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April 01, 2012

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joel hanes

conservative (a true misnomer) members of the Court

So why not describe them accurately ?
I suggest:

"radical right"
"movement ideologue"
"corporatist reactionary"


Sir Charles

Joel,

I think I don't do this to avoid sounding overly tendentious and ideological in each post. "Conservative" is the shorthand, its what they call themselves, it's the manner in which most of the media refer to them, and to turn each use of the phrase into the more colorful and accurate descriptions that you suggest would make the writing seem stiff and hyperbolic I think.

Having said that, there is nothing conservative about striking down a law that was painstakingly put together by the political branches to deal with what is arguably the largest social and economic problem our society faces.

beckya57

Hi Sir C,

Want to challenge you on a couple of points. First, please don't shuffle Nick Kristof's brave crusade against sex trafficking in with idiots saying that sexually liberated women are doomed to be miserable. If you'd read Kristof and WuDunn's book Half the Sky (as I have), you'd know there is nothing "liberated" about the girls (often quite young) and women he is writing about. These girls/women are sold into slavery, kept confined, and treated horribly. Standing up for them is definitely standing up for women's liberation. I highly recommend the book; it's painful to read in places (they also talk about abominations like "honor" killings and clitoridectomies), but ultimately uplifting as he describes the efforts indigenous women are making to free themselves and others in the same predicaments.

Also, I really think we in the progressive community need to be calling out the media's characterizations of the current right-wing as "conservative." Of course that's what they call themselves, as that implies that they are part of a mainstream and respectable tradition. But the reality is that they are radical rightists, and need to be named as such. Calling them "conservative" aides and abets their efforts to sound non-threatening to the general public, most of whom don't understand that their Medicare, rights/protections as workers, health care, education etc. are at stake, and that these people are planning to raise middle-class taxes and destroy social welfare programs in order to give the 1% still more tax breaks. The latest example of course is the SC's threat to the ACA: there is absolutely nothing "conservative" about ignoring years of precedent and overturning the will of the president, House and 60 Senators because you as a justice happen to be of the other party and don't like the bill or the current president.

kathy a.

excellent, becky! especially about "conservative" having become code for "radical rightists."

and radical right wing is just code for "you don't matter. only very rich important people matter. shut up and go away [you liberal feminist radical communist mass-coddling science-sucking porn-loving supporter of hating on the sacred sperm]." or something like that; it is hard to sort, day to day.

beckya57

"Hating on the sacred sperm"--gotta love that.

kathy a.

it's not an original idea.

also, mother nature made lots of them because they're supposed to be wasted, mostly. also, in the olden days, one expected bunches of kids to die [birth accidents, disease, starvation], and bunches of moms to die also in childbirth or otherwise.

birth control and antibiotics and vaccinations are real miracles of decades in my life and those of my parents -- oh, a lot of other things, too, but those are biggies. we've gotten past the need for all possible sperm to impregnate someone, lest the species die off.

Sir Charles

becky,

I don't mean to equate Kristoff with the other two airheads. And I think a lot of his work abroad is highly worthy.

But I think he is probably elevating the issue of domestic trafficking into a problem disproportionate to the levels in which it is actually occurring. I think he has developed a crusader's mentaility that is turning him into a bit of a Johnny One Note. He's become obsessed with these Village Voice ads recently and I just wonder if they are really worthy of all of the attention that he is devoting to them. He, like all Times columnists, has a pretty powerful megaphone. If he wants to focus on women's issues -- which I think is a great idea -- I think there any number that might have broader impact. Of course that would mean actually engaging powerful partisans rather than the marginal people in the sex trade.

Sir Charles

becky,

I also think his columns have a whiff of the old "white slavery" hysteria of the 50s.

I may be wrong and the problem might me more widespread than I think. But I would like to see more column space devoted to female poverty, the unbelievable attacks on reproductive rights that are sweeping the nation, and the degree to which the Republican Party is attacking the most fundamental rights of women. It is a scandal how many places in the country a woman cannot get an abortion in anymore -- and even where she can, the degrading hoops through which she must jump.

I think that taking on Republicans though takes more guts than taking on pimps.

nancy

Podhoretz makes me want to spit. I'd not put the family connection together before. Of course -- the legacy Cons. These people aren't conservative -- they are emboldened Randians, pure and simple.

From the Financial Times, not exactly an outlier -- America's Dream Unravels .

Btw. Without having been able to extend our health care insurance to our twenty-something, his Level 1 trauma-care accident would have dealt a serious blow to this household. And we are reasonably well-equipped to absorb some financial stress. Podhoretz finds all this abstraction amusing and twitter-worthy. Fugh him.

beckya57

Sir C-

Thanks for the clarification. I agree that sec trafficking pales in importance in this country compared to the other issues you mention. I was thinking of Kristof's work in Africa and Asia where it's a huge problem.

I didn't see you comment on the other issue I raised?

Phil Perspective

Those of us with legal expertise have generally been most optimistic about the law's prospects because we understand that ample precedent strongly suggests that the law falls comfortably within mainstream commerce clause jurisprudence.


Sir Charles:
Have you read Bmaz's latest re: the Supremes and the ACA? While he was optimistic, he wasn't as much as you or others. I'm no legal scholar, but I always thought that if the ACA were upheld, it would be a 5-4 decision. I still don't understand why Roberts would ever go along with upholding the ACA. Think about what would happen if Roberts votes to uphold? Do you really think he wasn't to get ambushed like BillO the Clown's minions(or Breitfart's, for that matter) have done to people like KO or Bill Moyers?

Sir Charles

becky,

I agree with both you and Joel about the nature of the right. And I concur that we need to continually drive home the radical nature of their agenda.

I was mostly commenting on style rather than substance.

I truly think there is nothing conservative about these people.

Sir Charles

Phil,

I don't think Roberts fears getting ambushed. I think that if Bill O. or any of the other mouth breathers did something like that they would have real troubles on their hands. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is not really someone with whom to fuck.

Roberts is an interesting case -- he's a committed right winger but he's a lot subtler than Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. I think he cares about his reputation in elite legal circles at least a little bit. So I would not be surprised that if there is a 5-4 majority to uphold the law that he might join in and make it 6-3 and write the opinion himself. Both statesmanlike and allowing himself to control the breadth of precedent.

But that means it is all riding on Kennedy. Roberts certainly won't be the fifth vote on the case.

low-tech cyclist

Speaking of the Grey Lady, I was all ready to pay for a digital subscription, until I found out what they were charging on this go-around.

The last time they went to a paywall, I think they charged $49.95 for a year's unlimited access, and I eventually decided it was worth ponying up. (Of course, halfway through the year I paid for, they dropped the paywall, not that they offered any refunds or anything.) Now they're charging $3.75 per week, which works out to $195 a year, and no discount if you pay for a full year either.

Sorry, New York Times, but your paper just isn't worth $200 a year to me. If you're relying on a bunch of $200/year digital subscribers to keep it going, my bet is that you'll get the movers and shakers - mostly people who can get an employer, or their law or lobbying firm, to pick up the tab - but not many of the rest of us.

But just to get a more objective benchmark in here, it would cost $1.59 per week, or $83/year, to get a dead-trees Washington Post delivered to my exurban door, if I chose to do that.

Hell, if I could find someone in NYC who wouldn't mind a free dead-trees subscription, I could buy them that subscription for $3.25 a week - still too expensive at $169/year, but less than the cost of a digital subscription - and I'd get the digital subscription for free with the dead-trees subscription.

So I'm trying to figure out by what yardstick their $200/year digital subscription makes any sense, and coming up short. Apparently I can still mostly get Krugman's and Nate Silver's blogs for free, and that's all I really want anyway. But I'd pay their old $50/year rate if that was an option.

Sir Charles

l-t c,

I am so old-fashioned that I still get the dead tree versions of both the Times and the Post delivered to my door. One gets the sense though that almost no one under 40 does this anymore.

You would think that this kind of thing might make the reporters and columnists more sensitive to the insecurity brought about by "creative destruction" but I sure don't see a lot of signs of this.

low-tech cyclist

They have only released teaser results so far from the latest USA Today-Gallup Swing States Poll, but it won't surprise anyone here to find out that most American women are smart enough to notice when one political party is waging a war against them.

The topline: in the 12 swing states*, Obama leads Romney by 51-42. That's outside the margin of error**, incidentally.

But the big earthquake is this:

The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.

"More than 6 in 10" - they don't give the actual percentage, but 'more' would mean at least 61%. So Obama's leading Romney by at least 61-30 among women under 50 in the 12 swing states.

A political party simply can't win nationally if it loses blacks, Hispanics, and women under 50 the way the GOP is doing.

Obama's edge among women overall in the 12 swing states is +18, which means that his edge among women 50 and over is down in the single digits somewhere. (I'm not sure what the ratio is between voters 18-49 and 50+.)

Among men over 50, Romney has a 56-38 advantage in the swing states. But among men overall, Romney only leads by 1%. And that gets us to another pretty impressive earthquake:

This means Obama is killing Romney among men under 50 in the swing states. Not by nearly as much as among women under 50, but at least in the double digits.

If the GOP loses men under 50, then it's game over for them. White men are their core constituency, and if they can't carry white men by a big enough margin to offset their losses among black and Hispanic men, then they barely have a core constituency.

Well, they do: it's white men over 50. But not only can't you win just with the "get off my lawn" vote, the Seniors Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything, but every year, more of those old people will die off, and be replaced in the 50+ demographic by the younger people who want nothing to do with what they're selling.

The GOP's war on women may be the thing that finally kills them.

Now, how can we get organized to take full advantage of this counterreaction? Some group needs to organize a charge to reverse all these crazy laws against contraception, or killing funding for family planning, or placing onerous and absurd restrictions on the right to have an abortion, nationwide. People who are organized are always more effective than people who aren't.

*The swing states in this poll are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

**Wonk stuff ahead: the stated MOE of this poll is 4%, but that's the MOE of each individual estimate, not the MOE of the difference. If two estimates are independent, there's a Pythagorean relationship between the MOEs of the estimates, and the MOE of the difference between them, i.e. if a and b are the individual MOEs and c is the MOE of the difference, then a^2 + b^2 = c^2. But if they're dependent, then that rule goes out the window. And in a situation like this, where there the undecided/other share is down in the white noise, so an increase in one candidate's support comes from the other candidate's support, the MOE of the difference is basically double the stated MOE. So a poll with a 4% MOE really has to show an 8% or greater difference for that difference to be statistically significant - a high bar in a fairly closely divided country. But one that we've managed to clear.

Sir Charles

l-t c,

I don't really understand the GOP approach to the electorate. It seems designed to alienate virtually everyone except that older white male core vote.

And I would think it bodes especially poorly another six to ten years down the road.

It's fascinating. You've just never seen a party go out of its way to turn off voters based on pure ideology -- at least not since the Civil War. But pragmatism has clearly left the station and the GOP ain't on board.

oddjob

(Or to put it more accurately, I think, one that the GOP in its extremism has managed to create.)

Paula B

All good news, SC, OJ and l-tc. It's about time women started waking up,if not for themselves then for their daughters and granddaughters.

This, from "Son of Beware of sluts," birdsonawireblog.com, is making the rounds through the twittersphere, if not the blogosphere:


It’s up to women to use the strength in numbers that has fallen into their laps, combined with the rights and privileges inherited from the hard work of women who came before. It was never more true than it is today: Women must take care of women, ALL women.

Let’s not slip, no matter what our religion, our race, our politics. Let’s promise we will not elect people to office or go along with the appointment of leaders who do not respect our fundamental rights as human beings and as women.

Personally, I have no use for a candidate who is from the party I usually vote for, who is on the same page with me regarding foreign affairs and economic issues, but wants to forbid me from making decisions about how I use this body I was born into! What could be more fundamental than the right to control one's own body?

Bottom line: Women voters must come together as women on the issue of birth control and health care issues related to femaleness. Race, religion, ethnicity, geographic region, economic class, occupation, marital status: None of that matters when it comes to issues regarding how an individual woman moves her own cells through life’s maze. Our bodies and our choice of life paths come first; all the rest is secondary.

low-tech cyclist

SC - I was one of the skeptics when Ruy Teixeira was pushing his Emerging Democratic Majority thesis. The problem, of course, is that as smaller minorities become large minorities, they stop being discriminated against, start mainstreaming, and become part of the majority culture. Catholics were once a solidly Democratic bloc, for instance, but as they mainstreamed, the political differences between Catholics and Protestants diminished. So as the ethnic groups that form your basis of support grow, their alliance with the Democratic Party weakens, and you find yourself in the same place.

But what's happening now isn't gradual demographic change - it's a fairly sudden attack on multiple demographic groups: Hispanics, women, and young people, along with reinforcement of its long-term hostility towards blacks and gays. Maybe someone should write a book titled, "The Overnight Democratic Majority." Because that's practically what it is.

I've long said that it's very difficult to get rid of one of the two major political parties, because people who don't like one party have only one viable alternative. But the GOP sure seems to be painting themselves into a corner.

Not that I have a problem with that. If I knew how, I'd be securing them an unlimited supply of more paint and brushes.

scott

Just wanted to say that I agree with Paula. The way anyone gets attention paid to issues he/she cares about is to make it clear that they have to work for your votes and money. Spending less time worrying about the "problems" our leaders have (boo hoo!) and making them worry about ours seems like the right way to go.

oddjob

You've just never seen a party go out of its way to turn off voters based on pure ideology

But it happens sometimes, especially at the end of a particularly successful run for a long-term political agenda. As the true believers continue to enforce ideological purity, to the point that pragmatists no longer can stand to be around them, the party gets fewer votes and becomes yet more rigidly ideological as the remaining members become fewer and purer in their adherence to the "true faith" (now in its ending phase as a paradigm, although the true believers can't yet see that).

I think between that and the fact that resentment is no small part of today's American right wing paradigm ("conservative" isn't really a good name for it, as Sir C. & others here have rightly noted; it's too fanatical to be aptly described by the adjective "conservative"), it isn't really surprising to see the agenda's remnants collectively expressed as a middle finger salute to all those who disagree.

(Scalia's been doing that from the bench for some decades now.)

Paula B

Thanks, Scott. It just so happens there's an upset in the demographics right now, with 6 million more adult women in the US than men. Women also outnumber men in the workplace and at the polls. So, what's stopping them? I guess no one in the GOP bothers to read the the periodic updates on the most recent US Census or Time magazine. Oh well!

Sir Charles

Scott,

I wonder though if there is really any parallel in American history with what is going on with the GOP right now? American political parties have been historically large coalitions with a great deal of regional variation. Over the last two decades you have seen a move toward much more parliamentary like parties with a great deal of ideological coherence and a lot less regional variation. This has kicked into overdrive in the last decade to the point where you now have Republicans in places like Ohio and Wisconsin attempting to govern like they were in some sort of deep Southern states -- with what I think will prove to be disastrous results for their party.

The Republican allegiance to ideology has really become more and more profound to the point where they aren't just denouncing federal spending (and then increasing it) but actually looking to dismantle a program like Medicare, which continues to enjoy broad public support.

Additionally, there is a kind of census be damned attitude that is remarkable. They seem to think that they can use voter suppression strategies to overcome this, but I think even the most aggressive proponent of this approach has to realize it is not a good long term strategy. Throw into the mix extremist legislation that goes over very poorly with a pretty big segment of the biggest single segment of the electorate, white women, and then alienate young voters with your extraordinarily backward views on gays and other matters cultural and you really create some pretty huge long term problems.

(It is interesting to note that Asians are actually the faster growing minority segment in the U.S. -- even more so than Hispanics, albeit in much smaller numbers -- and they too are voting against Republicans on a nearly two to one basis. So the Republicans are going to be at a profound disadvantage with Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, probably losing about 70-75% of the vote among these groups who will likely constitute a third of the electorate in the near future.)

The Party's reaction -- well let's piss off young white people too.

kathy a.

i wish i felt more comfortable about the demographics. there are obviously "ladies against women" out there, though -- and i never thought i'd see real efforts to restrict birth control, or other crap against that has been prominent in recent months.

have to take comfort in the fact that even a lot of women who identify as "conservative" do believe in birth control and their personal medical autonomy. they believe in women working outside the home, because that is how they have supported their families. they believe in health care, because they and their families have needed it. we need to do all possible to ensure those women are persuaded by those specific interests, rather than what some call the "ooga booga" message from those neanderthals.

oddjob -- i hadn't really understood the role the feds played in making air travel workable at least in major population areas. had noticed that it is important to be near a hub/major airport, should one want to get from here to there without spending enormous amounts.

low-tech cyclist

This is really weird: I seem to be the only person out there who's noticed the bit about Obama shellacking Romney among men under 50.

Yeah, sure, they didn't come out and say it, but how do you miss it if you do even a cursory look at the numbers they do provide?

oddjob

you now have Republicans in places like Ohio and Wisconsin attempting to govern like they were in some sort of deep Southern states

I don't know about Wisconsin, but I've heard anecdotally that over the last three decades Ohio, especially southern Ohio, has become much more like Kentucky (i.e. far more evangelical Christians present) than it ever used to be. That goes hand in hand with Republicans governing as in Dixie.

Sir Charles

l-t c,

See my last line -- I kind of ran out of steam, but yes, they have also decided to piss off young men -- sadly I don't even fall within the liberal under 50 rule to fall into this category.

oddjob,

Yeah, southern Ohio is like that, but I don't think that is representative of the state, whose overall demographics tend to mirror those of the U.S. generally. This may explain in part why Kasich got his ass handed to him in the union referrendum.

oddjob

But it does show up in Columbus. Ohio State's natural history museum used to reference "Evolution" in its title, but is now known as the "Museum of Biological Diversity".

Joe S

LTC, Catholics tended to vote reliably Democratic and reliably economically liberal for nearly a century (really 1875-1970). So to say demographics don't matter is problematic. Demographic group loyalties can change over the course of decades, but it really does take that long. It took nearly 50 years for Southern Whites to abandon the Democratic Party completely after civil rights. So right now, Democrats really do have the ability to create a 50 year coalition- and the conservatives know it.

nancy

oddjob -- Thanks for the sad piece about deregulation -- that law of unintended consequences again. Once more, we're reminded of how this country needs high-speed rail as well. Southwest recently reduced routes we fly with some frequency to where getting to Seattle or Salt Lake City have become time-consuming hop, hops. In the Mountain West we suffer at both ends of the formula with too few flights and now higher fares to midwest destinations where many of us have family.

I don't know about Wisconsin, but I've heard anecdotally that over the last three decades Ohio, especially southern Ohio, has become much more like Kentucky (i.e. far more evangelical Christians present) than it ever used to be. That goes hand in hand with Republicans governing as in Dixie.

Having grown up and gone on to school in southern Ohio, I'd say you're right. Oddly enough some of what you report resulted from the outward migration of college graduates after the Kent State shootings, where the message telegraphed at the time was alarmingly anti-youth, pro-'silent majority' and 'love it or leave it.' So we did, in droves, landing on the coasts and in friendlier urban enclaves. My unscientific tracking leads me to think many more than half of my classmates headed out permanently.

nancy

Bill, probably the man for the job, weighs in today on stand your ground legislations and asks for a reappraisal.

"People have always had a right to have a handgun in their home, to protect their homes, then we've seen this breathtaking expansion of concealed weapons laws. I hope this will lead to a reappraisal of the 'stand your ground' laws, that the truth will come out and that the tragedy of this young man's loss will not be in vain."

Guardian: "Since the measure was passed into law by then Florida governor Jeb Bush in 2005 it has been cited in at least 140 cases, according to the Tampa Bay Times. It removed a citizen's duty to retreat from a situation in which he or she perceived their life or safety to be in jeopardy and allowed instead for use of deadly force.

beckya57

Jon Chait had an interesting article recently about the GOP's mad press for unpopular policies. His view was that they know that they're about to become a minority party for a good long while, and see right now as their last chance to undo the New Deal, bust unions, push women back into the home and gays back into the closet, etc. Makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it.

kathy a.

i dunno, becky. i think they see it as a holy war, and that they have gotten so breathtakingly stupid and horrible because they think they can get away with it. the president is of color, you know. socialism, feminism, atheism, multiculturalism, the undeserving, taxes, ooga booga. they believe they will win, especially with those big unaccountable bucks behind them.

kathy a.

nancy -- bill probably is the guy for the job. this is just common sense. nobody but the worst kind of wingnuts thinks that arming everybody, concealed, is the answer. nobody who lives in the actual world, i think.

kathy a.

i'm in a bad mood on the gun issue generally, though. i hate them. somebody went and killed at least 7 people at a christian college today, about 10 miles from me.

beckya57

kathy, I think you're talking more about the rank and file, and Chait was talking more about the party leadership and the big money folks. Obama's being black is just a tool for them; if he was white they would just find something else. Being white and Southern sure didn't protect Bill Clinton.

paula b

Becky---I wonder if things would have been different for Clinton without the "uppity" wife? Probably not. Even with the single mom thing and all, they would have called him an elitist for being a Rhodes Scholar.

Sorry that shooting was so close to you, kathy.

kathy a.

i really fucking hate guns.

becky, you're probably right about this being what appeals to rank & file, with most of the movers and shakers just using divisive issues to scare the bejeepers out of the voters they count on -- on a visceral level. lord knows they don't want voters considering things rationally.

beckya57

I hate guns too.

I don't think things would have been different for Clinton without Hillary--again, they just would have found something else. Any Democratic president is illegitimate and should be subjected to a no-holds-barred attack in the contemporary right's view. The choice of tactics varies depending on the officeholder, but not the goal. Kerry would have experienced this too if he had been elected, as will every succeeding Dem president until this version of the GOP changes or dies out.

joel hanes

closing the circle, maybe ...

I share Charles's concern about rhetorical tone, but my Overton window apparently overlooks a meadow somewhat to the left of his.

So I toyed with jokes about the proper description of the Court's right-ideologues being "running-dog lackeys of the bourgeoisie", but ultimately thought better of it.

kathy a.

open thread: NYT editorial about a judicial ruling requiring groups (like the chamber of commerce) to disclose political donors.

oddjob

Kerry would have experienced this too if he had been elected

Oh, that's a given! Furthermore his wife's not shy about publicly expressing her opinions, either, so all the "uppity wife" stuff would have come around for her, too. Michelle negotiates that mess far better than Theresa would have.

Sir Charles

joel,

Ha! They are capitalist roaders who will be shown to be paper tigers.

nancy

Open for business again? Cranky captcha!

Sir Charles

nancy,

I believe it is back in action.

Sir Charles

Ah, it looks like we've got a new captcha system. Can't say that I like it much.

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