Legitimacy and the So-Called House Popular Vote

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Pursuer of happiness. Bon vivant. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Ordinary Times. Relapsed Lawyer, admitted to practice law (under his real name) in California and Oregon. There's a Twitter account at @burtlikko, but not used for posting on the general feed anymore. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

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92 Responses

  1. Michael Cain says:

    I guess I have to take a contrary position, at least with regard to the roughness over the next two years. The suburban Midwesterners in Pelosi’s (or whoever’s) new majority won’t put up with too much. McConnell has a bit more breathing room. I see two years of continuing resolutions for the budgets, easy passage of debt ceiling increases to cover the deficits, a steady change in the philosophy of the federal courts, a methodical writing down of regulations by the executive branch (both agencies and Cabinet departments), and a swing in authority from federal to state governments in some areas*.

    * I think states will get to do voter id, for example. Whether California gets to continue writing its own clean air requirements is a different matter. For policy where I care the most, an interesting question is whether CJ Roberts will go along with overturning Massachusetts v. EPA.Report

  2. Saul Degraw says:

    There are lots of things we like to tell ourselves about democracy and ideas.

    One thing is that lots of people probably have a deep-seated psychological need/belief that their ideology can compete and be successful in the market place of ideas/democracy,

    But what if your ideas are not being bought by the public? Labour spent a long exile as a minority party in the U.K. because of this from 1979-1997. It took them a long time to moderate.

    Here, the GOP/right-wing response to having unpopular ideas seems to be to game the system and say “no it is the public that is wrong.” They can justify this because the Founders did want Congress to be somewhat to very counter-majoritarian and our pompous pundits intone on this endlessly. Or they have the nonsensical rejoinder of “neener neener, we are a republic not a democracy,”

    Even though the GOP did well in the Senate, yesterday was largely a disaster for conservative policy if you look at the referendums and proposals that passed easily like marijuana reform, medicare expansion, minimum wage hikes, plus voting reform. These passed in areas where Republicans had their best successes.

    But as we saw in Maine, lots of Republican politicians would rather fight something like ACA expansion tooth and nail because it goes against their first principals than let democracy/the people have their say.

    The very difficulty in living in a democracy at its ideal is coming to terms that you might be in the minority or even wrong.

    LeeEsq noted many times that the GOP has adopted the posture of a revolutionary vanguard part.Report

  3. Mike Dwyer says:

    Anytime we have a situation where districts are drawn, someone is going to complain. I’m not saying gerrymandering doesn’t happen, but it’s a byproduct of congressional districting. Some ideas to improve things for Democrats:

    – Take the lessons from this election to heart. Focus on local issues, not national ideology. I heard an anecdotal story this morning on MSNBC about a SC Democrat who was receiving votes from Republicans because they pledged to fight offshore drilling there. Do more of that.

    – Figure out smarter ways to spend HUD money and similar programs that will spread out the populations that votr for you. Gerrymandering is only possible because Democratic voters tend to cluster together more.

    – Also see how competitive you were around the country and adopt a philosophy that you will vigorously pursue every single office in the country.

    – Stop whining about the popular vote every 4 years and start winning races. If you actually have a good message, people should be voting for you everywhere, not just in cities.Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      Begs the question: what attractive policy platform can Democrats offer non-urban voters?Report

      • bookdragon in reply to Burt Likko says:

        Right off the top of my head, I’d say healthcare and clean air and water, esp wrt to regulations protecting them from frakking fouling their wells.

        Ending stupid trade wars that are leaving soybean harvests to rot should also be pretty attractive to a lot of non-urban voters.Report

        • Mike Dwyer in reply to bookdragon says:

          Agree with Bookdragon on this. Also, being smarter about subsidies and mitigating waterfall effects, diversification of agriculture, high speed internet and a guest worker program that still addresses national security concerns.

          My WPA-renewal idea would also create a lot of economic opportunity in those places.Report

        • Saul Degraw in reply to bookdragon says:

          The issue is that everyone pretends that these are things that Democrats don’t do. Hasn’t anyone heard of the ACA/Obamacare? When have Democrats been known to be bad on the environment? Democrats did not vote for Trump’s tariffs or approve them.

          The ACA finally began working as a good issue for Democrats this year, Maybe in 2012 though. When it comes to the environment, everyone likes to say that this is Democrats pleasing their upper-middle class Whole Foods base at the expense of economic opportunity for working class and/or rural dwellers. Or it is just Mommy Democrats telling people what to do. Hence rolling coal.

          I know there is a certain kind of person that thinks “Bernie could have won.” I’m not sure this is true considering how much anti-Semitism we have seen. What we don’t want to deal with is wrestling with the issue of how many white Americans see white supremacy as in their best interests? They aren’t necessarily going to express it terms that are direct but that doesn’t mean the issue is not there.

          FWIW I don’t think we want to address the issue because we wouldn’t know how to react or process if someone were to admit plainly. Especially if that person was not an out and out neo-Nazi but someone whose look we see as respectable.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw says:

            This is why I am so harsh on the self-described moderate Republicans, who nonetheless seem like they find every excuse possible to avoid voting for the Democrat.

            This idea floats around, that there are all sorts of people who would vote Dem, “if only” the Dem candidate did this, that, or the other thing.

            So the moderate is compelled- forced, against their will mind you- to vote for someone they admit is a vicious racist.Report

            • LeeEsq in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Republicans have succeeded in turning the words Democratic, liberal, or progressive into dirty words for much of White America. Many White Americans might vote for ballot initiatives that would come from the Democratic Party if they were traditional legislation but can’t abide to vote for a Democratic politician. They are seen as bunch of freaky, deaky hippies long after the 1960s ended.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to LeeEsq says:

                Someone over at LGM had a good point this morning that with essentially the same electorate that we have now, the Dems won a the Presidency, the House, and a 60 seat Senate majority in 2008, so it isn’t some structural defect.

                Which is a very good point.
                But I also note that even in the heydey of the New Deal, white supremacy was still a barely concealed facet of the electorate.

                I don’t think it is a structural defect, or magical persuasive voodoo on the part of the Republicans, so much as the willingness of people to vote for a combination of financial and ethnic interests, in varying combinations depending on circumstances.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                It’s the difference between the people who want the country to look like the other team’s school districts and the people who want the country to look like the other team’s school districts.Report

            • Mike Dwyer in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              I am a moderate conservative (no longer a registered Republican). There are plenty of Democratic policies that I like, but I also don’t want to sign up for the kooky stuff. And yes, there is plenty of kooky stuff on the Right, so I have plenty of reservations there. Ultimately, it comes down to weighing the good and hoping the bad doesn’t happen. I would say right now I vote Republican maybe 60% of the time.

              Biggest issue I have with Democrats is that I see more bad potential in their policies, which is a byproduct of their Progressivism being much more radical than my own.Report

              • George Turner in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

                If by “kooky stuff” you’re referring to my push to replace Americans with genetically engineered super soldiers with microchip brain interfaces and cyborg implants, that’s not official GOP policy, yet.Report

          • bookdragon in reply to Saul Degraw says:

            This actually was my point: Dems already have bunch of policy that *ought* to be appealing to rural voters. The idea that liberal policy is solely good for or appealing to urbanites makes no sense but has somehow become The Narrative.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to Burt Likko says:

        “what attractive policy platform can Democrats offer non-urban voters?”

        How about “we won’t take your guns and we won’t call you paranoid morons for wanting to have them”?Report

        • Chip Daniels in reply to DensityDuck says:

          And we were this close to taking all the guns!

          Darn!Report

          • Patience, Comrade. Strong is the opiate of lies told by the running dog capitalists to our agricultural sisters and brothers. We must teach the importance of solidarity between the different sectors of those who provide labor, and unite the proletariat with love and reason. Besides, their guns will come in handy when the revolution comes.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      – Figure out smarter ways to spend HUD money and similar programs that will spread out the populations that votr for you. Gerrymandering is only possible because Democratic voters tend to cluster together more.

      ??? Seriously? This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.Report

      • Mike Dwyer in reply to Stillwater says:

        We have a new neighborhood going in near us. They are building 96 homes in the $250K range but 50 will be subsidized by HUD to about half that. That’s hopefully going to create diversity and a little less condensing of Democratic voters in the city.

        Mixed income neighborhoods are Urban Planning 101.Report

        • Stillwater in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

          No, Urban Planning 101 doesn’t contain a chapter on how to use the power of the state to overcome electoral disadvantages.

          What’s weird is that I tend to view you as embracing some pretty wild Dem conspiracy theories and here you are suggesting they actually engage in the behavior those conspiracies attribute to them. Very strange indeed.Report

        • Philip H in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

          that sort of urban planning assumes good public transportation and good schools, plus a willingness by the community to actually enbrace the diversity the planners intend. In the South one or more of those conditions is lacking.

          Plus, as has been demonstrated in Pennsylvania and North Carolina (to name but two examples) Republican gerrymandering goes to great lengths to create narrowly and bizarrely drawn districts. You need way more then 50 houses of subsidized buyers to correct that.Report

        • bookdragon in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

          There are a lot of arguments for mixed income neighborhoods, but countering gerrymandering isn’t one of them.

          A better approach might be to skip the guestworker program and provide a way for unemployed or unemployed urbanites to move to some central spot in farm country and underwrite transportation that would let them move around and fill the need for labor.Report

          • Mike Dwyer in reply to bookdragon says:

            “…provide a way for unemployed or unemployed urbanites to move to some central spot…”

            I don’t know this would work. As I previously mentioned, a lot of communities put themselves at risk for gerrymandering by clustering themselves, but at the same time, that’s what like-minded people often do. I don’t know that we could actually persuade people to leave those areas for farm jobs.Report

            • bookdragon in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

              It was just a vague counter proposal. I don’t know that they would leave for farm jobs either honestly. However I would expect people to stick together. So maybe that group gets gerrymandered, but they probably aren’t large enough to be their own district so they do influence some other district.

              I mean, on the one hand, there are areas of inner cities with high poverty and crima, so going elsewhere where there are jobs and less violence should be something to consider. Otoh, bad as it might be, that neighborhood is something you know and in the same way that a bunch of rural folks seem to think of cities as being filed with scary dark skinned gang bangers, it’s easy for someone from the city to imagine that rural America is filled with people with KKK hoods in their closets. (And ironically both sides can arrive at those views from watching Fox News). So I can see where someone even from a bad part of Chicago might be reluctant to take a chance on moving to farm country, at least not without a decent cohort of people like them to cluster near.Report

              • I don’t know that they would leave for farm jobs either honestly.

                I spent a week at my umpteen-times removed uncle’s farm when I was 12. No way was I ever doing that again. I would cheerfully have taken my chances with drug dealing.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    To what extent should India and China be in charge of the UN?

    Is the UN less legitimate than it could be because the US and England hold so much power there?Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to Jaybird says:

      Depends on what you think the UN is for, I suppose. If the answer is “a forum in which international disputes may be resolved peacefully as opposed to by means of war,” I fail to see how having a very small number of very dominant actors within that system is a problem. Indeed, it may be a benefit. That’s particularly true if those actors are committed to the resolutions being somehow fair. Note that “fair” can have many practical and theoretical meanings, all of which as a realistic matter amount to “what it takes to have the side obliged to accept a burden do so nonviolently”.

      The U.S. Constitution of 1787, as amended, is set up for a different purpose — the distribution of power among several different governmental entities such that no one entity can dominate in all spheres of activity. (It silently assumes that disputes arising within that system will be resolved peacefully and within legal and political processes.) My essay here is concerned not with who wins, particularly, but whether the system of U.S. government as a whole is considered fair enough that everyone, regardless of how much power their side holds, is willing to peacefully accept the burdens imposed by that system. Seems to me they should, notwithstanding my own dissatisfaction with the faction holding most of the power still, and that’s in part because we see that power can still shift in response to democratic inputs.Report

  5. bookdragon says:

    Mike Dwyer: – Figure out smarter ways to spend HUD money and similar programs that will spread out the populations that votr for you. Gerrymandering is only possible because Democratic voters tend to cluster together more.

    Um…. if you look at PA, especially my part of it, the clusters of Democratic voters are STEM professionals and other college-educated suburbanites. Not sure how HUD money would get any of us to spread out into the blood red Appalachian regions with terrible schools and poor job opportunities…Report

    • Mike Dwyer in reply to bookdragon says:

      Are those areas being gerrymandered?Report

      • bookdragon in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

        PA had a redistricting recently that created more rationally shaped districts, but until this year, my district looked like a Rorschach blot – a blob with little fuzzy-legged loops and strands coming off one side.Report

    • Philip H in reply to bookdragon says:

      bookdragon: Um…. if you look at PA, especially my part of it, the clusters of Democratic voters are STEM professionals and other college-educated suburbanites. Not sure how HUD money would get any of us to spread out into the blood red Appalachian regions with terrible schools and poor job opportunities…

      Ditto the Mississippi Gulf Coast.Report

    • pillsy in reply to bookdragon says:

      HUD money wouldn’t. Moving some federal agency headquarters out there might, and would (IMO) be generally good policy anyway.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to pillsy says:

        Well, you could move them “out there” to a certain extent. The Patent Office, for example, opened a branch in Denver a few years ago. They didn’t open it out in Bent County in the southeast corner of the state, because the people they were looking to transfer/hire all want urban amenities at some level: hospitals, orthodontists, decent Thai food, whatever.

        Will Truman and I argue sometimes about the problem of maintaining health care providers in rural areas. I claim that one of the fundamental problems is that most people — not all, but most — who have spent eight to ten years living in the kind of areas that support colleges that get you into med school, medical schools, and hospitals suitable for internships and residencies don’t want to live in small-town America.Report

  6. Jesse says:

    If we absolutely need to have districts, they should be drawn to create a result that will match the voting intentions of the populace as closely as possible, not to create compact or nice districts.

    The truth is, districts that would have to be drawn to be actually representative of the votes of the people would in some cases, look far worse than gerrymandering, but I don’t care about that.

    Give me a silly looking map that actually gives a result close to the populace of a state as opposed to a “compact and clean” map that over represents land over people.Report

    • Mike Dwyer in reply to Jesse says:

      “If we absolutely need to have districts, they should be drawn to create a result that will match the voting intentions of the populace as closely as possible, not to create compact or nice districts.”

      How often are these re-drawn?

      How do you assess voting intentions?Report

      • Jesse in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

        “How often are these re-drawn?”

        I mean, we have computers now, so I see no need why we can’t redraw them every election, but I think the once per decade we do it now works fine, when the mapmaking is actually done well.

        I mean, in my perfect world, we’d go to list-based PR, but people have weird connections to their districts.

        “How do you assess voting intentions?”

        A combination of the percentage of the vote for Governor, President, Congress, state legislature, etc.Report

        • Mike Dwyer in reply to Jesse says:

          So what’s the point for the other side to campaign there?Report

          • Jesse in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

            What do you mean? I’m not saying there needs to be, for example, 5 for sure Republican districts and 5 for sure Democratic districts.

            I want a map where if there are 10 seats in a state, and Party A wins 55% of the vote, they get 5-6 seats out of the 10, not 3, as it is in many states.Report

            • Mike Dwyer in reply to Jesse says:

              But if you do that, then you should have a predictable voting result as well…right?Report

              • Jesse in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

                Shockingly, I think having a predictable voting result is a good thing, if those predictable results line up with what the electorate actually votes for. Then, if Party B wants a chance at more seats, they might have to change their positions on issues to win in that state, instead of getting a narrow victory once, then creating their own map that guarantees them a majority even if they get a minority of the vote.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

                But if you do that, then you should have a predictable voting result as well…right?

                Gerrymandering is based on predictable voting results, yes?Report

              • Mike Dwyer in reply to Stillwater says:

                Yes – so that’s why we should just have a different kind of gerrymandering?Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

                It’s not a different kind of gerrymander, it’s a different method by which maps are drawn.Report

          • pillsy in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

            Gerrymandering as commonly understood shapes districts to be uncompetitive.

            You can also shape districts to be competitive.

            It’s not all upsides (what is?) but doing so provides endless incentives for parties to contest districts.Report

            • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

              I’m not sure that “competitive” is the best way to measure it either.

              I like the idea of areas that have things in common with each other. Like, if I were to carve up Colorado Springs, I could make one area “the Broadmoor”, another area “Rockrimmon”, another area could be West of I-25 between Garden of the Gods and Bijou, another area could be East of that.

              Each neighborhood has a distinct character and drawing up the map so that half of Rockrimmon and Garden of the Gods and Colorado City get one rep and the other half of Rockrimmon and Garden of the Gods gets Colorado College’s area…

              Well, I suppose it could be argued that carving things up like that would give two competitive districts but I don’t know why competitive wouldn’t be better than all of any given area represented by one guy.Report

              • Burt Likko in reply to Jaybird says:

                My former state has offered a way to get towards this goal of districts drawn to create “communities of common interest,” which is a challenge indeed in a state with as much diversity and as many disparate political interests, but somehow the whole thing seems to work out. Worth a read and listen.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Burt Likko says:

                Well, I think we need to go with “communities of common interest” but mix that with… here, let me cut and paste myself:

                I very much like the idea of repealing the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 as well as the Apportionment Act of 1911.

                If we went with the “Wyoming Rule”, (a rule that said that the smallest populated state would get one and that state’s population would be the unit of representation), we’d have something like 550 Congressmen now.

                If we instead went with something like “what was the Congressman/Constituent ratio back in 1910?”, we get an even bigger number. If we go with something INSANE like “what was the Congressman/Constituent ratio back in 1780?”, we’ve got four digits.

                The upside, however, to that last one is that the tactic gerrymandering is destroyed (and not merely John Oliver destroyed).

                The biggest issue that we have with Gerrymandering is that we’re still operating under 1929 rules. That’s insane. We should get rid of that law and have our representatives go back to representing a representable number of people.

                And it’d have the extra upside of nigh-eliminating gerrymandering *AND* take some of the bite out of the difference in how much a Wyoming vote is worth vs. how much a California vote is worth.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

                It would seem the Wyoming approach would be a relatively low-risk update.

                I still think that in this age of computing we could settle on one set of “fair” rules for drawing the districts. Not saying that the 538 project is the only set… we might end-up-with “Compact (borders) Community of Intrest Wyoming Lyndi-twist v.3.x.a” model and take the special pleading out of the project.

                The radical change from even just 1990 to 2010 in the ability to algorithmically map districts with computers really ought to give way to a unified method.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Marchmaine says:

                Given that this involves Congresspeople willingly abandoning their own power, it’s a silly pipe dream that is never, ever, going to happen.

                But… well… I can’t help but notice that, on an engineering level, it would work.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

                So you’re saying I’m standing outside with my Constitutional Reform Pocket Protector, Fedora and Black Powder Musket all alone?

                {I’m assuming that’s the garb for a grass roots Constitutional Convention, right?}Report

            • Mike Dwyer in reply to pillsy says:

              Gerrymandering draws a map around a bunch of people inclined to vote together but also includes a piece of a smaller group of people inclined to vote differently, thus negating their vote.

              The plan proposed above draws a map around a group of people inclined to vote together and also includes a smaller group of people that don’t vote that way, because no area is 100% homogenous.

              Either way, doesn’t the small group get their voice suppressed? I still come down on the side of the affected parties actually creating the conditions which ultimately make gerrymandering possible. Congregating together, becoming a predictable voting block, etc. Those conditions all make gerrymandering possible.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

                One of the most predictable voting blocs in the country is white Evangelical Christians.

                By some wacky coincidence, they don’t get their votes suppressed by gerrymandering.

                Weird, huh?Report

              • Mike Dwyer in reply to pillsy says:

                But that actually makes my point. Where do those people live? Everywhere.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

                They absolutely do not live everywhere. They live in some suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas, very frequently among other Evangelicals.

                I don’t see why that should entitle them to special political treatment. And I really really don’t see how it justifies blaming liberals for having their votes suppressed by gerrymandering.Report

              • Mike Dwyer in reply to pillsy says:

                I disagree with your assessment. I think what you actually mean by ‘Evangelicals’ is ‘people whose faith is an indicator of how they will vote’. There are plenty of devout Christians in inner cities, but often their economic needs trump their religious preferences unless you have a social referendum like the SSM legislation of the earlier 2000s.

                And I’m not blaming liberals, I’m saying that a good tactic for making yourself gerrymandering proof is not to prefer to live with people that think like you do. We used to always say that the worse thing a group can do for their own political self-interests is to become predictable voters. This works both ways.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to Jesse says:

      Two of the most popular criteria for district drawing, both extremely popular with voters of all stripes to the extent of being embedded in a number of state constitutions, is “maintain communities of interest” and “minimize division of cities and counties.” In my state, both urban Denver (80% blue voters) and the vast but sparsely populated Eastern Plains (80% red voters) would fight tooth-and-nail to avoid giving up “their” Representative.

      Colorado may be a bad example. Over the last 20 years, the seven districts have gone as far as 5-2 Republican, and 5-2 Democratic.Report

      • Jesse in reply to Michael Cain says:

        I mean, in most cases it won’t require more weird seats that we currently have to get closer to a better division of vote vs seats in most states. But, I also don’t think “look, this map is compact and clean” is a good argument that it’s a good map.

        However, it’s a good starting point for a map that might need to be slightly edited to better match the populationReport

    • Jaybird in reply to Jesse says:

      It wouldn’t be that difficult to have a Constitutional Convention. There’s a *LOT* of Amendments that deserve to be re-written.Report

  7. PD Shaw says:

    In 1860, Democrats needed 62 percent of the popular vote to elect a President. That doesn’t have anything to do with multiple candidates running against the Republicans (and they were all anti-Republican candidates in one way or other); if they had combined all of their votes behind one candidate, they still would not have had a majority of the electoral votes.

    Democrats thought the outcome was illegitimate, seeing the Republicans as a mere faction. But the lens of history is that the Democratic Party had evolved to be a faction isolated geographically from the North and West. The Republicans had broadened their platform and electoral strategy in light of the rules of the game. They were hungry.Report

  8. Jaybird says:

    Jim Acosta has had his press pass revoked by the White House after… well. Stories differ but Sarah Sanders tweeted that he… well, I’ll just link to the tweet:

    President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him and his Administration. We will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern…— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) November 8, 2018

    Here’s the video of the incident:

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4759451/trumps-fear-acosta

    The physical contact occurs at 1:26ish. Jump to 1:25 and watch the next 3 seconds.

    That’s what got Acosta’s pass suspended.Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

      But…Acosta’s famous!
      He should have reached down and grabbed her pussy!

      They let you do that when you’re famous, right?Report

    • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

      Strutting, trash talking, punches that don’t connect…I guess I have to take back my comment about not watching pro wrestling any more.Report

    • Maribou in reply to Jaybird says:

      OK. I watched that 10 times. What it looks like to me is he tried to drop his arm to get it out of the way of her face as she stepped into his physical space (he was looking up at the president, not at her) and her arm was there unexpectedly-to-him and he immediately went as “soft” with his arm as possible and retreated to holding on to the mic with both hands.

      “Placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job” is not at all what I see there….

      At all.

      Funnily enough I’m pretty sure other White Houses somehow dealt with the issue of having people refuse to stop asking questions without having someone whose job was to physically remove the mics from them, but perhaps I’m wrong on that one.

      But “He should have reached down and grabbed her by the pussy!” is a pretty low and disgusting thing to say, even in sarcastic frustration, Chip, and leaves me feeling more like the speaker (you’re not the only one I’ve seen saying it) doesn’t *actually* care much more about people not doing that than the people he’s attempting to shame by saying so, than it does that you (and the other folks) actually don’t want women being groped with any kind of priority. I’m so sick of people who aren’t women treating women’s bodies and rhetoric about women’s bodies being objects as something to score points with, whoever those people are (and without at all equating the level of awful… just, ugh. Knock it off already).

      And I say that as someone who sees nothing wrong with what Acosta did do and find it ridiculous (and not unthreatening) that it got him booted.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to Maribou says:

        Isn’t this exactly what Jaybird mentioned upthread?

        Where Trump shoots someone in public, and we start to debate whether the guy needed shooting.

        There isn’t any room for debate among reasonable people about Acosta’s actions.

        Trump can’t abide opposition, and resorts to whatever force is needed to shut it down.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Much better.

          I imagine that Acosta will be back soon. He’s far too valuable of an asset.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          And here’s the comment that I think Chip is referencing:

          I imagine that contradictions will be heightened and Democrats will find themselves in a situation where the issues are not whether Trump did anything illegal but whether the person accusing Trump of illegality is more alienating to the average person than Trump manages to be.

          After all, Trump could go into Times Square and shoot a guy and his supporters would still support him. His opponents would still oppose him.

          But Trump will manage to turn the conversation into whether the guy needed shooting or not rather than on whether shooting people is illegal.

          And journalists will cheerfully write articles about the victim and about the journalists writing articles about the victim rather than about how shooting people is wrong.

          And it’ll become a referendum on the victim and the journalism about the victim vs. Trump.

          Off the top of my head.

          Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

            Yes, but I have to say that Trump doesn’t “manage” to turn the conversation. Trump himself has nothing to do with it.

            The conversation gets turned through the conscious deliberate choices made by those who prefer discussing that, to the brutal truth.

            The idea that the President is corrupt and lawless is terrifying to them, since it forces them to either cringe in submission, or stand up and risk something.Report

        • Maribou in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          @chip-daniels If you don’t want people to argue with you about your anti-female language and distract from the issues, maybe try being less casual with your anti-female language in the first place.

          #metoo and misogyny and false accusations of same actually do matter, a lot, they are not just some distracting side issue that should just be ignored because the timing is deliberate on Trump’s end. They are literally one of the things *he is doing* to crush the populace. He’s afraid of women and what they can do to unseat him, and all this twisting of legitimate grievances from other people into snarky defense of his own bullshit is *part of his game plan* (or his handlers’), not only a distraction.

          I’m *not* at all going to lose track of Sessions or Rod Rosenstein or Mueller in any of this, in fact I’m materially supporting a demonstration that is one of a national chain tomorrow afternoon. (I’d be *going* to it but I’m f’ing disabled and working night shifts and it’s not an option for me to do that right now.) I’m *working on it*. In the mean time, I’m allowed to also be pissed off at rampant misogyny (theirs) and casual weaponization of misogyny (yours) when I come across it.

          I’m not the media. I rarely even tweet. I don’t have some journalistic obligation to “keep my priorities straight”. And I’m really sick of people who are supposedly on my side avoiding legitimate complaints that they seem casually willing to weaponize the -isms of the other side without regard for the harms they themselves cause, by claiming “distraction! distraction!” F’ing do the work of not being an asshole to the people on your side AND address the serious most dangerous problems.

          You can and should do both.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

      That’s what got Acosta’s pass suspended.

      Nah. Trump firing Sessions today is what got Acosta suspended.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Stillwater says:

        Mea culpa.

        That’s what the official reason for Acosta’s suspension was, according to the White House.Report

        • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

          Scrolling thru the twitterverse, it worked. Reporters are OUTRAGED by the Acosta suspension and can’t be bothered about Sessions/Whitaker/Mueller right now. At this rate, the AG-Sessions-was-fired cycle won’t survive the night.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Stillwater says:

            Yeah, it’s weird. Acosta is the story.

            Pick a side. Pick a side.

            They’re doxing the young woman in the clip, apparently. She’s complicit. Turning to Trump for his approval.

            Pick a side. Pick a side.Report

            • Maribou in reply to Jaybird says:

              @jaybird I continue to think doxxing is a pox on society. Perhaps an inevitable one, but a pox none the less.Report

            • Burt Likko in reply to Jaybird says:

              Well of course she turned to Trump for approval. He’s the effing President and she’s a White House intern following his direct instruction to her.

              She is not the issue. The issue is who was out of line, and it wasn’t the intern. It’s possible everyone was out of line, but I don’t think Acosta was. His job is to ask tough questions.Report

          • pillsy in reply to Stillwater says:

            This is the difference between Twitter and real life, though.

            Am I just bitter because no one liked my absolutely brilliant joke linking Michael Tracey, Jim Acosta, and Fist of the North Star?

            Well, yes, of course I am. But I’m still pretty sure that Twitter isn’t real life.Report

    • The Question in reply to Jaybird says:

      I’m pretty sure this is b******* because secretary Sanders felt the need to share a video from prison planet Paul Joseph Watson which is digitally altered to make it look like a Acosta really is karate chop action reporter.

      I mean if you have a real case you don’t need to share videos from internet idiots who fake their own videos.Report

    • The Question in reply to Jaybird says:

      I forget my favorite part of this right here all of this is coming from the president who what was it just like a week week and a half ago was in Montana saying “hey if a guy can do a body slam That’s my kind of guy”

      I mean it’s touching the way they’ve suddenly discovered how manhandling people is bad but I suppose when you’re that deep in the bubble nothing penetrates.Report