Expecting Joe Biden to be a centerist was a fool's game. He has tacked with the Democrat Party winds since the beginning of his mediocre political career. Biden was the same man in 2019 that he was in 1987, and any point in-between. Small intellect, low morals, serial plagiarist and fabulist, mean, petty, vindictive.
Here's my prediction......future historians will not be pondering whether - in the 2020s - The Constitution was breached in spirit or in letter....they will be pondering just what this Trump Derangement Syndrome was actually made of.
The fact that there has been so much monkeying around with the procedure by which we traditionally voted - is the chief reason people no longer feel that voting is legitimate.
They see that one side of the aisle has pressed for "expansion" of a franchise already available to the citizenry, that shouldn't have required expansion as the government should have no interest in who turns up to vote, or in what regard people hold the institution as against their private concerns. "Politicization" is not a legitimate government function.
One side has in some places initiated very long voting periods before the first debate has even been held; they've pushed for the US Mail which can no longer even successfully perform a vacation mail hold, or an address change request without hacking*, to be in charge of universal ballot-by-mail; they've pushed for absentee voting for more and more classes of people, even those who say they can't be at the poll "some" of the umpteen hours the poll is open; they've endorsed and performed ballot harvesting in those places where they want to harvest votes - which would have been considered ridiculous banana republic stuff to even a recent generation ...
In my locale, you can submit a mail-in ballot, then come to the poll anyway because you're so keen on voting, throw a fit when reminded you did so, and be allowed to vote a second time. Sure, your second vote may go in a provisional pile - but man, that provisional pile: what a treasure that is in the wrong ("right") hands. Unobserved, on election night, in that locked room ...
Ditto if you've never registered to vote, have no ID, don't know your address - indeed if you say your name is Valentine Smith and you arrived from Mars yesterday.
And despite the technology we now use to vote, which should have made tabulating it easy and fast, somehow all this extra voting-around-voting has made it impossible to do what America used to readily do: announce with certainty the winner of the presidential contest the day after the election. No, that's not strange at all!
And yet it is the rubes whose fault all this is? - that trust has broken down, when somehow we now do less well than Mexico at this?
We just let 6 or seven million people march into the country. Or rather the left did. We're supposed to ignore this, though, and trust. And trust. And trust. If some of the more unsophisticated/unstable among us go to the shiny white building and break some windows - well, that's all according to plan too. Couldn't have gone better. Gives the Capitol something to run on TV in a permanent loop.
Give me a break.
*I filled out a change of address form on the USPS website when we moved 3.5 years ago. I noticed we didn't get much mail after the move. Presently I noticed we weren't getting bills, bank statements. I really noticed when I looked at my bank account online and saw that my address had been changed to one in the Bronx. I went to the bank and asked why on Earth they would have changed my address without request, without anyone signing anything, when my husband and I had both been required to be present in the building to change it before we moved, which we had done. (Heck, you have to show ID just to deposit a check.) They explained that the USPS had let them know I had an address change, to the Bronx, and the USPS is a trusted partner whose behests they follow.
I then inquired at the USPS. They were a little sheepish. When someone sees you have filled out a change of address online - they know you are moving and they can change it to another address. You know, online. It's a thing.
I agree with Levin. Neither side is trying to play by the rules. Republicans should recognize the gross defects of this candidate and disqualify him in their minds. The man's actions around the last election's validity have revealed his character as unfit for office. The same abuses in action can be said for the broader Democratic Party in their response to Trump then and now.
Both parties have sunk so low that neither deserves our support. I am not sure which electoral outcome will be worse, but I suppose we will be getting the Christmas we deserve.
“One can hope that the majority of Americans would prefer to see Levin’s spirit of the Constitution restored. That is why they are so despondent over the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch.”
Trump and Biden are just proxies - it would help if the bien-pensants and Commentariat could see that, instead of being obsessed with the personalities. Isn’t it in fact a rematch between the people who believe Government should serve them and those who think the people should serve the Government and selective Peter should be robbed to pay for collective Paul? Trump is a symptom of that division, long in the making, which has seen a large sector of the population silenced, ignored, reviled, made poorer amid Government fiscal incontinence, to pay for votes.
As for ‘the majority of Americans’ - that is an unsupportable claim since around half (at least) voted for Trump in two elections and probably will next time. The ‘despondent’ Americans are those who fear Team Trump - those silenced voices, the Bible-thumping, gun-toting, knuckle-dragging, deplorable, low information red necks - might win, but would be quite happy with four more years of Joe Big Guy 10% and Team Ruination.
"Instead, all I can see is escalating whataboutism. 'How can you expect me to compromise with you after you did X?'"
Please explain the difference between negative 'whataboutism' and positive calling out of hypocrisy, bias and double-standards. On the one hand, "two wrongs don't make a right." On the other hand, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." Or maybe the question should be, what should one advise for a response to X. More complaining about X? In games, it's the credible threat of at least proportionate, punitive tit-for-tat retaliation that maintains an equilibrium.
In general the notion of a liberal political order as one resembling trial at court or a debate society and in which factions can iron out their rivalrous interests in a manner constrained by equally-applicable standards, traditions, rules, and norms is not sustainable without every violation opening the door to penalty such as the threat of having just such transgressions launched against oneself when the shoe is on the other foot. The same hold true (theoretically) for violations of the laws of war that removes the protections of those laws from those who violate it.
I'm not saying it's wrong to disparage at least some of that with whatever 'whataboutism' is supposed to mean, but again, is there really any test for when reasonable and justifiable refusals to submit to double-standards crosses the line? My nomination for word to go into retirement with the end of 2023.
Well said though I'd be the first to admit I think whataboutism is a positive thing; it's just a slight people use to hide abuses of discretion and the folk that take issue with that. I'm also pretty positive the overwhelming majority is highly against the SCOTUS sticking to the letter of the law. Imagine the mass outrage tomorrow if the SCOTUS actually learned the definition of "shall not" or "make no"; likewise words like "speedy", "impartial", "excessive", "retained".
The rest though, spot on especially with the sad but true "we can hope" because it admits it's just that, hope, not reality.
I seem to remember some people saying that the GOP should have kept Trump off the ballot in 2016, by denying him the opportunity to run in the Republican primaries. That's not a Constitutional issue of course, but one could make the same appeal to the spirit of Democracy or the spirit of a Political Party representing the wishes of its voters instead of its insider elites only paying lip service but in fact constantly conspiring against those preferences. One can say a party has the right to do what it wants, but then the question is whether it also has the right to lie about what it wants.
The left could resort to divisive tricks, and still probably lose, or they could run a much better candidate who isn’t going to push 90 soon. It seems they’ve made their choice.
It sounds like Yuval Levin believes that the Biden administration represents the "spirit of the Constitution." This sounds like partisanship on his part (or Trump derangement syndrome, which is essentially just single-election partisanship). Good analysis and good commentary tries to understand and represent the best arguments of both sides.
Your quote from Levin makes it clear that he opposes what seems like the gimmickry of local authorities trying to use the 14th Amendment to influence a presidential election--presumably because he doesn't agree with the Colorado judges' interpretations of the letter of the law, etc. This is a step toward seeing both sides. Is there also a case to be made for challenging local manipulations of election procedure that facilitate election fraud, especially when those manipulations do not follow the letter of the law? Beyond that, is there a case to be made for defending the secrecy of the ballot and verification that each voter marks his or her own personal ballot, as opposed to promoting vote by mail?
Levin's comment is spoiled by his misunderstanding and mischaracterization of President Trump's actions in response to an election ridden with gross fraud. He just doesn't want to believe that a presidential election could be stolen, but they have been. In 1960 there was insistent denial that the Kennedy election was fraudulent, but it eventually has become acknowledged that that was the case.
It will probably eventually become acknowledged that the 2020 election was as well, long after it makes any difference.
This is an excellent post Arnold. Thanks once again. There are deep underlying problems within our country. Your last paragraph is apropos and accurate, but I’m still optimistic.
We should start by making a list of root causes. Certainly the decline in religious participation is part of the cause here. I would say that people are busy working, making money to pay for all the stuff they want. There is a lack of cohesiveness in neighborhoods across America. People aren’t coming together in communities, in private groups like they traditionally have. I’m speculating here, because I don’t have data to show any trends, but it seems that people are wandering separately, trying to figure what to do and how to do the stuff they want to be doing. They have things they want to be doing, (see Peter Gray’s post from today), such as reading, learning, writing, engaging in meaningful dialogue; overall doing things that bring a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction. But there is a void in our communities: a lack of motivational and organizational force; a lack of positive energy that brings people together.
My guess is that we’re on the verge of a renaissance, and right now we’re in a bad place due a void created by old fashioned religious beliefs, stale urban planning, career centrism, and public school conformism. Conformity is a huge theme in all this. In our social institutions we’re missing polite, conscientious heretics and creative can-do entrepreneurs. Where are the secular prophets? Politics and government are largely to blame, but politics is not a cure. You say it better in your last paragraph.
All of this has made us ignorant about the Constitution - ambivalent - and divisive in how we use it and talk about it. My observation is than almost no one wants to talk about the Constitution. It’s a dead-end in conversations. There is no organic, positive dialogue at the local level about the Constitution. It’s too rarely discussed in school, church, neighborhood, private gathering, email, social media, almost everywhere.
So you’re completely right in your last paragraph.
But be patient: the renaissance is coming. Change will come from the very bottom, with very simple steps, through emergence; through the butcher, the brewer, and the baker. Through technology. Through innovation and improvement in ideas. Through small positive steps in homes, churches, schools, clubs, gyms. It’s impossible to stop all of these small improvements. They’re distributed in the extended order that Hayek and Smith wrote about. The ultimate resource is the human mind. I’m eager to see what improvements will come next.
Levin, like Kling, dislikes Trump and hates that so many Americans voted for him. I think Most personal character flaws are true BUT also true of Biden, Hillary, and Obama. After a sophomoric list of insults, the one big justification for Trump hate now is his claim that the election was stolen, followed by a big Stop The Steal protest which became a small riot, ending almost immediately after a big cop took out his gun and shot and killed the small, unarmed, but trespassing Ashli Babbitt.
The FBI entrapped some dumb Trump supporters into a kidnap scheme against Dem Governor Gretchen Whitmore. I believe there were Fed assets among the protesters encouraging illegal acts.
Trump wanted a huge peaceful protest, for his big ego. There was no insurrection.
Nobody has been charged with insurrection.
Kling seems to think that deep state censorship of the truth does not mean the election was stolen, and Levin fails to even mention it. They censored H Biden’s laptop information about Biden corruption and illegal behavior. They censored in order to affect the voting, in order to steal the election.
Censoring the truth is wrong, and is a common tactic of not-really democracies who have elections which they make sure are won by the dictator.
Or, it’s wrong but not really, like speeding just a little. “But officer, I’m sure I was going less than 10 mph over the limit.”
When a ref makes a bad call, the wrong team might win.
The election was stolen, tho I can’t prove it. But those claiming it wasn’t stolen also can’t prove it wasn’t, nor show the 65 million mail-in envelopes to allow checking and auditing. Most Trump supporters believe as I do, that it was stolen. Levin believes it wasn’t, with a total lack of doubt and in full belief of fair play by Obama weaponized FBI which, in 2016, was willing to claim false Hillary funded mud was true in order to illegally spy on the Trump campaign.
Did he believe the NYT for 2 years of Fake News Collusion Hoax? No mention of how Obama did far more damage to the spirit of the Constitution than Trump.
Happy New Year, tho I expect to be outraged often by NeverTrumpers thru the election, which I sadly expect to be stolen again. And the Dems will continue stealing elections until more candidates complain about it more effectively.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but are more likely to result in cooperation, and agreement that they’re both wrong. Trump looks like the needed bad guy the Dems need to experience to get to more positive future cooperation.
Expecting Joe Biden to be a centerist was a fool's game. He has tacked with the Democrat Party winds since the beginning of his mediocre political career. Biden was the same man in 2019 that he was in 1987, and any point in-between. Small intellect, low morals, serial plagiarist and fabulist, mean, petty, vindictive.
Here's my prediction......future historians will not be pondering whether - in the 2020s - The Constitution was breached in spirit or in letter....they will be pondering just what this Trump Derangement Syndrome was actually made of.
The fact that there has been so much monkeying around with the procedure by which we traditionally voted - is the chief reason people no longer feel that voting is legitimate.
They see that one side of the aisle has pressed for "expansion" of a franchise already available to the citizenry, that shouldn't have required expansion as the government should have no interest in who turns up to vote, or in what regard people hold the institution as against their private concerns. "Politicization" is not a legitimate government function.
One side has in some places initiated very long voting periods before the first debate has even been held; they've pushed for the US Mail which can no longer even successfully perform a vacation mail hold, or an address change request without hacking*, to be in charge of universal ballot-by-mail; they've pushed for absentee voting for more and more classes of people, even those who say they can't be at the poll "some" of the umpteen hours the poll is open; they've endorsed and performed ballot harvesting in those places where they want to harvest votes - which would have been considered ridiculous banana republic stuff to even a recent generation ...
In my locale, you can submit a mail-in ballot, then come to the poll anyway because you're so keen on voting, throw a fit when reminded you did so, and be allowed to vote a second time. Sure, your second vote may go in a provisional pile - but man, that provisional pile: what a treasure that is in the wrong ("right") hands. Unobserved, on election night, in that locked room ...
Ditto if you've never registered to vote, have no ID, don't know your address - indeed if you say your name is Valentine Smith and you arrived from Mars yesterday.
And despite the technology we now use to vote, which should have made tabulating it easy and fast, somehow all this extra voting-around-voting has made it impossible to do what America used to readily do: announce with certainty the winner of the presidential contest the day after the election. No, that's not strange at all!
And yet it is the rubes whose fault all this is? - that trust has broken down, when somehow we now do less well than Mexico at this?
We just let 6 or seven million people march into the country. Or rather the left did. We're supposed to ignore this, though, and trust. And trust. And trust. If some of the more unsophisticated/unstable among us go to the shiny white building and break some windows - well, that's all according to plan too. Couldn't have gone better. Gives the Capitol something to run on TV in a permanent loop.
Give me a break.
*I filled out a change of address form on the USPS website when we moved 3.5 years ago. I noticed we didn't get much mail after the move. Presently I noticed we weren't getting bills, bank statements. I really noticed when I looked at my bank account online and saw that my address had been changed to one in the Bronx. I went to the bank and asked why on Earth they would have changed my address without request, without anyone signing anything, when my husband and I had both been required to be present in the building to change it before we moved, which we had done. (Heck, you have to show ID just to deposit a check.) They explained that the USPS had let them know I had an address change, to the Bronx, and the USPS is a trusted partner whose behests they follow.
I then inquired at the USPS. They were a little sheepish. When someone sees you have filled out a change of address online - they know you are moving and they can change it to another address. You know, online. It's a thing.
Just like that.
I agree with Levin. Neither side is trying to play by the rules. Republicans should recognize the gross defects of this candidate and disqualify him in their minds. The man's actions around the last election's validity have revealed his character as unfit for office. The same abuses in action can be said for the broader Democratic Party in their response to Trump then and now.
Both parties have sunk so low that neither deserves our support. I am not sure which electoral outcome will be worse, but I suppose we will be getting the Christmas we deserve.
I'm beginning to believe that certain people on the left will only understand the gravity of what they are doing when it finally happens to them.
Example: A Red state prohibits a democrat from legally running for public office. The outrage would be explosive and immediate.
“One can hope that the majority of Americans would prefer to see Levin’s spirit of the Constitution restored. That is why they are so despondent over the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch.”
Trump and Biden are just proxies - it would help if the bien-pensants and Commentariat could see that, instead of being obsessed with the personalities. Isn’t it in fact a rematch between the people who believe Government should serve them and those who think the people should serve the Government and selective Peter should be robbed to pay for collective Paul? Trump is a symptom of that division, long in the making, which has seen a large sector of the population silenced, ignored, reviled, made poorer amid Government fiscal incontinence, to pay for votes.
As for ‘the majority of Americans’ - that is an unsupportable claim since around half (at least) voted for Trump in two elections and probably will next time. The ‘despondent’ Americans are those who fear Team Trump - those silenced voices, the Bible-thumping, gun-toting, knuckle-dragging, deplorable, low information red necks - might win, but would be quite happy with four more years of Joe Big Guy 10% and Team Ruination.
"Instead, all I can see is escalating whataboutism. 'How can you expect me to compromise with you after you did X?'"
Please explain the difference between negative 'whataboutism' and positive calling out of hypocrisy, bias and double-standards. On the one hand, "two wrongs don't make a right." On the other hand, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." Or maybe the question should be, what should one advise for a response to X. More complaining about X? In games, it's the credible threat of at least proportionate, punitive tit-for-tat retaliation that maintains an equilibrium.
In general the notion of a liberal political order as one resembling trial at court or a debate society and in which factions can iron out their rivalrous interests in a manner constrained by equally-applicable standards, traditions, rules, and norms is not sustainable without every violation opening the door to penalty such as the threat of having just such transgressions launched against oneself when the shoe is on the other foot. The same hold true (theoretically) for violations of the laws of war that removes the protections of those laws from those who violate it.
I'm not saying it's wrong to disparage at least some of that with whatever 'whataboutism' is supposed to mean, but again, is there really any test for when reasonable and justifiable refusals to submit to double-standards crosses the line? My nomination for word to go into retirement with the end of 2023.
Well said though I'd be the first to admit I think whataboutism is a positive thing; it's just a slight people use to hide abuses of discretion and the folk that take issue with that. I'm also pretty positive the overwhelming majority is highly against the SCOTUS sticking to the letter of the law. Imagine the mass outrage tomorrow if the SCOTUS actually learned the definition of "shall not" or "make no"; likewise words like "speedy", "impartial", "excessive", "retained".
The rest though, spot on especially with the sad but true "we can hope" because it admits it's just that, hope, not reality.
I seem to remember some people saying that the GOP should have kept Trump off the ballot in 2016, by denying him the opportunity to run in the Republican primaries. That's not a Constitutional issue of course, but one could make the same appeal to the spirit of Democracy or the spirit of a Political Party representing the wishes of its voters instead of its insider elites only paying lip service but in fact constantly conspiring against those preferences. One can say a party has the right to do what it wants, but then the question is whether it also has the right to lie about what it wants.
The left could resort to divisive tricks, and still probably lose, or they could run a much better candidate who isn’t going to push 90 soon. It seems they’ve made their choice.
It sounds like Yuval Levin believes that the Biden administration represents the "spirit of the Constitution." This sounds like partisanship on his part (or Trump derangement syndrome, which is essentially just single-election partisanship). Good analysis and good commentary tries to understand and represent the best arguments of both sides.
Your quote from Levin makes it clear that he opposes what seems like the gimmickry of local authorities trying to use the 14th Amendment to influence a presidential election--presumably because he doesn't agree with the Colorado judges' interpretations of the letter of the law, etc. This is a step toward seeing both sides. Is there also a case to be made for challenging local manipulations of election procedure that facilitate election fraud, especially when those manipulations do not follow the letter of the law? Beyond that, is there a case to be made for defending the secrecy of the ballot and verification that each voter marks his or her own personal ballot, as opposed to promoting vote by mail?
Levin's comment is spoiled by his misunderstanding and mischaracterization of President Trump's actions in response to an election ridden with gross fraud. He just doesn't want to believe that a presidential election could be stolen, but they have been. In 1960 there was insistent denial that the Kennedy election was fraudulent, but it eventually has become acknowledged that that was the case.
It will probably eventually become acknowledged that the 2020 election was as well, long after it makes any difference.
This is an excellent post Arnold. Thanks once again. There are deep underlying problems within our country. Your last paragraph is apropos and accurate, but I’m still optimistic.
We should start by making a list of root causes. Certainly the decline in religious participation is part of the cause here. I would say that people are busy working, making money to pay for all the stuff they want. There is a lack of cohesiveness in neighborhoods across America. People aren’t coming together in communities, in private groups like they traditionally have. I’m speculating here, because I don’t have data to show any trends, but it seems that people are wandering separately, trying to figure what to do and how to do the stuff they want to be doing. They have things they want to be doing, (see Peter Gray’s post from today), such as reading, learning, writing, engaging in meaningful dialogue; overall doing things that bring a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction. But there is a void in our communities: a lack of motivational and organizational force; a lack of positive energy that brings people together.
My guess is that we’re on the verge of a renaissance, and right now we’re in a bad place due a void created by old fashioned religious beliefs, stale urban planning, career centrism, and public school conformism. Conformity is a huge theme in all this. In our social institutions we’re missing polite, conscientious heretics and creative can-do entrepreneurs. Where are the secular prophets? Politics and government are largely to blame, but politics is not a cure. You say it better in your last paragraph.
All of this has made us ignorant about the Constitution - ambivalent - and divisive in how we use it and talk about it. My observation is than almost no one wants to talk about the Constitution. It’s a dead-end in conversations. There is no organic, positive dialogue at the local level about the Constitution. It’s too rarely discussed in school, church, neighborhood, private gathering, email, social media, almost everywhere.
So you’re completely right in your last paragraph.
But be patient: the renaissance is coming. Change will come from the very bottom, with very simple steps, through emergence; through the butcher, the brewer, and the baker. Through technology. Through innovation and improvement in ideas. Through small positive steps in homes, churches, schools, clubs, gyms. It’s impossible to stop all of these small improvements. They’re distributed in the extended order that Hayek and Smith wrote about. The ultimate resource is the human mind. I’m eager to see what improvements will come next.
Among the transgressions listed is "the tactics used to pass Obamacare" (?!)
Bog standard legislating process if ever there was one. It needed 60 votes in the Senate!
Levin, like Kling, dislikes Trump and hates that so many Americans voted for him. I think Most personal character flaws are true BUT also true of Biden, Hillary, and Obama. After a sophomoric list of insults, the one big justification for Trump hate now is his claim that the election was stolen, followed by a big Stop The Steal protest which became a small riot, ending almost immediately after a big cop took out his gun and shot and killed the small, unarmed, but trespassing Ashli Babbitt.
The FBI entrapped some dumb Trump supporters into a kidnap scheme against Dem Governor Gretchen Whitmore. I believe there were Fed assets among the protesters encouraging illegal acts.
Trump wanted a huge peaceful protest, for his big ego. There was no insurrection.
Nobody has been charged with insurrection.
Kling seems to think that deep state censorship of the truth does not mean the election was stolen, and Levin fails to even mention it. They censored H Biden’s laptop information about Biden corruption and illegal behavior. They censored in order to affect the voting, in order to steal the election.
Censoring the truth is wrong, and is a common tactic of not-really democracies who have elections which they make sure are won by the dictator.
Or, it’s wrong but not really, like speeding just a little. “But officer, I’m sure I was going less than 10 mph over the limit.”
When a ref makes a bad call, the wrong team might win.
The election was stolen, tho I can’t prove it. But those claiming it wasn’t stolen also can’t prove it wasn’t, nor show the 65 million mail-in envelopes to allow checking and auditing. Most Trump supporters believe as I do, that it was stolen. Levin believes it wasn’t, with a total lack of doubt and in full belief of fair play by Obama weaponized FBI which, in 2016, was willing to claim false Hillary funded mud was true in order to illegally spy on the Trump campaign.
Did he believe the NYT for 2 years of Fake News Collusion Hoax? No mention of how Obama did far more damage to the spirit of the Constitution than Trump.
Happy New Year, tho I expect to be outraged often by NeverTrumpers thru the election, which I sadly expect to be stolen again. And the Dems will continue stealing elections until more candidates complain about it more effectively.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but are more likely to result in cooperation, and agreement that they’re both wrong. Trump looks like the needed bad guy the Dems need to experience to get to more positive future cooperation.
We should start by outlawing political parties as a means of monopolizing political power.