Biden’s 2024 nomination

Biden’s 2024 nomination

Some Democrats want their party to choose a stronger candidate than Biden. That reminds me of Pogo’s comment, “We have met the enemy and they is us.” Decisions are now made in primaries; no organization decides who’ll be the candidates.  And nobody wants to run against Biden.

I liked Biden in 2020 though I preferred Elizabeth Warren and many young people preferred Bernie Sanders, despite his age. Democrats had a very strong field. They still have. But Biden came out on top and the others aren’t challenging him. Perhaps they see Biden’s strengths, prefer party unity, or don’t think they have enough support to defeat Biden. But since they’re not running for the nomination, Joe Biden is our nominee.

Let’s be clear – I like Joe Biden. What he’s done would be amazing for someone of any age. Biden made more diverse judicial appointments than his predecessors, and appointed terrific people from all corners of America to government service. He got the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through a deeply divided Congress. Republicans can’t get anything through a Republican dominated Congress but Biden got what the economy needed, avoided the recession everyone predicted, authorized fixing infrastructure that no other president had been able to do and broke a logjam to get the defense policy act passed.

The previous president touted vaccines he thought would be available while he was president but disowned them after Biden’s election. So Biden dealt with the pandemic, did what the economy needed to bring inflation way down and stabilized prices. That’s tricky because increasing prices hurts us all, but decreasing prices threatens recession, and the Federal Reserve’s only tool to bring prices down is to slow the economy despite the risk of recession. However, Biden and the Federal Reserve, working together, brought inflation down while keeping the economy strong. Wow.

There are disagreements with Biden where Americans are torn among themselves. I would be much tougher on Netanyahu, but that would be unacceptable to portions of both parties. Part of a president’s job is navigating conflicting demands. I’ve been a manager and found handling conflicting demands the hardest thing I had to do. I can’t imagine how hard that is nationally. Or why anyone would want that job.

The Democratic Party is a big tent. So those of us who disagree need to focus on convincing the public of our positions. But our political capital depends on our ability to come together. Circular firing squads lose every time.

Republican strategy, by contrast, is my road or the highway – compromise isn’t respected. Their antipathy to compromise underlies why it’s so long since they won a majority of the national vote. Their power depends on the Electoral College, electoral shenanigans like gerrymandering after the 2010 census, and a bought Court that won’t touch their anti-democratic games. Ironically, those most loudly complaining about rigged elections have been using violence against election officials for refusing to alter election totals.

Americans like charisma, actors, TV game show hosts, people who know how to act but have no foreign policy experience, no understanding of economics, law, the Constitution, or how to take care of America. Charisma is often fraud. The Founders would have called charismatics demagogues. People who know how to impersonate public servants don’t belong in the race for president.

Biden, by contrast, is a choice we can be proud of.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on February 27, 2024.

Food Prices

For what’s really happening with food prices, I recommend Paul Krugman, a very careful Nobel laureate. They have risen, but the big surge is way behind us.

Can Biden Engineer a Regional Settlement?

Sometimes lawyers want to holler what seems like the obvious truth. But beware the reactions.

I’ve considered the possibility that Biden and Israel should have called Hamas’ bluff by promising to let relief supplies in whenever the hostages were released and returned, which is similar to proposals being considered at the UN.

I’ve also considered making our aid and military supplies to Israel contingent on getting and keeping so-called “settlers” out of the West Bank. That’s been official American policy for years but telling Netanyahu that has never been enough.

However, Biden’s working for regional peace, preferably a two-state solution – much bigger goals that would be much better for this country. Both Israel and Hamas have rejected it, but nothing short of a two-state solution, proposed in a 1947 UN resolution, can lead to lasting peace in the area or get the US out of constant Middle Eastern battles.

So it’s crucial to understand the impact of proposals. A cease-fire for hostage release deal, if it worked, would take the pressure off both sides for reaching a two-state solution and create the opportunity to rearm and renew violence. Threatening to withdraw support for Israel over the “settler” issue would invite more Hamas attacks whether it succeeded for failed.

We have significant power over Israel, but, once issued, ultimatums will no longer work as bargaining chips for a deal to settle the regional dispute. Israel has been trying to incorporate the entire West Bank by “settling” it. Hamas, instead of a two-state solution, has been committed to crushing Israel and eliminating any homeland for the Jewish people forced out of Europe by the Holocaust. Both sides need to change their behavior for peace to be possible, which is the objective of a regional, preferably two-state, solution. Throttling either side in advance takes any deal off the table.

Biden’s been avoiding careless choices that could compromise regional peace. Diplomats aren’t wimps – they know what they can give and threaten in high-stakes negotiations and when to play which cards.

Biden’s looking for more than making Israel wise up and behave. Israel has longstanding diplomatic and commercial relations with Egypt and Jordan. The Abraham Accords widened those relationships without getting the full regional settlement Biden’s looking to nail down. Unilateral ultimatums outside of peace negotiations could make peace impossible and threaten millions of lives in the process. So it’s important that he stay focused on the regional goal.

Negotiations require much more than what everybody thinks they know about all the various parties. Diplomats have to make everyone believe they’re being treated with respect. Otherwise, angry people resist settlements and often fight on blindly when they should be calculating carefully.

A smarter, more patriotic and less impulsive president than Trump was could have kept Iran in check, and made the Middle East much friendlier. Biden is showing how a smart president, with lots of experience in foreign affairs, with foreign players and the process of negotiation, may be able to do more for international peace than an impulsive armchair diplomat.

It’s a separate question whether the public will be able to appreciate and give Biden credit for what he’s trying to do. I hope Biden can stick to his guns and get the job done. That will be a diplomatic feat worthy of much honor.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on February 20, 2024.

The Supreme Court and State Power to Disqualify Presidential Candidates

I write this after listening to the arguments in the US Supreme Court over Colorado’s disqualification of Mr. Trump from the ballot.

First, the point has been made that the consequences of this case will be tragic whatever the Court decides. If Mr. Trump is disqualified, the evidence is that there will be further insurrection and possibly much worse than we experienced on January 6. But as has also been pointed out, if Mr. Trump is not disqualified and if he then wins the election, he will do everything possible to remove from office any and all people in all departments, the military included, who are not loyal to him, and that will be one part of his effort to end democracy in America and make himself permanent, replicating the conditions in many of the countries in the less developed world, in Central and South America, in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. I doubt many of us want to go there.

So I would prefer to disqualify Mr. Trump. We all watched hm sit back looking at the television while the insurrection was taking place, smiling and refusing to use his powers to stop it after he had done his best to incite it. He was doing everything he could to destroy American democracy while preserving a fig leaf of deniability. On balance I would be much happier if he is disqualified before the military and the National Guard have been stripped of loyal Americans by Mr. Trump. Despite rules prohibiting the use of the military in American politics, Trump tried to use it to suppress demonstrations and show support for him at political events, has plans to use the military against his domestic enemies and discussed that possibility before leaving office.

Is there anything good to be expected from the Supreme Court? One position that seemed from the argument to have traction on both wings of the Supreme Court was the idea that one state could not make such a decision with profound effects on the country.

Let me explain the constitutional background. Art. II of the Constitution specifies how a president should be selected. It has been modified in other regards by subsequent amendments but not with respect to the method for choosing electors of the president – you vote for slates of people who have promised to vote for the candidate you are trying to vote for, not the candidate. That provision was driven by slavery. Slave states wanted to control the selection, not leave it to voters. So they wrote, “Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….”

In the last presidential election, Mr. Trump wanted to take advantage of the phrase “in such manner as the Legislature may direct” and have sympathetic state legislatures supercede the voters’ choice. I regard that as an unacceptable ploy to end American democracy.

Some justices toyed with removing states from the choice of electors but only after the election. It’s a marginal change because states can’t be completely removed from the process without changing the Constitution.

So is it a good idea to get state legislatures out of a piece of the process of electing the president while recognizing that state legislatures can still play a role so long as they do it earlier?

I want the man disqualified before he can do any more damage.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on February 13, 2024.

JOURNEY TO FREEDOM

States are prohibiting teaching about events none of us will ever forget. They’re banning history and discussion of the damage done by years of violence and discrimination. But Paul Murray did his part in keeping it available.

You may know Paul. His children went through Albany Schools. He headed the School Board and taught at Siena College. In 1966, Paul went to Mississippi with the American Friends Service Committee to help with the Civil Rights Movement. Later he went back as an expert witness in civil rights litigation.

At Siena, Paul organized a course on the Civil Rights Movement. Instead of lecturing, he got people from this area with personal experience in the Movement to discuss it with his students, and took some of his students to Mississippi to meet people Paul had worked with.

Students loved the course and made a video of Professor Murray’s last class. But the passing of someone he’d invited made Paul realize the need to preserve their memories and keep the history alive.

Here’s a sample.

Miki Conn worked for Bayard Rustin, principal organizer of the March on Washington, where King shared his dream. Miki organized the fleet of busses that brought people to the March – a huge undertaking that brought some hundred thousand people to Washington in 1963 – then she ran the information booth. Paul had her talk about it.

My wife and her college friends integrated a movie theatre in Greensboro, NC, while the famous Woolworth sit-ins were taking place downtown – Paul asked her to talk about it.

Paul had me explain crucial legal cases to his students but since I was at the March and heard King describe his dream, Paul had me talk about that too.

Alice Green grew up in the Adirondacks and fought discrimination of every kind in this area since childhood, creating and running the Center for Law and Justice. Paul had her talk about it.

Julie Kabat wrote about her late brother who taught in a Mississippi freedom school in the summer of 1964. Paul brought some of her brother’s students to describe how different it felt to be treated with respect by a young white man.

Nell Stokes was a teenager in Montgomery, Alabama, when the community organized the bus boycott to protest being forced to give their seats to white people and move to the back of the bus. Nell volunteered with the cab company providing rides during the bus boycott and talked about it at Paul’s invitation.

Those are just a sample. Now retired from teaching, Paul wanted to preserve their experience for anyone interested in the Civil Rights Movement. He arranged interviews, a videographer, and inclusion on the Siena College website. We just celebrated the video’s release. (It should be available at Siena.edu/Journey to Freedom by the time this airs, indexed by those interviewed.)

For some participants, religion played a large part. I know Paul is deeply involved in describing the efforts of the Catholic Church to address the violence and segregation to which African-Americans were subject. It’s a matter of great pride in the Jewish community that there were rabbis on the podium with Martin Luther King – after slavery in America and the Holocaust in Europe, they understood each other, the humanity of people of all backgrounds, the cause of freedom, the threat of racial hatred, the violence that follows and the importance of overcoming it.

Compensating for wrongs done is what law usually does. What’s unfair is letting it fester. Thanks to Dr. Murray and Siena for making this history available to all.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on February 6, 2024.