never accept that. The Republican Party and its voters remain in thrall to Donald Trump. Ultimately, a force that does not know it has been defeated will not stop fighting.

Greg Sargent: The hidden way Biden is attacking the future of Trumpism

As the GOP dissolves into Trumpist conspiracy-mongering, a new Biden vision takes shape.

The plight of Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, has devolved into a cautionary tale with an unmistakable moral: If you want to become the primary keeper of the flame of Trumpism, you risk getting badly burned.

Hawley hoped to become chief steward of a respectable version of Donald Trump’s “conservative populism.” But, given Trump’s hold over GOP voters, Hawley gambled that leading the former president’s effort to overturn the election in Congress would secure instant national prominence. Ever since that effort incited the insurrection, Hawley has been furiously working to erase its stain.

This tale demonstrates how Trump’s continued grip on the GOP is complicating the salvaging of a constructive agenda from the wreckage of the Trump presidency. Instead of carrying out that mission, Hawley is gaining scrutiny for his ridiculous defenses of his enabling of an unprecedented assault on our democracy grounded in QAnon-level crackpottery.

But this Trump effect is also creating a big opening — one that President Biden and Democrats, intentionally or not, are already rushing to fill, with potentially lasting consequences for our politics.