Editors’ Blog

Just a few thoughts on today’s rather stunning testimony. The crazy drama in the presidential limousine is certainly the wildest and most explosive part. Legally, the most important is what seems to me like very specific evidence that the former President is guilty of seditious conspiracy, among numerous other crimes. That detail about the magnetometers is key. According to this witness, the President knew the crowd was heavily armed and prepared for violence. He continued to exhort them to march on the Capitol. He specifically said that he didn’t want federal authorities to try to disarm the rioters because they weren’t there to hurt him.

Probably the best, most important way to understand today’s testimony is to realize that all of this and likely much more has been known to numerous high level officials from the beginning. Some of them are purported “good guys,” Vice President Pence, the White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, etc. They all knew all of it from the very beginning. They knew it during the impeachment trial. They knew it during the initial efforts to set up a Jan. 6th Commission. And yet they’ve spent 18 months using every legal and extra-legal means to keep this all secret. Indeed, virtually all of them are refusing to testify down until today.

We have another post-Dobbs poll. This one is from NPR/Marist. About abortion and Roe and Dobbs, it’s broadly in line with the other polls we’ve been discussing. If anything, it’s slightly on the low end of support for Roe. But again, broadly in line with the other polls. But look at this.

I wanted to walk you through some examples of how Republican candidates, and particularly Republican Senate candidates, are positioning themselves on the Dobbs decision and the demise of Roe. They are not surprising. But they’re powerful illustrations of why Republicans generally don’t want to talk about any of this and see it for the political vulnerability that it is.

From TPM Reader MG …

I live in NH, and like RP on the front page, I asked Senator Shaheen the filibuster and codifying Roe question after the leak. I got a vanilla answer about supporting a woman’s right to choose.

TPM Reader RP is still at it …

Just to keep you up-to-date, I’ve yet to hear from Senator Jeanne Shaheen if, in addition to confirming she’ll vote to enact a federal law making abortion accessible and available to all women, she’ll also answer my other question as to whether she’ll vote to change the filibuster, if not eliminate it entirely, so the Senate can proceed with a bill for such a law.

I’ve called her office in Manchester, NH twice (once last week and once the week before) to remind her office that Senator Shaheen still has to answered this question.  Each time, the person with whom I spoke immediately found a record of my question(s) and assured me she would bring to Senator Shaheen’s attention that I’ve asked again for an answer to my question regarding the filibuster issue.

Just after I wrote the post below I got a new email from Joe Biden. No, Joe and I aren’t that close. I mean “Joe Biden,” the guy who spends most of his time sending fundraising emails. It seems they are creeping up to something more specific (emphasis added).

In bleak times amid onslaughts from the right there’s a tendency for many Americans on the liberal or leftward side of the political spectrum to attack the Democratic Party. Certainly the Democratic Party merits lots of criticism. But we should be clear on the particular roots of this reflex. When you feel angry and outraged you want to attack someone. The right doesn’t care about your attacks or your rage or your fears. Indeed, in our trolling era they relish them, laugh at the them, taunt you with them. The party that at least broadly lines up with your views, on the other hand, cares a lot. So it’s a much more appealing target.

I say this because it is a toxic tendency that we are all vulnerable to but should try to overcome. And I raise it here as preface to what I hope will be viewed as constructive criticism. Hopefully it is constructive because time is of the essence.

A new CBS News poll shows Americans see the Court decision overturning Roe as a “step backward” rather than a “step forward” by a 21 point margin. 59% of Americans disapprove of the decision. 67% of women disapprove of the decision. Almost exactly the proportion of Americans who disapprove of the decision support overruling it with a new federal law. That’s 58%. This is a YouGov poll and these results are if anything more favorable for the anti-Roe side than most. But it still shows a decision that is overwhelmingly unpopular. 50% of Democrats say they are more likely to vote because of the decision, 28% for indies and 20% for GOPs.

There’s little question that this lopsided reaction can turn a lot of close races. But there’s no way to do that without putting a clear post-election action on the table for voters to support.

Sens. Warren and Smith have an op-ed in the Times today in which they say at the bottom of a lengthy and quite good article …

Ask every Senate candidate to commit to reforming the filibuster rules, so that the chamber can pass federal legislation protecting the right to reproductive freedom. If voters help us maintain our control of the House and expand our majority in the Senate by at least two votes this November, we can make Roe the law all across the country as soon as January.

Great. But for any of this to happen you are going to need at least a few senators to get the ball rolling. And getting the ball rolling means making a clear bumper sticker-like pledge and goading colleagues to sign on. It has to be at the top of the article not at the bottom of a laundry list at the end.