Tag: good government

Public Service

An old friend — too long out of touch — contacted me the other day, out of the blue.

We are back in DC after 4 years in Santa Fe (which we miss every single day)

A post as a government official isn’t a dream job, it’s a call to service. Government is a machine, like anything else: it is one that can accomplish great things, or do great harm. The direction is set by whose hands are on the levers of power; the rate of progress, or the speed of the catastrophe, depends on the people behind the scenes. Thus the slow-moving train wreck of the previous administration, peopled at the top by incompetents, losers, and grifters. (In some notable cases, all three at once.)

This time around there are, in the White House and the OEOB, people who have put their lives on hold in order to be a part of something larger than themselves. My friend doesn’t need the experience, nor an added bullet point on the resumé, nice to have but unnecessary when you can already have your pick of jobs in your chosen profession.

We are, finally (if only temporarily) in the company of adults. We need more, at every level: it’s a thankless job, for which not everyone is well suited. You have to be a little selfless, and at least a little bit more idealistic than cynical. You have to believe that government can accomplish great things, and you have to understand, for example, that national health insurance is far cheaper than making the Emergency Room the provider of last resort.

If only that attitude were the prevailing one in the United States Congress, and especially in the Senate, where holding power is more important than using it for the purposes written into the Constitution: to provide for the common good and promote the general welfare. I for one am tired of seeing public service used for private gain.

Don’t Seat Them

Elections have consequences, intended and unintended. Into the morass of post-electoral fire-breathing and pearl-clutching comes a resolution introduced by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ).  Relying on the Constitution — which the MAGA crowd claims to revere — Rep. Pascrell has a simple proposal to deal with the 126 House members who signed on to the bogus Texas lawsuit: Don’t seat them in the next Congress. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment says, in plain language, that they are ineligible to serve in federal office. Elections have consequences, after all. And those who would subvert our elections should pay a price.

The message to Democrats should be: Ignore the inevitable and insincere wailing about “persecution for political beliefs” that will follow. Don’t seat them. Ignore the tortured justifications for the over fifty lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign or its water carriers: there is no legally or judicially cognizable case and your complaints have been summarily dismissed by every court that has heard them. “We have a right to be heard in court” is not an excuse for willfully wasting time and money. It’s not a lost cause, and certainly not a noble one. It is an attempt to subvert democracy itself and install a permanent government of plutocrats and autocrats. Elections have consequences.

Republicans, we should note, are fond of repeating that elections have consequences. But let’s be clear: when Mitch McConnell piously intones that phrase, he means only the elections that keep him in the Majority Leader’s chair. The elections, in other words, that enable him to stymie legislation so desperately needed by the people of the United States — such as a second COVID relief bill that would enable people to pay their rent and put food on their tables; that would keep small businesses afloat and people employed; that would ensure sufficient PPE for health care workers, that would help the country get through the next perilous year with the coronavirus. But instead of useful legislation he peddles lie after lie after lie. “Compromise,” to McConnell, means, “Come meet me where I stand, while I keep walking backwards.” The House passed a $3 trillion relief bill; McConnell wanted half that; House negotiators moved to $2 trillion and McConnell wanted half that; now the bill on the table is $900 billion, and passage is in doubt. Politics is the art of the possible, but McConnell cynically moves the goal posts and then blames his Democratic opponents for failing to compromise.

Democrats, you have been playing the GOP’s twisted messaging game for a generation. Take charge, explain in plain language what is going on, and exact a price for the GOP’s sedition. Don’t seat them. Change the game, and make new rules. People will notice; you might even improve your majority. Elections have consequences, right?

Bad Faith

Just prior to Election Day a friend observed that we’re going to need new laws and new structures to prevent the corruption, self-dealing, and looting of the public treasury that have been the hallmarks of the Trump administration. “We can’t have ‘acting this’ and ‘acting that,’” my friend said. “We need to ensure accountability.” I told him that the laws already exist, and have for some time: but that enforcement is up to the Congress and the courts. With the Senate operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc.; and with a significant fraction of the Federal bench occupied by Trump appointees, the likelihood of anything actually being done is vanishingly small.

The problem isn’t that laws and structures don’t exist. The guardrails haven’t done much guarding these last four years, proving to be not such solid railings or firm barriers; rather, it turns out they are just suggestions, only as strong as public outrage and the other branches’ willingness and ability to enforce standards of behavior that have served the Republic well for two-hundred and forty-four years. I mention both “willingness” and “ability” because — as it turns out — the current administration has decided that the rules that have applied to every predecessor do not apply here. They have defied both congressional demands and court orders with alacrity, zealously undermining the institutions of democratic self-government while loudly claiming to speak “for the people.”

Well, the people have spoken and Donald Trump has been fired. He claims — falsely, as always — to have won with a “record” number of votes; and yes, his tally was indeed record-setting: more than ever for a second-place candidate. And let’s be absolutely clear: Biden’s victory was decisive, a margin of six million votes — nearly four percent. In an age when many elections are won and lost on razor-thin fractions, four percent is a landslide.

But the presidential falsehoods and GOP bad faith continue unabated: Dozens of failed lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions and attempts to strong-arm state elections boards and legislatures in Republican-led states will not change the outcome but they will undermine public confidence in elections, to the point where — as comedian Sarah Cooper tweeted recently — voters are asking courts to ignore the will of the voters. Reduced to its starkest terms: elections are legitimate if “we” win, but fraudulent if “they” win.

Of course it’s a bad faith argument. The essence of democracy — of voting — is that the outcome isn’t going to please everyone, all the time. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose. That’s how the system works (when it works). Or as Christopher Krebs — fired last week for bucking Trump’s message that the election was fraught with fraud — noted last year, the purpose of elections is to convince the loser that he lost. This isn’t how we normally think about voting, but it’s dead on. Trump knows he lost; the people around him know he lost; Republican officials at all levels know that he lost. That they continue to sow doubt and stir up mistrust; that they say either nothing at all, or demur quaintly about “rights” to pursue false claims in court, says far more about them than it does about the actual results. They would cling to power by any means possible, the people be damned.

In 1982 the Republican candidate for New York’s 20th Congressional District (Upper West Side) lost overwhelmingly, 85%-15%. Of his defeat he remarked: “The people have spoken. The bastards.” If only today’s GOP could accept electoral outcomes with as much grace and dignity.