Status today 14 Sep 2021: Today is election day for a bid to recall California governor Gavin Newsome. Meanwhile, President Biden is trying to implement vaccine mandates, to howls of Republican objections.
(As usual I’m behind posting links and comments, and still have a backlog. I’m thinking about trying to post shorter posts every day. Hmm…)
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On the mandates, a letter in today’s NY Times:
Let’s hope that [South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster] and his G.O.P. colleagues will now turn their attention to other flagrant infringements of our libert, like seatbelts, building codes, speed limits, food safety standards, drunken driving laws and licensing requiprements for doctors and pilots.
Have “small-government” conservatives, or libertarians, thought their positions through? Is that really what they want? Do they not recognize that with rights (“freedom”) come responsibilities?
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Elections
Why is it Republicans are so attracted to movie actors and other showmen for lead political positions, despite complete lack of political experience? There was Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Donald Trump, and now Larry Elder, a conservative Black talk show host who presumes to replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California. Does it have anything to do with the shallowness of conservative positions, and the attraction of conservative voters to show rather than substance? All you have to do is say MAGA and wave the American flag, and millions of conservative “patriots” are with you.
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This is not a surprise: polls indicate Newsom will win the recall edition, so Republicans are already floating the claim that the election — which hasn’t finished yet — was/is rigged, will be stolen. They can’t win any other way (in California at least) so they resort to lying and cheating.
Salon, Amanda Marcotte: Win or lose, California recall embodies the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s anti-democracy politics, subtitled, “Republicans can’t win fairly, so they turn instead to cheating, trickery, and, of course, hyping the Big Lie.”
Republicans have given up entirely on the basic premise of democracy. They no longer think that politicians should try to appeal to a majority of citizens to win power. Instead, their focus is entirely on finding ways to circumvent public will and gain power anyway. In some states, this manifests as gerrymandering, outright voter suppression and even a new slate of laws meant to allow Republican officials to simply vacate the results of elections they don’t like. In California, it’s about forcing an off-year election in the most confusing way possible, hoping to hoodwink voters into accidentally giving themselves a Republican governor.
Regardless of the state-specific method, what holds all of this together is a widespread rejection within the Republican Party of the right of the people to choose their own leaders. Republicans feel entitled to rule, no matter what, and therefore feel entitled to lie, cheat, and steal their way to power. The technical legality of the California recall election doesn’t change this reality. The spirit of the whole enterprise is driven by a willingness of Republicans to find some backhanded way to force a governor on the state that they know very well the majority of Californians do not want.
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The pandemic
Sometimes the title speaks for itself: I’d Love the “Freedom” to Leave My Home Without Getting COVID From Some Unvaccinated Bozo
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Amanda Marcotte: The real reason the right-wing elites are so threatened by Biden’s vaccine mandates
Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that many business leaders — even those who are stalwart Republicans generally — are pleased with Biden’s vaccine mandate. That’s because — as Republicans understood when Donald Trump held the White House but seem to have forgotten since then — pandemics are bad for business. “The reality is there are a number of businesses that are wanting the government to step in. This gives them the cover to do what they want to do anyway,” Charles Shipan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, told the Post.
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This was a classic tragedy-of-the-commons problem, the sort of thing that government regulation is designed to fix.
[And so business leaders realized] …pandemics are bad for business.
The culture war is no longer just a tool, but everything to the GOP. They are willing not just to let untold numbers die for their culture war, but even, shockingly, to let the profit margins of corporate America suffer.
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About “religious exemptions.”
Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that many business leaders — even those who are stalwart Republicans generally — are pleased with Biden’s vaccine mandate. That’s because — as Republicans understood when Donald Trump held the White House but seem to have forgotten since then — pandemics are bad for business. “The reality is there are a number of businesses that are wanting the government to step in. This gives them the cover to do what they want to do anyway,” Charles Shipan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, told the Post.
Religious exemptions have always struck me as “get-out-of-jail-free” cards to allow claimants to avoid any law, regulation, or even polite suggestion that they resent, to avoid people they don’t like, or because “freedom.”
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About rejection of expertise:
On the death of expertise and the decline of knowledge
Quoting Tom Nicolls, from The Death of Expertise (2017), which I reviewed here
‘Never have so many people had access to so much knowledge, and yet been so resistant to learning anything’
Ls&Cs: Elections and Mandates, Rights and Responsibilities
Status today 14 Sep 2021: Today is election day for a bid to recall California governor Gavin Newsome. Meanwhile, President Biden is trying to implement vaccine mandates, to howls of Republican objections.
(As usual I’m behind posting links and comments, and still have a backlog. I’m thinking about trying to post shorter posts every day. Hmm…)
\\
On the mandates, a letter in today’s NY Times:
Have “small-government” conservatives, or libertarians, thought their positions through? Is that really what they want? Do they not recognize that with rights (“freedom”) come responsibilities?
\\
Elections
Why is it Republicans are so attracted to movie actors and other showmen for lead political positions, despite complete lack of political experience? There was Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Donald Trump, and now Larry Elder, a conservative Black talk show host who presumes to replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California. Does it have anything to do with the shallowness of conservative positions, and the attraction of conservative voters to show rather than substance? All you have to do is say MAGA and wave the American flag, and millions of conservative “patriots” are with you.
\\
This is not a surprise: polls indicate Newsom will win the recall edition, so Republicans are already floating the claim that the election — which hasn’t finished yet — was/is rigged, will be stolen. They can’t win any other way (in California at least) so they resort to lying and cheating.
Salon, Amanda Marcotte: Win or lose, California recall embodies the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s anti-democracy politics, subtitled, “Republicans can’t win fairly, so they turn instead to cheating, trickery, and, of course, hyping the Big Lie.”
\\
The pandemic
Sometimes the title speaks for itself: I’d Love the “Freedom” to Leave My Home Without Getting COVID From Some Unvaccinated Bozo
\\
Amanda Marcotte: The real reason the right-wing elites are so threatened by Biden’s vaccine mandates
\\
About “religious exemptions.”
Religious exemptions have always struck me as “get-out-of-jail-free” cards to allow claimants to avoid any law, regulation, or even polite suggestion that they resent, to avoid people they don’t like, or because “freedom.”
\\
About rejection of expertise:
On the death of expertise and the decline of knowledge
Quoting Tom Nicolls, from The Death of Expertise (2017), which I reviewed here