In an age of constitutional hardball
In my post below, Michael Steele hammers Democrats for trying to play nice with his former political party. An exasperated Steele says Republicans are “gonna shove those [bipartisan] plowshares up your behind!”
The MAGA GOP is playing “constitutional hardball,” clinically defined by Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School in 2004 as:
… political claims and practices – legislative and executive initiatives – that are without much question within the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine and practice but that are nonetheless in some tension with existing pre-constitutional understandings. It is hardball because its practitioners see themselves as playing for keeps in a special kind of way; they believe the stakes of the political controversy their actions provoke are quite high, and that their defeat and their opponents’ victory would be a serious, perhaps permanent setback to the political positions they hold.
In the age of kayfabe showmanship, bad faith argument, Republican faux outrage, and intimidation of politicians and private citizens by flying monkeys, Democrats are still trying to play nice with the likes of Stephen Miller (unlocked):
Mr. Trump may not complain about Mr. Miller, but he does occasionally poke at his obsession with immigrants — a hostility that goes far beyond Mr. Trump’s. In one meeting during the 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump said that if it was up to Mr. Miller there would be only 100 million people in this country, and they would all look like Mr. Miller, according to a person with knowledge of the comment. Karoline Leavitt, Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, denied the account.
President Joe Biden comes from a time before constitutional hardball. In his final Oval Office interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Biden admits his party’s failure to loudly and proudly advertise their own accomplishments. Republicans loudly take credit for things they never did. Dermocrats need to up their game.
We are dealing with four more years of mean-spirited hucksterism (and worse) from the incoming president and his anti-American lackeys. So suck it up, buttercups. Never give the suckers an even break.