A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN |
A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN |
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The Absurdity of No Labels |
By David Corn January 20, 2024 |
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) at a political event in Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 12, 2024. Charles Krupa/AP |
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A dangerous date for politics in the United States is approaching: March 5. Not only is that when Super Tuesday will occur, with a slew of Republican primaries likely to anoint Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. This is the day when the pooh-bahs of No Labels, the dark-money group threatening to run a third-party candidate on a bipartisan ticket, are supposed to make a go/no-go decision. For months, this self-proclaimed centrist outfit has been seeking ballot lines in states and preparing to field a contender, with its leaders saying they would move ahead if Trump and Joe Biden at this point are the apparent nominees and if polling shows their flag-bearer will have a decent shot at winning the White House. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, has been talked up as the most probable No Labels candidate, and he has been teasing this possibility, as recently as last week in—ahem—New Hampshire. Many Democrats and pundits calculate that a No Labels bid by Manchin or someone else is far more likely to hurt Biden than Trump—a point the No Labelers strenuously reject (without a strong argument). In any event, we’re getting close to when this bunch of political operators—who have refused to reveal all their funders—will have to shit or get off the pot.
The absurdity of No Labels’ presidential project was laid bare this week in an article published by NOTUS, a new political news site. (The awkward acronym stands for News of the United States.) No Labels takes a pox-on-both stance toward Ds and Rs, insisting that the political system has been run off the rails by extremists on each side and that the nation’s voters are yearning for non-partisan, centrist-minded pols. Providing an example of what’s gone terribly wrong, former Democratic Missouri governor Jay Nixon, in an interview with NOTUS, groused, “It wasn’t a Republican who said Fetterman could wear shorts from sleeping to the Senate floor.”
Nixon, a No Labels leader, was referencing Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who hit the Senate floor wearing short pants during a stretch when the dress code was relaxed by Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (who later reversed this decision).
WTF. This is what bothers Nixon? In one corner, you have a party led by a demagogue who tried to overturn an election and who incited a violent attack on the US Capitol, and in the other there’s a party in which one leader said (for a while) it was okay to wear cargo shorts in the Senate chamber. If there were a contest for false equivalency, Nixon would be a champion.
Nixon wasn’t totally ridiculous. He did gripe about Democrats spending too much. Yet even then, he posed a silly comparison. “They tried to burn down the Capitol,” he said. “And one of the parties is saying that’s not a problem. And that’s just one side of it. And then you can make an equal argument against the Democrats in some fashion… I don’t want to get into significant issues, but you could argue that the Democrats are willing to spend our way to oblivion, things like that.” Nixon was equating the acceptance of political violence with a policy dispute about government spending and essentially saying, “See? Both parties suck.”
What a misguided and perilous diagnosis of the current political moment. But that is what’s at the heart of the No Labels venture—promoting this phony equivalence between Rs and Ds, and Trump and Biden. This judgment is bonkers and jeopardizes the republic.
The No Labelsists contend that only bipartisan centrism can save the United States from political division and chaos. Yet their narrative paints Biden as a villain, much like Trump. That’s nuts. In a hyper-tribalized environment, Biden has managed to squeeze a few major bipartisan accomplishments out of the dysfunctional system, including the infrastructure package and a law to boost the domestic manufacturing of computer chips. Other pieces of his agenda he had to pass over full Republican opposition. But the guy certainly has tried. Look at what’s happening now on immigration. He has yielded to the GOP on key points, but Speaker Mike Johnson has told him to take his compromise and shove it. Still, No Labels holds Biden as much to blame for the Washington mess as the Republicans. (Has the No Labels crew not noticed the GOP House leadership battles?)
The No Labels gang swears up and down that they are not in this to be spoilers and help Trump return to the White House. A few weeks ago, I was talking to Manchin at an event. He looked me in the eye and said, “It will be a disaster for this country if Trump is elected again.” Yet he also said that voters might need a choice besides Biden to make sure this does not transpire. Meanwhile, No Labels, as I and others have reported, has received significant financial support from big-money Republicans who might not mind a Trump restoration. (Harlan Crow, the billionaire pal and financial benefactor of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas is on this list.) The group’s adamant opposition to revealing its donors is quite suspicious and indicates it is not that different from other political operations.
It may be that No Labels—which is run by former Democratic fundraiser Nancy Jacobson, who is married to former Democratic pollster Mark Penn—is not actively conspiring to help Trump and is merely pursuing a conservative-ish agenda in a way that could end up boosting Trump’s chances. On Thursday, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent who is a co-founder of No Labels, said the group would give the “most serious consideration” to Nikki Haley if she wants to be on its ticket (after losing the GOP nomination). Haley is no autocrat-wannabe like Trump. But she is certainly a conservative Republican who opposes abortion rights and serious gun safety measures and supports tax breaks for the rich. If elected president, would she bring about bipartisan measures more so than Biden? There’s no sign of that. So why would Lieberman and his comrades court her?
(A spokesperson for Haley said, “Nikki has no interest in No Labels, she's happy with the Republican label.”)
Lieberman’s longing look at Haley suggests that No Labels is more an anti-liberal Democratic project than anything else—more than a pro-Trump stalking horse or a pro-centrist venture. It would prefer a rightwing Republican who helped enable Trump and who will embrace a corporate agenda over Biden, a moderate Democrat who has on occasion teamed up with his party’s progressives. The group's hatred of the libs trumps its repulsion toward Trump and any fear of the GOP’s threat to democracy.
Ryan Clancy, No Label's chief strategist, bitched to NOTUS that Biden has failed to unite the country. He sure has given it a shot. But how do you do that with a Republican Party that will not break with an inciter-in-chief, that kowtows to a base that clings to Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, and that pursues a reckless and unsubstantiated impeachment crusade against Biden? Lieberman grouses that Biden has been “pulled to the left.” Is that a sin on par with trying to mount a coup and foment insurrection?
Back to Manchin: The fact that he remains the most-mentioned possible No Labels candidate is also telling. Who truly believes that he could run a national campaign and unite a divided country? He cannot even win reelection in his home state of West Virginia. He chose not to run to retain his Senate seat this year because he faced defeat by Jim Justice, the Trumpish GOP governor of the state. Manchin may be a big deal in Washington because his vote in the narrowly split Senate can sometime determine the outcome of a bill. Beyond the Beltway, how well is he known? Where is the popular outcry for a President Manchin? By the way, he's 76—hardly a new generation of leadership.
No Labels has said it would only field a ticket if the data indicate its candidate would have a true chance of success. It has cited polling to make this case. Yeah, polls do show most voters are dissatisfied with the Biden-Trump choice. But that hardly means they will vote for a third-party candidate with whom they are not familiar. And many political experts (including former No Labels associates) have effectively and convincingly challenged No Labels’ reading of this data.
But put the numbers aside. If Manchin were to run as the Biden-Trump alternative, he would be fiercely attacked, probably from both sides. The Democrats would portray him as a Big Pharma/Big Coal-friendly corporate stooge who blocked the expansion of popular health care programs and climate change action. The Republicans could blast him as a legislator who sided with Biden on key votes. The polls taken up to now—which focus on the prospect of an abstract third-party candidate in the race—would mean nothing once Manchin (or anyone else) enters the race as the No Labels candidate.
The No Labels crowd is operating as if this election is a typical contest—not recognizing it's a moment of potential crisis for American democracy, given that one of the likely candidates is a demagogue who tried to overturn the constitutional order, encouraged violence and called for the suspension of the Constitution, and who claims that he would, as president, have the right to order political assassinations and “cross the line” into criminality (see below) and escape criminal prosecution.
You might not like Biden and believe he has poorly navigated the rough political waters of the past three years. But how can a serious political observer consider Trump, who has tried to subvert the system, and Biden, who respects the system, and say they’re both stinkers? Any action that might divide the anti-Trump vote—which stretches from progressives disappointed because Biden has not achieved more and has supported Israel’s barbarous bombing campaign to Never-Trump Republicans who can barely stomach the notion of supporting a Democrat—presents a danger to the nation.
“We are about as anti-Trump as anybody I know,” Nixon said. Then No Labels should put aside its fatuous both-sidesism, abandon its dark-money-funded vanity project, and clearly label the threat at hand. It sure isn't shorts in the Senate.
Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com. |
A Reminder: Get Ready for the Our Land Zoom Get-Together |
As I noted in the last issue, we will be holding another Our Land Zoom get-together on January 24 at 8 p.m. Most of you know the drill. This event is only open to premium subscribers—those Our Landers who send us a few dollars each month to keep this newsletter a going concern. On the day of the Zoomfest, only these subscribers will receive a mailing with a Zoom link. But there’s still time for the non-premium subscribers to upgrade to top status so they can participate in this conversation with fellow readers and me. Just click here. See you soon.
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Dumbass Comment of the Week |
The judges did not have a tough time assessing who made the stupidest remark about the Iowa caucuses. It wasn’t any of the GOP candidates. Or the voters. Or the pundits. It was a fellow who’s ruining a social media site: Elon Musk. As the Iowa campaign was coming to a close, he posted this observation:
If it is accurate that Vivek did more meetings with voters than all the other candidates combined, then I think he will do very well in the vote on Monday. The power of an extreme work ethic is usually underestimated. |
This was another instance in which a person who has been smart and accomplished in one area proves to be a bozo in another. It took no political genius to know that Vivek Ramaswamy, a nasty and disingenuous self-promoter, was not likely to do well in the caucuses. So Musk got this prognostication wrong—that’s hardly a sin. Worse was that he hailed a conspiracy theorist and alt-right disinformationalist who claims the January 6 riot was an inside job. Legitimizing a prevaricator and promoter of dangerous and paranoid propaganda—this earned Musk a runner-up award this week.
Nikki Haley just can’t seem to get American history right. She suffered a self-inflicted wound last month when she declined to attribute the Civil War to slavery. This week she made a related gaffe when she proclaimed, “We’ve never been a racist country.” |
I have no witty retort to this. This just shows a woman, who has spoken about the racism she encountered during her childhood, will say anything to win the anti-anti-racism votes of the MAGA right.
Certainly, this feature could be nothing but a list of gems—phony gems, of course—from Donald Trump. This week on social media, he published a post reminding people that Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, an American mobster and self-admitted killer, once vouched for Trump. Trump put up a photo of Sammy the Bull and a quote from this onetime Gambino crime family underboss about Trump: “I tried to get to him. He just wouldn’t bite.” Trump added his own comment, referring to the judges in his ongoing civil fraud and defamation cases: “Thank you to Sammy the Bull. I hope Judges Engoron and Kaplan see this. We need fairness, strength and honesty in our New York Courts. We don’t have it now.
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Gravano confessed to participating in 19 murders, and he ended up a snitch, testifying as a government witness against John Gotti and others. Just the sort of character witness appropriate for Trump. (For more on Trump’s own mob connections, see this piece I wrote during the 2016 campaign.) Sticking with Trump, he also posted this rant:
A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END. EVEN ENVENTS THAT “CROSS THE LINE” MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY. |
Such rhetoric both unsettled the DCotW judges and caused them to snicker. It’s an absurd position to advance—or believe. The United States has managed to exist for 235 years without any president requiring “total immunity” for events that “cross the line.” Yet MAGAites will buy this demagogic guff from Trump, and Republican officials will still support him and legitimize his perilous nonsense.
With the ongoing Israeli bombing campaign causing more destruction and civilian death, the judges do not want to make light of remarks related to the Palestinian-Israel conflict. But they wish to highlight a comment from the Netanyahu administration. A few days ago, the Israeli education ministry withdrew funding of a cultural event because it was to be hosted by an Arab Israeli broadcast journalist. The government explained, “A woman who represents a mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture.”
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Racial purity? Is that what the Israeli government is after?
In a week of tremendous competition, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis receives top honors. Following his expected but still embarrassing loss to Trump in the silly Iowa caucuses—DeSantis spent about $35 million to earn 23,000 votes in Iowa (that’s $1,500 a vote)—he was trying to whip up more fear and disinformation on the right to stay credible in the race. That meant tossing out bat-crap crazy misinformation about Covid, one of his basic dance moves. At a New Hampshire town hall, he exclaimed, “Every booster you take, you’re more likely to get COVID as a result of it.”
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There’s no accepted scientific evidence of that. (Here’s the CDC basics on the vaccines.) This was DeSantis scaring people away from a vaccine that saves lives and relieves pressure on our health care system at a time when Covid appears to be surging. It’s one thing to say something dumb; it’s another to say something dumb that endangers people. DeSantis did both.
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Several readers had poignant reactions to the issue in which I wrote about my recent trip to the Netherlands and my visits to the Anne Frank House and Mauritshuis, the home of the “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Mary Wujcik wrote:
I read your column this morning and was moved by your reference to Anne Frank. I first heard of her in a Life magazine story when I was 13. That was back in 1958. Shortly afterwards, I wrote to Otto Frank and received an answer! We corresponded a few times over the next several years. So you can imagine how a visit to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam affected me. She has indeed become the visible, graspable symbol of the Holocaust. While I was watching the coverage of the bombings in Gaza, there was a brief interview with a young Palestinian woman. She was standing in the middle of the ruins, crying out “I don’t know what to do!” Another young woman to add to the pantheon of faces of horror. Please keep writing and reminding us of our shared humanity.
Betsy Karasik emailed:
I reread The Diary of a Young Girl at the beginning of the pandemic and was struck by what a lively and witty writer Anne Frank was. Who knows what was lost to the world of letters when she perished? And as you point out, she is but one of millions. I was also very interested to hear that the curators had added contextual information to the Vermeer exhibit. I noticed the same thing at the John Singer Sargent in Spain exhibit at the National Gallery, which contained some sensitive captions about the Roma people. I have seen some exhibits where the "wokeness" was a bit heavy-handed, but overall I welcome the trend.
In another recent issue, I pondered whether the extremism of Trumpism was becoming more extreme. In response, John Brookes wrote:
It's interesting that in all the reporting about Trump, MAGA, etc., no one mentions Plato's Republic and his cycle of governments. It indicates that when democracy gets to the point where nothing gets done, people get pissed off and appoint a dictator, at which point tyranny starts again. Seems to me that we're there now. I recall that well over a decade ago, two friends of mine (one a former Wall Street banker, and the other Julian Robertson's partner in the Tiger Management hedge fund), respectively exclaimed, "We need a King" and "We need a benevolent dictator." So, unfortunately, it seems that we are there now - regardless of whether it's Trump or someone else. (FYI, I consider myself to be a liberal-leaning conservative radical.)
Not sure what a “liberal leaning conservative radical” is these days. But you don’t have to go back years to find examples of this yearning for an autocrat. Just hit TikTok or Twitter these days and you can find interviews with Trump voters who say they wouldn’t mind having him as a dictator. And take a look at this tweet from Ian Bassin, who runs the Protect Democracy nonprofit: |
A reader named Buzzy had a recommendation to share:
Since it seems that many Trump fans seem to regard him as a standup comedian maybe mockery should be used to take him down. They might find it funny. James Carville told me on YouTube yesterday that nothing is working so mockery (ridicule?) is the way to go. Anything to keep him out of White House. I know you are guy who is familiar with humor, mockery, ridicule.
I’ve long been a fan of strategic derision. It’s hard to pull off in politics. But a deft candidate knows how to do it. In the case of Trump, I think his supporters are not likely to be swayed by mockery at this point. He is a highly defined public figure, and opinions of him are not likely to shift greatly, particularly given his cult-like hold on the GOP base. Still, anything is worth a shot—though it could be tough to try to portray him as a dangerous threat to the country and, simultaneously, as a clown.
Peter Yaholkovsky filed a complaint about me:
I detect a fair degree of ad hominem argument in your reporting, and I notice in your political analysis that you make no mention of an obvious better choice than Trump or Biden: RFK, Jr. Without carefully examining his claims about corporate corruption, etc., you dismiss him with ad hominem attacks (anti-vaxxer, conspiracist, etc.). You are increasingly showing up as what Mother Jones would have resisted, a corporate lackey.
The problem with this complaint is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a disingenuous anti-vaxxer and a promoter of conspiracy theories. It’s not ad hominem to say that. It’s the truth. If Mother Jones were around today, I’m sure she would be quite amazed at our ability to prevent so many diseases with vaccines, and I hope she would be angry at those who make millions of dollars misinforming people about these medications.
Meanwhile, Dave Bashore was more encouraging: David, I always learn something new from your columns. Thanks for enriching my understanding of our world. Much appreciated, my fellow David. And ditto to Lisa Spears, who wrote:
Today is International Thank You Day, and I am simply reaching out to say “Thank You!” for doing all that you do, including taking a lot of risk and 💩, to keep your fellow humans informed, engaged and humored. Wishing you and Moxie well, and a belated Happy New Year.
Actually, there’s not much risk or crap-taking involved in what I do. I feel honored to be in the position to report, write, and kvetch about what goes on in our sad and beautiful world. Thank you for paying attention to that. And speaking of Moxie… |
“Look! There’s a fox!” “I know, Moxie. But it’s time to eat.” “There’s a fox!” “Yes, but come with me.” “There’s a fox!” “I have a treat for you.”
“There’s a fox!” “Okay, see you later.” “There’s a fox!” |
Read Recent Issues of Our Land |
January 17, 2024: Hugh Hewitt’s constitutional con; the truth of American Fiction; George Saunders’ Liberation Day; and more.
January 13, 2024: Is Trump extremism getting more extreme?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (everyone!); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
January 9, 2024: Two historic Dutch girls and today’s world; the creepy chaos of Leave the World Behind; the awesome creativity of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; and more.
January 3, 2024: A story of Mother Jones (the labor organizer) and a populist senator; Mark Levin, Joe Scarborough, and me; and more.
December 23, 2023: To disqualify or not disqualify Trump?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Michele Bachmann); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
December 19, 2023: A (cracked) Christmas playlist; the chances of Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley; the return of Brad Parscale; and more.
December 16, 2023: Donald Trump, rubber, and glue; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Brenden Dilley); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more. |
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Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com. |
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