APRIL 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Trump Attorney Sidney Powell. It’s been amply established that Sidney Powell bears a large measure of moral responsibility—at the very least—for creating the poisonous environment that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Powell was one of the main legal lowlives behind Trump’s misbegotten legal effort to steal another term.

Powell’s claims to fame were a series of lawsuits that alleged Dominion Voting Systems was in cahoots with Venezuela to steal victory from Trump—the infamous “Kraken” lawsuits. All four of them crashed and burned—but not before her claims led to Dominion and its employees facing vicious harassment and trolling. At least one Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, was driven into hiding.

Partly due to this, Dominion filed a whopping $1.3 billion defamation suit against Powell, her law firm, and her nonprofit organization, Defend the Republic. Well, early in the month, Powell sought to throw out the suit. Her reasoning? Wait for it—she now says “no reasonable person” would believe her claims.

No, this isn’t really snark. She actually said this in an actual legal filing.

In her motion to dismiss, Powell does not argue that the statements were true. She claims they are not actionable because they are protected statements of political opinion.

“Reasonable people understand that the ‘language of the political arena, like the language used in labor disputes … is often vituperative, abusive and inexact,'” her motion to dismiss argues. “It is likewise a ‘well recognized principle that political statements are inherently prone to exaggeration and hyperbole.'”

Powell goes on to say that Dominion called her theories “wild” and “outlandish,” and in so doing support the notion that “no reasonable person” would take them seriously. Rather, she would have us believe her statements were merely “claims that await testing by the courts.”

So, in other words, Powell is tacitly admitting that when she made her much ballyhooed vow to “release the Kraken,” she knew it was based on hokum. And she also knew that when she was filing these statements that they were baloney.

I’m not a lawyer, but even I know that when you make court filings, you’re asserting that your arguments are based on fact. Not, though, if you’re a Trumper.

LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH: THE REAL G.O.P. AGENDA

By Ronald T. Fox

If you’re like me and inclined toward progressive politics, you likely continue to be amazed as to why so many Americans continue to vote for Republicans when many of their political beliefs and actions, especially on economic and financial issues, are so broadly unpopular. Solid majorities of Americans support gun control, regulating big banks, reducing greenhouse gasses, a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, laws to protect public health and safety, a wider access to healthcare, raising the minimum wage, protecting voting rights, and a progressive tax system that makes corporations and wealthy individuals pay more. These are all issues where republican lawmakers have defied the majority will of the American people.

How do they continue to get away with it? I’ve written in the past on Phronesis about how our political system is structured to thwart majority rule, citing the disproportionate influence moneyed interests, which are easily expressed through a constitutional system that in the electoral college, the small state-dominated Senate, and state and local governments stifles majority sentiment. I’ve written about the impact of gerrymandering and the failure of out communication outlets to educate the public on the realities of power and influence in our governance. I’ve addressed the failure of the Democratic Party to address working class concerns. I've posted about white resentment of identity politics. I’ve even pointed to the stupidity of voters (though such condescending academic preaching admittedly contributes to alienating ordinary Americans).

These factors help explain how Republicans, and their wealthy backers, have been able to thwart popular progressive legislation and retain their solid, if primarily white, electoral base. Still it is astonishing how a political party that has no clear legislative agenda other than obstruction, campaigns without a platform, goes at length to tell us what they’re against rather than for, has been so successful in achieving a policy agenda skewed toward rewarding the few Americans with wealth and power.

Ian Nillhiser’s opinion piece in the April 2, New York Times offers a clue: the Republican Party relies on the judiciary. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has for decades pushed an agenda that benefits corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. Court decisions have advanced the Republican vision in which government is prevented from regulating business, protecting civil and voting rights, and providing a basic social safety net.  Why should Republicans operate openly in the messy political arena when they can quietly achieve goals through the courts? How many Americans are aware of, and can comprehend, complicated court decisions, or non-decisions when they refuse to hear a case? You get the point: legislating from the bench enables them to dodge accountability for unpopular policies.

The conclusion for progressives and liberal to draw from the current reality of judicial legislating is depressing, to say the least. With conservatives controlling the Supreme Court and much of our nation’s networks of federal, as well as state and local, courts, and with most justices relatively young, we face years of rulings destined to benefit wealthy private interests and the broader agenda of conservatives. This endangers President Biden’s agenda, but, more ominously, our cherished Democracy.

I’m including Nillhiser’s op-ed below as a guest commentary. For a fuller exploration of his thesis, read his book: The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court is Reshaping America.