onfocus

But for all that the right has bombed so many of the roads to a prosperous, humane future, it's a huge mistake to think of the right as a stable, unified force, marching to victory after inevitable victory. The American right is a brittle coalition led by a handful of plutocrats who have convinced a large number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Cory Doctorow has a way with words. His words about Project 2025 are worth a read.

“Any aggression that Trump does is because he’s the defender of freedom, and the Democrat represents real tyranny,” Ben-Ghiat said. “So it’s very seductive rhetoric, but it’s an inversion, so that democracy becomes the threat and tyranny and fascism, or whatever we’re calling Trumpism, becomes freedom, and that is how in history, we’ve gotten into situations where mass repression is hailed as something positive."

Not great!

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, a sign of the president’s strength in uniting his party to have the backing of one of its most liberal members.

This is the way.

Some journalists are so caught up in the debate furor that one of the most dangerous and consequential Supreme Court terms in memory was pushed off the front pages. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on immunity found that president’s might actually be kings, that’s a game changer that deserves more attention than it got. Instead, news outlets have dedicated most of their resources to covering every blip on the Biden debate follow up instead.

Wake up, journalists! Our democracy depends on an informed electorate and this horse race BS is a sideshow compared with the real story of a massive judicial power grab by a corrupt court.

Anyway, my point is just: none of this will change if Harris replaces Biden at the top of the ticket. The idea that the media -- with these soulless careerist court gossips in charge -- will allow it is just fantasy. They need Dems in disarray & so they will engineer it.

I don’t like to link to stuff on new Twitter but this is a nice summary of the media mode of operation. There is no move that Democrats can make that will change how the media covers them. You have to factor that into your decision making.

“Trump does not want people to know about the entire vanguard of extremist weirdos around him—and what their plans are when he governs,” says Chris Hayes on voters finding out about the far-right agenda that is Project 2025.

The real Republican agenda is this over-the-top Project 2025. The party isn’t putting out policy positions anymore—this is it. It’s extremism all the way down.

There is no way to change that outcome in the short term. In the long term, the only way to undo the authoritarianism the court has just ushered in is to expand the Supreme Court. Democrats would have to win the upcoming presidential election and the House and the Senate. Then Congress would have to pass a law expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court; then the Senate would have to pass that law as well, which, at a minimum, would likely have to include getting rid of the filibuster. Then the president would have to sign such a bill, and appoint additional Supreme Court justices who do not think that presidents should be kings—and then those justices would have to be confirmed.

The minority rule coup seems pretty complete with this ruling. Definitely an uphill climb for we the people.

Biden had a horrible night Thursday. But the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

I’ll take an ethical guy who cares about people over a destructive sociopath every time.

The odds grow stronger every day that everything won’t be OK. A radical right-wing faction now fully controls one of our two major political parties and a super-majority in the Supreme Court. Its presidential candidate, a convicted criminal without an ounce of honor or conscience, has made clear his intention to be a dictator if elected. Supporting them is an army of activists who see the finish line in their long march to create an authoritarian — or outright fascist — regime that mocks the will of the majority with increasingly harsh minority rule.

Dan Gillmor is asking journalists to meet the moment.

A president should be of decent character. A president should be entrusted to faithfully execute the law. The trial made clear that Trump is not of decent character and has no fealty to the law.

It’s so rare for someone in the media to state the obvious.

In Alito’s telling, he not only won’t recuse but in fact can’t recuse himself from the insurrection cases. Why? Because, he suggests, the nonbinding and entirely subjective ethics code to which the nine justices half-heartedly committed themselves this past fall requires that they remain on cases when they personally decide there’s no legitimate reason to recuse. Alito therefore asserts an “obligation” to hear the Trump-related cases.

This brazen corruption would be comical if it wasn't a Supreme Court that’s taking away fundamental human rights and enabling authoritarianism in America.

Since 2015, there has been this strong desire to make Trump more complicated than he is, as if his power and influence mean that he must have depth and substance. But he doesn’t. Trump is a glorified bully. And like all bullies, he wilts in the face of anyone willing to stand up and say no.

This is a rare good reminder in the NYT. The media needs this invincibility narrative but it doesn’t match reality.