What's truly ironic is that a lot of Democratic elected officials like Gov. Jerry Brown here in CA, and Barack Obama actually governed according small-c conservative principles.

They were fiscally prudent, cautious about executive power, respected established norms and traditions and behaved as responsible stewards of power.

Even the newer crop of Democrats like AOC are only radical by today's standards; Most of what AOC says wouldn't have been out of place in a Roosevelt or Truman administration.

The current Republican ethos is something radical a pre-New Deal, pre-civil rights sort of mashup of Wm. Randolph Hearst jingoism, Jim Crow, and Gilded Age economics. These are things that no one, not Shapiro or Kirk or Tucker Carlson ever experienced, but only fantasize about like eager ISIS recruits.

Well of course that. But if your path to power relies on the people behind the curtain jumping in front of the curtain to tell the ignorant populists that they are doing it wrong? That's not the start of something, it's the end of it.

Yeah, but that's the Cup final... I remember the anthems during the finals... its the regular season games I can't remember. That's what made going to the finals as a kid so cool.

And the Canadian one should always be in French.

The New York Times has reported on Dick Uihlein being a funder:

Critics have asked who is funding the site, since ad revenue alone wouldn’t be enough to sustain its staff of 14 and political websites often rely on wealthy donors for support. The Federalist has not disclosed its supporters, leading to criticism that it is not being transparent about its agenda. But according to two people with knowledge of its finances, one of its major backers is Dick Uihlein, the Midwestern packing supply magnate and Trump donor who has a history of giving to combative, hard-right candidates, like Roy S. Moore of Alabama, who make many Republicans squeamish. (After Mr. Moore was accused of assaulting underage girls in 2017, The Federalist ran an opinion piece that defended men who dated young women as a practice with a long history that was “not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.”)

Through a spokesman, Mr. Uihlein declined to comment.

Of course, you should read the story for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

The problem with Brexit is that so very many pieces of the stuff they were Brexiting from were never put up for a vote in the first place. The politicians were in charge of policy for the polity and everybody agreed to a Common Market in the 1970's. And then you've got a Single European Act which just makes sense and then there's the Schengen Agreement which required carve-outs to pass but, you have to understand, the cold war was at its height and compromises needed to be made. And then the Maastricht Treaty only had referendums from France, Denmark and Ireland. Huh. And then the Treaty of Amsterdam which didn't have a referendum.

And, next thing you know, you're in a place that you didn't recognize having agreed to go to.

Hey, my parents agreed to a common market.

While I am 100% down with the idea that it is the job of government to make some hard decisions ("we're here to do a job, not keep a job", as Pelosi famously said), if you make enough decisions without asking "the people" first, you're going to find yourself in a place where your vision of the future and theirs have diverged.

This is where "the consent of the governed" gets tricky. If you diverge far enough... then what?

I think a Constitution would be a Capital idea. Write it down.

Vote on it.

Get a majority this time. Preferably a super one.

One further note about the British Constitution, and the Queen in Parliament

Most other constitutional monarchies recognize the sovereignty of the people, and not that of the monarch, or of their parliament. As an example, Article 1 of the Spanish Constitution says:

Spain is hereby established as a social and democratic State, subject to the rule of law, which advocates freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism as highest values of its legal system.

National sovereignty belongs to the Spanish people, from whom all State powers emanate.

The political form of the Spanish State is the Parliamentary Monarchy,

Their constitutions then go on to establish the limits between the Executive and the Legislative branch. But in Britain, Executive and Legislative are merged into a single entity

The British constitution is based on a different conception of who the Sovereign is. The Sovereign is not the people, the Sovereign is "The Queen in Parliament". In this framework, the people are not really part of the sovereign, except insofar as the Queen in Parliament want to involve them.

The Queen in Parliament means that all the power resides on the Queen, when she is acting with the advice [and consent] of Parliament. Through the centuries, the balance between the two have moved from the queen (small letters intended) to the PARLIAMENT, but the the essential concept has not changed in centuries.

through a separate tug of war, the Prime Minister has stepped into all of the powers of the Queen. He can do anything, as long as it is within the letter of what Parliament has advised or consented to (via legislation and/or votes of confidence). The Prime Minister is whoever the Queen proposes that a majority of Parliament will not vote against. in practice, the leader of the largest faction in Parliament, and will retain his position for as long as a majority of MPs do not vote against him in a no confidence vote (Parliament itself, through the fixed Parliaments Act, established maximum five years period, but Parliament can change that tomorrow, if the "advise" the Queen to do so.

The franchise, who is allowed to vote for MPs, and the balance of powers between Lords and Commons, has changed a lot in the last 200 years, but again, The Queen in Parliament could change that tomorrow, legislation restricting the franchise to identical twins under the age of 15 months would be totally ok, if that is their good pleasure.

One major thing has happened in the last decade or two: first past the post, which essentially forces all political forces to consolidate into two opposite parties, have fused -as Tories or Labour- groups that are very different between them, and have very few common goals, except perhaps opposition to the other group.

Labour is now a very unstable alliance between actual socialists, SWJ/Bernie Bros -like leftists, and center left urban professionals. Keir Stormer represents the latter group, Corbyn, the middle one, while the former, historically predominant in the party, is petering away.

The Tories now encompass large capital and finance, center right professionals, retirees and senior citizens, and English nativists (aka litte English). Note that the Tories coalition is unable to win outside of England properly, though unlike Republicans, they are able to attract minority and working class voters.

In the particular case of Brexit, both parties are being fractured: Labour socialists, and Tory high finance and nativist wings all support Brexit (the high finance wing out of self-interest in the opportunities the post Brexit downturn will bring forth). The other wings oppose it. Because MPs do actually respond to their (limited) universe of voters, their individual support or opposition to Brexit depends on what wing of the party their voters come from. None of the two parties is thus in full control of their MPs.

Because in the case of Brexit the Prime Minister is not sure he can trust his MPs, he is acting more and more outside the supervision of Parliament. This supervision is not legally mandated. Parliament can always vote for a no confidence if they dislike being shut off from the process. The Prime Minister is, for all purposes, the "Queen" in The Queen in Parliament. He is sovereign for as long as Parliament allows him to.

One last note, as we discussed here at the time, the Referendum does not have a place in the British Constitution. There is no provision to ask the people anything. The Referendum is, and always was, advisory as a constitutional matter

"Shallow patriotism"? Says who? Maybe a shallow dimension of patriotism, just like not calling the missus a "c" is a shallow dimension of marital love, but it says something about the kind of person who would break that norm. Our patriotism shouldn't be simply shallow, but small gestures aren't meaningless.

This assumes the populist voting base of the left is disaffected from the leadership/elite center leftists which, I think, assumes facts not in evidence. There is/was a rift that existed between the GOP's leadership elite and their voters that didn't/doesn't exist (or at least not remotely in the same degree) on the Democratic side.
If the Democratic elite were dominated by market/neo liberals (they aren't) or social justice activists (they even more so aren't) then maybe they'd have the same problem; but they aren't, so they don't.

If I had to bet on a realignment (and I am really bad a predicting politics), I'd think the right has to ditch either their economic populists or their libertarians with the ditched constituency ending up gravitating to the left.

But with the never Trumpers specifically we should keep in mind that they represent a bunch of career political operatives and media voices. I don't know that there's any evidence to suggest they represent a voting constituency that is much larger than the number of votes they individually can cast.

As to where they go? I think it depends on this election. If the GOP is utterly routed then maybe the never Trumpers will try and rebuild the George W Bush GOP in its ashes (which I doubt they'd succeed at). If the GOP merely loses or narrowly loses the never Trumpers are just gonna be a fading voice loosely attached to but exercising very little pull on the Democratic party until they fade away to nothing.

Ouch, Bitter Cynical it is then.

Though I wonder in passing can there even be any hope of electoral success without the Bitter Clingers, er, Ignorant Conservative Populists, er, base?

Unless you're suggesting the true future winners of realignment: the Neo-Liberal Left/Center governing coalition? Establishments without the ugly commitments owed to either base?

Some people delight in clear communication. Others delight in preventing it.

Why waste your time with the latter? What could they possibly offer? Even if they have something to say, their natural inclination means they'll make sure no one understands it.

And yet they often talk so very much....

An irony, I suppose. So many words to convey nothing. Silence would have been more efficient in getting the point across.

I find Hugh Hewitt's article oddly reassuring. I mean, if that is the full extent that a Trump sycophant like HH can inflate Trumps record then Trump is indeed in dire straits. For fish's sake HH actually tried to give Trump and the GOP credit for the Dems' coronavirus relief package even as the GOP is, in real time, refusing to re-authorize it.

Seriously, this is the guy who wrote this after Biden's win in South Carolina.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/01/enjoy-it-joe-biden-because-it-wont-last/
Anyone who's this reliably wrong bears paying attention to.

I didn't see much reason to look beyond the URL. "...bipartisan group secretly [verb]..." A bipartisan group can't secretly [verb], so whatever it is, it didn't happen. Further, if there's a story about it in the press, then "secretly" is obvious false.

The song, like the flag, are symbols of the nation. They are no more or less immune to peaceful protest that any other symbol. And remember, prior to the 1970's none of these professional sports teams came out before the anthem. So it's not that hallowed a tradition. Also remember that Kapernick took his knee on the advice of a white Army vet who said he (the vet) felt kneeling was a respectful way to protest. The fact that the National Anthem was built of the frame of drinking song is mildly humerous.

His administration has gotten a bunch of stuff done - overpaying for ventilators that won't be here for a year, rolling back environmental regulations; taking money from military construction to build a border wall, and allowing Mitch McConnell to confirm 200 or so federal judges.

Of course, with the tanking of the economy none of that matters much.

[…] Spare me. A unifying sense of country and duty is a fine thing — and a level of respect for both is necessary in a functioning society — but they make for shallow and meaningless religion. The rowdys in section 230 of the arena have been laughing and giggling through the anthem for decades before they got all incensed at a player not properly performing the ritual as they see fit. The star-spangled displays of the NFL are great imagery that was done as much for marketing as anything else. Folks who want to boycott and protest Kaepernick, Nike, and anything else that is insufficiently patriotic are oddly nowhere to be found in protesting, demanding change, or even bringing attention to the actual Veterans Affairs system that literally kills vets through incompetency, bureaucracy, and sometimes even darker things, like outright murder, that go unchecked. […]

In Israel and other proportional representation countries, you vote for the party rather than a particular politician. Some countries combine party list voting and district based voting. Germany is one. So a certain percentage of the seats is based on party vote and another percentage is district based voting for particular candidates.