Blue Mass Group

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

–Federalist No. 47

In our polarized political environment, Michael Tomasky’s article in the Daily Beast will be dismissed by the people who need to understand it most. Republicans Don’t Just Want to Win—They Want to Rig the Game gets at a problem identified in the the Federalist Papers: legislative tyranny.

Our founders were extremely concerned about the tyranny of royalty, but after the Articles of Confederation and before the Constitution, they witnessed the capture of state governments by single factions. They termed it legislative tyranny. And it has been the goal of The Republican Party for quite some time.

As hard as it is to remember now, but there was a time when the Republican Party accepted the existence of the Democratic Party and its agenda. The GOP may have disagreed with Democratic goals and competed against them, but Republicans weren’t dedicated to eliminating Democrats. There were rules, and they more or less played by them. President Trump is a feature, not a bug of the modern Republican Party. Trump is the apotheosis of the GOP goal of one-party rule, of legislative tyranny. By breaking the rules, he is taking their strategy to its logical conclusion. Accepting the aid of Russia is just another step in the quest for one party rule.

[Republicans] refuse to stand up to Trump because they like what Trump is doing.

They’re embarrassed by him here and there (tweets), and they disagree with him here and there (tariffs).

But for the most part, they don’t complain too much out loud or carefully limit the scope of their complaints when they do because they’re with him on the most fundamental commodity in politics: power, and its use. Trump’s anti-democratic instincts, which are so dangerous to so many of us, do not trouble Republicans in the least….

The Democrats and Republicans have been our country’s two main parties since the 1850s. In that time, they have disagreed on a lot of things. But they have agreed on one big thing: They have followed the rules of the game established by our Founders (and subsequent generations) about the basic democratic allocation of power.

The main rule is that if you lose an election, you suffer consequences. The most obvious example of this is the Supreme Court. When Bill Clinton nominated Stephen Breyer to the Court in 1994, then-Texas Senator Phil Gramm said Breyer was “as good as we have a right to expect.” Gramm was an arch-conservative in his time, but he was acknowledging there the central truth about the democratic allocation of power, and Breyer was confirmed 87-9.

For 140 or so years, both parties mostly agreed on the rules. Yes, there was FDR’s court-packing scheme, which most of his fellow Democrats did not support. But after that, a broad consensus held for a long time. Then, the Republicans started behaving a little differently. They started challenging the rules. Democrats did too, a little, especially on judicial nominations, but it was Republicans who drove this change.

The shutting down of the recount in Florida in 2000. The aggressive gerrymandering, first engineered by Tom DeLay. The Hastert Rule, holding that bills could pass the House only with a majority of Republicans, and not with bipartisan support. The attacks on voting rights—straight-up attempts to make it hard or even impossible for certain citizens to vote….

So in sum, for a generation now, Republicans haven’t been just arguing with Democrats about who wins elections. They’ve been trying simultaneously to change the rules of the game so that they will win every election (their Supreme Court majority has done its part too, by the way, by allowing all this dark money into the system).

It’s hard to believe things will go back to normal any time soon. Too many the rules are not laws, and some laws may turn out to be unenforceable. Most of America has yet to wake up to the what has happened. They dislike Trump. They disapprove of him. But they haven’t realized the rules haven’t just changed. The GOP has destroyed them.

I could not escape the irony of the past weekend when my state legislature patted themselves on the back for giving the citizens of Massachusetts a “Tax Free Weekend” to help parents with back to school purchases and the reality that on Sunday evening, a young man knocked on our door, begging for money to help him pay for school sports at our public school.     He was a nice young man and it was clear that he was not comfortable going door to door soliciting donations to support our public schools.

In my town, students in the higher grades have to pay more than $300 a year for school bus transportation.  After school sports are also not included and cost each family a few hundred dollars more each year for each child.  To lessen the blow of this, each school sport has fund raising activities to help fund the activity; things like hot dogs sales at games, or as this young man was doing, outright begging for money, all in a town where the median household income is over $100K and several incomes are well over $1 Million dollars a year.  I can’t imagine how bad this is in towns with lower incomes.

Somehow,  we can’t find the money to pay for the transportation of our students, can’t give them the same school experience that we had, with no extra charge for after school activities, because we and our legislators do not have the empathy, sense of community, and frankly, guts to raise taxes to help our children have a better life.  All they can come up with is a sales tax holiday that is more smoke and mirrors and support for business than it serves as a benefit to our schools.  

Instead, our legislature announces a “tax free weekend” in order for a family to save maybe $50 on back to school supplies, even though this means that on a weekend evening, some young man will be pushed to go door to door, begging for money in order for him to play after school sports because our communities and our legislators will not fully support our schools and our children.

Cross posted from Left in Lowell. Hat tip to BMG tweet for the article.

The hot, sticky, generally annoying but also deadly heat waves that have swept the northern hemisphere have few upsides to them. In Japan, northern Europe including the UK and France, as well as the Northeast (no link needed, we lived through it!) and unusually, the Pacific Northwest and upper Midwest US, the heat has been intense this summer. Even Siberia and above the Arctic Circle in Canada became more than unusually hot. As a result, deaths from heat related illnesses, and terrible wildfires, not just early in the fire season for California, but in Greece and Sweden, not known to be prone to wildfires, are very high this summer.

If you don’t realize by now that our planet is warming up exceptionally fast, I really have nothing to say to you. The evidence is clear, and extreme weather is obviously on the rise. Between record highs being set across the planet (and few record lows), flooding rains, punishing, stalling hurricanes, and entire seasons pushed forward or back by a month or more…if you can’t believe the evidence of the science, and you refuse to see the evidence of your eyes, for you this post might seem a waste of time.

But what about avoiding summer brownouts and reducing peak demand electricity costs in the middle of a heat wave? Does that sound appealing to you? Well, then maybe this will convince you going green is worth our collective investment! It turns out, that during the worst of the peak for heat, also means peak for sunny days and lots of solar generation. Perhaps the one upside of heat waves? So says this article about behind-the-meter solar in New England. Read More…

I’ve read innumerable articles about Democratic candidates for Congress coming out and saying they will not vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House.  Some 50 at last count.  I’m not here to debate whether that’s a good choice for each candidate or the nation as a whole.

I’m here to ask if candidates in Democratic primaries for the Mass. House of Representatives are being asked that.  We all know the greatest obstacle toward a progressive Massachusetts is Bob DeLeo, not Charlie Baker.  The House can override whatever Charlie wants, but seems powerless against Bob.  So, is this a regular question of Democratic candidates in competitive primaries, does anyone know if any candidate has stood against Bob’s methods killing progressivism in the dark?  It would be hard for me to vote for such a woman or man if I had an alternative in September.

“Today we honor the memory of Heather Heyer, whose spirit we see in every person who stands up to reject hatred and bigotry.  Make no mistake: this fight goes on.  The battle for the soul of this nation rests with each of us, everyday.”

Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for calling up our better angels.