In the Texas election last year, turnout was 6.6 percent higher than in 2016.  In my view, there were two reasons for this:

1. Voters not normally engaged in public policy were alarmed by the disaster that was Trump’s infestation of the White House.  Trump’s childish attacks on social media, continuous stream of outrageous lies, and soaring Covid cases and deaths finally broke through the fog of disinformation pouring out of right wing media and drove people to the polls.
2. Efforts by local officials to make it easier to vote, especially after Trump’s new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, intentionally sabotaged the Post Office and undermined voters’ confidence that their mail in ballots would be counted.

The turnout was bipartisan.  Even though Biden decisively won the national election, Republicans maintained their iron grip on Texas and made gains in the US House (I’m ignoring gerrymandering at this moment.)  Turnout us up across the country this last election, so the response from GOP controlled statehouses around the country was predictable – make sweeping changes to make it harder for Americans to votes.  Over 250 bills in 43 states are being rammed through state legislatures as I write this.

In fact, last night while we were all asleep, the Texas Senate voted to advance Senate Bill 7, that places additional sweeping restrictions on voting including reducing early voting days and hours, eliminating highly successful and popular drive-through voting, and making it illegal for local officials to send mail in ballot applications to those who don’t request them, even though they are qualified.  They are ramming this bill through as fast as possible, even though the majority of testimony in Senate hearings opposed these laws as unnecessary and just more voter suppression.  The House could vote on this bill by the Texas House and signed by Abbott as early as next week.  It’s passage is as certain as the sunrise tomorrow.

This anti-American undemocratic bill is being passed so the GOP, controlled by old pot-bellied rednecks can cling to power for another cycle.  Elections have consequences.  When the bad guys win, bad things happen.  Welcome to “democracy” in the 21st century.  Any more of this kind of “democracy” our status as a failed state will be cemented for decades.

Among the outrages committed by Trump during his 4 year infestation of the WH is the damage he did to the US’s global standing.  Not only did he turn against centuries-long alliances and quit global cooperation (the WHO, Paris Climate Accord, Iranian nuclear deal), he ceded global trade positions to China.  Oh, he talked tough and launched a disastrous trade war, but the real damage he did was allowing China to get a giant leg up on global trade, diplomacy, and even defense.   When Trump was boasting about his “America First” policy, other countries were moving into the vacuum and moving quickly.  After a smaller increase last year due to the pandemic, China announced today an increase in its defense budget of 6.8% as it modernizes and increases its military capabilities.  Xi Jinping, facing no real political opposition, has jumped into the void created by Trump’s bungling cementing not only China’s dominance, but also his own.

Xi saw Trump’s bungling as an opportunity for China, and he took it.  He let Trump think he did the “biggest deal ever”, when, in fact, he pantsed him in front of the entire world, and the only people who didn’t see it were MAGHats and Lindsey Graham.  His trade war and “deal” with China used his crack negotiating skills – he gave China everything it wanted.  The Brookings Institute put it best just before the 2020 election:

“Despite Trump’s claim that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” the ultimate results of the phase one trade deal between China and the United States — and the trade war that preceded it — have significantly hurt the American economy without solving the underlying economic concerns that the trade war was meant to resolve. The effects of the trade war go beyond economics, though. Trump’s prioritization on the trade deal and de-prioritization of all other dimensions of the relationship produced a more permissive environment for China to advance its interests abroad and oppress its own people at home, secure in the knowledge that American responses would be muted by a president who was reluctant to risk losing the deal.”

Trump’s paper tiger presidency allowed bad actors like Iran, Russian, and China to actually do the opposite of what he boasted would happen.  These countries, without the vigilance of the allies lead by the US to hold them to account, increased their global dominance.  Russia has expanded its cyber operations targeting all global democracies, China stepped into the void to dominate Pacific trade, and Iran is once again expanding its nuclear capability.  Worse, our own allies have backed away from us, and Biden’s aggressive re-engagement has not calmed fears about who the US will elect in 2024 and simply return to Trumpism.  This problem is not going away any time soon, especially with a Senate that can’t even pass a bill that will provide some relief to our long haul misery caused by Trump’s incompetence that was magnified by politicians terrified of his violent supporters.  Remarkably, it seems that Trump’s greatest accomplishment was creating an environment in the US toxic enough to enable domestic terrorism to rise from the shadows out into the light of day for the entire world to witness.  Domestic terrorists espousing fascist ideology and violence doesn’t give our allies confidence in our long term viability and most certainly takes away our moral authority as the biggest proponent of democracy around the world.

The damage Trump did will be long lasting and far reaching.  Republicans, trying to protect their own hides, refuse to acknowledge the problem, and this problem can’t be fixed with more executive orders and the efforts of only one party.  I’m not hopeful.

As JJ talked about on Saturday, Moscow Mitch voted along with 42 other Republicans to acquit Trump, which was expected.  What wasn’t expected was that after the vote, he got up in front of national television and then excoriated Trump for his incitement of the crowd to insurrection and even said that he could be prosecuted by state and federal authorities.  He also said that it was unconstitutional for the Senate to try him, since he’s already out of office.  Never mind that history, precedent, and over 200 legal scholars disagreed, this was the tree he hid behind to excuse his immoral vote to acquit.

We also have to keep in mind that McConnell always plays the long game, always focused on his own position and power.  He was never going to vote to convict because doing so would start a loud mutiny and he’d be ridden out of his minority leader spot in a nanosecond.  Also, politics comes first; everything else comes second.  Everything.  McConnell’s strategy is to create a political dilemma for Biden.  McConnell always had control of the process here.  He now says it was unconstitutional to try Trump after he was out of office, but HE’S the one who refused to take the case before the election.  He created the problem he says in unfixable.  That’s classic McConnell.  Second, he says that the criminal justice system should prosecute Trump – and guess who’s shoulders that falls on?  None other than Biden, who has already nominated Merrick Garland as AG.  The moment Garland would dare move against Trump, McConnell would rush to the microphone to decry “criminalizing politics” and “Biden “politicizing the DOJ,” which, by the way, Trump had already done.

It’s the long game.  It’s always the long game.

It’s amazing how effective multiple billion lawsuits are at stopping illegal behavior.  Lou Dobbs, one of the worst human beings on the planet, has been well known for his incendiary commentary on television for years; he started at CNN as a normal business anchor but moved to Fox Business in 2011.  He was one of the original Obama haters and became unhinged when Trump started making noise about running for president.  Like Sean Hannity, Dobbs was all in on Trump every day, all day.  After Trump lost the election, Dobbs started repeating the same bullshit being spread by Trump, Giuliani, and Powell, especially the lies about Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems.  Those companies finally got a belly full of the defamation, and both sued.  Smartmatic upped the ante big time, naming Dobbs, among other deplorables in their $2.7 billion suit against Fox.  The network unceremoniously showed him the door this afternoon.  It’s over.

Good riddance.  So many more to go.

As Ted Liu put it today, this is the best opening paragraph ever for a lawsuit:

The AXIOS team has done it again, this time led by Jonathan Swan, telling the tale of the craziness in the WH in Trump’s waning days of infesting the Oval Office.  It’s a stomach turning must read, full of quoted expletives.  Key quote: “When Rudy Giuliani is the voice of reason, you know the meeting’s not going well.”