Month: March 2021

Back in July of 2016, not long after he had clinched the nomination, Donald Trump made an important declaration. “We must maintain law and order at the highest level or we will cease to have a country, 100 percent. We will cease to have a country. I am the law and order candidate.” Lest you think he was advertising himself as a hardcore authoritarian, he set us straight by adding, “not only am I the law and order candidate, but I am also the candidate of compassion, believe it. The candidate of compassion.” That was very reassuring.

As I have discussed here many times, Trump has never had an original idea when about politics so that catchphrase, “law and order,” like all of his, came from a previous president: Richard Nixon used it in his 1968 campaign. Trump probably had no idea that it had that association but he would have been fine with it in any case. Nixon’s “law and order” theme was a thinly veiled appeal to white, conservative voters angry about the Vietnam protest movement, the social unrest in the inner cities and the counterculture that was challenging all the existing mores of bourgeois American life.

Trump was also planning to “clean up the streets,” particularly focusing on undocumented immigrants and cities with large Black populations. But he was doing something else, as well. He was openly courting the support of law enforcement as a political constituency.

While politicians often make appeals to order and express support for law enforcement, Trump’s level of blatant pandering was unusual. And it wasn’t really necessary. Police unions have been increasingly supporting Republicans over the past few decades and would have been expected to endorse Trump in any case. But Trump made it clear that he thought of law enforcement as part of his MAGA movement from the very beginning — and many of them were eager to join.

There were exceptions.

The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, for instance, and plenty of individual Black police officers didn’t feel the call, for obvious reasons. And some police departments strongly discouraged partisan activity, such as the wearing of red Trump hats while in uniform. But there was little question that members of law enforcement, from local precincts to the Border Patrol and ICE to some members of the FBI, were MAGA enthusiasts.

Trump had always been very pro-cop, and in particular, very pro-police violence. You will recall that one of his earliest forays into politics was the buying of the infamous full-page ad back in the 1980s entitled “Bring Back the Death Penalty, Bring Back Our Police!” He made it clear that he believed they should be allowed to take off the gloves and deliver street justice at their discretion.

What has happened to law and order, to the neighborhood cop we all trusted to safeguard our homes and families, the cop who had the power under the law to help us in times of danger, keep us safe from those who would prey on innocent lives to fulfill some distorted inner need… Let our politicians give back our police department’s power to keep us safe. Unshackle them from the constant chant of “police brutality” which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save another’s…

He kept it up as president. In 2017, Trump even gave a speech to cheering cops in uniform and told them “please, don’t be too nice,” suggesting that when they put suspects in the back of their cruisers, they crack the heads of the handcuffed arrestee on the roof of the car.

Trump’s always had an affinity for vigilante justice as well, as long as the vigilante targeted people Trump believed needed to be dealt with harshly. During the 2016 campaign, he used to reminisce fondly about the movie “Death Wish” a 1970s revenge movie. By the summer of 2020, during the George Floyd protests, he was encouraging vigilantes. He tweeted, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” and defended a 17-year-old armed, “Blue Lives Matter” counter-protester, Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot dead two protesters and seriously wounded another in Kenosha, Wisconsin. At that same protest, police told armed militia members “we appreciate you guys, we really do.”

They were all MAGA now, Trump, the militia and cops alike. This explains why, as the New York Times reported on Sunday, some of the president’s biggest fans — the violent, far-right, neo-fascist, Proud Boys — have been repeatedly protected by the police all over the country in altercations with protesters for years.

The thugs would violently assault protesters and instead of being arrested, the cops would arrest their victims and let the Proud Boys go. According to the Times, federal law enforcement was aware of them but saw them as “street brawlers” who didn’t have a political ideology or present an organized threat. For non-ideological street brawlers, however, they seemed to enjoy “hyper-nationalist chants about immigration, Islam and Mr. Trump” and had a strange affinity for violent right-wing Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet.

The Times interviewed one Proud Boys member who is a police officer himself and Fresno police in California just suspended an officer who was featured in protest footage posted by a Proud Boys member who filmed himself raiding the Capitol. The founder of the group, Gavin McInness, is quoted saying, “I have a lot of support in the N.Y.P.D. and I very much appreciate that.” Cops in Philadelphia were observed hanging out with Proud Boys after a Mike Pence rally last year. In fact, according to their leader, Enrico Terrio, the FBI would contact them and warn them of “leftist” threats against law enforcement. Trump confidante Roger Stones has been using the Proud Boys as “bodyguards” for several years and is credited with bringing some of the leadership together. As journalist Marcy Wheeler has reported, when he stepped in to help Stone evade justice, former Attorney General Bill Barr dismissed concerns about Stone’s involvement with the Proud Boys and threats they made against a federal judge, behavior that would undoubtedly have been taken very seriously if they weren’t MAGA.

With Trump gone, President Biden’s Department of Justice, led by Merrick Garland, is finally taking these people seriously now. After all, they turned on the police themselves. You have to wonder what the rank and file police are thinking these days. Donald Trump unleashed a violent mob on the Capitol and they assaulted police at every turn. The great defender of law and order took hours to say anything and when he did all he had to offer was a weak little tweet that said “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!” The “law and order” president later released a video telling the thugs who were beating cops over the head with flagpoles that they should go home. And then he told those violent rioters he loved them and believed they were “very special.”

When push literally came to shove, there was no doubt which side the “law and order” president was really on — and it wasn’t on the side of the police.

Salon

I can see that the media is ready to move on. They are now obsessing over Biden failing to have a formal press conference and I’m sure they’ll be aghast if he turns up in a tan suit. But this event was beyond shocking and should not be allowed to just fade into our memories like it was just another protest. This was the most violent political event in my lifetime as this brief rundown of a few snapshots will remind you:

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370945579841249281

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370945582500511745

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370945584530481160

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370945586690584581

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370945589270126600

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370945592046673923

https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1370946330047094784

Does anyone believe that if these people had caught up with the members of congress or Mike Pence that they wouldn’t have hurt them? That this overwrought lunacy wouldn’t have led to even more grotesque, physical violence?

Or that it wasn’t Donald Trump’s words, minutes before, just down the street that incited them? These people were literally frothing at the mouth, drive to near insanity by the demagogue who got them all worked up, said he was going to lead them and then retreated to the safety of the White House to watch them attempt to kill his enemies. It’s something out of Shakespeare.

If we let this one pass and just carry on with politics as usual, it will be the biggest mistake we ever made. I’m hoping this latest request to delay from the Justice Department means that the government is not going to do that.

Controversy makes good headlines (and crawlers). The press could count on the former president to deliver them himself almost daily, often first thing in the morning. Or his lying spokespersons would. Now Donald Trump’s Twitter privileges have been revoked. He is reduced to being a greeter at his Florida club. No criminal charges have been filed (yet). And the current Oval Office occupant, President Joe Biden, is too busy with the boring business of governing to hold a formal press conference for them. What are national reporters to do?

Another pic from today’s Trump hour of power. Sort of unreal that the former prez is basically working as a greeter at a club in Florida pic.twitter.com/5ONsJw4jid

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 14, 2021

Eric Boehlert snarks at Press Run:

Leaning hard into the task of creating conflict and controversy where none exists, the Beltway press is trying its best to rustle up gotcha stories that ding President Joe Biden. Struggling to adjust to the new media landscape that does not feature a narcissistic, pathological liar president, and one who does not purposely create outrage, journalists are swinging and missing as they work too hard to manufacture news.

Biden travels during the pandemic! Biden wears a Rolex! Biden hasn’t given a press conference! Biden hasn’t credited Trump for the vaccine! Biden hasn’t “united” the nation! The breathless exercise is already tedious. And it’s only March.

In a way this is the Beltway press returning to “normalcy” after Trump’s four years of deliberate chaos. And normalcy for the D.C. media is pelting Democrats with gotcha stories about optics and how something the president has done doesn’t look right, as determined by journalists. Not that the president has done anything wrong. Just that it doesn’t feel right, and that now that gets treated as Important News, just months after a president who ran the White House as a criminal enterprise and tried to demolish free and fair elections in America left office.

The problem is there is no return to normal as we knew it any more than there was after the Depression and the Dust Bowl. The New Deal, WWII, the Cold War, and growing middle-class prosperity made the pre-1930s normal obsolete.

President Trump is looking better than ever before!! He’s getting in shape for 2024 and the liberals are freaking out!! pic.twitter.com/7IfBymEsUO

— Nick Adams (Alpha Male) (@NickAdamsinUSA) March 14, 2021

President Trump is looking better than ever before!! He’s getting in shape for 2024 and the liberals are freaking out!! pic.twitter.com/7sDfG9warL

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 14, 2021

Four years of the most corrupt administration in American history began with Trump’s vicious attempts to stem the browning of America and ended in a pandemic with an American death toll of half a million — responsible largely to Trump’s fecklessness. Throw in his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and Trumpists’ attempt to overthrow the government. Conservative critics of “cancel culture” cancelled the normal they hoped to conserve. There is no going back to the way we were.

With any luck, the Biden administration will do for the 2020s what FDR and WWII did to put the 1930s behind us. The press will just have to catch up.

Joe Biden sat out the 2016 presidential election as he mourned the death of his son, Beau. Processing that loss gave Biden time to absorb lessons from his eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president. His personal loss, like the others before, taught him time is precious. He seems determined now to make the most of it.

Obama’s biggest accomplishment was The Affordable Care Act, flaws and all. Months spent negotiating changes weakened the bill and allowed it to pass, but time lost trying to win some Republican support was for nothing. As president, Biden seems uninterested in wasting effort again on bad-faith negotiators. Time is fleeting, and 2022 is just over the horizon.

Another takeaway from his years in the Obama administration is that news of what Democrats deliver in Washington stays in Washington unless, as the classic speech advice goes, you tell ’em you told ’em. Or in this case, you tell ’em what you did for ’em.

Thus, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris along with their spouses embark this week on a sort of News of the World, seven-state tour to let Americans in the hinterlands know what Democrats under the Biden adminaistration have done to make their lives better.

Axios bullet-points their week:

• Today, Biden will launch what he’s branding the “Help is Here” campaign with a speech at the White House. Vice President Harris and the Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will headline a launch event in Nevada. Dr. Jill Biden, a teacher, will travel to New Jersey to emphasize the impact of the bill on schools and students.
• Tuesday’s theme will be “help for small business.” The president will fly to Pennsylvania, and the vice president and second gentleman will visit Colorado.
• Wednesday — “help for schools” — will feature the first lady in New Hampshire and the second gentleman in New Mexico.
• Thursday — “help to stay in your home” — will highlight measures in the bill to cover back rent, protect people against eviction and aid people experiencing homelessness.
• Friday — “help immediately with direct checks” — will have Biden and Harris in Georgia.

Republican attempts to attack The American Rescue Plan Act, Biden’s signature accomplishment — to date anyway — fell flat on the Sunday talking heads shows. Attacking aid that puts food on the tables of struggling constituents back home is a bad look. Avoiding that, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Tex.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) instead sang Republican standards about scary, brown-skinned immigrants.

Mid-term elections go poorly for the incumbent party in normal times. Obama’s economic rescue was already a memory and the ACA had yet to take effect by Repiublicans’ November 2010 sweep. (Democrats lost 63 House seats and six Senate seats.) Democrats are betting these are not normal times, James Downie observed at the Washington Post:

The best way to keep Democrats’ assistance top of mind with voters is to keep passing more needed assistance. The Biden White House, fortunately, seems to recognize this, with infrastructure aid and a $15 minimum wage still on the agenda. Already some moderate Democrats — especially Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) — are wavering. They must understand that the more voters see Democrats working for them, the better the party’s fortunes. As for the inevitable question of how to pay for it, Democrats can raise trillions in revenue from politically popular proposals such as a wealth tax, a higher top income-tax rate and increased funding for IRS crackdowns on tax-dodging. The bigger the avalanche of aid, the more Republicans will be forced to rely on voter suppression and other counter-majoritarian tactics — which themselves can be blunted if Senate Democrats also push through the voting rights bill that the House passed earlier this month.

The next 20 months will be a battle royale for control of the last two years of Biden’s term. Democrats mean to run on the rescue bill and remind voters at every turn of Republicans’ unified refusal to help:

“This is absolutely something I will campaign on next year,” said Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who may be the most vulnerable incumbent Senate Democrat in the country on the ballot in 2022. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who heads the Democratic Senate campaign arm, said he would go on “offense” against Republicans who opposed the bill and sketched out their attack: “Every Republican said no in a time of need.”

After decades of Republicans undermining federal capabilities and public confidence in them, Biden and his party mean to prove just what government is there for.

Update: Added “Republicans” in last line to clear up the ambiguity. #HelpIsHere

Trump’s former pollster has surveyed Republicans to see whether they want him to run again. He found that they break down into five “tribes.” (I think the better term would be “five families” like the mob, but that’s just me.) Anyway, here’s the write up in the NY Times:

Those “tribes” were identified as “Trump Boosters,” “Die-hard Trumpers,” “Post-Trump G.O.P.,” “Never Trump,” and “Infowars G.O.P.” The latter group, among other things, was described as viewing QAnon conspiracy theories favorably and believing in many of them.

According to the data, some 57 percent of Republicans polled said they would support Mr. Trump in an election again. That’s a strong majority, but nowhere near the job approval that he enjoys among all Republicans polled, which was 88 percent.

Among the groups, according to the survey, there were some distinctions in terms of how they viewed Trump.

The group identified as “Die-hard Trumpers” — supporters of the former president who would back him in a hypothetical primary regardless of who else was running but who don’t believe in QAnon conspiracy theories — comprised 27 percent of the Republican voters surveyed. Another 28 percent comprised the “Trump Boosters,” Republicans who said they approve of how Mr. Trump did his job, but only a slight majority of them support him being the nominee again, and they are more supportive of the Republican Party than Mr. Trump personally.

The “Never Trump” Republicans comprised 15 percent of the Republicans surveyed. Another 20 percent were described as “Post-Trump G.O.P.,” who like Mr. Trump but want to see someone else as the party’s nominee.

The “Infowars G.O.P.” voters, named for the conspiracy-laden news outlet that was founded by Alex Jones, comprised 10 percent of the voters surveyed, far from a majority but a significant enough portion of voters that, in a multicandidate primary, could play a factor. Only 13 percent of all the voters surveyed believed in QAnon conspiracy theories, the poll showed, but 69 percent of the “Infowars G.O.P.” voters backed those theories

This looks as thought Donald Trump could have a run for his money in 2024 if someone can make a good care to the nearly half of the party that isn’t demanding his return to glory. But there is a problem. As you may recall, the GOP system is winner take all. If the field has just a handful of aspirants, as it probably will, he’ll be able to win the same way he won in 2016. More likely, he’ll just chase out everyone but a few Never Trumpers who probably won’t garner much support and will cancel each other out anyway.

No, I think a lot depends upon Trump’s health and his legal status at this point. I can’t imagine he won’t want to run. He is motivated by two things: money and revenge. And both of things are highly dependent now upon his continued involvement in politics. The question really is whether he’ll be able to.

First they replaced the American flag with the Trump flag on the US Capitol and now this:

You and the entire Marine Corps are a joke @CMC_MarineCorps. pic.twitter.com/dTv3ewyeQA

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 13, 2021

Mike Cernovich is one of Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters:

Michael Cernovich (born November 17, 1977) is an American alt-right social media personality, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist. An anti-feminist and early supporter of Donald Trump‘s political aspirations, Cernovich is generally understood to be part of the alt-right. Cernovich describes himself as part of the “new right” and some have described him as part of the “alt-lite“.^[4][5] Cernovich has been a regular host of The Alex Jones Show on InfoWars.^[6]

Cernovich became a blogger in the 2000s, focusing on anti-feminist themes. He gained notice within the manosphere where he gave advice as a “pickup artist” and made a number of inflammatory comments about dating and sexual assault, including the claim that date rape “does not exist”. He created a website, Danger and Play, in 2011; it was first known for his postings about men’s rights. During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, Cernovich adapted his website as a political blog, advocating in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump and promoting conspiracy theories about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

In 2014, Cernovich became a prominent figure in the Gamergate online harassment campaign against several women in the video game industry, and through this built a following among the alt-right.

Cernovich is known for his promotion of fake news, conspiracy theories, and smear campaigns. He helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that John Podesta and other high-ranking Democratic Party officials were involved in a child-sex ring. Cernovich has falsely accused political opponents of being pedophiles or supporting pedophilia. He succeeded in getting Sam Seder fired from MSNBC with such an allegation, but the reporter was reinstated when Cernovich’s claim about him was revealed to be a falsehood.

What a patriot.

This New York Times deep dive into the Proud Boys and the cops’ response to them is very enlightening. They’ve being taken seriously now, but the authorities knew all about them in the past and did nothing. Why? No surprise here — because they sympathized with them:

A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.

Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Mr. Nordean.

Now, Mr. Biggs, 37, and Mr. Nordean, 30, are major targets in a federal investigation that prosecutors on Thursday said could be “one of the largest in American history.” Theyface some of the most serious charges stemming from the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January: leading a mob of about 100 Proud Boys in a coordinated plan to disrupt the certification of President Donald J. Trump’s electoral defeat.

But an examination of the two men’s histories shows that local and federal law enforcement agencies passed up several opportunities to take actionagainst them and their fellow Proud Boys long before they breached the Capitol.

[…]

Local police officers have appeared at times to side with the Proud Boys, especially when they have squared off against leftists openly critical of law enforcement. Some local officials have complained that without guidance from federal agencies, their police departments were ill equipped to understand the dangers of a national movement like the group.

“It has largely been left to the locals to sort things out for themselves,” said Mitchell Silber, the former director of intelligence analysis at the New York Police Department.

To pre-empt violence by other far-right groups, federal authorities have often used a tactic known as the “knock and talk.” Agents call or confront group members to warn them away from demonstrations, sometimes reviving past criminal offenses as leverage.

Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, told a Senate committee this month that agents had done that in the run-up to a pro-Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6 that preceded the Capitol assault. They contacted “a handful” of people already under criminal inquiry to discourage attendance, he said.

Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the Proud Boys, said that federal agents had called or visited him on eight or so occasions before rallies in recent years. But it was never to pressure him to stay away.

Instead, he said in an interview, the agents asked for march routes and other plans in order to separate the Proud Boys from counterprotesters. Other times, he said, agents warned that they had picked up potential threats from the left against him or his associates.

But before the Jan. 6 event, no one contacted the leaders of the Proud Boys, Mr. Tarrio said, even though their gatherings at previous Trump rallies in Washington had been marred by serious violence.

“They did not reach out to us,” he said.

In summer 2017, neo-Nazis, Klansmen and other white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to announce their resurgence at the “Unite the Right” rally. Its organizer, Jason Kessler, was a member of the Proud Boys.

The group had been founded a year earlier by Gavin McInnes, now 50, the co-creator of the media outlet Vice. (The company has long since severed all ties.) He was a Canadian turned New Yorker with a record of statements attacking feminists and Muslims, and he often expressed a half-ironic appetite for mayhem. “Can you call for violence generally?” he once asked in an online video. “’Cause I am.”

The Proud Boys had been volunteering as body guards for right-wing firebrands like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos and frequently clashed with left-wing crowds, especially at college campuses. Proud Boys “free speech” rallies in bastions of the left like Seattle, Portland or Berkeley, Calif., routinely ended in street fights.

Yet Mr. McInnes shunned the Unite the Right gathering, saying in an online video: “Disavow, disavow, disavow.” By his account, the Proud Boys were not white supremacists but merely “Western chauvinists.” That stance helped the Proud Boys evade scrutiny from federal law enforcement.

The rally turned violent — a participant drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring more than a dozen — setting off a broad repudiation of the groups that attended.

Despite Mr. McInnes’s cautions, several prominent Proud Boys attended, including Mr. Tarrio, the current chairman, who was photographed blowing kisses to a crowd of counterprotesters. But members cite his role to argue that the Proud Boys are not racially exclusive: Mr. Tarrio’s background is Afro-Cuban, making him one of the rare nonwhite faces in the group.

The group, whose total membership is unknown but believed to be in the thousands, has never articulated a specific ideology or dogma. Its rallies, though, feature hyper-nationalist chants about immigration, Islam and Mr. Trump. Its members have lionized Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, and their events often appear to be thinly disguised pretexts to bait opponents into confrontations.

Indeed, the Proud Boys have made little effort to hide violent intentions. In fall 2018, for example, members of a New England chapter posted notes on the online service Venmo as they paid their monthly dues and transportation costs to an October “Resist Marxism” rally in Providence, R.I.

The event would quickly degenerate into brawls, just what some of the Proud Boys had anticipated.

“October blood money and bus,” one wrote with his payment.

“Right wing atrocities,” wrote another.

“Helicopter fuel. Those filthy commies are not going to push themselves out of helicopters,” quipped a third, alluding to Pinochet’s practice of executing dissidents by dropping them from the air.

Your average street brawler is someone who evokes Pinochet’s tactics. Right.

While Bill Barr was wringing his hands over Antifa in Portland throwing paintballs at a courthouse, these guys were flying all over the country being helpfully guided by the local police and the FBI.

The Proud Boys have been closely affiliated for years with Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s confidant who he pardoned at the end of his term. Stone was hanging with the Proud Boys on the day of the Insurrection. There is one degree of separation between these terrorists and the former President of the United States. And I’m not convinced there’s any separation at all.

Emptywheel has been closely following this story for months now and is worth reading. Here’s her latest on this subject.

@YoYo_Ma is always a classy act #intheberkshires. Bringing hope and optimism through his beautiful music. #mapoli #GetVaccinated #stopCovid https://t.co/De0sw5yGni

— Smitty Pignatelli (@repsmitty34) March 13, 2021

He’s the greatest:

In these days of anxiety, I wanted to find a way to continue to share some of the music that gives me comfort. The first of my #SongsOfComfort: Dvořák – "Going Home”

Stay safe. pic.twitter.com/S28w6OlXiZ

— Yo-Yo Ma (@YoYo_Ma) March 13, 2020

Saw this in person:

https://youtu.be/t0u1d9C1JNg

Being from California I’m less interested in the case of Andrew Cuomo than the national press obviously is. It seems like New York Governors are always in trouble for something and the relevance to the rest of the country is just a bit overstated by the media. However, Cuomo was recently lifted into national prominence by his role in the early COVID response so it’s inevitable that we’d be caught up in his downfall. It’s Shakespearean.

If you read nothing else about this, I highly recommend this piece by Rebecca Traister in NY Magazine. Andrew Cuomo is a raging asshole on every level, way beyond just sexual harassment. He’s a toxic bully:

That Andrew Cuomo is being characterized by fellow Democratic politicians as a lecherous tyrant who empowers his staff to threaten and intimidate should not, in some ways, come as a surprise. During his decade as governor, he has often strutted his thuggish paternalism while his top aides disparaged those who challenged him. Two years ago, a Cuomo spokesman called three female state lawmakers in his party “fucking idiots.” In 2013, Cuomo created the Moreland Commission to investigate public corruption, only to shut it down abruptly less than a year later amid allegations that he had obstructed its work; one of Cuomo’s closest associates, Joe Percoco, is serving a six-year term in federal prison on bribery charges.

But until now, none of this left a lasting mark on the governor. If anything, it burnished his reputation: Cuomo was a bully, but he was our bully.

Andrew Cuomo sounds like a slightly smarter version of Donald Trump.

This “he’s a bully but he’s our bully” thing is a big problem, in my opinion. I have succumbed to that idea in the past myself and have come to regret it. I embraced some political bullies under the impression that we needed some people like that to get things done even though it went against my instincts and my values. I always regret it. They are toxic regardless of which side they are on and only create chaos and misery.

I’m tired of bullies and I’m going to avoid supporting them in politics and avoid them in my own life from here on in. They ruin everything.

I thought this MSNBC piece on where we are on the filibuster was optimistic and worth sharing. If they have managed to get “filibuster reform” on the agenda, there might be hope:

When Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia opened the door this week to making it more “painful” to block legislation, some Democrats saw a game-changing opportunity to remake the Senate and lift a key obstacle to a progressive agenda.

It was a telling shift for Manchin, the most outspoken Democratic supporter of the filibuster — an apparent sign of party consensus that the rule can be softened, if not abolished. Some progressives say his idea would open the door to passing ambitious bills to bolster voting rights and gun control, which cleared the House and are headed for a fatal crash with the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.

“It’s very significant,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the chief antagonist of the filibuster, said in an interview. “There’s been a tremendous sea change in the Democratic caucus, saying, ‘We were elected to solve problems, not to apologize because [Senate Republican leader Mitch] McConnell stopped us.’ That excuse will not fly, nor should it.”

Merkley said he has been gauging interest among senators about a “talking filibuster,” which Manchin backed. The idea is to test obstructing senators by forcing them to talk in order to halt legislation — the West Virginian alluded to the actor Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Such a change would end the filibuster as it currently exists, while still allowing a determined minority to slow down or scuttle bills. It would also enable a resolute majority to outlast them.

Democrats have 50 votes in the Senate and would need every member on board to change the rules. But as Republicans are quick to warn them, they may live to regret the new precedent.

“Majorities come and majorities go. But the essence of the Senate is the filibuster on the legislative calendar. Change that and you change the Senate — and America — forever,” McConnell told reporters, rejecting any alteration to the rule. “The status quo on this issue is exactly where we ought to be.”

As McConnell noted, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., were the two Democrats who spoke out against ending the filibuster during a January debate about its future. But they also didn’t rule out making changes to it.

Manchin made clear Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Wednesday on Fox News that he isn’t calling for new exemptions to the filibuster for some issues, saying, “I will never forsake my belief that the minority should have input.”

But he said there should be a higher bar to obstruct.

“People have to make sure that they’re willing to show — it’d be great, don’t you think, if someone was down there telling you why they’re objecting?” Manchin said on Fox News.

This week, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., also endorsed a talking filibuster. Others have said they’re open to fully ending the filibuster, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who has a reputation as a moderate.

The issue of voting rights will be a momentous test of Democrats’ willingness to keep the filibuster, as Republican-led state legislatures around the country, including Georgia, move to pass a wave of restrictive election laws that experts say will disproportionately hinder Democrats’ access to the ballot.

“Voting rights is preservative of all other rights. It’s not just one legislative issue alongside others. It is the very basis upon which we get sent here to argue the case for the American people,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., whose January win in the historically red state put Democrats in the majority. “It is urgent. And therefore I think all options have to be on the table, in terms of Senate rules.”

[…]

The details of any rule change would be critical, Merkley said.

Under current rules established in 1975, the onus is on the majority to find 60 votes to proceed on legislation. If 41 or more senators vote against it, the bill stalls and there’s nothing the majority can do. Merkley calls it “a no show, no effort, silent, invisible” blockade.

A talking filibuster would flip that onus, requiring a group of 41 senators to hold the floor and take turns talking incessantly — to air their grievances with the legislation being considered.

Eventually, Merkley explained, one of two things will happen: The majority party will lose its nerve and pull the bill, or the number of senators present will fall under 41 and enable the majority to advance the bill with a three-fifths majority.

Manchin’s remarks came in a week when Republicans unified in opposition to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, despite its high popularity, which made some Democrats pessimistic about striking big bipartisan deals on matters like immigration and infrastructure.

“This was a pivotal week,” said Adam Jentleson, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide and author of the book “Kill Switch,” which argues that the filibuster is crippling American democracy. “Manchin’s comments were certainly encouraging, but the most important thing may be the fact that zero Republicans voted for the American Rescue Plan. I think that drives home the need for reform more than anything else.”

[…]

As Democrats bask in the glow of the Covid-19 stimulus victory, they face a daunting choice about what’s next as the filibuster stands in the way of Biden’s agenda, such as hiking the minimum wage, tackling climate change, overhauling criminal justice and bolstering Obamacare with a public option. The Covid-19 bill could go around the filibuster as it was budgetary; most other bills won’t qualify.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said this week he’d call votes on two House-passed bills aimed at closing gaps in background check rules for buying guns, “and we will see where everybody stands.”

When asked by NBC News if a talking filibuster is the way forward if his priorities fall short of 60 votes, Schumer punted.

But he kept the door open, suggesting that failure isn’t an option.

“All I can tell you is that we need big, bold action. And we have to figure out the best way to get it,” Schumer said in an interview. “If Republicans will work with us, great. But we’ve got to get it done. Period.”

This filibuster primer from The Brennan Center should be bookmarked as we enter into this big debate. The history of this thing is shameful.