Earlier this morning President Trump insisted that the January 6th insurrection actually amounted to a “lovefest between the Capitol Police and the people who walked down to the Capitol.” He also continued his effort to incite a lynch mob to take revenge on the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt and as she broke into the House Speaker’s lobby and demanded the release of all January 6th arrestees.
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As we noted last week, Pfizer says it plans to seek FDA approval next month for booster shots of its COVID vaccine. This is a third dose of the same vaccine many of us have already received two doses. The FDA and CDC responded quickly that for now a third dose was unnecessary. I think this was best interpreted not so much as a disagreement as a clear signal from the CDC/FDA that they will set national vaccine policy, not Pfizer.
Lurking in the background is the issue of cost.
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A week ago I noted that Donald Trump’s Sarasota campaign rally demand for freedom for indicted insurrectionists signaled the central theme of the 2022 midterm campaign. Trump also demanded retribution against for the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt as she broke through the final line of defense protecting fleeing members of Congress. The subsequent week has only confirmed that prediction as Trump has escalated his demands and fine-tuned his rhetoric.
Trump returned to the theme twice yesterday, first in an extended interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News and then in a speech to CPAC in Dallas. With Bartiromo he declared the insurrection “a lovefest between the Capitol Police and the people who walked down to the Capitol” and repeated his demand that “they have to release the people that are incarcerated.”
The Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend provided lots of concerning examples of just how dystopian Republican fearmongering around the COVID-19 vaccine has become.
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We’re witnessing another of these state legislators abscond across state lines dramas in Texas. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, it hearkens back to a similar drama in 2003 which presaged much of our current politics. But I’d like to take this in a different direction. What we’re seeing right now with these efforts to short-circuit the legislative process is what the legislative filibuster in the Senate should be like.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we move to a system where Senators run off to Canada or I guess in some cases Russia. It gets a bit more complicated in jurisdictional terms. But Texas Democrats clearly believe these laws are of an extraordinary character. Texas legislative Democrats get outvoted all the time. But they view this law as different from other laws they oppose. And most critically their actions are public and self-limiting.
As noted, fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul’s decision to show up for work on Monday as though nothing had happened was deprived of some drama and charge since he was logging on from the home office in his mansion in New York. He found his login credentials had been revoked. “I’m here to do the job, but I can’t do anything with the communications shut down.”
“Just say we won.”
While former President Trump was pushing lies about voter fraud for months leading up to the 2020 election, new reporting on what occurred on election night at the White House is a reminder of the extent to which Trump’s democracy dismantling was rooted in absolutely nothing. That night, Rudy Giuliani was leading the lie-flinging charge.
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Republicans have a good model with winning out-year governors races in state like Virginia and New Jersey that hold their elections off the even numbered two year cycle. Bank on the energy of hungry Republicans partisans looking to win and election while presenting themselves to the electorate at large as a salt-of-the-earth problem-solver just looking to lend a hand. (Dems of course have their own version of this playbook.) But the situation in Virginia today shows how the Trump era may pose some problems for that model.
Glenn Youngkin is a former private equity CEO who played hard for Donald Trump’s endorsement to be the Republican nominee for Governor in Virginia. It worked. He got Trump’s endorsement and the nomination. But he’s generally eschewed the Republican label in the general election campaign and certainly not leaned into Trump and all that goes with him.