In the beforetimes, when the coronavirus was just a gleam in a pangolin’s eye, I took in the odd concert. Richmond has a wonderful venue, the National, where I’ve attended many shows. The National has a sister venue – the NorVa – and I found myself in Portsmouth-Norfolk in May 2019 for a double bill: The Last Internationale (awesome!) and Tom Morello (transcendent!). It was an evening of music to move my pale white booty along with politics to take to the street. Check both out, if you haven’t.
While in town, I sampled the region’s local paper, The Virginian-Pilot. A letter in it defended the inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 census. The newspaper took a pass on the letter I sent. The census remains vexing. The worst efforts to skew it – the citizenship question, President Id Personified’s call to purge the undocumented from the numbers used for reapportionment of legislative seats – were thwarted; nevertheless, the pandemic likely ensured a flawed count that will serve right-wing interests.
Maurice F. Conner, “Citizenship Status Is Needed,” The Virginian-Pilot, 16 May 2019, 12 (www.pilotonline.com/opinion/letters/article_6b097382-772e-11e9-bb92-cbbec9217c7c.html).
Maurice Connor (The Virginian-Pilot, 16 May 2019, 12) rightly calls for Congress to address immigration reform and decries President Trump’s divisive rhetoric but he misreads the reasons why the citizenship question will potentially reappear in the 2020 Census after having been deemed unnecessary and counterproductive more than a half century ago.
There is no legal requirement that the census ask about citizenship. The Constitution mandates that the census count people, not citizens, because the nation has always been home to multitudes of non-citizens, documented and undocumented. The Census Bureau estimates that the question will reduce participation by non-citizens by 5.1 percent and cause an undercount of 6.5 million.[1]
Far more troubling is the probability that the resurrection of the citizenship question was politically motivated. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who initially asserted that the question arose from a Justice Department request, conceded last October that he had discussed the matter with then Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who encouraged Ross to contact Kris Kobach, [2] the Kansas secretary of state infamous for efforts to disqualify voters and for leadership of Trump’s farcical voter fraud commission. Beyond any dishonesty by Ross in congressional testimony, the question’s origin smacks at best of an attempt at demographic gerrymandering and at worst of the pursuit of alt-right, anti-immigrant policies through the vehicle of the census.
The Supreme Court should not permit Trump and his minions to corrupt yet another institution by politically weaponizing it.
[1] Dana Milbank, “Saving White Hegemony in Four Little Steps,” The Washington Post, 24 April 2019, A21 (www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-census-case-presents-how-to-preserve-white-hegemony-in-four-easy-steps/2019/04/23/ef2b6712-660b-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html).
[2] Glenn Thrush and Adam Liptack, “Wilbur Ross Changes Story on Discussion of Citizenship Question in Census,” The New York Times, 12 October 2018 (www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/us/politics/wilbur-ross-commerce-census-citizenship.html).
In September 2018, I was in the United Kingdom for several weeks and grabbed The Guardian at a newsagent every morning. My stay fell between the initial phase of the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the later part involving Christine Blasey Ford. The Guardian published an unsigned opinion about the irregularities of the process, which were legion. The Guardian was on point on the overarching story but didn’t address the underlying dynamic in the lower federal courts, so I sent a note. It was essentially a replay of the details in an earlier letter to The Richmond Times-Dispatch regarding appointments to the US district and appellate courts. The Guardian passed on it.
“It Has Required Multiple Wrongs to Move the Supreme Court Right,” The Guardian, 10 September 2018, journal 2 (www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/09/the-guardian-view-on-the-us-supreme-court-the-wrongs-required-to-move-right).
The “rottenness” driving the GOP’s confirmation of judges to the American bench runs far deeper than President Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court. The selfsame Senate Judiciary Committee that questioned Brett Kavanaugh last week did all in its power to slow walk and withhold confirmation from President Obama’s nominees to federal district and appellate courts prior to the 2016 election. The scuttling of Merrick Garland’s appointment was merely the high-profile apotheosis of a broader dereliction of senatorial responsibility. As Mr. Obama left office, a trove of judicial vacancies fell into Mr. Trump’s lap. Mr. Trump and a suddenly energized Republican Senate have filled these positions at light speed. Some of Mr. Trump’s nominees are woefully unqualified. Others are ideologues. Many manage to be both. Few have been denied confirmation.
The federal bench is now poised to roll back hard-won individual rights and to remove sensible restraints from corporate interests for a generation. Mr. Kavanaugh is merely the final piece of the puzzle. The Guardian notes correctly that Americans should reject the GOP in November. To hobble the GOP’s assault of the judiciary, the Democrats must win the Senate, a taller hurdle to clear than gaining control of the House. A favorable outcome is by no means assured.
The GOP perhaps realizes that it controls a minority government whose days may be numbered and consequently is determined to ram through whatever it can while it can, damage to the American constitutional system be damned. Such cynicism is a marvel.
There were good tidings in Virginia in the late spring of 2018. The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the redistricting done by the GOP in 2011 for the Commonwealth’s House of Delegates was racially motivated and ordered a redrawing of the lines. Jeremy M. Lazarus of The Richmond Free Press reported the story and I sent a letter to underscore that this was happy news but that the battle to ensure proper access to the ballot was not over. Rereading the thing, I would amend it. I, like some others, made too much of the decline in Black participation in presidential voting from the high level of 2012 to a lower one in 2016. The larger problem is the appallingly low participation by voters of all backgrounds, an apathy that paves the way for the minority rule conservatives covet.
Jeremy M. Lazarus, “Federal Court Orders Redrawing of State House Districts by Oct. 30,” The Richmond Free Press, 28-30 June 2018 (http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2018/jul/01/federal-court-orders-redrawing-state-house-distric/).
The order by the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to redraw districts for the Virginia House of Delegates is welcome news. The unsubtle gerrymandering perpetrated by the GOP-controlled General Assembly in 2011 contributed to Democrats remaining in the minority (49-51) in the House of Delegates despite having won the statewide vote by a near landslide last November.
No one, however, should assume that the matter is settled beyond contestation. The state GOP may choose to appeal the decision. Should the US Supreme Court intervene, the omens are not promising for advocates of voting rights. The court’s refusal last week to act in cases involving gerrymandered US House districts in Wisconsin and Maryland, coupled with Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, President Trump’s vow of a speedy nomination, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise of a lightspeed confirmation, will likely produce a Supreme Court less inclined to rule against cynical efforts to abridge the right to vote and to intimidate and discourage qualified voters.
The Supreme Court’s changing complexion jeopardizes the hard-won gains made by African Americans and potentially will undermine LGBTQ rights, women’s control of their own bodies, collective bargaining by workers, curbing of corporate misconduct, and a host of other priorities. The most effective defense against the unraveling of a sensible progressive agenda remains the ballot box. Regaining control of the House and, if possible, the Senate by Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections is crucial and no voting demographic is more important than African Americans. Colbert King noted recently (“Decades of Progress Are Threatened,” The Washington Post, 30 June 2018, A15 [www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/decades-of-progress-are-in-peril/2018/06/29/b93edcaa-7bbb-11e8-93cc-6d3beccdd7a3_story.html]) that African-American participation dropped to 59.6 percent in 2016 from 66.6 percent in 2012, a decline that contributed materially to Donald Trump’s ascent. The president has crowed about this very fact to his adoring crowds. Erosion of rights, especially the right to vote, is best warded off by their continuous and informed exercise at every level of government.
Virginia has off-year elections for statewide offices and state legislative seats. Kentucky does this too. This depresses turnout, probably a feature, not a bug. The only upside to this custom is that it makes the Commonwealth a gauge for the electorate’s mood; more about that later.
The off-off-year elections also ensure an extra season of bloviating punditry. As the 2017 election neared, The Richmond Times-Dispatch printed an unsigned editorial asserting that the US Supreme Court could not and should not do anything about gerrymandering of federal and state legislative seats. The newspaper adopted this stance just as litigation arising from toxically, almost comically, gerrymandered Wisconsin reached the high court. Interesting timing, that.
The Supreme Court’s decision hinged on the whims of Anthony Kennedy, who had long dithered by braying about his need for a precise measure of the bias driving gerrymandering. This reads to me as motivated obtuseness. He balked yet again and soon afterward retired, his work done. The Supreme Court’s present composition likely will make this the final opportunity for the high court to address the issue. It’s just another step in the normalization of minority rule. Sigh. For whatever it’s worth, The Richmond Times-Dispatch gave me another gold star. Be still my heart.
“Gerrymander Is Awful. The Supreme Court Isn’t the Answer,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 5 October 2017 (https://richmond.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-gerrymandering-is-awful-the-supreme-court-isnt-the-answer/article_fc6ab70e-8ec9-5d09-b92c-928ae9f71023.html).
“Today’s Gerrymandering Is Undemocratic,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 22 October 2017, E2 (https://richmond.com/opinion/letters-to-editor/cod-oct-22-2017-todays-gerrymandering-is-undemocratic/article_45384630-bf60-500e-924b-6f9faa241a30.html).
Cue the clichés: Third time is the charm. There was no third whiff. Pay dirt was hit.
The context for this letter to the editor was the aftermath of my father-in-law’s passing. After an extended stay in California, I returned to Richmond before New Year’s 2017. I covered The Beloved’s courses for a couple of weeks so that she could spend more time with her mother out west and I reverted to my slovenly bachelor ways. The Better Half discovered that she didn’t have enough of a refrigerated prescription medication, so I jerry-rigged a cold pack for quasi-illegal overnight shipment. I arrived at the Carytown UPS Store too early. Can Can, the nearby French bistro, beckoned. A self-indulgent, decadent breakfast with the newspapers followed.
An unsigned editorial in The Richmond Times-Dispatch disturbed my meal. It contended that President Obama had been successful in elevating nominees to the federal counts despite the Republicans’ glacially slow confirmation of them. It read like an apologia for GOP obstructionism, an aggravating stance against the backdrop of the Merrick Garland kerfuffle. It also seemed off factually. My inner dialogue whispered, “This can’t be accurate.” Its thrust was seemingly to normalize the GOP’s politically larcenous program of fulfilling Lewis Powell’s 1971 clarion call to movement conservatives. The avenue to power according to Mr. Powell lay in wresting control of media, state legislatures, and especially the courts from Democrats. The editorial was displeasing. I did some research, gathered the facts, and concluded that it was misleading. A response was written and submitted.
This was a watershed in learning the letter-to-the-editor ropes and honing a process for putting the bits together. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is due some credit. It’s frequently not to my taste editorially but it is good that it exists and retains a presence in print when so many papers have folded. Its policy on letters is sensible. A liberal maximum length allows for a coherent rebuttal to an editorial. My drafts invariably fracture the limit and are then carved down to the canonical wordcount. The Richmond Times-Dispatch places a sixty-day moratorium on further submissions once a letter reaches print. That too is sensible. Otherwise, I would fire an epistle at the paper weekly because of the silliness of many syndicated columnists.
The letter’s final draft was passed by The Mistress of the House, who offered encouraging words: “They’re never going to print this.” She likely thought it was too polemical and combative. The only reason I’m mentioning this, darlin’, is you’ve been the one banging the drum for me to archive this stuff.
The letter appeared in the paper’s Sunday edition without warning. This was pleasing, because Sunday circulation was then around two-hundred thousand rather than the weekday eighty thousand. The idea was to have the greatest possible opportunity to give a person or two pause to think. I discovered that I was also the correspondent du jour. The paper highlights a single letter each day, which is likely to ensure that more people read it. I learned that comments by readers were permitted online and there was feedback. It was mostly polite and positive, some of it even useful. Negative comments were by and large precious and self-indicting.
The bit, sadly, holds up pretty well, especially in light of subsequent events – Mitch McConnell’s assembly-line filling of judicial vacancies, his encouraging of senior conservative judges to retire and be replaced by barely post-adolescent ideologues, and President Best People’s filling of three Supreme Court vacancies, two more than he should have had. The courts in effect were stacked during the Trump ascendancy.
“The Party of Yes,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 4 January 2017, A8 (https://richmond.com/opinion/editorial/editorial—on-the-judiciary-the-gop-played-ball/article_126ee798-fc23-5e5e-a821-b6604d8db307.html).
“GOP Obstruction is Hurting the Courts,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 15 January 2017, E2 (https://richmond.com/opinion/letters-to-editor/cod-jan-15-2017-gop-obstruction-is-hurting-courts/article_cebf7255-2df4-5606-9a56-3bcf0d3f521f.html).
The weeks following the election were dark. Once the sharpest pangs of despair subsided, attention shifted to what was to come. Would the new administration realize Democrats’ worst fears or was there some sliver of hope? The long transition gave a space for forging new narratives. Fabulists gave it the college try. A popular canard held that ascent to the Oval Office would ennoble The New Occupant, that the Resolute Desk would be a philosopher’s stone to transmute the toxic narcissist into a lion of public service. There would be an epiphany. Andrew Johnson would become Abraham Lincoln. Right. Other falderal making the rounds contended that the GOP’s Solons would erect guardrails to keep President Bigly between the ditches. The absurdity of such expectations soon became evident. A paraphrase of a comment attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to the Medici Pope Leo X better characterizes the comportment of the about-to-be chief executive: “Now that we have the presidency, let us enjoy it.”
Election-induced paralysis gave way to hunger for activity, something to fill the void, an antidote to gloom. There was a Renaissance in interest in civics, the high school course that – essential though it is – has been excised from many secondary-school curricula. The November 2016 election was a debacle not just at the presidential level. The Democrats gained seats in Congress but didn’t establish a majority in either chamber. Down the ballot, the 2016 election underscored a damaging legacy of the Obama era: From 2009 to 2016, Democrats surrendered control of fourteen statehouses, thirteen governorships, and 816 state legislative seats, a hemorrhaging of legislative power unseen since the Eisenhower years. The Undramatic One far better safeguarded his own electoral fortunes than he rendered aid in the states. (Quorum, “Under Obama, Democrats Suffer Largest Loss of Power Since Eisenhower” [www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democrats-suffer-largest-loss-in-power-since-eisenhower/, accessed 26 April 2021]; National Association of State Legislatures, “State Vote 2016: Analysis on the Election from the State Perspective,” 14 November 2016 [https://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Statevote/StateVote_Combined%20Presentation.pdf]). The civics conundrum was how an opposition party wielding no national lever of power and floundering in the states could restrain a potentially rogue president and a ruling party betraying signs of political and constitutional sociopathy. Did anything remain in the toolbox, constitutional, extraconstitutional, sub-constitutional, super-constitutional, supra-constitutional, whatever?
For a time, activism became a lifestyle. The urge grew to make a loud public noise, to exercise atrophied First Amendment muscles. The Women’s March following The New Guy’s inauguration most fully expressed this impulse. The geyser of atrocities erupting in Washington made the question not whether but what to protest. Action lists – things-to-do for the activated – proliferated. More than once that I sat in a coffee shop and overheard groups, frequently women, hammering out strategy and weighing the efficacy of tactics. The nascent Trump regime galvanized opposition.
The bit below is another email to a friend suffering post-election angst. It was written a month and half after the election and well into President-Elect Trash Fire’s shambolic transition. Those days were dark both politically and personally. The Better Half and I were in California to visit my in-laws. My father-in-law died just before Christmas. His passing was peaceful and perhaps even merciful. The election had disturbed and enraged him. Part of his ire during the intervening weeks had been directed at the electorate. He muttered darkly and took pleasure from a resurrected H. L. Mencken saw: “People deserve the government they get and they deserve to get it good and hard.” A day after my father-in-law encountered the great mystery, President-Elect Covfefe reportedly quipped, “Let it be an arms race because we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” This nonchalance about rekindling a nuclear arms contest was a slap at my father-in-law’s career as a scientist in government service and a public intellectual. He didn’t need to hear that and what came afterward.
Later that dismal week, The Better Half and I had lunch with a friend, an executive at a Silicon Valley tech firm. We reminisced about the departed, but the conversation soon shifted to The Incoming Guy. This conformed to an enduring conversational pattern: The most casual, inconsequential chat always came around to His Biliousness. Our friend was agitated, as were we all. A follow-up email from him arrived the next day. Because of a poorly preserved, now defunct, email account, my response survives but not our friend’s initial correspondence. The gist of the exchange was how best to defang the new regime. Some topics broached by our interlocutor have faded into oblivion because my replies are unspecific. The rest of it illustrates the groping for ways to act, not to accept supinely what was to come, to think unconventionally – maybe even larcenously – and to resist on many fronts. It also conveys top-of-mind concerns in the moment. Could a recess appointment reverse the shabby treatment of Merrick Garland? Could Mr. Obama employ pardons strategically before his departure, perhaps to protect those vulnerable under the new dispensation? How might government records be preserved? How could the anticipated assault on Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the rest of the social safety net be blunted? What would be Mr. Obama’s role in his post-presidency? Beyond addressing these issues, I gave my standard advice regarding how to thwart a wannabe authoritarian: Join the ACLU.
Here’s the bit:
Dear —–,
I too am a longstanding fan of both Robert Reich and Michael Moore. Regarding the list of suggested actions, I still think that no. 1 is problematic. The Republicans have effectively scotched Obama’s use of recess appointments for the lower federal courts by never allowing Congress to go into recess technically. I would be surprised if they’re not doing that now since they are determined to retain control of the appointment. If they’re not doing this or if their tactic applies only to the lower courts and not the supremes, it might be worth a shot but would at best likely only delay the inevitable. In any case, I would love to be corrected regarding any misconceptions I might have about this. The mistreatment of Merrick Garland has been one of the most deflating bits of this sad, sad, possibly needlessly sad year.
Obama could certainly do no. 2. Pardons for groups rather than individuals have been issued in the past. The president, however, has no power to pardon anyone for a crime not yet committed, so the efficacy of the former might be undercut by the latter. No one can be issued a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card.
Obama seems to be on the verge of doing something along the lines of no. 3, if this morning’s news is any indication. Good for him.
The agencies seem to be doing no. 4 already and it’s possible that Obama has quietly already made a move in this direction. Let’s hope.
Nos. 5 and 6 are great ideas and you’ve already mentioned the principal caveat in both.
No. 7 is also a good idea. The Republican response to this might be that they have not yet comprehensively outlined their plans for Medicare and Medicaid. Regarding the ACA, they undoubtedly will argue that it will be replaced with something far superior. The recent jumps in rates and the flight of some of the insurers unfortunately give them some cover on this. I personally think they will slow walk the changes in the ACA. They’ll vote to repeal but give the measure a long sunset to contain some of the political blowback. Another problem will be that Trump via Twitter will directly muddy the water for many of those most affected. The sad reality is that many of those bound to suffer most exist in a void of information and the Donald will likely for some time insulate himself from the consequences of his actions by employing Obama as scapegoat in chief.
In reference to no. 8, as we discussed yesterday, I think Obama should strive to be the best ex-president he can be and to anoint himself Trump’s personal and perpetual and constant gadfly if for no other reason than to preserve solidarity and maybe even a bit of optimism among right-thinking people. There have been modest signs over the past few days that he intends to do something like this. He’s popular at the moment and he shouldn’t waste that.
Beyond this, everyone should continue to fight the good fight in any way they can. After the debacle in 2004, I joined the ACLU. Their work in preserving transparency in government and individual freedom of expression and in defending people from aggressive action by the authorities will become even more important once Trump assumes office. If you have any friends who are attorneys and might be willing to offer a bit of pro bono, they could do worse than volunteer. Since you likely have an iPhone, the ACLU website offers an application that allows you to film and upload to the organization directly any incident in which you think someone’s rights are being violated. This application may be what finally compels me to surrender my Blackberry. Sigh.
It was fantastic to see you yesterday. Please stay in touch, especially during these troubling times.
Yours warmly, David