I’ve been observing the on-going debates about which of the several “reckonings” Democrats need to have to improve their fortunes with what I can only describe as a mounting frustration and disgust. There’s the one over Joe Biden being old. There’s the one about Democrats becoming too “woke” and speech police-y. There’s the one about having betrayed or fallen short about this or that left-leaning cause. On the merits I agree with some of these more than others. Some I think are genuinely important. But as things Democrats should be focusing on now, taking accountability for, repositioning, whatever (!) they all, taking together, strike me as different sorts of pathetic, out-of-touch and myopic distractions.
Parties succeed and gain traction by doing far more than by self-analyzing. And my own theory of the case is that core driver and cause of the low standing of the Democratic party right now is not wokeness or immigration or Joe Biden’s age but the fact that Democrats are simply not effective at advancing the policies they claim to support or protecting the constituencies they claim to defend. Put simply, they are some mix of unable and unwilling to wield power to achieve specific ends.
We’re in the midst of a storm of articles — variously encomiums, valedictories, friendly morality tales — about Elon Musk’s purported departure from service in the federal government. I’m going to note a couple quite unflattering pieces in a moment. But for now, I want to focus on the bulk of them, which tend to portray Musk as someone who tried to tame government spending but was simply over-matched by “Washington’s ways” and finally failed. You get the image of a guy who is chastened, heading back to his regular life, no match for Sodom any more than most of us would be.
The Office of Personnel Management has a new hiring plan which instructs government agencies to cease collecting any demographic information on their workforces and rolls out a political loyalty tests which asks new employees to list their favorite presidential executive orders and how they envision bringing the President’s EO vision to fruition.
The trade court’s decision that Trump’s entire trade war was based on powers President Trump didn’t actually have is a big, big deal. But there are some details that are important to consider. As we’ve discussed in earlier posts, this isn’t the only law in which Congress has delegated authority over trade and tariffs to the President, a power which the Constitution gives entirely and unambiguously to Congress. In fact, this law doesn’t deal with tariff authority at all. That’s the whole point of the decision. Yes, Congress has given you a lot of authority over tariffs and trade. But not with this law, the court is saying. Just why he chose this one is important and gives us some visibility into what comes next.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss the Supreme Court killing off independent agencies, Elon Musk’s sad trombone interviews and the latest news cycle about Biden’s age.
It’s been about a month since I introduced the “DOJ-in-Exile” idea. So I wanted to give you an update on my progress getting it off the ground. First of all, I got quite a lot of interest and excitement from a lot of TPM Readers who were interested in being involved in some fashion. I also got, in response to I think one passing mention about looking for funds, a number of soft commitments in the 5- or 6-figure range. “Commitments” slightly overstates it. I wasn’t trying to discuss anything at that level. I was just interested in hearing about general interest and willingness. Based on those conversations I thought that even from the small group of people I was in touch with, there was likely at least a few hundred thousand of funding available. That’s a pretty good start on the funding front from such a low-key ask.
Kate and Josh discuss the Supreme Court killing of independent agencies, Elon Musk’s sad trombone interviews and the media world tour about Biden’s age.
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