The Friday Round-Up
I take one more swing at the debt limit; round-up the week's most interesting political news and pay tribute to David Crosby.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
As you might have guessed, there's no Zoom Chat today, but that's because I postponed it until Tuesday at 12:30 when I'll be sitting down with my old friend Dahlia Scheindlin to talk about the constitutional crisis unfolding in Israel (we couldn't find a way to make Friday work). The link is here. Until then …
One More On The Debt Ceiling
I received an interesting response to yesterday’s piece from a friend of the newsletter.
I am a pessimist, but I really disagree with you regarding the debt ceiling. The Republicans are willing to blow through and cause economic chaos because then the economy will tank, and guess who gets blamed? Biden and the Democrats. Things are bad: blame the President. That isn’t crazy. In fact, it’s pretty smart.
This is an interesting theory and one I hadn't fully considered. Truth be told, there is a certain nihilistic logic to it. But if this is what Republicans are thinking, they are indeed playing with fire. If correct, they would be sparking a crisis that could lead to an economic catastrophe and would be counting on the White House getting blamed by the American people. Maybe that happens, and maybe it doesn't, but that's a risk that no sane political party would ever take. Even if they're right and Biden is held responsible for voters … it doesn't mean House Republicans don't also pay a political price. I might have too much confidence in the American people, but just as voters in the 2022 midterms looked past high inflation to cast their votes against Republican extremist candidates, I sense that the same thing will happen in 2024 if the GOP blows up the economy.
Of course, that's speculation on my part, but that's kind of the point. We don't know how such a situation would play out because it's never happened before (this is, of course, why you don't do it). But it's simply too dangerous a strategy and frankly too nuanced for me to honestly believe this is what Republicans have in mind. The better explanation, I think, is that they stumbled into this situation because they've misjudged their leverage, and they don't really have any other tools to force the White House to pay attention to them.
Here's the other problem for Republicans: Biden possesses a trump card. He can instruct the Treasury Department to tell the United States mint to create a special platinum coin with the value of $1 trillion and deposit it at the Federal Reserve, thus providing the federal government with a trillion more dollars to spend (this Paul Krugman column is a pretty good explanation of how and why this idea could work). Today, in the New York Times, Jamelle Bouie makes the case that Biden should simply reject the debt limit as a congressional infringement on executive power. That argument is not completely persuasive and I’ll be honest both of these ideas feel a bit gimmicky and I’m not convinced Biden will do it (and if he does he could face a Court challenge). But the bottom line is that if the White House concludes that my friend is right and Biden will bear the greatest political price of a debt default, he has outs. Republicans don't.
But I come back to the point I’ve been making all week. Republicans have decided to spark a showdown over the debt limit with no clear strategy for how they can succeed and no Plan B if the White House refuses to negotiate. The farther they go down this road — and the closer we get to a possible default — they will give themselves less room for maneuverability. Let’s say, for example, in a few months, that polling shows voters are mainly blaming Republicans for the crisis and potential default. What’s their exit ramp? As I see it, the problem is that they may convince themselves — with a bit of motivated reasoning — that the above theory is correct and Biden will get the blame if default happens. If that is the case, we might really be screwed.
What's Going On
For the Daily Beast, I wrote about the Ken Roth flap at Harvard and the fact that no one seemed to care that Roth (and the Nation magazine) claimed, without evidence, that a cabal of wealthy Jews vetoed a proposed fellowship at the Kennedy School. It's yet one more depressing example of how antisemitic tropes worm their way into the public discourse, with little pushback from progressives who are usually the loudest voices speaking out against bigotry and prejudice.
Ron DeSantis might be the most authoritarian-minded governor in America. He's a deeply dangerous figure.
I had a chuckle over this Bess Levin piece on all the ways that Donald Trump is going to handle Ron DeSantis. She's making a somewhat satirical argument, but it's a helpful reminder that no Republican politician has ever gone head-to-head with Trump and survived. Why would DeSantis be different? With his height, voice, and weight and facing off against an opponent with the emotional sensibility of an 11-year-old boy, he will have his hands full against Trump.
Here's a question? What's worse: taking $3000 from a disabled vet to help his dog get a life-saving surgery and then absconding with the money … or lying about your mother being in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11? Well, apparently, George Santos did both.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Tony Dungy is a right-wing zealot.
So you're not going to believe this, but the Supreme Court not only refused to appoint an outside investigator to look into who leaked the draft abortion ruling last year ... but apparently didn't question any of the nine Justices. I know it's hard to process that this Court is capable of such behavior.
The Brian Walshe story is a good reminder that most criminals are idiots. Here's a compendium of iPad searches made by Walshe in the hours before his wife Ana was reported missing. (In a heartwarming touch, Walshe used his 6-year-old son's iPad to conduct these searches).
This might be the greatest article about dogs ever published.
Musical Interlude
RIP David Crosby