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A few days ago a friend told me that Chuck Schumer thinks he’s a minority leader but he’s actually an opposition leader. Or rather that’s the position into which history has placed him — and he doesn’t realize it or he doesn’t grasp the difference or he’s simply not able to be the latter thing. There are lots of ways to explain the disconnect or incapacity. But I thought this was a pretty good one.
Last night, in this vein, I suddenly realized there’s a backed-up line of incapacity, a traffic jam of it.
I watched the reaction to President Trump’s latest salvo, an executive order purporting to upend key elements of election administration in the United States. People have to prove citizenship to register to vote, it says. No states can accept votes by mail after Election Day — and much more. The country’s most prestigious news organizations rushed to report these as fait accomplis. The Times announced that, henceforth, Americans would have to provide proof of citizenship to vote. The Post was more or less the same.