Trump’s Tiktok two-step is a lesson for future presidents
I'm about to leave for a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me on Feb 14 in BOSTON for FREE at BOSKONE , and on Feb 15 for a virtual event with YANIS VAROUFAKIS. More tour dates here.
Remember the Tiktok ban? I know, it was ten million years ago (in Musk years, anyway), so it may have slipped your mind, but let me remind you: Congress passed a law saying Tiktok was banned. Trump said he wouldn't enforce the law. The end.
No, really. I mean, sure, there's a bunch of bullshit about whether Trump will pick up the ban again after Tiktok's grace period ends, depending on whether they sell themselves to his creepy wax museum pal Larry Ellison. Maybe he will. Maybe Tiktok'll buy so many trumpcoins that he forgets about. Whatevs.
The important thing here is: Congress passed a (stupid) law and Trump said, "I've decided not to enforce that law" and then that was it:
Sure, there's some big rule of law/checks and balances/separation of powers problems here, and there are plenty of laws I'm mad about Trump not enforcing (like the law that says corporations can't bribe foreign governments, say). But this one? Sure, it's fine. The problem with Tiktok is that it invades our privacy in creepy ways, not that it is owned by a Chinese company. I don't want Zuck or Musk or (especially) Trump invading my privacy.
Congress hasn't passed a consumer privacy law since 1988, when they banned video store clerks from telling newspapers about your VHS viewing habits. That's why Tiktok is a problem. Pass that law, and if any president decides not to enforce it, I'll be mad as hell and I'll be right there in the streets next to you, in head-to-toe CV dazzle, with all my distraction rectangles in Faraday pouches, shlepping a placard bearing the Social Security Numbers of every Cabinet member in giant writing.
But the point is, the president defied Congress, which is a thing that Very Serious Grownups told us radicals Joe Biden mustn't do under any circumstances, lest the resulting constitutional crisis tear the country apart, or, at the very least, alienate so many voters that Donald Trump would become the next president.
We let Very Serious Grownups call the shots, and Donald Trump is president. Maybe we should stop listening to Very Serious Grownups?
Look, presidents ignore Congress's laws all the time. The Comstock Act (which effectively bans transporting pornography and contraception) is almost entirely ignored, and has been for generations (though Trump's creepy Heritage Foundation puppetmasters have promised to bring it back). The Robinson-Patman Act hasn't been enforced since the Reagan years, which is a damned shame, because Robinson-Patman would put Walmart, Amazon, Dollartree and Dollar General out of business (Biden started to enforce Robinson-Patman again during his last year in office):
I'm not trying to say that enforcing (or ignoring) the Comstock Act is the same as ignoring (or enforcing) the Robinson-Patman Act. The Comstock Act is bad, and the Robinson-Patman Act is good. I am capable of making that moral judgment, and I would like to have a president who does the same.
The fear about Trump ignoring the laws and procedures is justified, but not because of the damage he's doing to laws and procedures – it's because of the damage he's doing to the people of this country and the world.
Take the records that Trump has destroyed – vital data about public health and other subjects (thankfully, most of this was saved from destruction by the Internet Archive). The most important fact about that act of destruction is the harm that will result from it, not the failure to follow procedure.
There are plenty of times in which I am OK with people ignoring the law and destroying records. In 1943, Dutch guerrillas bombed the civil registry building in Amsterdam, to keep the records of where Jews and other disfavored minorities lived out of the hands of occupying Nazis. The firefighters on the scene kept their hoses running until any paper that hadn't been burned was reduced to slurry:
I'm fine with destroying records that wicked, vicious authoritarians would use to harm my neighbors.
Remember when Biden tried to cancel student debt? He could have started off by destroying the records of who owed what, so when the courts overturned his administrative action, it would have been hard or impossible to collect on the debts that were still held on federal books, or whose records the feds had (no, I'm not suggesting that Nazi death camp deportations are equivalent to unjust student debt collections, but if you agree that sometimes it's OK to illegally destroy records, then all we're left with is haggling over the specifics).
Sure, this would have been a constitutional crisis, but, as Ryan Grim says, "It is apparently unconstitutional for the president to instruct the Department of Education to restructure and forgive some student loan debt but it is ok for DOGE chair Elon Musk to just get rid of the whole department. Anywho."
Canceling debt isn't forgiving debt. Student borrowers have been preyed upon by colleges and lenders. People who borrowed $79.000 and paid back $190,000 can somehow still owe $236,000 do not need to be forgiven, because (unlike Trump) they haven't sinned. Rather, their debts need to be canceled (like Trump):
Trump's shown us what a president should do when the courts get in their way: fight back. Worst case scenario is the court prevails, and a bunch of Fedsoc judges (up to and including the Supreme Court) set binding precedent that reduces the power of the president, which would be, you know, great. Best case scenario: Americans are freed from these crippling, fraudulent debts and, you know, vote for Democrats and against Trump, instead of staying home because they don't feel like the Democrats have their back.
Defying unjust court decisions isn't Trumpian – it's Rooseveltian. Roosevelt (following in Lincoln's footsteps) spent years discrediting and weakening the Supreme Court's power, using his bully pulpit to rob them of authority and build the political will to pack the court, which he was on the brink of doing when the Supreme Court surrendered:
Democrats developed an online organizing playbook, and it worked, so Republicans took it, improved on it, and won elections. Republicans have developed a devastatingly effective constitutional hardball playbook. Democrats should steal that playbook and run with it:
I rang doorbells, made phone calls, and shelled out money for Democrats in the last cycle because I wanted them to do stuff that helps Americans, not because I wanted them to follow procedures. The fact that Trump is building offshore concentration camps and has deported our neighbors to them (to name just one of many cheap dystopian fanfics that Trump is LARPing) should be the kind of five-alarm fire that sent South Korean lawmakers scaling the barricades last month.
This is the kind of crisis where I'd expect Democrats on the Hill, at a minimum, to be refusing to give Trump and the GOP anything. Call quorum on every vote. Debate every amendment. Raise every objection. Vote against everyting. Do not confirm a single appointee. And any elected Dem that refuses to play along? Kick 'em out of the caucus. Oh, we can't afford to do that because we can't afford to lose a single lawmaker? How did that work out with Kirsten Synema and Joe Manchin? Shoulda kicked them out after the first vote, shoulda raised money for any real Dem willing to primary them. Should have shunned them in the hallways and refused to invite them to the Christmas parties. We should do that to Fetterman. Party unity got us nothing under Biden. Party unity got us Trump. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome isn't actually the formal definition of insanity, but it is nevertheless very, very stupid.
For the past four years, Very Serious Grownups in the Democratic machine kept telling us that we couldn't expect the president to do anything, or Congress to do anything, or the Senate to do anything, because the Republicans would stop them. Or the courts would stop them. Why fight when you know you're gonna lose? Because sometimes, you'll win. And even if you lose, you'll go down fighting.
Better yet, if you lose in just the right way, you'll force Trump's judges to take away powers from the President and the administrative agencies – take away the powers Trump is now wielding like a sledgehammer.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
NEXT WEDNESDAY (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.
Nothing's more frustrating that watching the GOP smash norms and decency to advance policies that harm millions of Americas, unless it's that, plus Democratic officials stamping their feet and saying, "C'mon guys, play fair."
The GOP's game is called "constitutional hardball." Think: Mitch McConnell refusing to hold confirmation hearings on Obama's federal judiciary appointments, not never for Merrick Garland's Supreme Court seat – then filling the Federal judiciary with the least-qualified, most FedSoc-addled lunatics in US history, all for lifetime appointments.
As bad as this is at the federal level, it's even worse at in the states, especially the Republican "trifecta" states where the GOP holds the governorship and the state house and senate, where shameless gerrymandering and legislative attacks on hard-won ballot measures are the order of the day. GOP-held state governments engage in rampant interstate aggression, targeting out-of-state abortion providers, publishers, and journalists.
This is a one-sided Cold Civil War, because state Dems, for the most part, are unwilling to play hardball in return (the closest they come is when, say, California sets strict emissions controls and manufacturers adopt them nationwide, rather than making special cars for the giant California market). Republicans engage in constitutional hardball and Dems refuse to fight back, a phenomenon called "asymmetrical constitutional hardball":
The pair argue first, that the best way to get Republican state houses to play fair is to credibly threaten them with retaliatory action. They cite the recent attempt at a last-minute change the way that Nebraska's Electoral College votes are apportioned, which would have given all of five the state's EC votes to Trump. Maine threatened to effect the same change to its Electoral College system, which would have given all four of its EC votes to Harris. Nebraska surrendered.
But there's also a second advantage to playing Constitutional Hardball: it makes blue states better. For example, Minnesota gives free college tuition to exceptional low/middle-income students. Neighboring North Dakota got tired of losing all its smartest kids Minnesota schools and created its own subsidy. As Gerney and Knight point out, Minnesota (and other blue states) still has a huge advantage when it comes to attracting top talent, because attending university in a state with legal abortion is vastly preferable (and safer) than doing a degree in a forced-birth state.
Red states are bent on making life horrible for some really great people. The hardworking, talented Haitian migrants caught in the Springfield pogroms that Trump incited would be a fine addition to any blue state town – anyone who's got the gumption to haul ass out of a failed state and make their all the way to Springfield is gonna be a fantastic neighbor, citizen and worker, just like my refugee grandparents and father, who endured a million times more hardship than their neighbors ever did, getting to Toronto, finding jobs, and starting their family.
Influxes of young, hardworking immigrants are especially good for rural towns with dwindling populations. No wonder rural towns with above-average net migration swung for Biden in 2020.
All over America, families are despairing of their lives in red states. Whether you're worried that you or someone you love might need to terminate a pregnancy, or you're worried about gender-affirming care for you or a loved one, you can put your worries to rest in a blue state. Same goes for nurses and doctors who are worried they can't do medicine unless it accords with the imaginary dictates of Bronze Age prophets as claimed by pencil-neck Hitler wannabe Bible-thumper with a private jet and a face from Walmart. Fill the blue states with great schools, libraries and hospitals, and invite everyone who wants to do their job in a free country to come and work at 'em. Line every state border with abortion and mifepristone clinics, and set up billboards advertising the quality of life, the jobs, and the freedom in blue state America.
Every blue state public pension fund should ban investments in fossil fuels, and invest like crazy in renewables, especially in Texas, to hasten the bankrupting of the petro-kleptocracy that controls the state. Blue states should tack surcharges on goods imported from "right to work" states where unions are effectively banned, to compensate for the additional product testing needed to ensure that scab products are safe to use (ahem, Boeing).
Create joint occupational licensure rules across blue states: if you're certified as a teacher, nurse, hairdresser or auto-mechanic in New York, you should be able to carry that certification with you to Minnesota, California, or Maine. Create multi-state funding pools to build public housing. Offer med-school scholarships to the smartest red state kids, at universities where they'll learn evidence-based obstetrics rather than the Lysenokist nonsense taught at the Roy Moore College of Pediatrics and Obstetrics.
Dems have to get over their fear of "states' rights" and start playing state-level hardball. This doesn't mean escalating cruelty. Quite the contrary: every cruel measure enacted as red state red meat is a chance for blue states to extend a kindness, and capture even more of the best, brightest and kindest of the nation, creating a race to the top that Republicans can only win by abandoning their performative cruelty and corruption.
Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
A very smart article by Cory Doctorow. Btw, if you're not already familiar with him, he should be on your radar. In addition to being a talent SFF author, Cory frequently writes Very Sensible Things.
We're So Fucked: Voters Unwilling to Punish Politicians for Tactics and Positions
We’re So Fucked: Voters Unwilling to Punish Politicians for Tactics and Positions
We’re So Fucked: Proportionality Bias Explains Voter Apathy To The Threat To Our Democracy
Ever see survey results reporting over 70% of the American people support x, y, or z like keeping abortion safe and legal or enforcing LGBTQ+ rights or common sense gun laws, but then come the next election, the candidates who are actively campaigning on and working against all of them get elected by…
A flag flies at half staff outside the U.S. Supreme Court
Republicans will replace RBG but Democrats hold the trump cards – no, really
Progressives should not worry about what will happen if they mimic McConnell’s constitutional hardball. Their representatives need only act with a little less restraint
“Unless they never again win the House, Senate and White House simultaneously, the constitution gives Democrats plenty of ways to restore our democracy even without resorting to McConnellism or Trumpism. They can expand the electorate by restoring the Voting Rights Act, making voter registration universal, and passing comprehensive immigration reform. They can blunt (if not entirely offset) the GOP’s Senate advantage by granting statehood, and two senators apiece, to Puerto Rico and Washington DC. They can undo the effects of McConnell’s court-packing by expanding the bench – not just the supreme court, but lower courts as well.
What’s notable about all of these positions is that they stop far short of what the constitution allows”
READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/23/republicans-democrats-trump-mcconnell-ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court
That the United States’ Constitution’s official procedures for amendment-by-convention are poorly designed, have not and will not be used, isn’t much of a failure. The system’s biggest purpose there in Article V is to retroactively legitimate the original Constitutional Convention (and by extension the rest of the Constitution itself), which exceeded the charge given to it by the Articles of Confederation system.
I say “will not” confidently, this is how things go and when it comes time for this system to cede to the next it won’t go according to this one’s rules and timetable but the next’s.
That’s something to have on the mind as we watch the Republicans press the limits* even of “constitutional hardball” and start to contemplate extraconstitutional hardball**. I maintain that the government shutdowns increasingly common since the 1990s represent an attempt by a Republican party strong in Congress to bootstrap a vote of no confidence into existence and assert parliamentary supremacy over a Democratic party strong in the White House.
Because both our civil wars have been secessions, we forget that civil wars can break out along other lines than regional - Mother Parliament’s claims on and then supremacy over the monarch were established in civil wars, and as Linz’s classic “Perils of Presidentialism” reminds us, legislative/executive wars on the same lines are quite common in systems like ours, which was after all an amateurs’ attempt to build a republic from of a blueprint of constitutional monarchy and a book of Plato.
* Though they’ve not yet exhausted the possibilities - jurisdiction stripping or getting weird with Section 2 of the 14th Amendment, or Section 4 of the 25th.
** In fairness, many well-established features of the American system like judicial review or “contempt of Congress” are extraconstitutional and were basically bluffed into existence.
