"There is a deep irony here. If there is an operating philosophy driving the Trump White House, it is that of the unitary executive..."

"... the idea that the president is the sole and exclusive wielder of a broad and expansive executive power. This includes the power to dismiss federal employees at will as well as the power to resist congressional statutes or judicial decisions that encroach on executive authority.... Trump may be working from an expansive theory of executive power, but in delegating so much of his authority to Musk... he is both undermining that power and demonstrating [Alexander] Hamilton’s real insights about the importance of a singular executive. Hamilton wrote that 'plurality in the executive' tends to 'conceal faults and destroy responsibility.'... Hamilton says that 'the multiplication of the executive adds to the difficulty of detection…. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author.' It is hard to imagine a better description of our current situation, in which the presence of what are essentially two presidents has blurred lines of accountability for 'pernicious measures.'... If and when disaster strikes, Musk can walk away. After all, he isn’t really the president. The buck will stop with Trump and the Republican Party, because if Musk cannot be held politically liable, they will be."

Writes Jamelle Bouie, in "The Bewildering Irony Behind the Trump-Musk Partnership" (NYT)(free-access link).

But Trump himself says "The buck stops here":

And isn't it rich — isn't it ironic — to hear Trump antagonists rail about concealment and lack of clear lines of responsibility when they did not seem to care much about the radical opacity of the "Biden" administration? We're supposed to worry now about the "multiplication of the executive" when you didn't worry about the absence of any true executive and nothing but a multiplicity of executive substitutes?

"Biden’s Catholic faith should make him a natural middle-grounder..."

"... but his personal qualms about abortion have zero policy substance since he abandoned his support for the Hyde Amendment, and he’s planted himself to the left of secular Europe on transgender issues.... Biden is only now considering a Trump-like executive order on border crossings....  [T]he White House is reluctant to put any clear distance between itself and climate activists.... 'If you like your gas-powered car, you can keep your car' is a simple, politically effective formulation. Yet somehow the Biden administration has ended up with 'If you like your gas-powered car, you’re a clueless antiquarian' instead. One explanation for this pattern is that Biden’s White House is staffed by progressive ideologues.... The greater freedom that Trump enjoys has roots in some dark places — cynicism, conservative tribalism, a populist indifference to policy detail...."

Writes Ross Douthat in "Why Can’t Biden Triangulate Like Trump?" 

I clicked on that headline as soon as I saw it, so I'm surprised to see it's dated April 13th. Since I scan the front-page headlines at the NYT every day, I have to think Biden's failure to "triangulate" is something the editors wanted buried. By the way, "triangulate like Trump" is funny, considering that Bill Clinton was the original triangulator. No mention of Clinton in Douthat's column.

"Trump is triangulating. He sees, correctly, that the Republican Party is now on the wrong side of the public on abortion."

"By rejecting a blanket ban and making a call for compromise with Democrats, Trump is trying to fashion himself as an abortion moderate, a strategy that also rests on his pre-political persona as a liberal New Yorker with a live-and-let-live attitude toward personal behavior. There is a real chance this could work...." 

From "Donald Trump Is Not of Two Minds About Abortion" (NYT), from Jamelle Bouie, who proceeds to speculate about why it shouldn't work. Democrats and the anti-Trump media will continue to critique Trump for making the 3 Supreme Court appointments that led to the overruling of Roe v. Wade. And Republicans will continue to push for legislation restricting abortion as much as possible. 

But Trump is offering to mediate, to bring both sides together to come up with a number — a number of weeks within which women can freely obtain abortions — probably not 6, something like 10 or 12.*

The Wisconsin Capitol looms ominously in The New York Times today.

I'm seeing this Jamelle Bouie piece this morning:

 

The issue, as you may have guessed, is legislative districting, which strongly favors Republicans, and the current threat to impeach the new Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, Janet Protasiewicz, who got elected after declaring that the districting in Wisconsin is "rigged."

Bouie writes:

"Four trans children on one block in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? I think not."

One of the commenters at a NYT column titled "The Relentless Attack on Trans People Is an Attack on All of Us":

I am a gay man, but I think there needs to be a step or two back taken from what has become the politicization of medical treatment for children who may be transgender. Several years ago, a family living on a street in my neighborhood announced by way of a transgender flag that appeared on their porch that their eight-year-old until then son had recently informed them that he is trans. Since then, children of three other families living on our block have had such an epiphany. Four trans children on one block in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? I think not.

ADDED: Is the commenter misinterpreting flags? I haven't been able to find an image of a flag that specifies that a transgender child lives in the house where the flag is displayed. There is a transgender flag. Here's a Wikipedia article about it. I would think it is used simply to support transgender people, not to identify the people living in the house. One particular block could have a bunch of flags because the people know each other and are rallying their support, perhaps for one child.

A nice even 10 in the TikTok selection tonight. Some people love them.

1. A series of drawings with an invitation to visualize the artist.

2. Something called "manner leg" in Korea.

3. Living the barefoot life for 25 years.

4. When it's a woman's video at first, but then the edit switches to a man.

5. When white people speak to black people, they only seem to notice that you're black.

6. When you visit your parents, and it's 6 a.m.

7. When he called the little old lady "lovely." 

8. Queen Elizabeth and David Attenborough discuss a sundial.

9. What do you do with a big old baldface hornet's nest?

10. The old bun-in-the-oven metaphor.

"Perhaps the next Trump, if there is one, will be another celebrity. Someone with a powerful and compelling persona..."

"... who traffics in fear and anger and hate. Someone who 'triggers the libs' and puts on a show. Someone who already has an audience, who speaks for the Republican base as much as he speaks to them. Republican voters have already put a Fox News viewer into the White House. From there it’s just a short step to electing an actual Fox News personality." 

Writes Jamelle Bouie in "The Next Trump/There is no one quite like him in the Republican Party. So where should we look for the president’s inheritors?" 

The link on "an actual Fox News personality" goes to "Tucker Carlson 2024? The GOP is buzzing/The Fox News host's ratings have gone gangbusters, and many Republicans think he'd be a force in a Republican primary" (Politico, July 2020).

While practically every Republican eyeing a 2024 presidential run is professing loyalty to Trump the person... 

That was back in July. 

... Carlson has become perhaps the highest-profile proponent of “Trumpism” — a blend of anti-immigrant nationalism, economic populism and America First isolationism that he articulates unapologetically and with some snark. At the same time, he's shown a rare willingness among Republicans to bluntly criticize Trump when he believes the president is straying from that ideology.

"I’ve been using 'Black' and 'African-American' somewhat interchangeably here. But there’s a good case to be made that this is a mistake..."

"... that 'Black' denotes a racial category and is inclusive of Americans throughout the African diaspora, while 'African-American' refers to national origins, specifically descendants of American slaves. But some Black Americans who are not descendants of slaves claim the term 'African-American,' and some who are descendants do not. And 'Black' also tends to be used in reference to the cultural heritage of Americans of African descent. This column is about 'blackness' as a category and a culture, so I will stick with 'Black' as my preferred terminology. My main point is this: Black American identity within the United States emerges from the interaction between structures of oppression — slavery, the slave trade and race hierarchy — and the needs and goals of those enmeshed within them.... Because of heritage, upbringing and the realities of American racism, [Kamala] Harris calls herself Black and is also understood as Black by people within and outside the Black community.... There has never been some essential element to blackness, no singular quality or attribute that makes someone a Black American.... [I]t might be better to ask 'Why do so many Americans of African descent claim blackness?'"

From "Black Like Kamala/Republican efforts to deny Senator Harris’s identity as an African-American and turn her into a noncitizen are destined to fail" by Jamelle Bouie in the NYT, reacting to Mark Levin's statement "Kamala Harris is not an African-American, she is Indian and Jamaican. Her ancestry does not go back to American slavery, to the best of my knowledge her ancestry does not go back to slavery at all."

Notice that Bouie speaks of "claiming" blackness, and Levin stresses outwardly checkable facts. It's a bit like the way people of the left and the right speak about gender.

By the way, why would you capitalize "Black" but not "blackness"?

"Pelosi promised a narrow, expedited impeachment, and that’s what the House will deliver: a targeted effort centered on a single act of malfeasance."

"It’s been a fast-paced process meant to satisfy liberal activists without alienating moderate members worried about support from swing voters. Once it’s completed, Pelosi can say that Democrats ran a sober investigation and found definitive evidence of wrongdoing. She can even say that this wasn’t an obstacle to getting things done — it was hardly an accident that after announcing the articles of impeachment, Pelosi also announced that the House would vote to approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, President Trump’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Pelosi wants to get to the bottom of the president’s wrongdoing and she wants to protect her moderate members. But a quick, narrow impeachment isn’t the way to go.... Individual Democrats might have run on health care in 2018 and other 'kitchen table' issues, but it was anti-Trump energy that put these districts within reach, and it will be anti-Trump energy that drives the outcome next year. If the president is unpopular — if he’s mired in controversy — Democrats will likely win. If it’s the reverse, if Trump can overcome scandal and recover ground with some voters, he’ll win re-election. And those vulnerable House Democrats? They’ll lose, along with the party’s nominee. The quick impeachment... hands the process to the Republican Senate and its majority leader, Mitch McConnell... The better alternative — the stronger alternative — is to wait.... If Democrats aren’t compelled by the reality of broad, pervasive corruption, then they should be compelled by the politics of a longer, more deliberate impeachment process."

Writes Jamelle Bouie — in "Two Articles of Impeachment for Trump Are Nowhere Near Enough/The House should take its own sweet time and investigate many more aspects of the president’s perfidious behavior" — openly discussing the impeachment in terms of electoral politics.

If the President's alleged action — pushing Ukraine to investigate Biden solely for his own political advantage — is "perfidious," then the House Democrats' political calculations around impeachment are perfidious.

I guess Bouie assumes only Trump haters will read his column, because it just doesn't make sense for anyone considering believing the Democrats' assertions about their channeling somber values from the Framers and earnestly striving to save the Republic.

Bouie goes on to say "There’s no reason for Democrats to end things now. They have enough material to keep the pressure through the new year." But the whole point of using impeachment rather than allowing normal electoral politics to play out over the course of next year is that it's intolerable to allow this dangerous, harmful President to remain in power. He's abusing his power, and the abuse must stop. If that's not true, and the Democrats are using the impeachment power to inflict political damage on the President, then the Democrats are themselves abusing power. Bouie seems to be advising the Democrats to lean into abusing power and get the most out of it.

Here's Bouie's last paragraph:

Democrats, in other words, can use the power of impeachment to set the terms of the next election — to shape the national political landscape in their favor. In a political culture governed by negative partisanship and hyperpolarization, restraint won’t save the Democratic majority. But a relentless anti-Trump posture — including comprehensive investigations and additional articles of impeachment — might just do the trick.

Does he not hear what he is saying?! He's telling Democrats to drop the pretense of principle and patriotism and go all out for political advantage.

ADDED: 2 afterthoughts:

1. Writing "advising the Democrats to lean into abusing power and get the most out of it" made me think of the famous Patrick Henry line: "If this be treason, make the most of it." Impeachment enthusiasts can say: If this be abuse of power, make the most of it. Speaking of channeling the giants of the Framer generation. But Henry was not one of the Constitution's Framers. He was their opponent. He thought they were up to perfidy.

2. "Perfidy" means "Deceitfulness, untrustworthiness; breach of faith or of a promise; betrayal of trust; treachery" (OED). Notice the syllable "fi" — Latin for "faith." What is the faith here that is being broken? Everything about electoral politics is antithetical to faith. Where is the faith? I think in many Americans there is faith. We saw it in the Tea Party movement, and Trump absorbed and echoed that faith. In his time, before the emergence of the Tea Party, Obama expressed that faith...



The last 2 winners of the Presidency understood and repurposed the people's faith. If they'd done anything more profoundly sincere, they would have been too naive to be President, but if they'd done anything less, they would not have won.

Trumpquake.

So Reince Priebus was on "Face the Nation." John Dickerson tried to get him to talk about Trump-not-Trump's "John Miller" routine from a quarter century ago, but Reince brushed it off and plugged in his main message: The Earthquake:

[P]eople are comparing Hillary Clinton, a career politician, someone who has made millions of dollars on politics, and a guy who has never run for public office, a business guy, who is a total outsider that is going to cause an earthquake in Washington. That's really the issue that is on the ballot.

I was laughing, because: Which side is he on? Who likes earthquakes? But I guess maybe it's figured out, the people want mass destruction... in Washington. That was the talking point Priebus came to deliver, because he found a way to say it again at the end of the interview:

And when the choice is Hillary Clinton, someone who has made a career of lying and skirting the issues, and you look at the e-mails, the Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, and a guy who has never run for office and might have some stories out there that may make some interesting news, I think, in the end, people are going to choose the person that is going to cause an earthquake in Washington and get something done over Hillary Clinton.

When it was panel time on FTN, John Dickerson brought up the Trumpquake:

DICKERSON: What if it's just, we -- you know, we are so fed up with Washington that -- and Reince Priebus used the word "earthquake," you know, that -- that they want the earthquake. And forget positions, smitions, we want the earthquake, and that's Donald Trump.

[CBS News political analyst Jamelle] BOUIE: I mean I think that might be true in the Republican Party. I'm just not sure how true it is in the Democratic Party... [T]he heat of a primary has sort of created the perception in the Democratic Party that there are these steep divisions and no doubt I think there are generational divisions in the Democratic Party that Sanders has revealed and may play themselves out in various ways going forward. But in terms of the presidential race, I tend to think that there really isn't that much disunity in the Democratic Party... And I don't think -- given that the Democratic Party is almost like, you know, it's close to majority non-white, I just do not think that Trump is the earthquake that anyone in the Democratic Party is looking for.

That's a lot of blah blah from Bouie, like he thought we wouldn't notice when he switched from asserting that Democrats don't want an earthquake to Democrats might want a different earthquake. Know your quakes. There's the Trumpquake and the Berniequake. To those who want to be counted out when you talk about destruction, "earthquake" sounds like undifferentiated chaos, but to the earthquake connoisseur, there are distinctions.

"And so, as she reintroduces herself to the Democratic Party, and the American electorate as a whole, she should embrace her nerdiness."

"Not only is it effective—a persona perfect for a moment when Americans want solutions more than inspiration—but, after years of keeping it under wraps, it’s the most authentic move she could make."

The last lines of a Slate piece by Jamelle Bouie called "Why Hillary Clinton Should Go Full Nerd/The Democratic front-runner should offer voters her authentic, geeky self."

We've been seeing the word "authentic" a lot lately — what with Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. There's this idea we seem to like that everyone has a real identity inside and that if we've got an inconsistent outward presentation of ourselves it would be wonderful for the inner being to cast off that phony shell.

But "authenticity" can be another phony shell. Unlike the headline writer, who wrote "her authentic, geeky self," Bouie had the decency to write "the most authentic move she could make." Look closely.

The most authentic move she could make. The most authentic move she could make. The most authentic move she could make. 

Not much authenticity there at all. Hillary's in a predicament. What can she do? Authenticity is a good thing to have, so they say. How could she try to get some of that? What move could she possibly make? How about geekiness? What's going on in this old picture?

She's always had some of that nerdiness/geekiness.* That could be the quote-unquote real Hillary. How about a nerd-geek turn on the stage of The Theater of Authenticity?

___________________________

* Slate doesn't bother with the nerd/geek distinction.