Kamala or Bust For Some

A major problem with conservatives is that so few of them are willing to listen to a dissenting opinion. Though more liberals/progressives will listen to an opinion different from theirs, quite a few of them- us- also refuse to listen to uncomfortable arguments. I suppose it could be years of listening to the likes of Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnnell, and Joy Ann-Reid, who chat regularly and almost exclusively with those who mirror their own perspective.

Thus, they become enraged at such individuals as Dan Abrams, who regularly engages with folks with views different than his own,  The controversy began when the 9:00 p.m. ET host on NewsNation interviewed Ameshia Cross.

Dan Abrams interrupts @AmeshiaCross, as she's listing VP Harris's recent work, to suggest that it doesn't matter what Harris does if the public "doesn't perceive" her work. He naturally fails to see the irony here. Or the reality Black women face — esp one deemed a threat. https://t.co/oLcnmNdMiI

— Cassandra the Anti-Nihilist (@WriterWarrior) April 28, 2023

Abrams interrupted Cross in the middle of a de facto campaign speech because that is what an actual interviewer does. Cross argued that the Vice President is acting effectively but as Abrams had to explain, a Vice President has no power. Instead, he wanted to focus on the issue he raised, Harris' value to the ticket.

Kamala Harris is no threat to anyone but to President Biden's re-election chances. Though perception is not reality, it has much to do with how individuals vote. Voters perceive Harris as unlikable or are uncomfortable with her, a discomfiting reality for her supporters. Abrams has the crazy idea that Democrats want to win the next presidential election and would act to make that happen. As he recognizes, the latter assumption is debatable, even if he and others are condemned for addressing the topic.

.@DanAbrams says he was "skewered" on social media after he dared to ask whether Vice President Kamala Harris should be on the ticket in 2024 because of her low poll numbers. He's joined by @KrisLKnight to discuss the controversy.

Watch #DanAbramsLive: https://t.co/s8z9kEhRC4 pic.twitter.com/fCRIgJIMtv

— NewsNation (@NewsNation) May 2, 2023

So as a lead-in to Kristal Knight, Abrams explained

Last week on the show, I had the temerity to question, based on Vice President Harris' low poll numbers, whether Democrats and President Biden should consider picking a different vice presidential candidate for 2024. And for posing the question, I've been skewered by many on social media and on my radio show, some accusing me of being a racist. I questioned why it seems few on the left are focusing on this based on President Biden's age and mental acuity. 

Typically, a Vice President wouldn't be a make-or-break issue for a sitting President, unless of course people are concerned that said President may not be able to finish out his term, exactly the case here. A majority of Americans polled say that they think President Biden will not finish a second term, instead believe that Vice President Harris would take over at some point.

A vice president does not do a good or bad job because she has no role under the Constitution other than to cast the deciding vote on the Senate floor when said chamber is deadlocked. And there is no way to determine whether Kamala Harris would be an effective President were an aged Joe Biden to die in office. The only consideration in whether Harris should remain on the ticket is whether she would enhance the prospects of Biden's re-election and, if not, what impact a likely replacement would have.

The inevitable attacks on Dan Abrams as being racist because he merely raised the issue are not only reprehensible but completely invalid. If Kamala Harris were to be dropped from the ticket, her replacement would be someone acceptable to interest group(s) representing the base of the Democratic Party, non-young black women.

It's difficult to determine whether critics of Abrams, or of anyone who dares suggest even the possibility of a vice-presidential nominee other than Harris, fully comprehend the importance of defeating Donald Trump or whomever the GOP presidential nominee is.  Those racemiancs are entitled to their point of view- but they're not entitled to shutting down debate and endangering the re-election of Joe Biden.

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That Elusive Reasonable Republican

Not a President Biden fan but even less a Donald Trump fan, Arnold Schwarzenegger told CNN's Dana Bash on Wednesday

Being a frontrunner of one party and letting them dig this hold deeper and deeper is going to make it easy for the Democrats in the end to win. It's sad to see that they couldn't come up with a new talent with a new face that is a, a reasonable, smart, intelligent person that can lead this country in a Republican way.

                 

"Smart and intelligent," sure. However, one doesn't have to pay attention to the battle between the governor of Florida and Disney to recognize that the leading alternative to Donald Trump, whom Schwarzenegger is convinced would surely lose, is not reasonable. DeSantis is a fanatic in the Trump mold.

Then there is former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who compared to DeSantis, Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, and fellow South Carolinian Tim Scott (expected to join the race), is a moderate. No, really, compared to them, Haley is a veritable RINO. But of course:

Meanwhile, Nikki Haley, presidential candidate and former Governor of South Carolina,... shows her support for unbridled gun violence,...by posing with a great big honkin' assault rifle.

"Yay, assault rifles on our streets!" https://t.co/VPYPQiFyQv pic.twitter.com/IXDlKIKkxU

— Roshan Rinaldi (@Roshan_Rinaldi) April 30, 2023

This is par for the course for GOP politicians of the day. Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Massie, as his 2021 Christmas card:

And of course, Lauren Boebert, from her Twiitter account via the Daily Beast, also during the 2021 Christmas season:

From Facebook via USA Today, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, same time period:

There must be something about Christmas that draws out the Republican, the true Christmas spirit, in Republicans. A year later, Marjorie Taylor Greene, now the de facto Assistant Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, would tell (deriding the idea that she was involved in the insurrection) a GOP gathering

Then Jan. 6 happens and next thing you know, I organized the whole thing along with Steve Bannon here. And I will tell you something: If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.

So Arnold Schwarzenegger pines for a "reasonable, smart, intelligent" Republican to challenge Donald Trump for the GOP nomination. The message to the former California governor should be: "When you find that reasonable Republican who wants to run- or even not to run- for President, let us know. Take all the time you want."

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Facts Are Non-Negotiable

Welcome to the Facts Irrelevant Age. First, the inconsequential, in which the controversial Bud Light individual is criticized:

Dylan Mulvaney calls for the arrest of people who call him a man. Do you still think I’ve been too mean to this guy?

pic.twitter.com/SpRHMffqDF

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 28, 2023

Actually, in this clip Mulvaney does not call for the arrest of anyone. She complains that identifying an individual by the wrong gender should be illegal. Sometimes an individual is believed to have committed an extremely minor infraction, in some states referred to as a petty misdemeanor, and is merely given a summons. This is nor a trivial distinction.

Nonetheless, it is ironic that Mulvaney says "using 'he' pronouns and calling me a man over and over again- I feel that should be illegal."   According to Wikipedia- which refers to Dylan as "she"- "in December, 2922, Mulvaney confirmed on Instagram that she had undertaken facial feminization surgery. She posed an image of her face....."

Dylan now looks like a woman, as do many men I've seen in my decades on this earth. They, too, were men, however they looked. Dylan identifies as a woman, as Dylan is entitled to do. That does not make Dylan a man when the biological determinant is that of a man. The policy implications of that are up for debate; the reality of the gender should not be.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are at least as dishonest on the issue. As Politico explained last week

House Republicans approved their measure to restrict transgender students from playing on women’s sports teams on a 219-203 vote Thursday morning.

The legislation — H.R. 734 (118) — is a key part of the GOP’s education agenda and mirrors more than 20 laws that have been adopted in states across the country. It bars transgender women from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity and amends Title IX, the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, to define sex as based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.

The sex of 99%+ of us is determined at birth. The sex of a man who has undergone gender transformation surgery is female. That's simply a fact, Jack. The Republican definition is biologically, scientifically inaccurate. (I know you're shocked.)

But if we may- uh, transition- to a far more significant matter, the characteristically brave and sincere Olivia Troye unfortunately misses the point:

Nikki Haley saying Biden will likely die within five years is vile. Will she apologize for saying this about a sitting U.S. President?

— Olivia of Troye (@OliviaTroye) April 27, 2023

On Fox News on April 26, the former South Carolina governor had stated

I think we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a President Harris because the idea that he would make until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely.

First off, stop with this apology stuff. It has been all the rage for several years now to call for an apology by someone who says something one doesn't agree with. An "apology" is very rarely offered, replaced by something like "I apologize if what I said may have offended you." Moreover, we're all big boys and big girls, and this is politics. Please get over your hurt feelings.

Joe Biden was born on November 20, 1942. As of 2020, the life expectancy for an 80-year-old male is 7.8 years. The good news is that would put Biden beyond the (86-year-old) point at the end of a second term. Additionally, this is for an average male and given that Joe is affluent, white, has been generally healthy, and has access to excellent medical care, he is above average. The bad news is that this appears to be the mean, a figure pushed upward by men living to be 90 or older, and the median- which would be a more relevant statistic here- is obviously lower. The bottom line is that we simply don't know (also, SHARE!)

Nonetheless, it's telling that Haley would raise this issue and add "President Harris."  She evidently believes this is salient with GOP primary voters, although there would have to be an earthquake in Republican party politics for her (or Mike Pence; especially, Mike Pence) to get the nomination.

And not only Republican voters.  Biden is significantly less liked by members of his own party than is the norm, and Harris is even less popular among Democrats than he.  

This is a major problem, one largely ignored by Democratic politicians and power brokers. It is analogous to Democratic senators ignoring the problem of Dianne Feinstein not immediately retiring, and is far more difficult to contend with. Colleagues could tell Feinstein to call it a day because her absence is clearly harming the Party in the Senate and she could be feted- justifiably- as having had a long and distinguished career in the chamber, following a short and distinguished career as an elected official in California.

Not so with Harris, whose career in the Senate was short and whose work as Attorney General in the same state was fairly miserable. Moreover, political reality would require her to be replaced by someone black, preferably female, which narrows the field. The best replacement already is on the United States Supreme Court, so that is a no-go. Another suitable substitute would be Florida's Val Demings or perhaps Ohio's Emilia Sykes, but dropping Harris for anyone would be controversial and would have to handled delicately.

Yet, the truth must be faced. It must be faced with Kamala Harris; with individuals being of the same gender as they are (or, rarely, have become) biologically; and with age, as with Dianne Feinstein, who does not show up for work and with Joe Biden, who does.  Sooner or later public policy and party strategy will have to reckon with reality, and that starts with facts.

  

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It's Called "Bias"

I like Anand Giridharadas and his criticism here of Fox News and the National Rifle Association for destroying the trust of Americans in their neighbors is accurate and vitally important.  And this is no Benjamin Crump-level bias. However, he leaves out a critical example when on Morning Joe he remarked

Ralph Yarl, Kaylin Gillis, Payton Washington in Texas. What's the thread between these stories? I was so struck by the fact that these different places, different histories, different situation. Two young people of different backgrounds, different outcomes, and yet the beats of the story were the same. You approach someone's house and you are shot and in one case killed for driving up a driveway, knocking on a door, these basic things that people do in a free society.

What really struck me was that a friend of mine told me a while ago. We were talking about India and the United States. He was talking about the hallmark of American societies is anonymous trust. You don't have to know people to tract. You write checks to them....

We have built societies on the notion of anonymous trust. It's allowed so much of modern life. It occurred to me we're not just dividing us as a country. We are de-developing. We are moving backwards with millions of people, their brains now addled by this propaganda, feeling hat you are in danger, everywhere is a threat. We're going back to this "Game of Thrones" where a lot of our fellow citizens feel like they live in a castle and if anyone crosses your moat they need to be murdered because they are coming to murder you. It is national brain damage and it is deadly and it is eroding the foundation of what makes this a functional, free modern society.

It's a good point he has about "anonymous trust."  Yet somehow he mentions Ralph Yarl, Kaylin Gillis, and Payton Washington without even name-checking William and Kinsley White, evidently shot by Robert Louis Singletary

when a basketball rolled into Singletary's yard from a group of local children playing basketball in the street. Singletary allegedly fired a gun at a neighbor before approaching a father and daughter, William James White and 6-year-old Kinsley White, who were both seriously wounded.

One woman was grazed by a bullet and a second man was shot at but not injured, police said.

William White remains in serious condition, according to police.

"Why did you shoot my daddy and me? Why did you shoot a kid's dad?" Kinsley asked in an emotional interview, stitches visible on her cheek from the bullet fragments that hit her.

Family members said William White tried to draw gunfire toward himself to protect his family as Singletary unloaded an entire magazine toward his neighbor. White was shot in the back in his own front yard, according to his partner, Ashley Hilderbrand.

"He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, 'I'm going to kill you,'" Hilderbrand said.

Singletary is charged with four counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.

Obviously, this crime would have fit neatly into  Giridharadas' narrative of "if anyone crosses your moat, they need to be murdered." It would have fit the narrative- but not the preconceived notion of  Giridharadas or of the network on which he was appearing. There is only one explanation for that:

There is no reason to fixate on race here, although the contrast with coverage of the shooting in Kansas City, Missouri is stunning. There, where Andrew D. Lester is appropriately charged with shooting Ralph Yarl, the refrain is "old white man shoots young black man."

I 'll spare readers the tired buzzword "cancelled." Call it "erased."  It's not only Giridharadas who displayed a little cultural insight while he ignored a shooting. Take it from here, Dan Abrams:

 

 

This incident- crime, apparently- is receiving remarkably, though unsurprisingly, little attention from the race and gender left cable news networks. They need to address this if they wish to recover much of their dwindling credibility. They won't, however.

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Fun While It Lasted

Come back, Phil. They didn't really mean it. Fox News (online, where it usually is accurate) reported a couple of days ago that

Jalen Rose, a former NBA star who currently serves as an analyst for ESPN, took issue with Phil Jackson’s comments on the state of professional basketball and why he does not watch anymore.

Jackson said on "Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin" podcast the game has become too political and was catering to a certain audience when the NBA plastered social justice slogans on the court and on the backs of jerseys during the bubble portion of the 2019-20 season in wake of the death of George Floyd.

Rose responded in a video Sunday.

Jackson explained what turned him off to the game when the league went to the bubble format in Orlando, Florida.

"They went into the lockout year, and they did something that was kind of wonky. They did a bubble down in Orlando, and all the teams that could qualify went down there, and stayed down there," he said. "And they had things on their backs like ‘Justice.’ I made a little funny thing like, 'Justice just went to the basket and Equal Opportunity just knocked him down.’ … So, my grandkids thought that was pretty funny to play up those names. So, I couldn't watch that."

Jackson continued, "They even had slogans on the floor, on the baseline. It was catering. It was trying to cater to an audience, or trying to bring a certain audience into play. And they didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political.

Of course, sports have (has?) always been intertwined with politics, inevitably. After Russia invaded Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter inserted the USA into politics by ordering the boycott of the Olympics in Moscow. If Carter had not done so, the USA still would have imposed its politics by offering de facto support of the invasion. It was the right decision because some things are more important than sports.

Therefore, if Jackson was appalled at the National Basketball Association mixing politics with sports during the 2020-2021 season, he was being, at best, naive.  Naive and oblivious. Evidently, he made the same mistake the vast majority of us made in those heady days: he took the players seriously.

Phil Jackson apparently believed guys with slogans on the back of their jerseys and a league with slogans behind the baselines were protesting. No doubt a few players, notwithstanding the absence of evidence, really are concerned with issues of police reform and of racial justice, beyond how the latter directly affects them and their teammates.

Nonetheless, most are not, and were not. It doesn't take holders of doctorates in psychology (of whom few would be so candid) to recognize as primary motives virtue signaling, team camaraderie, and the feeling that the player was one with his colleagues. Those were good times, and few dared criticize the greatest athletes on the planet.

It is now two-plus years later. More municipalities have increased their police budgets than have decreased them. Relatively few politicians of note have aggressively pressed for replacing money for law enforcement with money for essential social services, while Republicans attack Democrats for their imagined advocacy of "defund the police." Police still too often shoot unarmed black men unjustifiably and civilians are arming themselves at a frightening rate. The President who once was a prime supporter of the war on drugs is expected to face off in the next presidential election against the guy who has proudly encouraged police violence against suspects. Progress?

And what of all those slogans, sometimes accompanied by linking of arms, which so antagonized Phil Jackson? They are gone. They are gone because most of the players and the league which sported them never were more than minimally sincere.

So, Phil, come on back to the NBA! It was all for show, and things are back to normal, where the league and its owners are even wealthier than previously, and the players don't want to make a scene less it jeopardize their multi-million dollar contracts.

 

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Then and Still, Abortion

Lindsay Graham made a telling claim about abortion rights to Dana Bash on Sunday's "State of the Union" on CNN.

Pursuant to the Hyde Amendment, no federal funds can be used for abortion unless the pregnancy occurs because of rape or incest or endangers the woman's life. Thus, there is something impressively slick- and tactically significant- about "abortion up to the moment of birth, taxpayer-funded." On Sunday's State of the Union on CNN, Dana Bash interviewed South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham and this exchange about abortion transpired:

BASH: Senator, I have heard you say both on this issue, that it is a state issue, but now you do support a federal ban. So who's right here?

GRAHAM: Right.

Well, I have been supporting a limit on late-term abortions for -- since 2015. I had a bill to limit abortions at 20 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. Seventy percent of Americans support limiting abortion when the -- when the unborn child can feel pain; 50 of 53 European nations limit abortion at 15 weeks or less.

BASH: But my question is, is it a federal issue or a state...

GRAHAM: The modern Democrat -- yes, it's a human rights issue. Does it really matter where you're conceived?

At 15 weeks, you have a developed heart and lungs. And to dismember a child at 15 weeks is a painful experience. It's barbaric. It's out of line with the rest of the civilized world. Only North Korea and China allow abortion demand up to the moment of birth, except the Democratic Party.

Of course, there is no "abortion on demand." No one can walk into the office of a doctor, even one who performs abortions, and "demand" an abortion. It's not only a brazenly dishonest claim, but one which trivializes both the heightened stress of asking for termination of pregnancy and the risk undertaken by the medical professional in performing the procedure.

Aside for that, the Democratic bill, which passed the House of Representatives on July 15, 2022, only indirectly addresses the issue of when termination of pregnancy would be permitted.  The Poynter Institute's Politifact analyzed the veracity of the remark of U.S. Representative Marianette Miller-Meeks, two days after passage in her chamber of  the Women's Health Protection Act of 2022, "I also spoke this week against the radical left’s abortion bill that would permit abortion up until delivery." It noted  

Miller-Meeks’ newsletter comment has a point that the bill "would permit abortion up until delivery." However, she glosses over a crucial qualifier: The bill would allow such abortions only under extreme circumstances, in which medical professionals determine that the mother’s life or health is at risk.

It’s worth noting that late-term abortions — the kind that would need to be approved under these circumstances — are rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its latest count from November 2021 that of the 629,898 abortions performed in 2019, almost 93% of them were at or before 13 weeks of pregnancy. About 6% were performed between 14 and 20 weeks, and less than 1% were performed at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy.

The figures are based on reports by health agencies throughout the U.S., although California, Maryland and New Hampshire did not report.

So under the Democratic bill which died, women would have been allowed to terminate their pregnancy up to the time of birth- but only if their physician determined that continuation of pregnancy would have jeopardized her life or health. And such late term abortions constitute far fewer than 1% of all abortions.  Federal funds could be used only if the woman's life is threatened.

Personally, I would have preferred a bill focused on reproductive health of women without language satisfying the id of LGBTQIA and anti-racist advocates:

The terms “woman” and “women” are used in this bill to reflect the identity of the majority of people targeted and affected by restrictions on abortion services, and to address squarely the targeted restrictions on abortion, which are rooted in misogyny. However, access to abortion services is critical to the health of every person capable of becoming pregnant. This Act is intended to protect all people with the capacity for pregnancy—cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals, those who identify with a different gender, and others—who are unjustly harmed by restrictions on abortion services...

Reproductive justice seeks to address restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion, that perpetuate systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism. This violent legacy has manifested in policies including enslavement, rape, and experimentation on Black women; forced sterilizations; medical experimentation on low-income women’s reproductive systems; and the forcible removal of Indigenous children. Access to equitable reproductive health care, including abortion services, has always been deficient in the United States for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) and their families.

It's striking that the Republicans evidently lack a political strategist who would tell them how to target references to "people with the capacity for pregnancy- cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals" and "enslavement, rape, and experimentation on Black women," language which could not have been more off-putting if it were specifically phrased to alienate voters. Nonetheless, this was ignored by the GOP.

Thus, on Monday morning, in an interview unrelated to the 2022 bill, South Carolina's Nancy Mace told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that Democrats support abortion up to the moment of birth. Most voters, if they were made aware of the language of the proposal, would have recoiled at this wokiest of woke depiction of American society and indictment of Americans themselves. Instead, Republicans reinforce their image as the anti-choice party in a country now decidedly pro-choice.

It is telling that Mace, whose views of reproductive rights are the most moderate of nearly any GOP member of Congress, would repeat the grossly misleading claim that Democrats are fine with abortion as the baby comes through the birth canal. Lindsay Graham did the same 24 hours earlier.  Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis chooses a different emphasis, brags that "Florida is where woke goes to die," and his prospects of becoming the party's 2024 presidential nominee plunge.  It's a testament to the power of the evangelical base of the Republican Party that GOP politicians, offered a tempting political target, instead distort Democratic views of abortion whenever and wherever they can.

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Do Your Job

It's probably a coincidence that Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein represent the same state. California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state and a huge one. Still, it bears noting that, despite dramatically different motivations, the governor and the senator are doing something similar, and it's not good in either case.

The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, noting that the governor of the state which in recent years has undergone devastating drought and now faces a large budget deficit and the possibility of crippling floods, has been spending a lot of time out-of-state. He has formed a  PAC called the Campaign for Democracy, has rented billboards and taken out television advertisements in GOP-dominated states, and pledges "we're going on the road to take the fight to states where freedom is most under attack." Friedersdorf observes

Taking “the fight to” authoritarians turns out to mean staging PR events in their jurisdictions. So far this month, Newsom has traveled to Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, criticizing Republicans at every stop....

But why? Newsom has no political power in those states. He is so sufficiently unpopular among their voters that his presence there is as likely to help as hurt GOP governors. And, most important, his travels are a dereliction of the job he sought and won, because governors have a responsibility to focus on the problems that afflict their own state.

In the video below, after Krystal Ball notes that Democrats have only limited ability in the absence of Feinstein to investigate the thoroughly corrupt Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Saagar Enjeti notes (at 3:11)

You're 89 years old; you're not showing up for work; you're holding up the process. You're an active thorn in the side of ongoing efforts that are vitally important- allegedly- to the Democratic Party....

The worst defense I saw was, well, sometimes we have colleagues that have been gone for a year and we didn't kick them out. I'm like- well, why not, that's one-sixth of your job!

Ball adds "that's the question, is do we know if she'll even be able to return to do the job whatsoever."

Even if Feinstein does return, there is a question of whether she will be able to do the job adequately, given the Senator's apparent mental decline of recent years. Nonetheless, there appears to be only two (Democratic)  US Representatives- the progressive Ro Khanna of California and the center-right Dean Phillips of Minnesota- who have publicly urged Feinstein to resign. Even the blunt and reportedly bold Senator Bernie Sanders has stated (at 1:55 of this link)

Well, I have not talked to Senator Feinstein in several weeks. My hope is that she'll be back as soon as possible. The decision as to whether somebody should resign rests on that individual themselves. I don't think that she should be forced out. I think she should take into consideration her health status and whether she should be back.

Contrary to this viewpoint, Democratic leaders should consider her health status. As Ball asks rhetorically

The other thing I can't help but think of listening to (presidential Press Secretary) Karine Jean-Pierre there is can you imagine the Republicans allowing something like this to happen and hamstring their ability to push judges through? You think Mitch McConnell would allow anything to get in the way of getting his judges on the bench? Not a chance in hell.

Friedersdorf recognizes that "governors have a responsibility to focus on the problems that afflict their own state"

used to go without saying. Now, however, leaders of organizations as varied as state governments, corporations, universities, museums, and theater companies have convinced themselves that good leadership entails issuing virtuous pronouncements on matters outside their realm of authority, often to denounce ills that have little to do with their job and its actual challenges.

In a phenomenon increasingly common, individuals ignore the role to which they're entrusted in favor of assuming the role they prefer- or fail to perform the job at all.  When it is Democratic officials, they help foster the impression that Democrats aren't governing, can't govern and don't deserve to govern.

 

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