The news today remains Trump’s unprecedented attempt to steal an election in which voters chose his opponents, Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, by close to 6 million votes, so far. A close second to that news is that the leadership of the Republican Party is not standing up to the president, but is instead seemingly willing to let him burn down the country to stay in office.
Thank you, HCR, for this historical and philosophical lesson on the need for a loyal opposition in politics. I hope Joe Biden is a shrewd principled politician as well as a caring person who isn’t Trump. I’m grateful there are intelligent people like you and your readers standing guard in this perilous moment. And it is perilous. At my grassroots level with family, friends, and neighbors, I’ve become a defiant participant in a cold Civil War. I’m no longer willing to suffer Fox News and Trump believers who are fearful misogynists, bigots, and racists with their heads down a very dark hole: who believe in voter fraud; who think the pandemic is a hoax and no one is dying, or no more people are dying than would from the flu; who deny climate change; who think a healthy stock market is a sign of a healthy national economy...and so on. (Border concentration camps are not OK.) I’m done listening to this nonsense and engaging with these people in my life-all registered Republicans or Non-Voters. At 70, I’m dedicated to political activism in the USA - specifically voter registration. Stacey Abrams is my role model. She took anger and turned it into positive action at the ballot box. There’s an important election coming up! GOTV 🧡 GA.🤞🏻 ❤️🤍💙
At a ripe old age of 82 I have learned a lot of history. I also have favorite history teachers and Heather Cox Richardson tops the list. She boils it down to the fundamentals as this gem and those before it illustrate. Thanks very much Professor Richardson.
The nation needs to hold these Republican legislators accountable for their failure to acknowledge that Biden won the election. How this would best be done I don't pretend to know, but if we all just "move on" as though they had done nothing wrong, we will betray the nation in the same way they have.
The Democrats and the Independents have to take off the gloves and just slap the crap out of the GOP operatives who are doing this deranged assault on democracy. I'm tired of hearing how "terrified" the Senate and House leaders are of mean tweets and temper tantrums in the Oval Office. I'm tired of hearing about self-described "Proud Boys" and paramilitary pretenders like "Oath Keepers" who fashion themselves as patriots while shredding the Constitution. And I am especially tired of hearing about how the Law of the Land applies only to the poor, the disenfranchised, and everyone other than the GOP.
The only election that was rigged -- by Russia, no less -- happened in 2016. Four years we listened to "you lost, get over it." Four years we watched in shock and dismay as one after another of our institutions was destroyed or seriously damaged from within by GOP loyalists and partisan interference. Four years we found reason after reason, proof after proof, that the fellow squatting in the Oval Office was more interested in his own fortunes than those of the general public.
And now, for 9 months, we've watched as this grotesque incompetence by GOP operatives from the top to the bottom has resulted in the deaths of more than one quarter million citizens, from a virus that didn't have to be so deadly -- and by comparison, when Ebola was a global threat, the Administration was able to keep the death toll to FOUR as the outbreak was handled and ended.
The Democrats have got to learn that when things of value are being held for ransom, efforts to negotiate are seen by the malign actors as cowardice and capitulation.
Rise up. Take a firm stand for the Rule of Law, The Republic of the United States of America, and functioning democracy.
The position of Trump now indicates that he will push the Republican Party over the cliff to get his way if he can, tarring them with the same brush and feathering them with his feathers as he goes down the drain of direct power. He is loosing bit by bit his finger-tip grip on the cliff face and risks sliding into oblivion but will insist on the GOP being tied on a mountaineer's rope behind him. He could now possibly accept the inevitable and run a RumpTrump GOP from behind cell bars on Rykers Island for a while, as would any self respecting "capone-ic" gangster caught by the Feds and NYAG by "his short and curlies" for his taxes and financial affaires while hoping he can raise enough cash to replace Fox's influence and be "politically untouchable" thus avoiding the charge of Treason and consequent banishment. OR, he could pardon himself denounces his debts, sells his buildings around the world to foreign "friends" and hide behind a massive wall of lawyers in his Florida compound while he negotiates a truce with Biden.
If the Republican Party broke up seperating the Orcs from the Rinos, the Trumpian part of the GOP would still represent an important part... not necessarily the majority... of their electorate and could be a legitimate part of a multi-party political environment. You can't tell them that they can't hold and express their opinions......just because they have tried to do it to you. They have every right in a democracy not to agree with you. What is wrong is their ability to impose their will and their attempt to perpetuate this imposition and deny the basic rights of others and effectively destroy the system.
In a democracy it is equality before the law, of opportunity and of access to the government, its programs and its agencies, freedom for all of thought and speech, of cultural and political expression, of organization and opposition, of faith, of reunion, of movement and of occupation that must be guarranteed by the Constitution, the government and the law within the bounds of loyalty to the Nation and the prohibition of incitation to hate and violence.
What is clear however is that we have been too nice about the informal nature of the rules necessary and the powers that we have left to politicians to alter the rules and game the system, render it non-operative and destroy the fundamental values on which it is based. In all games a strict adherence to non-violable rules is fundamental to the correct functioning of the game. The players do not set the rules or decide whether they'll repect them and the obligations they impose as they are going along regardless of the impact on the other players and the nature of the game.
In a 2 party system, the idea of a governing party and a loyal opposition is fine except when one or both figure that they can gain advantage by chicanery, political manoeuvre or corruption and falsify the results that can be reasonably expected from an electoral battle of visions, intelligence, ideas, competencies and achievements. When this happrens, the rules need to be significantly "harder and faster" and be supported by policing and punishment that would discourage all further malfeasance. If you can't trust the 2 to abide by the rules, then you need to dilute their power and multiply their number. Thus you impose an imperious necessity to discuss and arrive at more consensual approaches which reflect truly what the majority of the people want without necessarily causing unbearable dissatisfaction on the part of minority opinion.
If Senators Sasse and Romney are serious, they should vote with the Democrats in the Senate, giving them a majority in that House. Otherwise they just serve as a cosmetic for the Republican Party, which is complicit in the breaking down of democracy in America which HCR describes.
Historically, if the Republicans are allowed to get away with it, it will be an American tragedy even greater than the failure of Reconstruction.
My lesson from today's Letter is that it is the gerrymandering that has caused the two parties to go to the extreme right in particular but also farther to the left. My assumption was it was the two party system itself that eventually moves members of the parties to the extremes and hollows out the middle. The middle, the Independents, now represent 36% of the electorate with Republicans at 31% and Democrats at 31% in the latest Gallup poll. But, what about the rest of the world where authoritarianism is on the rise in general. They don't have gerrymandered states, do they? Do like the history of the loyal opposition. Ranked choice voting would take care of some of these issue. I keep feeling we aren't thinking about this at a high enough level. We're just putting patches on a few things but the underlying problems are festering and getting more serious.
“this attempt of Republican leaders to delegitimize the Democratic Party is an assault on our democracy”. However, can we agree that the Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, should be delegitimized because of its decades-long assault on our democracy, specifically its assault on elections and voting?
I would be happy to see a new party formed from the never-Trumpers, the Lincoln Project, RVAT, and other conservatives who fled the Republican Party. The Republican brand is too badly tarnished to be salvaged.
Trump obfuscates on the election to buy time. He needs to get his ducks in a row since eh is about to meet the consequences of his behavior for the past 4 years. The extent of which is not know but he faces at the very least, extensive debt and several investigations that he cannot pardon or have pardoned away. The cartoons showing him wreaking everything in the room are all too accurate. The damage he has done to our democracy will leave it scarred but not broken. He will leave behind many people who want a savior but got a conman and are unwilling to open their eyes to the destruction he has wrought upon them. He is going out as he came in, a torrent of chaos, a storm of untruth. We either learn the lessons of the time or are doomed to repeat them. I too am older and may not see many more presidents. Hopefully I never see another like this one.
Honestly, I've been telling people for months now that we're going to have to do something more...I'm just not sure what, beyond shouting, writing letters, cursing and wishing the GOP held to what I consider to be pro democracy. I'm discouraged by this stuff. Thanks for all you do Heather. I'm sure I'd be in a basket without your letters.
I am in general agreement with the crew here, but I wish people wouldn't call ANYONE names. I have hated it when Trump makes up names for people he dislikes and I think it is disrespectful. When we make up names for Trump and McConnell and their adherents, we are no better. To work with people, to bridge gaps, name-calling, however tempting it is, doesn't aid in genuine communication and problem-solving. It also gives our kids the idea that it's okay. Just sayin' (Don't think I am too much of a goody-goody. I have let loose language that would befit a pirate, but think it isn't useful in public discourse.)
I appreciate Heather's consistent respectful language, even in the midst of dissecting repugnant behaviour. We can take a page from her book. (Thanks, Heather.)
I'm beginning to wonder where the Democrats are. Republicans are silent, but I don't hear enough noise from Dems. They need to literally drag Ms Murphy out of her office and get her to explain why she's single-handedly holding up the beginnings of the transfer. You know she'll be a no show, even if served with a subpoena. When will we take to the streets to make the repubs do what's right? I'm just sick and tired of it all! And, maybe that's the point...wear them down. I may be "sick and tired", but there's still a lot of anger in this old body to physically stand for what's right!
Someone by the name of Linda Brown posted this on the Unofficial Healther Cox Richardson Facebook page. If this is true and doable, it would be consistent with the philosophy of originalism that the majority of SCOTUS justices claim to justify their decisions:
Even if the Democrats don’t win control of the Senate, there is a legal, Constitutional way to strip Mitch McConnell of his power for good: priority recognition.
According to Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the Vice President is also the President of the Senate. The Majority Leader is not a position that exists anywhere in the Constitution. The reason that the Majority Leader has near-dictatorial powers to control floor votes is because of a tradition that dates back to 1937. The tradition is that the Vice President gives the floor leaders priority recognition. Most notably, this is not a rule in the Senate.
As President of the Senate, Vice President Harris could give any senator priority recognition. That senator could then decide on all legislation that is brought before the entire Senate. Even with a minority in the Senate, Vice President Harris could simply give Chuck Schumer priority recognition. He could decide what is voted on and what isn’t.
This would change everything. Without Mitch McConnell to hide behind, the moderate Republican Senators would be forced to vote down every Cabinet member, bill, resolution, everything that Harris would want done. Without McConnell, anything even remotely popular with at least two senators would pass. Including getting a cabinet assembled.
I see some debate as to what the Senate rules do and due not permit. I encourage everyone to read this on the actual written rules and why the Majority Leader is so powerful today. It should be noted, however, unlike the House of Representatives, a large part of the Senate rules is tradition. As Mitch McConnell will gladly tell you, tradition is not written rule.
Also, This wouldn’t be the first time Schumer has done something like this. And yes, while there’s the possibility of rule changes, they cannot change the Constitution. At the end of the day, Madame Vice President Harris is President of the Senate. Period. Not Mitch McConnell.
I used to believe that the majority of people, including people in government service, were inherently good, that they possessed morals and a conscience. However, I am no longer a “Pollyanna” when it comes to politics. I would love to believe the congressmen from Michigan when they say “whoever wins Michigan wins the electoral votes”, but I just can’t. When I see them speak these words, or see them in print, all I see/hear is Lindsey Graham stating “Mark my words, Republicans will never appoint a Supreme Court Justice in an election year”. I find it interesting that in their statement they told us what THEY said, but did not give any mention of what tRump said or offered to them. I live in Michigan, and am afraid that they will find a “way” to appoint republican electors.
Thank you, HCR, for this historical and philosophical lesson on the need for a loyal opposition in politics. I hope Joe Biden is a shrewd principled politician as well as a caring person who isn’t Trump. I’m grateful there are intelligent people like you and your readers standing guard in this perilous moment. And it is perilous. At my grassroots level with family, friends, and neighbors, I’ve become a defiant participant in a cold Civil War. I’m no longer willing to suffer Fox News and Trump believers who are fearful misogynists, bigots, and racists with their heads down a very dark hole: who believe in voter fraud; who think the pandemic is a hoax and no one is dying, or no more people are dying than would from the flu; who deny climate change; who think a healthy stock market is a sign of a healthy national economy...and so on. (Border concentration camps are not OK.) I’m done listening to this nonsense and engaging with these people in my life-all registered Republicans or Non-Voters. At 70, I’m dedicated to political activism in the USA - specifically voter registration. Stacey Abrams is my role model. She took anger and turned it into positive action at the ballot box. There’s an important election coming up! GOTV 🧡 GA.🤞🏻 ❤️🤍💙
At a ripe old age of 82 I have learned a lot of history. I also have favorite history teachers and Heather Cox Richardson tops the list. She boils it down to the fundamentals as this gem and those before it illustrate. Thanks very much Professor Richardson.
The nation needs to hold these Republican legislators accountable for their failure to acknowledge that Biden won the election. How this would best be done I don't pretend to know, but if we all just "move on" as though they had done nothing wrong, we will betray the nation in the same way they have.
The Democrats and the Independents have to take off the gloves and just slap the crap out of the GOP operatives who are doing this deranged assault on democracy. I'm tired of hearing how "terrified" the Senate and House leaders are of mean tweets and temper tantrums in the Oval Office. I'm tired of hearing about self-described "Proud Boys" and paramilitary pretenders like "Oath Keepers" who fashion themselves as patriots while shredding the Constitution. And I am especially tired of hearing about how the Law of the Land applies only to the poor, the disenfranchised, and everyone other than the GOP.
The only election that was rigged -- by Russia, no less -- happened in 2016. Four years we listened to "you lost, get over it." Four years we watched in shock and dismay as one after another of our institutions was destroyed or seriously damaged from within by GOP loyalists and partisan interference. Four years we found reason after reason, proof after proof, that the fellow squatting in the Oval Office was more interested in his own fortunes than those of the general public.
And now, for 9 months, we've watched as this grotesque incompetence by GOP operatives from the top to the bottom has resulted in the deaths of more than one quarter million citizens, from a virus that didn't have to be so deadly -- and by comparison, when Ebola was a global threat, the Administration was able to keep the death toll to FOUR as the outbreak was handled and ended.
The Democrats have got to learn that when things of value are being held for ransom, efforts to negotiate are seen by the malign actors as cowardice and capitulation.
Rise up. Take a firm stand for the Rule of Law, The Republic of the United States of America, and functioning democracy.
Before it's too late.
The position of Trump now indicates that he will push the Republican Party over the cliff to get his way if he can, tarring them with the same brush and feathering them with his feathers as he goes down the drain of direct power. He is loosing bit by bit his finger-tip grip on the cliff face and risks sliding into oblivion but will insist on the GOP being tied on a mountaineer's rope behind him. He could now possibly accept the inevitable and run a RumpTrump GOP from behind cell bars on Rykers Island for a while, as would any self respecting "capone-ic" gangster caught by the Feds and NYAG by "his short and curlies" for his taxes and financial affaires while hoping he can raise enough cash to replace Fox's influence and be "politically untouchable" thus avoiding the charge of Treason and consequent banishment. OR, he could pardon himself denounces his debts, sells his buildings around the world to foreign "friends" and hide behind a massive wall of lawyers in his Florida compound while he negotiates a truce with Biden.
If the Republican Party broke up seperating the Orcs from the Rinos, the Trumpian part of the GOP would still represent an important part... not necessarily the majority... of their electorate and could be a legitimate part of a multi-party political environment. You can't tell them that they can't hold and express their opinions......just because they have tried to do it to you. They have every right in a democracy not to agree with you. What is wrong is their ability to impose their will and their attempt to perpetuate this imposition and deny the basic rights of others and effectively destroy the system.
In a democracy it is equality before the law, of opportunity and of access to the government, its programs and its agencies, freedom for all of thought and speech, of cultural and political expression, of organization and opposition, of faith, of reunion, of movement and of occupation that must be guarranteed by the Constitution, the government and the law within the bounds of loyalty to the Nation and the prohibition of incitation to hate and violence.
What is clear however is that we have been too nice about the informal nature of the rules necessary and the powers that we have left to politicians to alter the rules and game the system, render it non-operative and destroy the fundamental values on which it is based. In all games a strict adherence to non-violable rules is fundamental to the correct functioning of the game. The players do not set the rules or decide whether they'll repect them and the obligations they impose as they are going along regardless of the impact on the other players and the nature of the game.
In a 2 party system, the idea of a governing party and a loyal opposition is fine except when one or both figure that they can gain advantage by chicanery, political manoeuvre or corruption and falsify the results that can be reasonably expected from an electoral battle of visions, intelligence, ideas, competencies and achievements. When this happrens, the rules need to be significantly "harder and faster" and be supported by policing and punishment that would discourage all further malfeasance. If you can't trust the 2 to abide by the rules, then you need to dilute their power and multiply their number. Thus you impose an imperious necessity to discuss and arrive at more consensual approaches which reflect truly what the majority of the people want without necessarily causing unbearable dissatisfaction on the part of minority opinion.
If Senators Sasse and Romney are serious, they should vote with the Democrats in the Senate, giving them a majority in that House. Otherwise they just serve as a cosmetic for the Republican Party, which is complicit in the breaking down of democracy in America which HCR describes.
Historically, if the Republicans are allowed to get away with it, it will be an American tragedy even greater than the failure of Reconstruction.
My lesson from today's Letter is that it is the gerrymandering that has caused the two parties to go to the extreme right in particular but also farther to the left. My assumption was it was the two party system itself that eventually moves members of the parties to the extremes and hollows out the middle. The middle, the Independents, now represent 36% of the electorate with Republicans at 31% and Democrats at 31% in the latest Gallup poll. But, what about the rest of the world where authoritarianism is on the rise in general. They don't have gerrymandered states, do they? Do like the history of the loyal opposition. Ranked choice voting would take care of some of these issue. I keep feeling we aren't thinking about this at a high enough level. We're just putting patches on a few things but the underlying problems are festering and getting more serious.
“this attempt of Republican leaders to delegitimize the Democratic Party is an assault on our democracy”. However, can we agree that the Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, should be delegitimized because of its decades-long assault on our democracy, specifically its assault on elections and voting?
I would be happy to see a new party formed from the never-Trumpers, the Lincoln Project, RVAT, and other conservatives who fled the Republican Party. The Republican brand is too badly tarnished to be salvaged.
Trump obfuscates on the election to buy time. He needs to get his ducks in a row since eh is about to meet the consequences of his behavior for the past 4 years. The extent of which is not know but he faces at the very least, extensive debt and several investigations that he cannot pardon or have pardoned away. The cartoons showing him wreaking everything in the room are all too accurate. The damage he has done to our democracy will leave it scarred but not broken. He will leave behind many people who want a savior but got a conman and are unwilling to open their eyes to the destruction he has wrought upon them. He is going out as he came in, a torrent of chaos, a storm of untruth. We either learn the lessons of the time or are doomed to repeat them. I too am older and may not see many more presidents. Hopefully I never see another like this one.
Honestly, I've been telling people for months now that we're going to have to do something more...I'm just not sure what, beyond shouting, writing letters, cursing and wishing the GOP held to what I consider to be pro democracy. I'm discouraged by this stuff. Thanks for all you do Heather. I'm sure I'd be in a basket without your letters.
I am in general agreement with the crew here, but I wish people wouldn't call ANYONE names. I have hated it when Trump makes up names for people he dislikes and I think it is disrespectful. When we make up names for Trump and McConnell and their adherents, we are no better. To work with people, to bridge gaps, name-calling, however tempting it is, doesn't aid in genuine communication and problem-solving. It also gives our kids the idea that it's okay. Just sayin' (Don't think I am too much of a goody-goody. I have let loose language that would befit a pirate, but think it isn't useful in public discourse.)
I appreciate Heather's consistent respectful language, even in the midst of dissecting repugnant behaviour. We can take a page from her book. (Thanks, Heather.)
I am getting sadder each day.
I'm beginning to wonder where the Democrats are. Republicans are silent, but I don't hear enough noise from Dems. They need to literally drag Ms Murphy out of her office and get her to explain why she's single-handedly holding up the beginnings of the transfer. You know she'll be a no show, even if served with a subpoena. When will we take to the streets to make the repubs do what's right? I'm just sick and tired of it all! And, maybe that's the point...wear them down. I may be "sick and tired", but there's still a lot of anger in this old body to physically stand for what's right!
Someone by the name of Linda Brown posted this on the Unofficial Healther Cox Richardson Facebook page. If this is true and doable, it would be consistent with the philosophy of originalism that the majority of SCOTUS justices claim to justify their decisions:
Even if the Democrats don’t win control of the Senate, there is a legal, Constitutional way to strip Mitch McConnell of his power for good: priority recognition.
According to Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the Vice President is also the President of the Senate. The Majority Leader is not a position that exists anywhere in the Constitution. The reason that the Majority Leader has near-dictatorial powers to control floor votes is because of a tradition that dates back to 1937. The tradition is that the Vice President gives the floor leaders priority recognition. Most notably, this is not a rule in the Senate.
As President of the Senate, Vice President Harris could give any senator priority recognition. That senator could then decide on all legislation that is brought before the entire Senate. Even with a minority in the Senate, Vice President Harris could simply give Chuck Schumer priority recognition. He could decide what is voted on and what isn’t.
This would change everything. Without Mitch McConnell to hide behind, the moderate Republican Senators would be forced to vote down every Cabinet member, bill, resolution, everything that Harris would want done. Without McConnell, anything even remotely popular with at least two senators would pass. Including getting a cabinet assembled.
I see some debate as to what the Senate rules do and due not permit. I encourage everyone to read this on the actual written rules and why the Majority Leader is so powerful today. It should be noted, however, unlike the House of Representatives, a large part of the Senate rules is tradition. As Mitch McConnell will gladly tell you, tradition is not written rule.
Also, This wouldn’t be the first time Schumer has done something like this. And yes, while there’s the possibility of rule changes, they cannot change the Constitution. At the end of the day, Madame Vice President Harris is President of the Senate. Period. Not Mitch McConnell.
Thank you, Heather, for continuing to hold us up.
I used to believe that the majority of people, including people in government service, were inherently good, that they possessed morals and a conscience. However, I am no longer a “Pollyanna” when it comes to politics. I would love to believe the congressmen from Michigan when they say “whoever wins Michigan wins the electoral votes”, but I just can’t. When I see them speak these words, or see them in print, all I see/hear is Lindsey Graham stating “Mark my words, Republicans will never appoint a Supreme Court Justice in an election year”. I find it interesting that in their statement they told us what THEY said, but did not give any mention of what tRump said or offered to them. I live in Michigan, and am afraid that they will find a “way” to appoint republican electors.
What is happening now is utterly despicable.