The “Things to Be Thankful For” Edition
We’re in a much better place than we could be, so let’s take some time to be thankful for that
Mea Maxima Culpa
So, I hadn’t planned on going months without an edition, but work and family took a series of difficult turns over the summer and early fall. Then, as I started to find some free time, we got closer and closer to the election, and it got harder and harder to think about what to say. I’m not a professional political pundit, and it’s much easier to evaluate the possibilities of a binary presidential race than a mid-term with hundreds of potential outcomes which, even as I type this, we still don’t fully know.
I’m going to try to get back to putting out a monthly edition, but I may need to evaluate whether or not to continue with MSU. One, I’ve got limited time, and some other writing projects on my mind. Two, and this is just me being a cockeyed optimist, but it might be that MSU’s time has passed, at least for now. Or, as Twitter proceeds to go nuts, maybe I’ll shift to putting out smaller but more regular editions, just a few paragraphs here and there. Anyway, I’m putting myself on probation for the next few months. Feedback is welcome!
Dark Brandon Strikes!
Why would I think MSU’s time may have passed? Well, this election is the best progress towards a More Stable Union than I’ve seen in some time. It’s only one election, and as I type this it is clear the GOP will take Congress narrowly, but every utterance of every Republican extremist – but I repeat myself – shows their dejection. They know a defeat when they see one, even those who still believe they were cheated in 2020. Even Donald Trump knows this is a defeat, which is why his really-shouldn’t-have-gone-through-with-it presidential announcement was so low-energy.
What’s the good news?
1. Most important, but easy to overlook, the failure of the MAGA governor and secretary of state candidates in battleground states all but wrecks any hopes of the GOP successfully pulling off an “alternate electors slate” scenario in 2024, which would be their best faux-legal way to nullify a 2024 Biden victory. As POTUS would say, this is a Big Fucking Deal.
2. It’s a safe bet a barely GOP-led House led by someone as weak as Kevin McCarthy is going to be a dumpster fire towed by a clown car stowed in the hold of the Titanic. They’re already announcing priority #1 is… investigating Hunter Biden! THAT sure will get inflation and crime under control! Campaign-wise, this is a multimillion dollar free campaign contribution to Joe Biden.
3. Trump’s humiliation is going to spark an intra-GOP war. His handpicked candidates did terribly and lost the party winnable races. Trump himself raised over $100 million and spent less than $20 million, meaning he basically stole from the party. Gosh, who’d have seen that coming? It makes me sad for them.
[It does not make me sad for them]
4. It is bound to boost Democratic morale. The last thing Dems needed going into 2024 was infighting or dejection. Now, they’ll be coming in from the strongest position an incumbent party ever has had, with an economy more likely to improve than not, and an opposition no longer united behind a single person.
5. It keeps Ukraine in the fight. Remember, the War on Authoritarianism is global, and its most violent front is along the Dnipro River. The MAGAs won’t be able to cut off aid even if the GOP controls Congress, because their majority is too small and too many Republicans thankfully are still Russia hawks and have a lot to be angry about with the pro-Putin MAGA.
6. Finally, and maybe MSU has started sipping the eggnog a little early this year, but there’s a glimmer of hope this will finally force the long-overdue GOP reckoning they should have had after Romney lost in 2012, but weren’t willing to face. Their analysis will have to show them that the Dobbs decision was a brutal blow to their support, and a values system that includes opposing women’s autonomy is an electoral dead end in any democracy. Even more important, they might see they’re facing generational annihilation: Gen Zers turned out in surprising numbers, voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, have a totally different values system than Republicans, and they haven’t all even become eligible to vote yet! Republicans who actually want to win elections must see they’ve reached the limit of how far railing against Critical Race Theory and Transgenders and litter boxes in classrooms can get you. Am I being too optimistic here? Probably. But it’s a positive sign that even most of the defeated election-denying crazies actually have conceded their own races. So their delusion isn’t totally bottomless.
Okay, okay, let’s not get too excited. There’s still bad news here.
1. Any GOP Speaker potentially is dangerous. Remember what I said was the core flaw in Trump’s attempts to string out the 2020 election? It’s that without clear-cut victory, the incumbent president stops being president on January 20, and the presidency devolves to the Speaker of the House as Acting President. Holding those key governorships reduces a lot of risks, but unless Dems retake the House in ’24, if the GOP can think of ways to run out the clock on resolving the election past January 20, we get an Acting President McCarthy or, God help us, someone crazier.
2. 1. We need to keep watching MAGA. While I hope some Republicans will reassess their prospects in our electoral system, we’re already seeing a good number of influencers double down on authoritarianism and voter suppression. Some even have spoken about raising the voting age to 21! I find this hilarious because a) 18 is in the Constitution, and b) you’d have to raise the voting age to 41 if you really wanted to block Dem voters generationally. A lot of GOP-run states are going to push as hard as they can to suppress votes and intimidate voters even more, and the Supreme Court might be eager to help them find ways to do it. Fortunately – thanks again to the failure of a lot of Trump’s candidates – it’s unlikely the most repressive states muster enough electoral votes to knock out the Democrats.
3. Do not be deceived into thinking Ron DeSantis is “safer” than Trump. He’s much smarter and more cunning, much more like Hungary’s Viktor Orban. With Trump, you should fear his violent followers; with DeSantis, you should fear what he can do with unchecked power. The only bright side is that I’m not sure Ron’s got what it takes to succeed outside Florida, either in primaries against Trump or in a general election. But I don’t want to find out.
4. Finally, realize the extent to which what little success the Republicans did have depended on gerrymandering. DeSantis’s ruthless gerrymander in Florida combined with Andrew Cuomo’s can’t-tell-between-maliciousness-or-stupidity gerrymander in New York constitutes the entire margin of GOP success in the House. Democrat Tony Evers won the governorship in Wisconsin, yet Dems have barely a third of Wisconsin legislative seats – and no, that wasn’t split-ticket voting. Ohio’s GOP has such contempt for the rule of law they proceeded to hold the election using an electoral map their own GOP-led state supreme court had ruled unconstitutional! It is true that Democrats should never rest serenely confident that demography is their destiny; that would be a fatal mistake. But it’s also true that these days, Republicans only win when they control the board.
So, what’s the level of small-d democracy success that would make me declare America “more stable” enough so that MSU isn’t necessary? Well, I’ve previously laid out a number of big-picture structural changes I’d want to see, but as far as simply pushing authoritarianism and violence out of mainstream political discourse, I’d say: successive Dem victories in 2024 and 2028, or a GOP pivot by 2028 to some Romney/Cheney/Kinzinger/McMullen acolyte who plots a new course and creates a new center-right coalition.
We’re not out of the woods by any stretch—but you can see the open field from where we are in the trees.
Next edition: I’m going to tell you about the best TV show of 2022.
Wisconsin is one of those states that, like Florida or Ohio, really isn’t a functioning democracy anymore thanks to the extreme gerrymandering the GOP has practiced. Dan Kaufman shows they are not done.
And in Florida, Piper French observes there’s not much point in winning a democratic election, because Governor DeSantis might just strip you of your office if he doesn’t like your policies.
Meanwhile, Ohio’s David Pepper has some outstanding analysis of what went well in the elections, and what has to be done to scale these successes up. In three words: authenticity, youth, states.
Security Sector Reform
Ryan Busse is a former gun industry executive who grew disgusted at the industry’s role in creating a violent, paramilitary gun culture to help sell military-style weapons, which used to be considered very fringe even amongst gun owners. He illustrates from the inside just how that happened.
I’ve talked a bit about how dangerous the “constitutional sheriff” movement is, but its capacity for election interference is particularly noteworthy. I grew up in Johnson County, KS, so this example hurt. But if this troubles you, wait until you hear about the right-wing think tank that’s trying to create basically a sheriff’s war college. But don’t give up hope! You can run against these guys, and you can beat them. One of the most notorious warlords in America, Alex Villanueva, was just ousted at the polls as the LA County Sheriff. We’ll have to see if the victor, Robert Luna, can make an impact against the Department’s endemic gang culture. I’m rooting for him, but betting against him.
Bolt’s Piper French scores a rare MSU twofer! It’s pretty obvious at this point that the San Francisco Police Department didn’t like District Attorney Chesa Boudin and engaged in an illegal work slowdown to engineer his ouster. They now have a DA who shares their views. Nice work if you can get it.
The folks at Homeland Security seem to regret they never benefited from the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover. They basically did everything they could to try to turn the narrative of the 2020 Portland protests into an act of terrorism by an organized terrorist movement.
Police forces may talk about reforms, but the core structural component of professional culture – recruitment and training – hasn’t changed a bit. In Minnesota, police unions are objecting to proposed guidelines that would require police officers and applicants to disclose affiliations with potential extremist groups. Gosh, it’s almost as if police unions themselves are extremist groups or something!
Good Reads
The struggle against right-wing extremism is a global one, and it’s recruiting young white men wherever it can find them. This story definitely will have some shocks for you.
Part of the reason extremism is rising globally is that globally many citizens of democracies don’t see the system working well for them. I’d tie that to increasing inequality and dramatic demographic changes across the developed democracies.
So the new term on the Right you should be following is “National Conservatism.” While John Daniel Davidson in The Federalist says “conservatism” is dead, the “radical” vision he lays out is pretty much where Nat Cons want to take us. Note: the Nat Con vision has no use for democracy other than as a means to get where they want to go.
Nat Cons aren’t too far off from “Christian Nationalists.” Marjorie Taylor Greene is welcome in Nat Con circles, but she calls herself a “Christian Nationalist.” If you were going to make a distinction, the Nat Cons see themselves as the highbrow elite type, while the CNs are more likely to show up at a Trump rally. Their common denominator is a belief that an activist government should work to achieve a divinely-inspired “common good” which really centers on patriarchy. One big and important difference is that Nat Cons realize their beliefs don’t command majority support: one writer says, “the common good is the common good notwithstanding the will of the people,” a phrase which would slip smoothly off the tongue of Xi Jinping or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while another says, not untruthfully, that “democracy did not end slavery, and democracy will not end abortion.” CNs, however, are high on their own supply and are sure they’re a silent majority. Remember that when you hear critiques of the “coastal elite bubble.”
I’ve advocated quite a bit for compulsory national service, but this article from the American Journal of Political Science shows persuasively that populations that experience military conscription actually demonstrate significantly less institutional trust. This doesn’t surprise me: governments in general, and militaries in particular, are giant bureaucracies where being a cog, frankly, sucks. I’ve been in government almost 25 years, and I can’t say the experience has increased (or decreased) my trust in it. My point supporting conscription has been, and remains, I don’t care about your trust in institutions, you benefit from what they do, and you have to put some sweat equity into them, just like with voting (which should be mandatory) and jury duty. Your tax dollars alone are not “service to country.”
Georgetown Professor Donald Moynihan has some important thoughts here on the long-term implications of conservatives running down the “Deep State.” As we said in Afghanistan, you won’t appreciate bureaucracy until you see a place that doesn’t have one.
If you have thoughts, ideas or contributions for MSU, I’d love to get them at morestableunion@gmail.com, and have you follow MSU on Twitter @MoreStableUnion. Share with all your friends so they can subscribe at morestableunion.substack.com. I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Maybe something I wrote will help you with your drunk MAGA relative!