Fight Dirty Or Don't Fight At All

My recent reading has been an education in the political tactics needed to win. I am almost done with Robert Caro's books on LBJ, a man who won by pushing, needling, and taking every advantage he could. I am currently reading Joe McGinniss' The Selling of the President 1968 about the media campaign behind Richard Nixon's election victory, as well as Marjorie Spruill's Divided We Stand, about the unsuccessful campaign to pass the ERA.

One theme has emerged from all of this reading: to win at politics you must devoted to winning above all. This is a lesson liberals, who have turned their brains into mush by watching The West Wing, seem to have a hard time understanding. Johnson knew this, and so did Nixon. Nixon's ads in 1968, midwifed by the infamous Roger Ailes, appealed viscerally to fear and hate. They were unlike anything before in their vitriol, and the other side's answers were weak.

In regards to the ERA, the pro side was divided into factions, while the the anti side was united behind Phyllis Schlafly. Her movement incorporated grassroots supporters but was directed from the top, much like the later (and related) Tea Party movement. When there were conventions in the states to elect delegates to the National Women's Conference sponsored by the government, Schlafly and her allies packed them with Bible thumpers from local churches. In many places Birchers got elected into an institution intended to advance the cause of women's rights. (In Mississippi, the Klan did so.)

Today's liberals, so wedded to notions of comity and fair play, are ignoring the fact that they are up against an enemy that is absolutely ruthless in its methods. McConnell scuttled a statement about Russian interference in the election and prevented Obama from nominating a successor to Scalia. His punishment? Getting to be the master of the Senate. Republican Senators used the "blue slip" to stop Obama's nomination, and have now refused to respect the rule when it comes to Trump's nominees.

They think they are playing a game against people who have accepted the same rules, when the only rule Republicans have is to do whatever it takes. I do not like fighting dirty, but when the person fighting you fights dirty, it's time to get down into the mud. If you can't do that it's time to get out of the damn way.

The film clip I attached above is from The Life and Times Of Colonel Blimp, an amazing British film made in 1943, during the heat of World War II. Clive Candy is a devoted British officer, but is friends with Theo, a German officer he dueled before World War I. Theo fled to Britain, disgusted by the Nazis. Candy thinks World War II can still be fought with gentlemanly notions of "fair play." Theo, having lived in Nazi Germany and seen what it was capable of, tells Candy that he must be willing to fight a nastier war if he wants to win. "The enemy is different, you must be different too" Theo counsels. A lot of liberal Candys need to hear this message from us Theos.

Mueller Won't Save You

Donald Trump put hard times on us, but we gotta fight

I wrote last week about the difference between nice liberals and fighting liberals. In the days since the nice liberals have been having a field day. The nice liberals really really want to believe that our institutions work, that the real world is like The West Wing or Mr Smith Goes To Washington. So when George W Bush and Jeff Flake and Bob Corker criticize Trump these people swoon despite the horrible damage they have done and the reactionary nature of their politics. And when the Mueller indictments came down, my oh my these folks creamed their pants. They think they are seeing their faith in the system confirmed, and that they will not have to have their hands sullied by actually doing hard political work.

I have some bad news for the nice liberals: Mueller won't save you. Anti-Trump Republicans won't save you. Hilary won't save you. Bernie won't save you. Chuck and Nancy won't save you. The FBI won't save you. The courts won't save you. The military sure as shit won't save you. Only concerted, mass action has any chance of stopping this. As someone who is on the fighting side of the left, I implore all the nice liberals to put down their copies of What Happened and get out into the streets. And more than that, be prepared to join a general strike, or a bank boycott, or any other kind of collective action that demands something more.

If the Republicans control Congress after 2018, Trump's agenda will continue without a check. If the states stay Republican, we will see even worse gerrymandering after 2020, even worse voter suppression, even worse union busting. The Republicans know that their ideology is inherently unpopular. Most people don't want tax cuts for the rich and broad entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to be slashed. Yet that is conservative orthodoxy. Even using xenophobia and racism Trump still lost by three million votes. They need to rig the system permanently to maintain control, and in two years, I think that they will have it. If that happens all the indictments in the world won't mean shit.

Just look at what happened last year. All the nice liberals kept refreshing the page for 538's election prediction while others on the left went to Twitter to accuse Clinton of being a neoliberal. Look at what that got us. If the nice liberals as well as the socialist left refuse to unite against fascism and actually fight it, I guarantee you that fascism will triumph, indictments of not. So get out there and fight.

Nice Liberals Versus Fighting Liberals

The most harmful TV show in American history

In the past year much has been made of rift between the left and liberals. This is mostly due to folks on the left proclaiming said rift. The word "liberal" is of course notoriously fuzzy and porous, and can mean all things to all people. Looking at the current political world, I think the rather random use of the word "liberal" has blinded us to a deep conflict within the ranks of liberalism.

This rift is between those I would call "nice liberals" and those I deem "fighting liberals." The main thing that distinguishes them is that nice liberals have conflated morality with politics, while fighting liberals better understand that politics is a power play, not a war of virtues. Nice liberals have watched too much West Wing, and think that our system's institutions will somehow save us because they are manned by good people with our interests at heart. Fighting liberals are more likely to identify with Veep, with all that implies. Nice liberals are more interested in maintaining institutions and norms, fighting liberals are more interested in winning. This division also has little to do with Bernie versus Hillary. Though Sanders had a social democratic message, the vast majority of his supporters, like Clinton's, were liberals.

My realization of the nice versus fighting rift came while attending many protests this year. At the those I've been to, the vast majority of attendees have been liberals, not leftists. However, they are most definitely of the fighting variety. The first protest I went to was organized by labor unions to call to protect health care, all the way back in January. It was a liberal crowd, but of fighters. Cory Booker and Robert Menendez even got raked over the coals for failing to support a bill to lower drug prices.

If you want a clear distinction between nice liberals and fighting liberals, just look at the response today to Jeff Flake's speech. The nice liberals were falling over themselves to give praise. This speech is catnip to their West Wing sensibilities. They want to believe that there is some kind of basic decency shared on both sides of the aisle. Fighting liberals responded differently. They tended to point out that Flake still votes for Trump's agenda, and that his dropping out of his Senate race was more a reflection of his unwillingness to face a primary challenge than anything else.

If the Democrats are to be successful going forward, they need more of the fighting spirit and less of the "nice." That nice was "when they go low, we go high." That nice was expecting the Trump campaign to collapse on its own accord. The fighting spirit has been awakened since last November, it needs to be the dominant mindset among liberals if they are going to have any hope for change.

Stop Pretending Impeachment Is Easy Or A Foregone Conclusion

Nixon drunk-dialing his former chief of staff Bob Haldeman on the day of the latter's resignation is one of my favorite things. It took over another year for Watergate to run its course.

In the wake of the Flynn scandal, a lot of liberals and progressives have been joyously discussing the possibility of impeachment, or even the fatuous notion that we will have an election "do over." Sorry folks, I'm here throw a bucket of cold water on you. As a historian, that's kinda my job.

As to the "do over," there's absolutely no constitutional precedent for that, so just stop talking about it like it's a thing. As to impeachment, it should never be discussed as if it were something easy to do. No president has been removed from office via impeachment. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached but survived the process, and Nixon resigned before impeachment proceedings could be voted on. I am pretty sure Nixon would have been impeached and removed from office, so I guess I'll let you have one example of a successful impeachment.

My point is that it is almost impossible to pull off. It is beyond impossible if the president's party is in control of Congress, which means you should just stop thinking Trump will be impeached before the next midterm election. It won't happen. It's much more likely that a 25th Amendment scenario happens, but I doubt that'll happen, either. Paul Ryan is creaming his shorts about the prospect of eliminating the social safety net, and if Trump is a vessel for that, so be it. I've said it before, I'll say it again: there's no such thing as "Trump voters" anymore, only Republicans, and Trump is putting forth an aggressively Republican agenda.

So let's say the Democrats manage to win back Congress in 2018. (I'm not holding my breath.) The process behind impeachment is extremely time-consuming. The early Watergate allegations against Nixon started getting serious in January of 1973. He would not resign until a year and half later, in August of 1974. That was even with a Democratic congress. Nixon did everything he could to slow down the process. Later presidents learned from this scandal to make it even more difficult to unseat them. For example, in the Iran-Contra Scandal of the 1980s, Oliver North merely shredded the relevant documents, destroying the evidence. I imagine Trump has minions willing to take the fall, too.

I don't like this impeachment talk because it is yet another wish for the salvation to come miraculously come from on high and end Trump's rule. That simply is not going to happen. Instead of waiting for a miracle, we need to be out there opposing Trump tooth and nail. We need to fight like hell in 2018. We need to keep up the pressure. We need to put our bodies on the line, if need be. The legal processes of this country installed Trump in power, start trusting yourself instead of trusting them for a change.