I can’t think of a single redeeming value in today’s democrat party. They are the party of elite corporate socialism, big government self perpetuation scam credentialization and virtue signaling Karens who try to addict minorities to the government dole while discouraging meritocracy. That seems to be their DNA and we know that you can’t change DNA.
I certainly don't recognized my-own-self of your description, Mr. Deplore This. Perhaps we could make more progress when voters, like yourself, acknowledge that there are democrats who believe and act in ways that are totally at odds with your narrow view. Generalizations are, in general, useless. Having said this, and having read some of your other comments at this site and others, I am of the opinion that you prefer to hold your un-enlightened position and double down. 'Tis a pity.
I absolutely agree "that there are democrats who believe and act in ways that are totally at odds with ...my ... view". But explain how my view is "narrow" and my position is "un-enlightened". I don't think that you are capable to do so.
Mr. Deplore This, if you agree with me that democratic voters cover a wide spectrum of policy positions and agendas, then why write what you wrote? On one hand you state that democrats are all such and such and then do a 180 and admit that this isn't so. It's either one or the other. Pick a side. The "unenlightened" tag its because you can't think of a "single redeeming value in today's democrat(sic) party". You leave no room for conversation and possible resolution. I refuse to waste any more of my time or yours.
Brittain, try to keep up. I didn't do any 180, I've consistently maintained that democrat voters are the some of the least intelligent people on the planet. Prove me wrong; identify a "single redeeming value in today's democrat party".
Joe, you crack me up and you prove my point about the intelligence, or lack thereof, of democrat voters. Is "Russian bot" the best you can come up with? And fundamentally, you also can't identify a "single redeeming value in today's democrat party".
This is a brilliant column, which once again hits some important nails on the head. I also strongly recommend Ruy Teixiera's recent column on three key issues -- merit, biology, and patriotism -- on which the Democrats have adopted positions that are flatly unacceptable to a huge swathe of American society, including me.
I left the Democratic Party and became an unaffiliated independent in 2021 because of the party's positions on merit and sex as well as the bash-the-rich populism favored by many in its ranks and its current members' extraordinary intolerance of any dissent from their received orthodoxies and preferred platitudes.
Mr. Klein has brilliantly identified the root cause of these problems in this article and in his column entitled "Not a Democrat": the principal constituents of the party are teachers' unions; federal civil servants; strident identity groups who espouse and practice outrageous reverse racism and derisively dismiss anyone who opposes their radical, ruinous policies on education and sex/gender identification; and, last but not least, an insider class of ruthless political operatives at the DNC and the highest ranks of the party who seek to conciliate the above groups, appear to lack the least common sense, and, worst of all, utterly lack any moral or political courage.
For me, that party is a lost cause.
Even on affordability, the so-called affordability wing of the party does not really favor it. All Democrats, every one, recently voted against a Republican bill on permit reform, which would make it vastly easier to build homes and apartments among other things. Instead, they favor highly complex rules that will supposedly make it somewhat easier to build only low-income housing that meets all kinds of criteria. But at the heart of affordability is removing the extraordinary restraints on development in all blue states, which anti-growth environmentalists and interested property owners have weaponized so that in my California it is just about impossible to build anything. The Dems' preferred remedy would be a new step of complicated regulations that offer only very limited relief from the existing regulations, which are key driver of sky-hi housing prices in California.
There seems to be no hope for this political faction, although I have been highly impressed by Rahm Emmanuel. Even its more open-minded thinkers, such as Ezra Klein, seem to overthink and needlessly complicate everything. In a recent column in the NY Times, Ezra Klein offered a definition of liberalism that was not only so vague and ambiguous as to be meaningless, but also showed that Mr. Ezra Klein is either ignorant of its classical meaning or refuses to acknowledge it for fear of offending progressives and social-justice identitarians in his party.
So that party is not for me. It and I have parted ways.
That makes me an utter political orphan because the only other party is now run by authoritarian nationalists who favor a new era of managed trade, competing spheres of influence run by authoritarian regimes, and open contempt for our Constitution's separation of powers and grant of inalienable civil liberties (accomplished by the Bill of Rights).
All of this is utterly unacceptable to me and appears to have rendered me a hopeless curmudgeon, although I am not dour or severe in my daily interactions, but likely come across that way in my comments.
To express my disapproval of the present state of affairs, I have exercised my own constitutional right to state my views in public. I have done so in comments on this site and also on my own Substack, which has a grand total of 30 subscribers. Mine is a lonely voice, heard by few.
Next round, I will likely vote for Democrats only to favor some sort of check on the current President. Above all, Republicans and Democrats in Congress must exercise their constitutional duty to check the President's misuse of his powers and arrogation of powers that the Constitution does not afford him. The current Congress's failure to do so constitutes an historic abandonment of its role as the primary actor under the Constitution, vested with powers and authority that that the President has tested at every turn and sometimes flouted or ignored.
I guess that the members of Congress are too busy developing social-media followings, warding off possible primary challenges, and trying to discredit other side, so that they lack any time to do their jobs and fulfill their constitutional duty to the country.
The country badly needs a new party of left-center and right-center liberals and conservatives who offer a big tent for the many, many people who I believe are fed up with the craziness emanating from the two established parties.
Before answering your question, I respectfully observe that I am not a reflexive Trump-basher. I agree with him partly or fully on some points and disagree on others. I greatly appreciate that he speaks his mind candidly and regularly gives unscripted answers to questions from the press. That is refreshing after watching Biden flee from the press on most occasions and give only scripted, unedifying sound bites in response to their questions on the rare occasion when he deigned to answer them.
That said, I strongly and unequivocally disapprove of President Trump's methods. A full catalogue of his abuses and usurpations would be far too long for a reply comment on this Substack column. I address only some of them on my own Substack column. They include the following:
President Trump's Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto Decrees: Early in the present term, the Trump Administration served on several very prominent law firms executive orders that were tantamount to bills of attainder and ex post facto decrees, both of which are expressly prohibited by the Constitution. These same executive orders wantonly violated the targeted firms' right to petition the government for redress, engage in protected speech, and enjoy the ordinary protections of due process. Some of the targeted firms challenged these executive orders on various grounds and quickly had them enjoined, after which the Administration quietly dropped the matter rather than seek appellate review. The remaining law firms, to their everlasting discredit, quickly caved rather than assert their own constitutional rights. By serving such obviously unconstitutional executive orders on prominent law firms that represented famous political and legal adversaries of the current President, the Administration sent a message along the following lines to all of us lawyers: "Don't employ lawyers or represent causes that we intensely dislike, or this could happen to you too." It was a completely arbitrary misuse of the President's authority to issue executive orders, which he can do only to enforce existing law enacted by Congress.
President Trump's Repeated Refusal to Disburse Funds Appropriated by Congress: The current Administration has repeatedly withheld funds previously appropriated by the last Congress. But congressional appropriations are not idle suggestions that a President might wish to consider, but rather binding law that the President must enforce.
President Trump's Lawless Border Taxes: Invoking one purported emergency after another, President Trump has imposed border taxes (tariffs) on virtually every other country in the world. But Congress alone has the power to establish any tax, save where it delegates specific taxing authority to the President on specific terms and conditions.
President Trump's Unauthorized Military Adventures Abroad: Previously an isolationist who averted all foreign entanglements, Trump has emerged in his second term as an unpredictable warrior who is seemingly prepared to conduct battles anywhere and everywhere. He has threatened military action against Greenland/Denmark, several countries in the Middle East, and several more in Latin America. He has suggested that the U.S. will annex Canada. He has already conducted significant military operations in Iran, Venezuela, the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern basin of the Pacific Ocean.
But all of those operations can be authorized only by Congress, whose members must regularly answer to their constituents at the polls. Congress, then, is the only constitutional actor that can declare a state of war or authorize military operations. One exception to this bright-line rule is that the President may initiate a military operation without Congress's prior approval when he deems it necessary to do so to protect the country from an imminent emergency. If so, the President must afterwards inform Congress, which thereafter has authority to continue, modify, or terminate the military operation in question. The President's various military adventures to date clearly fall outside of this exception.
Also, the Administration's military operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific entailed bombing and killing suspected drug traffickers rather than arresting them, detaining them, and having them tried for drug smuggling under American law. To date, the Administration has produced no evidence to support its assertions that the bombing victims were drug smugglers. These military operations must therefore have been approved in advance by Congress, nor can a nation use its military to bomb and kill suspected common-law criminals, but can only arrest them, detain them, and have them tried. This is pretty basic stuff.
The Trump Administration's Deployment of Military Units in the U.S. Repeatedly, the Administration has deployed heavily armed military units (the National Guard and the U.S. Marines) in cities governed by Democrats, nearly all of whom have opposed the deployments. Various courts, including the Supreme Court, have already enjoined the deployments on the ground that they were contrary to the authorizing statute invoked by the Administration to justify them. A few decisions went much further and found that the deployments before them were unconstitutional and infringed upon the Tenth Amendment's reservation of rights to the several states of the Union.
There are many, many other instances of the President's apparent misuse of his constitutional powers and purported exercise of powers that the Constitution does not bestow on him.
That said, I freely acknowledge that some protesters who oppose Trump's military deployments and immigration enforcement have acted unlawfully by committing acts of violence, making threats, resisting arrest, and refusing to obey commands properly made by local or federal police. That is totally unacceptable conduct.
Lastly, I have no idea how the country has gotten to its present state of unceasing rancor between clashing partisans. Most people in our country, I believe, love their families, try to prosper by their work, and enjoy at least one hobby, sporting activity, or other pursuit. Most Americans whom I know are decent, generous, fair-minded people. We are a nation of dog-lovers. But that is not the America that we see in the news these days.
Maybe Americans with different views should start talking to another rather than past one another.
1. You have to be more specific; what law firms has the Trump administration served “Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto Decrees” and for what reason? I can only speculate, but whatever Trump does to smack down Perkins Coie, the most unethical law firm I know of, is fine with me. That also goes for all the firms that went after the highly ethical lawyer John Eastman.
2. There is no constitutional mandate for the administration to spend all of the money Congress appropriates. It is the other way around; the administration needs congress to appropriate funds to spend them. I voted for President Trump to downsize the bloated, corrupt Federal government to the point we can drown it in a bathtub, so I am enormously pleased when his administration does so.
3. The SCOTUS has already ruled the POTUS has the authority to establish tariffs as has been done historically by I believe at least half of the presidential administrations.
4. The President is the commander in chief. He has the authority to engage the military. President Trump has informed congress of his actions. There is no precedent that a formal definition of war was required for any of his actions to date. I find all of his decisions have been in the best interest of the US and I support them. I like a hard azz in the white house. Concerning annexing Canada, I think he was just trolling Justin Castro Trudeau. I found it entertaining.
5. Drug traffickers are domestic terrorists, and the administration has the charge and the authority to eradicate them all. As President Trump has stated, there was plenty of evidence their cargo was drugs not fish.
6. President Trump deployed the National Guard in a number of Confederate cities who ignore federal immigration law and are lax on law enforcement. It is irrelevant what activist democrat judges rule. There is a long history of deploying federal troops when state and local governments ignore federal law, from the terrible civil war, to President Eisenhower deploying the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce a federal court order for school desegregation and several more since. Hell, Biden created Fort Pelosi in DC after the Jan 6, 2020 Fedsurection and deployed the National Guard against their phantom, fabricated, insurrection threat. Now Trump is threatening to withhold funds from sanctuary cities and states. I voted for this and so I am pleased.
7. The mainstream media lies, or a s President Trump says is fake news, so if you believe them, as many do, you have a false view of America.
Everything you mentioned is what I voted for and so did most of the people I know of my persuasion. And none of this is unconstitutional.
I’ve come to appreciate that Trump’s boorish personality is a feature, rather than a bug, because he pisses off all the people I want to be pissed off. Trump is the GOAT troll and while we recognize that he is an exceptional businessman and world leader we sometimes overlook that he is also a professional entertainer, and I think sometimes he trolls just to entertain us. And I personally find it very entertaining. And to be clear, I do not include you @williammarkham in the group that I want to be pissed off. I want those who lie and deceive and extort to be majorly pissed off.
Missing from the above, is any mention of school choice. A few weeks ago Rahm Emanuel, impending Dem Presidential candidate, treated WSJ readers to a recitation of his children's accomplishments, both academic and professional. Emanuel attributed their success, and those of his impressive siblings, to the superior parenting skills practiced by his own parents and Rahm and his wife.
Mr. Emanuel boasted about the omnipresent love present in his household, because evidently families with less accomplished progeny, obviously do not love their children enough. Rahm noted he and his wife religiously read to their kids, and forced their children to read on their own. He suggested a round dining table to facilitate dinner discussions and limited screen time.
Oddly enough, Emanuel failed to mention, despite raising his kids in one of the most expensive and exclusive Chicago neighborhoods, with highly rated public schools, the Emanuel children were never allowed near one. This is a Dem disease, with a near 100% infection rate in their leaders.
The majority of American public school kids now endure subpar educations, but no group suffers more than urban Black children, dwelling in Blue States. Choosing poorly at birth, in failing to exit a wealthy birth canal, leaves many trapped in not just lousy schools, but dangerous ones. And their champions, the Democratic Party could not care less.
The bright spots in Black Education are now found in Red States with choice. States in the Deep South have dramatically improved all scores, but especially those of Black children. This accomplishment is nearly always accompanied by the advent of School Choice, whether kids change schools or not. School choice sharpens everyone's game, and it is changing lives.
Surely people of any skin hue, have a much easier time graduating high school and delaying childbirth until after marriage, if they are decently and safely educated. Unfortunately, that will never happen, on a national scale, until Dems decide children are more important than Teacher Union donations and free political labor.
In your search for the root causes of all this, you leave out the biggest one of all: de-industrialization.
Take away the traditional economic underpinnings of a community—steady, reliable work that sustains both individuals and communities—and that’s when people lose faith in themselves, and turn to self-destructive behavior.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but through the decades you’ve been a strong supporter of the policies that have lead to said de-industrialization: namely, Clintonian neoliberalism. (Your longtime and frequent praise of the Clintons, including in this column, have long spoken for themselves.)
I see another contradiction in this column. You say here, and have long believed, that what you see as the pathologies of African-Americans are “rooted in slavery.” Yet in this very same column, you state—truthfully—that what I’ll term the Moynihanization of white Americans now surpasses those of black Americans. (Also of historical significance is the fact that, a hundred years ago, black families were more stable than white ones, even though that time was far closer to slavery than now.)
Trash welfare all you want. (And, BTW, if, as you so often say, Bill Clinton “reformed” welfare three decades ago, why did you deem it necessary to write a column like this today?) But when you take jobs and living wages away from people, just what are they supposed to live on? (Especially now, when housing and food costs are becoming prohibitive even among those who are gainfully employed?)
The bottom line: if you shrugged your shoulders at the massive factory closings over the past half-century, labeling such as “progress,” while piously lecturing those who were thrown out of work as a result on their own moral shortcomings, it doesn’t, as your old colleague Hunter Thompson used to say, “make the nut.”
PS: FWIW, I agree with you that people shouldn’t deliberately have children out of wedlock. Nor do I think that children should be the victims of broken families of any sort. (Especially in our time of ongoing economic decline, when traditional jobs and opportunities for economic advancement are becoming more scarce.)
I’d be happy with instituting economic incentives for NOT having children in today’s society—at least until we return to a society where children are once again an economic asset, instead of a liability, and then forced to face the consequences of a society and economy that really doesn’t want them.
Life is complicated. This issue is complicated. It has many aspects. Deindustrialization was certainly one of them...but if you don't think that a culture of poverty has taken hold among the underclass in the past 60 years, you are blinding yourself to a basic reality that must be addressed by responsible citizens. And you ignore the truth discovered by the Brookings Scholars...graduate high school, get a job, don't have kids till you're married--and you won't be poor. You think they phonied the data? I don't.
I never said that anyone was “phonying” any data. And it goes without saying that those who graduate from high school have a better chance for a better life than those who didn’t. And I made it clear that I don’t think that it’s a good idea for ANYONE to have children if they can’t economically support them. (In fact, birth rates in this country have been in decline over the past few years, precisely for that reason.)
As for “the culture of poverty,” I find it hard to believe that anyone would WANT to live in, say, America’s poorest city, Camden, NJ, if they could possibly avoid doing so.
How did Camden get that way? You figure that, maybe, just maybe, the closing of the RCA and Campbell’s Soup factories had something to do with it?
This problem has one root cause; the democrats' failed welfare state has destroyed the black family and recreated the plantation in the inner city. Before LBJ’s great society, black families had the lowest divorce rate of all races. Now over 70% of black children grow up without a father. It’s been over 50 years and it’s failed. And being dominated by greedy, incompetent, lazy teachers' unions, inner city schools are a failure. If the left really want to initiate change then attack these root cause problems rather than trying to peddle your anti-racist racist propaganda.
The Democrats are still whistling past the graveyard if they think they will win the midterms.. They still are unable to define what a woman is to the point of idiocy . And they continue to conflate "immigration" and "illegal immigration" which is an insult to my grandparents who all came here legally. I don't know any Republican or NYC MAGA libertarian like me who is against legal immigration. Not one.
As for Moynihan, I'm old enough to have voted for that brilliant Democrat who would not recognize his party now. He was spot on about the welfare state - and it's destruction of the family, and as root cause of the vicious cycle of generational poverty, which has long ago crossed racial lines - creating a colorblind underclass of broken human beings stripped of hope for anything better than to wallow in the scraps the government throws them to survive while encouraging them to embrace victimhood which helps further destroy any hope of breaking the cycle thru self-determination.
Joe, at what point do you finally come to the realization that you are in fact a moderate conservative? It’s okay. The libs have left you stranded on all of the points above and so many more. Why do you feel compelled to believe they are redeemable? They’re not.
I'm a classical liberal. I believe in freedom and tradition. I'm hoping the Dems will at some point will understand that their silliness has opened the door to authoritarianism.
Joe, you aren't a liberal, you are illiberal and unwilling to accept some of us have different beliefs than you. So what authoritarianism? Please explain.
I used to define myself as a "classical liberal" too until I realized how few people understood what that is. So now I define myself as a MAGA libertarian. Bottom line, we both embrace a political philosophy built around the promotion and protection of "individual rights" (judged by the content of our character, not color of our skin) instead of the the dehumanizing embrace of "group rights" Democrats now engage in - which no longer sees individuals but for their skin color, gender, religion, sexual orientation and a multitude of other disgusting labels meant to define everyone as a victim or victimizer.
I have long regarded myself as a classical liberal and do not disagree with any of your points, even if I would have stated them differently. That said, I have a very hard time reconciling liberalism with MAGA doctrines, so far as I understand them.
I will eagerly "stay tuned" to hearing how out-of-wedlock births can be discouraged, especially while "providing as much support as possible for single moms".
That's easy. Change the welfare rules so that they don't decentivize women from being married to the father of their children rather than the government.
Without in any way minimizing the problems that out-of-wedlock births create within, and for sustaining, the "underclass" (both black white, and especially for boys/males) -- and I don't minimize them! -- what are the policy prescriptions that would helpfully address this issue? (Or should the Democrats simply make it a part of their party platform to denounce out-of-wedlock births?)
Stay tuned. They exist...but outside the ideologies of both parties. And yes, the Democrats should admit that sixty years of sociology have proven that two parents are better than one...while providing as much support as possible for single moms.
That's easy. Change the welfare rules so that they don't decentivize women from being married to the father of their children rather than the government.
Thank you, Mr. Klein, as for CBS, I don’t like the anchor. He was interviewing an African American author. He used the fact his ex wife was Jewish as my granduncle and his family just barely made it out of Germany, in 1939, Many of his family members passed away from being sent to camps during the Holocaust. I’m not Jewish as far as I know. Still there are a lot Holocaust denier’s even today.
I can’t think of a single redeeming value in today’s democrat party. They are the party of elite corporate socialism, big government self perpetuation scam credentialization and virtue signaling Karens who try to addict minorities to the government dole while discouraging meritocracy. That seems to be their DNA and we know that you can’t change DNA.
I certainly don't recognized my-own-self of your description, Mr. Deplore This. Perhaps we could make more progress when voters, like yourself, acknowledge that there are democrats who believe and act in ways that are totally at odds with your narrow view. Generalizations are, in general, useless. Having said this, and having read some of your other comments at this site and others, I am of the opinion that you prefer to hold your un-enlightened position and double down. 'Tis a pity.
I absolutely agree "that there are democrats who believe and act in ways that are totally at odds with ...my ... view". But explain how my view is "narrow" and my position is "un-enlightened". I don't think that you are capable to do so.
Mr. Deplore This, if you agree with me that democratic voters cover a wide spectrum of policy positions and agendas, then why write what you wrote? On one hand you state that democrats are all such and such and then do a 180 and admit that this isn't so. It's either one or the other. Pick a side. The "unenlightened" tag its because you can't think of a "single redeeming value in today's democrat(sic) party". You leave no room for conversation and possible resolution. I refuse to waste any more of my time or yours.
Brittain, try to keep up. I didn't do any 180, I've consistently maintained that democrat voters are the some of the least intelligent people on the planet. Prove me wrong; identify a "single redeeming value in today's democrat party".
These sorts of crude, broad brush observations are obviously the work of a Russian bot. Don't indulge the disinformatia.
Joe, you crack me up and you prove my point about the intelligence, or lack thereof, of democrat voters. Is "Russian bot" the best you can come up with? And fundamentally, you also can't identify a "single redeeming value in today's democrat party".
This is a brilliant column, which once again hits some important nails on the head. I also strongly recommend Ruy Teixiera's recent column on three key issues -- merit, biology, and patriotism -- on which the Democrats have adopted positions that are flatly unacceptable to a huge swathe of American society, including me.
I left the Democratic Party and became an unaffiliated independent in 2021 because of the party's positions on merit and sex as well as the bash-the-rich populism favored by many in its ranks and its current members' extraordinary intolerance of any dissent from their received orthodoxies and preferred platitudes.
Mr. Klein has brilliantly identified the root cause of these problems in this article and in his column entitled "Not a Democrat": the principal constituents of the party are teachers' unions; federal civil servants; strident identity groups who espouse and practice outrageous reverse racism and derisively dismiss anyone who opposes their radical, ruinous policies on education and sex/gender identification; and, last but not least, an insider class of ruthless political operatives at the DNC and the highest ranks of the party who seek to conciliate the above groups, appear to lack the least common sense, and, worst of all, utterly lack any moral or political courage.
For me, that party is a lost cause.
Even on affordability, the so-called affordability wing of the party does not really favor it. All Democrats, every one, recently voted against a Republican bill on permit reform, which would make it vastly easier to build homes and apartments among other things. Instead, they favor highly complex rules that will supposedly make it somewhat easier to build only low-income housing that meets all kinds of criteria. But at the heart of affordability is removing the extraordinary restraints on development in all blue states, which anti-growth environmentalists and interested property owners have weaponized so that in my California it is just about impossible to build anything. The Dems' preferred remedy would be a new step of complicated regulations that offer only very limited relief from the existing regulations, which are key driver of sky-hi housing prices in California.
There seems to be no hope for this political faction, although I have been highly impressed by Rahm Emmanuel. Even its more open-minded thinkers, such as Ezra Klein, seem to overthink and needlessly complicate everything. In a recent column in the NY Times, Ezra Klein offered a definition of liberalism that was not only so vague and ambiguous as to be meaningless, but also showed that Mr. Ezra Klein is either ignorant of its classical meaning or refuses to acknowledge it for fear of offending progressives and social-justice identitarians in his party.
So that party is not for me. It and I have parted ways.
That makes me an utter political orphan because the only other party is now run by authoritarian nationalists who favor a new era of managed trade, competing spheres of influence run by authoritarian regimes, and open contempt for our Constitution's separation of powers and grant of inalienable civil liberties (accomplished by the Bill of Rights).
All of this is utterly unacceptable to me and appears to have rendered me a hopeless curmudgeon, although I am not dour or severe in my daily interactions, but likely come across that way in my comments.
To express my disapproval of the present state of affairs, I have exercised my own constitutional right to state my views in public. I have done so in comments on this site and also on my own Substack, which has a grand total of 30 subscribers. Mine is a lonely voice, heard by few.
Next round, I will likely vote for Democrats only to favor some sort of check on the current President. Above all, Republicans and Democrats in Congress must exercise their constitutional duty to check the President's misuse of his powers and arrogation of powers that the Constitution does not afford him. The current Congress's failure to do so constitutes an historic abandonment of its role as the primary actor under the Constitution, vested with powers and authority that that the President has tested at every turn and sometimes flouted or ignored.
I guess that the members of Congress are too busy developing social-media followings, warding off possible primary challenges, and trying to discredit other side, so that they lack any time to do their jobs and fulfill their constitutional duty to the country.
The country badly needs a new party of left-center and right-center liberals and conservatives who offer a big tent for the many, many people who I believe are fed up with the craziness emanating from the two established parties.
So help me understand; exactly how has the current POTUS misused "his powers and arrogation of powers that the Constitution does not afford him"?
Before answering your question, I respectfully observe that I am not a reflexive Trump-basher. I agree with him partly or fully on some points and disagree on others. I greatly appreciate that he speaks his mind candidly and regularly gives unscripted answers to questions from the press. That is refreshing after watching Biden flee from the press on most occasions and give only scripted, unedifying sound bites in response to their questions on the rare occasion when he deigned to answer them.
That said, I strongly and unequivocally disapprove of President Trump's methods. A full catalogue of his abuses and usurpations would be far too long for a reply comment on this Substack column. I address only some of them on my own Substack column. They include the following:
President Trump's Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto Decrees: Early in the present term, the Trump Administration served on several very prominent law firms executive orders that were tantamount to bills of attainder and ex post facto decrees, both of which are expressly prohibited by the Constitution. These same executive orders wantonly violated the targeted firms' right to petition the government for redress, engage in protected speech, and enjoy the ordinary protections of due process. Some of the targeted firms challenged these executive orders on various grounds and quickly had them enjoined, after which the Administration quietly dropped the matter rather than seek appellate review. The remaining law firms, to their everlasting discredit, quickly caved rather than assert their own constitutional rights. By serving such obviously unconstitutional executive orders on prominent law firms that represented famous political and legal adversaries of the current President, the Administration sent a message along the following lines to all of us lawyers: "Don't employ lawyers or represent causes that we intensely dislike, or this could happen to you too." It was a completely arbitrary misuse of the President's authority to issue executive orders, which he can do only to enforce existing law enacted by Congress.
President Trump's Repeated Refusal to Disburse Funds Appropriated by Congress: The current Administration has repeatedly withheld funds previously appropriated by the last Congress. But congressional appropriations are not idle suggestions that a President might wish to consider, but rather binding law that the President must enforce.
President Trump's Lawless Border Taxes: Invoking one purported emergency after another, President Trump has imposed border taxes (tariffs) on virtually every other country in the world. But Congress alone has the power to establish any tax, save where it delegates specific taxing authority to the President on specific terms and conditions.
President Trump's Unauthorized Military Adventures Abroad: Previously an isolationist who averted all foreign entanglements, Trump has emerged in his second term as an unpredictable warrior who is seemingly prepared to conduct battles anywhere and everywhere. He has threatened military action against Greenland/Denmark, several countries in the Middle East, and several more in Latin America. He has suggested that the U.S. will annex Canada. He has already conducted significant military operations in Iran, Venezuela, the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern basin of the Pacific Ocean.
But all of those operations can be authorized only by Congress, whose members must regularly answer to their constituents at the polls. Congress, then, is the only constitutional actor that can declare a state of war or authorize military operations. One exception to this bright-line rule is that the President may initiate a military operation without Congress's prior approval when he deems it necessary to do so to protect the country from an imminent emergency. If so, the President must afterwards inform Congress, which thereafter has authority to continue, modify, or terminate the military operation in question. The President's various military adventures to date clearly fall outside of this exception.
Also, the Administration's military operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific entailed bombing and killing suspected drug traffickers rather than arresting them, detaining them, and having them tried for drug smuggling under American law. To date, the Administration has produced no evidence to support its assertions that the bombing victims were drug smugglers. These military operations must therefore have been approved in advance by Congress, nor can a nation use its military to bomb and kill suspected common-law criminals, but can only arrest them, detain them, and have them tried. This is pretty basic stuff.
The Trump Administration's Deployment of Military Units in the U.S. Repeatedly, the Administration has deployed heavily armed military units (the National Guard and the U.S. Marines) in cities governed by Democrats, nearly all of whom have opposed the deployments. Various courts, including the Supreme Court, have already enjoined the deployments on the ground that they were contrary to the authorizing statute invoked by the Administration to justify them. A few decisions went much further and found that the deployments before them were unconstitutional and infringed upon the Tenth Amendment's reservation of rights to the several states of the Union.
There are many, many other instances of the President's apparent misuse of his constitutional powers and purported exercise of powers that the Constitution does not bestow on him.
That said, I freely acknowledge that some protesters who oppose Trump's military deployments and immigration enforcement have acted unlawfully by committing acts of violence, making threats, resisting arrest, and refusing to obey commands properly made by local or federal police. That is totally unacceptable conduct.
Lastly, I have no idea how the country has gotten to its present state of unceasing rancor between clashing partisans. Most people in our country, I believe, love their families, try to prosper by their work, and enjoy at least one hobby, sporting activity, or other pursuit. Most Americans whom I know are decent, generous, fair-minded people. We are a nation of dog-lovers. But that is not the America that we see in the news these days.
Maybe Americans with different views should start talking to another rather than past one another.
Lord help us all.
Thanks for the thorough response.
Addressing your points:
1. You have to be more specific; what law firms has the Trump administration served “Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto Decrees” and for what reason? I can only speculate, but whatever Trump does to smack down Perkins Coie, the most unethical law firm I know of, is fine with me. That also goes for all the firms that went after the highly ethical lawyer John Eastman.
2. There is no constitutional mandate for the administration to spend all of the money Congress appropriates. It is the other way around; the administration needs congress to appropriate funds to spend them. I voted for President Trump to downsize the bloated, corrupt Federal government to the point we can drown it in a bathtub, so I am enormously pleased when his administration does so.
3. The SCOTUS has already ruled the POTUS has the authority to establish tariffs as has been done historically by I believe at least half of the presidential administrations.
4. The President is the commander in chief. He has the authority to engage the military. President Trump has informed congress of his actions. There is no precedent that a formal definition of war was required for any of his actions to date. I find all of his decisions have been in the best interest of the US and I support them. I like a hard azz in the white house. Concerning annexing Canada, I think he was just trolling Justin Castro Trudeau. I found it entertaining.
5. Drug traffickers are domestic terrorists, and the administration has the charge and the authority to eradicate them all. As President Trump has stated, there was plenty of evidence their cargo was drugs not fish.
6. President Trump deployed the National Guard in a number of Confederate cities who ignore federal immigration law and are lax on law enforcement. It is irrelevant what activist democrat judges rule. There is a long history of deploying federal troops when state and local governments ignore federal law, from the terrible civil war, to President Eisenhower deploying the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce a federal court order for school desegregation and several more since. Hell, Biden created Fort Pelosi in DC after the Jan 6, 2020 Fedsurection and deployed the National Guard against their phantom, fabricated, insurrection threat. Now Trump is threatening to withhold funds from sanctuary cities and states. I voted for this and so I am pleased.
7. The mainstream media lies, or a s President Trump says is fake news, so if you believe them, as many do, you have a false view of America.
Everything you mentioned is what I voted for and so did most of the people I know of my persuasion. And none of this is unconstitutional.
I’ve come to appreciate that Trump’s boorish personality is a feature, rather than a bug, because he pisses off all the people I want to be pissed off. Trump is the GOAT troll and while we recognize that he is an exceptional businessman and world leader we sometimes overlook that he is also a professional entertainer, and I think sometimes he trolls just to entertain us. And I personally find it very entertaining. And to be clear, I do not include you @williammarkham in the group that I want to be pissed off. I want those who lie and deceive and extort to be majorly pissed off.
Missing from the above, is any mention of school choice. A few weeks ago Rahm Emanuel, impending Dem Presidential candidate, treated WSJ readers to a recitation of his children's accomplishments, both academic and professional. Emanuel attributed their success, and those of his impressive siblings, to the superior parenting skills practiced by his own parents and Rahm and his wife.
Mr. Emanuel boasted about the omnipresent love present in his household, because evidently families with less accomplished progeny, obviously do not love their children enough. Rahm noted he and his wife religiously read to their kids, and forced their children to read on their own. He suggested a round dining table to facilitate dinner discussions and limited screen time.
Oddly enough, Emanuel failed to mention, despite raising his kids in one of the most expensive and exclusive Chicago neighborhoods, with highly rated public schools, the Emanuel children were never allowed near one. This is a Dem disease, with a near 100% infection rate in their leaders.
The majority of American public school kids now endure subpar educations, but no group suffers more than urban Black children, dwelling in Blue States. Choosing poorly at birth, in failing to exit a wealthy birth canal, leaves many trapped in not just lousy schools, but dangerous ones. And their champions, the Democratic Party could not care less.
The bright spots in Black Education are now found in Red States with choice. States in the Deep South have dramatically improved all scores, but especially those of Black children. This accomplishment is nearly always accompanied by the advent of School Choice, whether kids change schools or not. School choice sharpens everyone's game, and it is changing lives.
Surely people of any skin hue, have a much easier time graduating high school and delaying childbirth until after marriage, if they are decently and safely educated. Unfortunately, that will never happen, on a national scale, until Dems decide children are more important than Teacher Union donations and free political labor.
In your search for the root causes of all this, you leave out the biggest one of all: de-industrialization.
Take away the traditional economic underpinnings of a community—steady, reliable work that sustains both individuals and communities—and that’s when people lose faith in themselves, and turn to self-destructive behavior.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but through the decades you’ve been a strong supporter of the policies that have lead to said de-industrialization: namely, Clintonian neoliberalism. (Your longtime and frequent praise of the Clintons, including in this column, have long spoken for themselves.)
I see another contradiction in this column. You say here, and have long believed, that what you see as the pathologies of African-Americans are “rooted in slavery.” Yet in this very same column, you state—truthfully—that what I’ll term the Moynihanization of white Americans now surpasses those of black Americans. (Also of historical significance is the fact that, a hundred years ago, black families were more stable than white ones, even though that time was far closer to slavery than now.)
Trash welfare all you want. (And, BTW, if, as you so often say, Bill Clinton “reformed” welfare three decades ago, why did you deem it necessary to write a column like this today?) But when you take jobs and living wages away from people, just what are they supposed to live on? (Especially now, when housing and food costs are becoming prohibitive even among those who are gainfully employed?)
The bottom line: if you shrugged your shoulders at the massive factory closings over the past half-century, labeling such as “progress,” while piously lecturing those who were thrown out of work as a result on their own moral shortcomings, it doesn’t, as your old colleague Hunter Thompson used to say, “make the nut.”
PS: FWIW, I agree with you that people shouldn’t deliberately have children out of wedlock. Nor do I think that children should be the victims of broken families of any sort. (Especially in our time of ongoing economic decline, when traditional jobs and opportunities for economic advancement are becoming more scarce.)
I’d be happy with instituting economic incentives for NOT having children in today’s society—at least until we return to a society where children are once again an economic asset, instead of a liability, and then forced to face the consequences of a society and economy that really doesn’t want them.
Life is complicated. This issue is complicated. It has many aspects. Deindustrialization was certainly one of them...but if you don't think that a culture of poverty has taken hold among the underclass in the past 60 years, you are blinding yourself to a basic reality that must be addressed by responsible citizens. And you ignore the truth discovered by the Brookings Scholars...graduate high school, get a job, don't have kids till you're married--and you won't be poor. You think they phonied the data? I don't.
I never said that anyone was “phonying” any data. And it goes without saying that those who graduate from high school have a better chance for a better life than those who didn’t. And I made it clear that I don’t think that it’s a good idea for ANYONE to have children if they can’t economically support them. (In fact, birth rates in this country have been in decline over the past few years, precisely for that reason.)
As for “the culture of poverty,” I find it hard to believe that anyone would WANT to live in, say, America’s poorest city, Camden, NJ, if they could possibly avoid doing so.
How did Camden get that way? You figure that, maybe, just maybe, the closing of the RCA and Campbell’s Soup factories had something to do with it?
Something...but not everything. Culture is the most important factor in creating a strong--or weak--society.
This problem has one root cause; the democrats' failed welfare state has destroyed the black family and recreated the plantation in the inner city. Before LBJ’s great society, black families had the lowest divorce rate of all races. Now over 70% of black children grow up without a father. It’s been over 50 years and it’s failed. And being dominated by greedy, incompetent, lazy teachers' unions, inner city schools are a failure. If the left really want to initiate change then attack these root cause problems rather than trying to peddle your anti-racist racist propaganda.
The Democrats are still whistling past the graveyard if they think they will win the midterms.. They still are unable to define what a woman is to the point of idiocy . And they continue to conflate "immigration" and "illegal immigration" which is an insult to my grandparents who all came here legally. I don't know any Republican or NYC MAGA libertarian like me who is against legal immigration. Not one.
As for Moynihan, I'm old enough to have voted for that brilliant Democrat who would not recognize his party now. He was spot on about the welfare state - and it's destruction of the family, and as root cause of the vicious cycle of generational poverty, which has long ago crossed racial lines - creating a colorblind underclass of broken human beings stripped of hope for anything better than to wallow in the scraps the government throws them to survive while encouraging them to embrace victimhood which helps further destroy any hope of breaking the cycle thru self-determination.
Good piece - read the NYT “essay” this morning and thought “Huh? Really that’s all it takes?” Please…
So, you are spot on in my opinion. Dems have only themselves to blame for DT - Hard to see who can turn this aging battleship around…
- John Ellis’s brother!! Love the podcasts!
Thanks, Joe. You made my head spin, but I thought your conclusion made sense to me.
Joe, at what point do you finally come to the realization that you are in fact a moderate conservative? It’s okay. The libs have left you stranded on all of the points above and so many more. Why do you feel compelled to believe they are redeemable? They’re not.
I'm a classical liberal. I believe in freedom and tradition. I'm hoping the Dems will at some point will understand that their silliness has opened the door to authoritarianism.
Joe, you aren't a liberal, you are illiberal and unwilling to accept some of us have different beliefs than you. So what authoritarianism? Please explain.
I used to define myself as a "classical liberal" too until I realized how few people understood what that is. So now I define myself as a MAGA libertarian. Bottom line, we both embrace a political philosophy built around the promotion and protection of "individual rights" (judged by the content of our character, not color of our skin) instead of the the dehumanizing embrace of "group rights" Democrats now engage in - which no longer sees individuals but for their skin color, gender, religion, sexual orientation and a multitude of other disgusting labels meant to define everyone as a victim or victimizer.
I have long regarded myself as a classical liberal and do not disagree with any of your points, even if I would have stated them differently. That said, I have a very hard time reconciling liberalism with MAGA doctrines, so far as I understand them.
I will eagerly "stay tuned" to hearing how out-of-wedlock births can be discouraged, especially while "providing as much support as possible for single moms".
That's easy. Change the welfare rules so that they don't decentivize women from being married to the father of their children rather than the government.
Without in any way minimizing the problems that out-of-wedlock births create within, and for sustaining, the "underclass" (both black white, and especially for boys/males) -- and I don't minimize them! -- what are the policy prescriptions that would helpfully address this issue? (Or should the Democrats simply make it a part of their party platform to denounce out-of-wedlock births?)
Stay tuned. They exist...but outside the ideologies of both parties. And yes, the Democrats should admit that sixty years of sociology have proven that two parents are better than one...while providing as much support as possible for single moms.
That's easy. Change the welfare rules so that they don't decentivize women from being married to the father of their children rather than the government.
Thank you, Mr. Klein, as for CBS, I don’t like the anchor. He was interviewing an African American author. He used the fact his ex wife was Jewish as my granduncle and his family just barely made it out of Germany, in 1939, Many of his family members passed away from being sent to camps during the Holocaust. I’m not Jewish as far as I know. Still there are a lot Holocaust denier’s even today.