In very different language, and coming from his own vantage point, Jamelle Bouie has a piece up in the New York Times today which points in the same direction as I’ve been arguing here in various posts. The gist version is this. The current Project 2029 efforts are a mix of messaging/positioning efforts and policy proposals. Those may be solid or promising on their own terms. But they are inadequate. Trump broke the old system, which has existed in an evolving form since the 1930s and 1940s. You need to build a new system, a new vision and mechanism of public power in its place. As Bouie puts it, “A Project 2029 that has nothing to say about either the Senate filibuster, or an ideologically captured Supreme Court, or extreme partisan gerrymandering — among other concerns — is not a Project 2029 worth the time or effort.”
I’m flagging this because Bouie is one of the best and I want to highlight this article. But this is a position that is clearly enough distinct — structural reformers, reconstructionists — that it really needs to be seen as such in the world of Democratic politics, at least through 2029. When that happens, public arguments become more coherent. It provides clarity to voters.
We are now well into the post-Voting Rights Act period, with ruthless attempts at racial gerrymandering unfolding across the South. The latest development came yesterday evening, when the Supreme Court deployed a twisted logic to effectively halt an Alabama election already in progress so state officials can hold it under a map that dilutes the Black vote.
Against that backdrop, we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this TPM story, from about two weeks ago now, in which the families of civil rights activists who died in the months before and immediately after the passage of the Voting Rights Act talked to us about what the Supreme Court’s April ruling eviscerating it means to them. This kind of work is not always the splashiest political reporting, but we think it’s important. It’s the kind of thing your memberships make possible. So thank you.
While the AP has not yet called the race, it now appears clear that Democrats have avoided a nightmare scenario they contemplated in the days after Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor dramatically imploded: That some two dozen Democratic gubernatorial candidates might split the vote, creating room for two Trump-aligned Republicans to advance to the general election in the state’s top-two primary system. The state is notoriously slow to count votes, but, this morning, Trump-endorsed Fox commentator Steve Hilton (R) and former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra (D) currently have the top two spots. The other major Republican in the race, Sheriff Chad Bianco, trails as a distant fourth.
Today Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth called on Chicago U.S. attorney Andrew Boutros to resign charging that his office is adrift in chaos and official misconduct.
On the one hand this is unsurprising. This is a major and growing scandal. It implicates a Republican president. They’re Democrats. And the office has been at the leading edge of policies (Midway Blitz, mass deportation generally) that are deeply unpopular — certainly in Chicago and to varying degrees across the state. So, as I note, to some agree it’s a predictable development.
But there are some additional threads I want to remind you of.
In case you forgot, Bill Pulte is the Federal Housing Finance Agency head who proved his loyalty to the president by combing through the mortgages of Trump’s enemies, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fed Governor Lisa Cook, for things that the DOJ might be able to prosecute. It’s unclear what intelligence community credentials he has, though, given the way he used his power at FHFA and as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that question is probably missing the point.
Though the role is acting, acting heads can end up serving for quite a while. Pulte is replacing Tulsi Gabbard.
One feature of the current moment is that there are so many things going on, so much corruption and wrongdoing that it is hard to focus on any one thing. What would otherwise be historic scandals blow by almost unnoticed. Today I wanted to zero in on a couple storylines we should all be following.
One comes from the Broadview Six/Four case. I explained the outlines of the story here. It’s now being referenced in numerous federal cases to persuade judges to deny prosecutors the presumption of “regularity,” i.e. the foundational assumption that the government is following the rules and operating in good faith in its prosecutions. The end of the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is getting similar treatment. But there’s clearly a deeper scandal brewing here, especially with grand juries. It’s not clear to me how much of this is coming from explicit instructions from the DOJ to violate the rules or simply a climate of permissive lawlessness in which prosecutors start breaking the rules because they see their superiors doing the same.
Living through the Trump II presidency is an exercise in repeated loss and extended mourning for what is gone — while being daily confronted with the farcical and the absurd.
Kate and Josh discuss Ken Paxton’s primary win, redistricting developments in South Carolina and Alabama and fissures between congressional Republicans and the White House.
TPM’s Josh Kovensky and Joe Ragazzo are joined by TPM reporter Layla A. Jones to analyze the state of the economy and why it seems to be working for some people, but against most people.
Kate and Josh discuss the expulsion of anyone of character from the Republican Party, Trump’s new taxpayer-funded slush fund and Jared Polis’ baffling commutation of election denier Tina Peters’ sentence.
