Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 18

The SOTU 2015: Blog Reax

@BarackObama #SOTU pointed way to an economy that works for all. Now we need to step up & deliver for the middle class. #FairShot #FairShare

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 21, 2015

Brian Beutler contends that Obama is “priming the public for [Clinton’s] campaign” by “building a case before the public that Democrats have had better economic ideas all along”:

Tuesday’s State of the Union was thus a single component of a project that’s much more meaningful than budget brinksmanship or the 2016 campaign—to establish the parameters of the economic debate for years and years, the way Ronald Reagan’s presidency lent supply-side tax policy and deregulation a presumption of efficacy that shaped not just Republican, but Democratic policy for two decades.

Seven years into Obama’s presidency, the U.S. economy is finally growing rapidly enough to boost his popularity and to sell the country on the idea that Obama’s peculiar brand of ostentatious incrementalism—building out and improving existing institutions, directing resources through them to the middle class—has worked, and should serve as a beacon not just for liberals, but for conservatives aspiring to recapture the presidency.

Chait calls the speech “the first expression of Democratic politics in the post-recession era”:

Republicans have formulated plans to benefit working-class Americans directly, but all these plans have foundered on the problem that Republicans have no way to pay for them:

they may be willing to cut taxes for the working poor, if that’s what it takes to win an election these days, but they certainly don’t want to raise taxes on the affluent. (“Raising taxes on people that are successful is not going to make people that are struggling more successful, insisted Marco Rubio recently.”) This means the money to finance the new Republican populist offensive must be conjured out of thin air.

Thus the blunt quality of Obama’s plan: he will cut taxes for the working- and middle-class by raising an equal amount from wealthy heirs and investors. Obama’s plan is not going to pass Congress, of course. Probably nothing serious can pass a Congress that still has no political or ideological incentive to cooperate with the president. The point is not to pass a law. It is to lay out openly the actual trade-offs involved.

John Fund, on the other hand, thinks Obama glossed over the trade-offs of his proposals:

All of the proposals enjoy majority support in polls — although that support tends to fall after people weigh the price tag.

Take paid sick leave. Obama mentioned that wherever the issue was on the ballot this fall it passed when people voted on it. But he was careful not to mention that the only state where it was on the ballot was Massachusetts. Yes, the state that hasn’t sent a single Republican to the U.S. House in 20 years and consistently votes Democratic for president by about ten points more than the rest of the country. Question 4, the Massachusetts ballot measure that mandated paid sick leave in the state, did pass but with only 60 percent of the vote — meaning that after a real debate the issue might be an even split nationwide.

Jonah Goldberg was also unimpressed by the address:

Like a lot of people, I found tonight’s speech a chore. That’s less of a criticism of Obama than it sounds. I find all State of the Unions to be tedious, particularly this late in a presidency. I do think it was better delivered than most of his State of the Union addresses. I didn’t, however, think it was particularly well-written. “The shadow of crisis has passed”? C minus.

Annie Lowrey watched a different speech:

[T]onight, we saw an Obama like the one we saw on the campaign trail – fired up, optimistic, discursive, happy-hearted, and historical. Tonight, we saw an Obama who decried Washington, but still seemed convinced in hope and change. Tonight, we saw Obama thunder, trumpet, and staccato-shout his policies, despite the nonexistent odds they have of passage. And the fact that the economy has turned around so much seemed to give him hope that the middle class would start feeling better, even if Washington never helps.

Jim Tankersley argues that some of Obama’s proposals have real promise:

Many economists say the preferential treatment for capital income has led to the excessive growth of Wall Street, which has robbed the broader economy of precious brainpower that would be better employed solving human problems and creating more high-paying jobs. This could eventually prove to be the key difference in Obama’s latest middle-class plan, compared to his past plans – a difference in policy and in politics. If you talk to American workers much, you find that, sure, they’d enjoy paying less money to the government. But mostly, they’d like a better-paying job.

Chris Cillizza was struck by Obama’s confidence:

For his allies and even many liberals who had grown sour on him, it was a triumphant speech in which both his own soaring confidence and his dismissal of his political rivals was fitting and appropriate. For his detractors, the speech was everything they loathe about him: cocky, combative and forever campaigning. Regardless of where you land on that confident-to-cocky spectrum, one thing was very clear tonight: Obama isn’t planning to go quietly over his final two years in office. Not quietly at all.

However, David Corn admits that “State of the Union speeches aren’t what they used to be”:

Once upon a time, a large chunk of Americans watched the chief executive unveil his plans in these ornate circumstances. After all, there was little else to see on television for that hour or so. But in our Internet-y days, there are no more captive audiences. So the reach of any State of the Union speech is limited. Yet this address did provide Obama with what is likely to be his biggest audience of the year (unless there is an emergency, a grand history-making event, or national tragedy). And he used the opportunity to effectively restate and reinforce his foundational views. Toward the end of the speech, Obama noted, “I have no more campaigns to run. My only agenda for the next two years is the same as the one I’ve had since the day I swore an oath on the steps of this Capitol.” And that seemed to be true. He yielded no ground to the ascendant Republicans, though he did again sidestep the depth of the opposition he has faced—and that he and his agenda will continue to face. This State of the Union address was no game-changer, but it was a signal from Obama that he will be sticking to his game.

Last but not least, Josh Marshall suspects Obama is playing a long game:

As Sahil Kapur explains, based on conversations with White House aides, President Obama wanted to be a Ronald Reagan of the Center-Left in tonight’s speech, not so much focused on passing laws in the next two years (which isn’t happening regardless) as embedding a clear blueprint of progressive activism into the structure and rhetoric of American politics for years or decades to come. So he’ll make his arguments, cheer successes and vindicated predictions and promises, take aggressive executive actions to the limits of his authority. But more than anything else he’ll try to push the whole package, the logic of his administration and his policies as a touch point and reference for the future.

He was talking over and past the new GOP majorities on many, many levels.

The SOTU 2015: Tweet Reax

President Obama touts economic growth with a wink in #SOTU2015: https://t.co/Xiqqbu9Nw2 @ABC

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 21, 2015

Nice to see two people of color up on that dais. #SOTU2015

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

Tough crowd: The Republican side didn't stand to applaud "the state of the Union is strong"

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) January 21, 2015

"They were young and in love in America – and it doesn't get much better than that." – #SpringsteenOrSOTU

— John Avlon (@JohnAvlon) January 21, 2015

Obama going all Elizabeth Warren in SOTU: "But for far too long, lobbyists have rigged the tax code with loopholes"

— Adam Smith (@asmith83) January 21, 2015

The economic portion of this speech is as close as Obama has come in 10 yrs to his terrific Sen campaign stump speech in 2004.

— Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) January 21, 2015

Why didn’t he propose these things when Dems controlled Congress?

—
Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) January 21, 2015

President skipping lightly past all his tax increase ideas.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 21, 2015

O: "That’s why I am sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost of community college — to zero."

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) January 21, 2015

Absolutely zero GOP applause for the community college/student loan section. #SOTU2015

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 21, 2015

If you tell community colleges that students will lose 100% of their grant if their grades drop, what happens to college grading?

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 21, 2015

Obama is having so much fun in this speech.

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) January 21, 2015

Does Boener have to look like he's getting a colonoscopy everytime Obama says something good about America? I thought Repubs loved America?

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) January 21, 2015

Biden’s Buffalo Wing Challenge Dinner Not Sitting Too Well http://t.co/KYhr9HJpGF #SOTU pic.twitter.com/utj4FuRyqt

— The Onion (@TheOnion) January 21, 2015

YES! childcare not a women's issue #SOTU

— Hanna Rosin (@HannaRosin) January 21, 2015

Obama to GOP: Get off the pipeline.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

Sec. Energy Ernest Moniz be all like: pic.twitter.com/5q45zUfOr8

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 21, 2015

Obama: We are the country that eliminated Polio and gave anti-vaxxers the freedom to try to bring it back.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

Obama '09: time 2 turn the page.
'10:Now is time 2 turn pg.
'11:We're here 2 turn pg.
'13:we have 2 turn pg.
'15: 2nite we turn the page!

— Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa) January 21, 2015

Last time Obama said we were "turn the page"—on Iraq in 2010—the page got a little stuck. http://t.co/paxBK0tHnF

— Nicholas Thompson (@nxthompson) January 21, 2015

Our combat mission in Afghanistan is not over if 15K troops are still in Afghanistan. #SOTU2015

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

What Obama says tonight about new #Iran sanctions is crystal clear: A vote for sanctions is a vote for war.

#SOTU #SOTU2015 @rezaaslan

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) January 21, 2015

I support the president’s call to refrain from new Iran sanctions. We have a responsibility to see the talks through. http://t.co/vJXVGKlGIG

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) January 21, 2015

If he needs congressional authority to fight ISIL, how can he be fighting ISIL now?

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 21, 2015

“@BillKristol: Not mentioned in Obama's SOTU: al Qaeda."

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 21, 2015

Obama's too ready to take credit for the fact that low oil prices hurt Russia. His policies had nothing to do with the low prices.

— Mike Doran (@Doranimated) January 21, 2015

Space! (applause) The troops! (applause) Other things! (less applause)

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 21, 2015

Black Bush predicted this space policy http://t.co/NW1KWvMuUS

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 21, 2015

Love this: the president calls out the GOP's "I'm not a scientist" bullshit on climate change. #SOTU pic.twitter.com/4ZfPNjbxJh

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

Obama: Obviously climate change is a hoax being pulled off by the world's scientists and their closest ally, The Pope.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

State of the Union: Obama includes transgender and bisexual in the 2015 address for the first time ever. slate.com/blogs/outward/…

—
June Thomas (@junethomas) January 21, 2015

In #SOTU, Obama Declares Marriage Equality A “Civil Right” – http://t.co/APw3LY6r4k pic.twitter.com/xp2z0tqVwm

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) January 21, 2015

Marriage equality has progressed from a wedge issue that drove us apart to a story of freedom, legal in states that 7/10 Americans call home

— Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) January 21, 2015

Gay marriage is still a wedge issue—only it divides Republicans now, not Democrats. #SOTU

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

this is classic Obama. surely we can agree that i'm more reasonable than you

— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) January 21, 2015

The “one people” Obama is the best Obama.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 21, 2015

Obama: I have no more campaigns to run — unlike Mitt Romney and every spare Bush.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

Obama, after GOP clapped when he said he has no more elections to run: "I know cause I won both of them." DAMMMMMMMMMM LOLOLOLOLOL #SOTU

— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) January 21, 2015

WOAH. GOP GOT OWNED.

— Peter Sagal (@petersagal) January 21, 2015

that ‘campaign’ joke was solid, but kind of a letdown when you read the original line #SOTU pic.twitter.com/nOdQWKA2oG

— Dan Abramson (@danabramson) January 21, 2015

brief, satisfying digression from reasonable, post-partisan Obama back to in-your-face, victory lap Obama

— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) January 21, 2015

Dad Delivers State Of The Union Rebuttal Directly Into Television Screen http://t.co/DFWlpVv6RQ #SOTU pic.twitter.com/6zBWmqVTYw

— The Onion (@TheOnion) January 21, 2015

.@MittRomney on #SOTU: @BarackObama made "'bridge to nowhere' proposals. Disappointing. A missed opportunity to lead." #election2016

— NYDN Daily Politics (@DNDailyPolitics) January 21, 2015

REPORT: The Romney family is skipping the State of the Union to watch Mitt on Netflix for the 34th time.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

President Obama: I kid Mitt Romney but he's done a lot to help poor people. For instance, he lost in 2012.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

FYI: Mitt Romney has lived on the Minimum Wage, which is the name of his smaller yacht.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) January 21, 2015

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is delivering the GOP response. #SOTU pic.twitter.com/CiOFXD6SJa

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) January 21, 2015

Wait—Joni Ernst is on my TV? But didn't the president say he prohibited torture? #SOTU

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

If it were up to Obama, the Ernsts would have paid 5 cents for each of those plastic bags on her shoes, A DAY.

— Hanna Rosin (@HannaRosin) January 21, 2015

Joni Ernst totally ripped off her bread bag anecdote from The Simpsons http://t.co/cSN1JXc3QU pic.twitter.com/IjYJdMlh8E

— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) January 21, 2015

The stupid pipeline will create 35 fucking jobs.

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

This is the 6th GOP #SOTU response in a row featuring a Republican who speaks to us like they're addressing a room full of kindergartners.

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 21, 2015

Exception: Jim Webb MT @pareene: never agree to do the response ever

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) January 21, 2015

seriously pay me millions to be a political consultant all I will do is tell my boss "don't do this"

— alex pareene (@pareene) January 21, 2015

Next time there's a Republican president, I'm going to get in my driverless car and make sure the Dem response is in front of a damn crowd.

— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) January 21, 2015

+1 RT @jbouie: Thank you following my nonsensical SOTU tweets. Actual analysis will come shortly.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 21, 2015

Live-Blogging The GOP Response

Republican graphics to go with Sen. Joni Ernst #SOTU response: baby Ernst! pic.twitter.com/qkYg7OKhx5

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) January 21, 2015

10.36 pm. I thought Senator Ernst gave about as strong a response as I have seen in years in terms of style and affect. Way better than Jindal or the usual suspects. Great pick for the GOP, but inevitably overwhelmed by the rhetorical mastery of what preceded her. But I see now why Iowans voted for her. She has great and broad appeal. And she’s a symbolic solution to the image of a party full of so many very wealthy white men, with whom many voters don’t identify with.

10.30 pm. She’s in favor of new trade deals that Obama backs as well. Easier tax filing and fewer loopholes: I’m for that. But not if it isn’t at least deficit neutral. Then, in stark contrast with Obama, an endorsement of the validity of fear vis-à-vis Jihadist terrorism. But no details on how to actually tackle terrorism. I note no mention of unemployment or economic growth or Putin. I als note no mention of immigration whatever, despite fighting the last campaign primarily on that issue.

10.28 pm. “Growing up, I had only one pair of shoes.” The appeal to a struggling middle class is now on. She’s for new solutions over an old mindset. And the policy goods? The Keystone Pipeline! That’s really all you’ve got?

10.25 pm. She has a great smile, although it doesn’t actually seem to end. And the beginning was a grace-note to the airing of alternative ideas.

Live-Blogging The SOTU 2015: Another Morning; Another America

10.11 pm. This is a speech that revealed to us the president we might have had without the extraordinary crises – foreign and domestic – he inherited. I’ve always believed in his long game and in his bent toward pragmatism over ideology. Events can still upend things, but this is a president very much shaping the agenda past his own legacy. He’s showing Hillary Clinton the way, and has the midterms to point to as the result of the defensive crouch. If his standing improves still further, he will box her in, and she’ll have to decide if she’s going to be a Wall Street tool and proto-neocon or a more populist and confident middle class agenda-setter.

One of his best. And for the first time in his six years, he has the economic winds behind him. Stay tuned for my review of the GOP response, and for the Dish’s round-up of the blogosphere and Twitterverse.

10.07 pm. “I know because I won both of them.” Every now and again, the lamb shows his fangs. And that was spontaneous and a product of real confidence. Notice how utterly silent and hushed the chamber as gotten in the last fifteen minutes. He has them in his hands.

10.03 pm. “Basic decency over basest fears.” We’re in the John Lennon moment. And after a strongly partisan, Democratic speech, the quiet turn toward inclusion, humility and bipartisanship is a brilliant touch. One America:

Surely we can understand a father who fears his son can’t walk home without being harassed. Surely we can understand the wife who won’t rest until the police officer she married walks through the front door at the end of his shift.

10.01 pm. He reclaims the post-partisan identity he began with:

I still believe that we are one people. I still believe that together, we can do great things, even when the odds are long. I believe this because over and over in my six years in office, I have seen America at its best. I’ve seen the hopeful faces of young graduates from New York to California; and our newest officers at West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs, and New London. I’ve mourned with grieving families in Tucson and Newtown; in Boston, West, Texas, and West Virginia. I’ve watched Americans beat back adversity from the Gulf Coast to the Great Plains; from Midwest assembly lines to the Mid-Atlantic seaboard. I’ve seen something like gay marriage go from a wedge issue used to drive us apart to a story of freedom across our country, a civil right now legal in states that seven in ten Americans call home.

So I know the good, and optimistic, and big-hearted generosity of the American people who, every day, live the idea that we are our brother’s keeper, and our sister’s keeper. And I know they expect those of us who serve here to set a better example.

9.57 pm. This is candidate Obama on American values – not president Obama. On torture, he has backed the CIA all the way; on drones, I just don’t buy his claim of close targeting; on the NSA, he has not stood in the way of unprecedented spying on Americans. He has not earned this mantle. And it fits uneasily on his shoulders.

9.53 pm. The climate change emphasis – toward the peroration – is striking. His urgency is merited, as far as I can see. And a majority of Americans do believe the science, even as the GOP has dug in deeper with extreme skepticism at best and outright denialism. This time, he has the Pope on his side.

9.52 pm. A reader writes:

​I think this might finally be the speech when Obama will throw down the mic at the end.

9.50 pm. Even more tepid applause for his attempt to get a deal with Iran. But at least he actually articulated his case clearly and powerfully.

9.44 pm. He’s now making an argument – finally – for his foreign policy. He targets fear as our enemy, not our friend. And over-reaction and “bluster” are as dangerous as any enemies we are fighting. That’s the man I endorsed. But his optimism about Afghanistan seems delusional to me; as does his ISIL policy. I notice a very light round of applause after his call for a new AUMF for Iraq and Syria. Not exactly a ringing bipartisan acclamation. But I enjoyed watching McCain listen to Obama’s gloating over Putin’s over-reach.

9.43 pm. Note that he wants to tax the proceeds from accumulated wealth, not work.

9.40 pm. This is a future-oriented, optimistic speech. What I like about it is the final laying out of a distinctively Democratic agenda. I’d like to see these proposals discussed and examined and pushed back on. But he has broken out of the Washington defensive crouch which afflicts most Democrats and is almost trade-marked by his would-be successor.

9.37 pm. This is the most confident I’ve ever seen him. The appeal to hire veterans; the call for major infrastructure, while dissing the Keystone pipeline; and a new commitment to scientific research. Even some Republicans stood up.

9.31 pm. A reader notes:

This child care thing is a softball for Hillary to knock out of the park, if she has the sense.

Another dissents with my 9.15 pm post:

His remarks on family weren’t about Washington. He’s putting me and my Republican neighbor in the same boat of America. Painting that picture of a family is brilliant.

9.29 pm. The Democrats are lovin’ it. Boehner’s got a cold.

9.26 pm. A national economic priority for childcare – not a nice-to-have, but a must-have. And he frames it as not a women’s issue. He’s tackling the core issues of struggling middle class families. Seven days of paid sick leave seems more than a little helpful to me right now, after three weeks of fevers.

9.24 pm. A reader notes that Boehner’s face is actually darker than Obama’s.

9.22 pm. Warren is standing; Menendez looks really uncomfortable; Paul Ryan just let out a big sigh, it seemed to me. “Middle class economics” is a pretty good slogan too.

9.20 pm. He’s actually taking credit for the ACA. Imagine that. And wrapping it up in better economic data.

9.19 pm. I can’t help but feel that low gas prices are key to his polling recovery. Didn’t hurt to remind peeps.

9.15 pm. Could anything be less true than that America is one strong, united family? Good pitch; but still obviously untrue. We have been divided intensely during this slow and now accelerating economy.

9.12 pm. Another morning in America. Unemployment lower than before the Great Recession; growth strongest since the 1990s; more insured Americans; most troops brought back home. For the first time in any of his SOTUs, Obama is calling the state of the union “strong.”

9.11 pm. Party like it’s 1999! One reader already is:

9.09 pm. I haven’t read the transcript yet because I want to respond to the address as it comes. This is theater as much as anything.

9.07 pm. For an introvert, he still knows how to work a crowd.

8.55 pm. On this auspicious and occasionally uplifting occasion, allow me to welcome Alex Pareene back to the punchbowl:

Here is some of [SOTU-writer Cody] Keenan’s hard-bitten, muscular prose, from a previous State of the Union address:

“Today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it, and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest level in more than three decades,” Mr. Obama said in the opening lines of last year’s State of the Union address, written by Mr. Keenan. The president went on: “A farmer prepared for the spring after the strongest five-year stretch of farm exports in our history. A rural doctor gave a young child the first prescription to treat asthma that his mother could afford. A man took the bus home from the graveyard shift, bone-tired but dreaming big dreams for his son.”

That is boilerplate State of the Union rhetoric. Do you know what it doesn’t sound like? Good prose by a good author. Peggy Noonan could down two bottles of white wine and crank this kind of shit out in ten minutes before passing out. Paul Harvey would’ve been embarrassed to read this on the radio. It’s a storyboarding session for a TV commercial. If you actually imagine those images, the first thing that comes to mind is a soothing voice rapidly reading pharmaceutical contraindications.

(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty.)

Pull The Plug On The SOTU?

Steve Chapman wants to:

Whether this event is still worth their time … is doubtful. If there was ever a time that direct exposure to presidential eloquence could melt the hearts of hostile legislators, it has passed. Even the public seems to have acquired immunity. The effort often backfires. “In a 2013 analysis of SOTU polling,” [Cato’s Gene] Healy has noted, “Gallup found that ‘most presidents have shown an average decrease in approval of one or more points between the last poll conducted before the State of the Union and the first one conducted afterward.'”

But Jack Shafer cheerfully thinks the annual address “isn’t completely useless”:

According to research conducted by political scientists Donna R. Hoffman and Alison D. Howard, about 40 percent of the requests a president makes in a State of the Union speech are enacted in some form as law—a batting average the major leagues haven’t seen since Ted Williams.

Perhaps presidents have inflated their batting averages by including sure-bet legislative proposals in addresses, but the addresses still frame the White House’s intentions, clarify the direction the president’s budget will take, focus press corps coverage, and help structure the legislative agenda. Language about an issue into the State of the Union also has a tendency to increase the public’s sense of urgency about it. One study of addresses from 1946 to 2003 found that every 50 words devoted by a president to an issue resulted in a 2 percentage point increase (sometimes temporary) in the public’s identification of the issue as America’s most important problem. Laugh if you want to, but political revolutions are won by 2 percentage point swings, even temporary ones.

I enjoy the spectacle, the set-speech and the tradition. But then I’m an English Tory deep-down. YouGov looks at who will tune in tonight:

[D]espite Democrats being the most likely to say they will watch it does not mean that the audience will be mainly comprised of Democrats. In light of how many more independents there are than Democrats, 40% of tonight’s audience is expected to be made up of independents and 40% will be Democrats. Only 19% of people tuning in will be Republicans.

Regardless, Jonathan Bernstein contends that Obama’s most important audience is his fellow Democrats:

The president doesn’t choose his proposals in a vacuum. His agenda is the Democratic Party agenda (or one version of it), and the party constrains what Obama can do. … Yes, the president has the single biggest vote — he’s the single most important party actor. But the best way to think of the State of the Union is as part of a continuing process, with the results today both an outcome of party battles and a factor in the next round of defining the party.

In Which The Democrats Finally Get A Clue, Ctd

A reader doesn’t pull punches:

Democrats are spineless cowards who did not dare to make this the theme of the last few election cycles. They would have won big. But instead they hid behind their Wall St donors and sat still.

Another is more even-handed:

Odd thing, isn’t it? Since the midterms, Obama has been following his instincts, not the Congressional leadership that wanted to try to save Senate seats in deep red States, or the inside-the-Beltway CW that still thinks it’s 1984, that winning legacy media cycles is everything, and that Democrats must act like Republicans. Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if he’d done this a year ago.

On the other hand, to move like this, maybe he needed an improving economy and a GOP hopelessly tied to its hardcore base. Either the Republicans approve this basic plan, in which case Obama gets yet another major accomplishment, which will kill them with their Obama-hating base, or they stop it, which clearly puts them on the side of the super rich at the expense of every single middle-class American. Maybe even the tools and lackeys who populate the panels of the Sunday talk shows will be able to understand just how shrewd this move us.

A few more readers sound off:

I think it’s important to note that this is not a Democratic redistribution of the wealth. This is a correction of 35 years of Republican redistribution policies.

For decades, the middle- and lower-classes have paid for the ever-shrinking percentage of taxes the wealthy pay with increases in state income and sales taxes (due to reduced federal outlays to states), increased fees for government services along with cuts to those same services. The GOP now wants to take the axe to Medicare and Social Security in the name of debt reduction, even though those programs are self-funded and do not affect the national debt. Future insolvencies in those programs can be easily corrected by raising the cap and making the super-wealthy pay their fair share, instead of just paying on the first $105,000 in income. If the super-wealthy cannot acquiesce to paying what is, for them, an easily manageable increase in taxes, they will end up losing more when economic unrest makes indulging their greed politically unpalatable and there is nothing left to steal from the 99%.

Another:

Can we dispense with the “meep, meep” comments? This idea that the president has this grand diabolical plan, patiently laying in wait, scheming to overcome the opposition, and then striking out, grabbing the initiative, is an interesting one. Perhaps he was laying in wait and biding his time when his policies caused the Democrats to get their asses handed to them in 2010. Yes, losing all the state houses and governerships must be in this equation along with losing the Senate. Next week President Obama will take out Tattalgia, Barzini, Strazi … all the heads of the Five Families. Right after Connie’s kid gets baptised.

For all the talk about the Democratic Party’s demographic destiny, or the Republican presidential candidate to take 50%+ of the popular vote once over the past twenty years, the electoral success of the president is tied to timing and the complete and utter ineptitude of the opposition, not any Frank Underwood-like grand plan. Despite six years in office, nearly five years of continued GDP growth, decreases in the unemployment rate, and so-called populist ideas, the president finds it nearly impossible to break the 50% approval rating barrier.

The US of A is still a right-of-center country, and culturally the president does not connect with the majority of Americans (I’ve always believed race is not the defining characteristic that the electorate finds divisive … name the last president to come from an urban/metropolitan area?), and the electorate doesn’t want overtly redistributive economic policies.

However, it is these cultural issues that hold the Republican Party back. Every presidential primary it seems as if the Republican candidates are vying for the Forsythe County, Georgia school board instead of the Oval Office. When the Republicans do nominate a relative social moderate, that candidate fits the stereotype of rich, out-of-touch white guy who is unable to draw sufficient votes from any of the Democrats’ core constituencies. The Democratic party is still a coalition of competing interests, and if the Republicans would pull their heads out of their asses long enough to pluck just enough of those votes away they would be assured of victory.

The Hispanic-American population is more culturally conservative than the Democratic Party base. The Asian-American population is more culturally and economically conservative than the Democratic Party base. One of George W. Bush’s lasting legacies, other than propelling the country into an avoidable war and being fiscally irresponsible, might be to undermine the ability of the party to grab those votes for the next several years by tainting his brother Jeb’s name and inhibiting him from carrying enough Hispanic-American and Asian-American votes to get into office. Jeb was always the chosen one – to use the Godfather analogy, Michael to George’s Santino.

As for President Obama, his approval rating will probably creep up a few more points as gas prices stay low and the economy limps along. Presidential approval ratings correlate to gas prices. Now that the consumer has deleveraged from the household debt hangover, they have more disposable income. Whoever is voted into office in 2016, Democrat or Republican, will find themselves in trouble in 2020 as the debt cycle sends us back into another recession after Americans once again charge up those credit cards, take out those HELOCs, and the federal government has to drastically reduce spending to cope with the federal debt. Then we can start all over with inane arguments over how that president then in office “caused” that Recession.

Face Of The Day

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) leaves after the Senate Democratic weekly policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2015. Reid returned to work today after he was injured from a New Years Day exercise accident, which caused broken bones and temporary loss of vision in his right eye. By Alex Wong/Getty Images.

The Ruling We’ve Been Waiting For?

News broke on Friday that SCOTUS will rule once again on marriage equality. Orin Kerr predicts a historic victory:

The briefing schedule indicates that the Court will hear oral argument and decide the cases by the end of June — this Term rather than next Term. I don’t think there’s a lot of uncertainty as to how the Court will rule. Justice Ginsburg’s extrajudicial statements are usually a reliable guide, and her past comments suggest that there are already five votes for a right to SSM.

Garrett Epps considers the possibility of a mixed decision:

[E]ven if Justice Anthony Kennedy’s vote seems foreordained, he must choose between the rights of gays and lesbians—an issue on which he has fashioned a historic legacy—and the prerogatives of the states, about whose “dignity” and honor he has often rhapsodized. He might be tempted to split the baby by holding for the states on the “celebration” issue but for the challengers on “recognition.” (The Court’s grant of review was careful to split the two questions.) That is, he might say, a state could refuse to perform marriages itself, but could not refuse those legally married out of state the benefits of marriage under state law.

But, in a later post, Epps downplays the chances of such a scenario:

Some justices (I name no names) seem to enjoy writing like patent-medicine pitchmen. But even those most critical of Kennedy must admit that his written opinions are achingly, crushingly sincere. He is never just President of Hair Club for Men; he is always a member too. “Recognition” and “celebration” go together like a horse and carriage. I don’t see a way to split them that would allow the Court—or its key justice—to escape this term’s rendezvous with destiny.

David B. Cruz also imagines possible rulings:

It is unthinkable to me that the Court would now turn around and tell the people who married only after it cleared the way for them to do so that the Court was wrong to do that and their marriages were void. I suppose the Court could say, okay, couples already married are protected but other couples in any state where marriage equality exists due to court decree would henceforth not be able to marry. …

Far more likely it is that the Court will issue a decision holding that the Constitution protects same-sex couples’ right to marry – probably by a five-to-four vote judging from the Justices’ positions in the Windsor decision (unless Chief Justice Roberts flip-flops and decides that although his Windsor dissent argued that state marriage exclusions were distinguishable from the federal law partially invalidated in Windsor, on reflection he’s concluded that’s wrong and so, accepting Windsor as precedent, the same-sex couples here win).

Brianne Gorod and Judith E. Schaeffer likewise wonder if Roberts’ vote is gettable:

Roberts has seen what a watershed decision Windsor has been, and he must surely recognize that if the Windsor majority takes the final step to recognize full marriage equality (as it should), that decision will be even more historic and undoubtedly one of the greatest legacies of the Roberts Court. Will Chief Justice Roberts be content to have such a momentous ruling be issued over his dissent, or will John Roberts want to be part of one of the greatest legacies of the Roberts Court?

Ilya Somin thinks the “prospects look good for the pro-same-sex marriage side”:

Thanks to a combination of judicial decisions and legislative changes, there are now 36 states that recognize same-sex marriage. That creates a very different situation than existed even a few years ago, when same-sex marriage was only legal in a small minority of jurisdictions.

Furthermore, both elite and public opinion have moved strongly in a pro-gay marriage direction in recent years. Even some conservative evangelicals have begun to step back from opposing same-sex marriage. The Court certainly does not always follow public opinion. But if a majority of justices are inclined to endorse a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, they are now unlikely to be deterred from doing so by fear of a massive political backlash, of the sort that would have greeted such a ruling a decade ago.

Dale Carpenter agrees that marriage equality is likely to prevail. He emphasizes that “how the Court decides to reach that result is also important”:

Nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage would be a huge victory for gay couples and their children, but it won’t immediately end discrimination against them or against gay people in general. What the Court signals in its decision about the constitutionality of other anti-gay legislation will have substantial legal effects down the road, just as the Court’s decision in Romer v. Evans put an end to growing state-wide efforts to repeal all civil rights law protecting gay people.

One of the court’s options:

The Supreme Court could clear up any remaining doubt by squarely holding that classifications based on sexual orientation are subject to heightened (or close or searching or intermediate) scrutiny. The analysis would be: first, laws denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples are a form of sexual-orientation discrimination because of the close connection between the classification and sexual orientation (like the connection between yarmulke-wearing and Jewishness); second, laws discriminating against gay people raise the usual concerns that justify heightened scrutiny; and third, the state can’t justify the discrimination under the heightened standard.

A suspect-classification decision would logically dispose of proposals like MARFA, the Virginia anti-gay licensing bill, and the anti-gay government-workers bill in Texas. Laws like that would then either be declared unconstitutional as written or would have to be written so as not to target same-sex couples, in which case they might be subject to other constitutional attacks.

Steve Sanders expects that the “question of animus will be prominent – perhaps pivotal – in this final phase of marriage litigation”:

So far, the arguments made by plaintiffs have been remarkably sterile, emphasizing formal equal protection and due process arguments and failing to say much about how the mini-DOMAs actually came into being. But such a picture is incomplete. To fully consider the constitutionality of the remaining anti-marriage laws, we must lift up these proverbial rocks to see what was festering underneath them.

And Richard Socarides looks beyond the ruling:

It’s not unreasonable to expect that the Supreme Court will make same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states. The question, for longtime marriage-equality activists, is what exactly will this achieve, and what will happen next? Will nationwide marriage equality lead in time to full nationwide acceptance, or will they discover, like many civil-rights activists before them, that there is a big gap between legal rights and true equality? This is a big moment for the gay-rights movement, and an important one in which to remember that there is likely more struggle ahead.

(Photo: A same-sex marriage supporter has her forehead painted with rainbow colors as she joins demonstration in front of the Supreme Court on March 27, 2013 in Washington, DC. By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

Our Driverless Future

Google expects the public will be using their driverless cars within two to five years. And there appears to be high demand:

According to a study, as many as 12 million driverless cars—that’s 10% of annual sales of new vehicles—could hit the world’s roads just twenty years from now.

But Emily Badger is unsure how driverless technology will change the auto market:

Here are just two competing theories: Autonomous cars will reduce car ownership, because we’ll simply be able to order them when we need them, and they’ll come to function as shared assets akin to public transit. Alternatively: Autonomous cars will increase car ownership because, as the utility of each vehicles rises (now you can send your 7-year-old to ballet alone!), people will want to own even more of them. These hypotheses are equally plausible and mutually exclusive.

So are a lot of other theories around how autonomous cars will change our travel behavior. If they make travel easier, perhaps autonomous cars will induce new trips that we aren’t making today. You’ll never have to say to yourself on a Friday night, “I think I’ll stay home because I can’t find parking/don’t want to deal with traffic/don’t want to drive home drunk.” As a result, the number of trips and the number of miles we collectively travel could increase.

Or, maybe, autonomous cars will create new efficiencies, enabling better carpooling, less idling in traffic, and smarter route-planning. Computers won’t waste gas getting lost or circling for parking spots. And, as a result, total miles traveled and greenhouse gases will decline.

Stephen L. Carter dismisses some common concerns about the cars:

The most common worry seems to be that the computers that run the cars might be hacked. And there are larger fears. Last summer, the Guardian quoted a restricted reportfrom the Federal Bureau of Investigation warning that criminals or terrorists might use driverless cars to their advantage. Imagine a car bomb whose builder doesn’t need to go to the trouble of recruiting a sufficiently fanatical driver.

These warnings, however, may be less dire than they seem. Yes, there might be harm if the cars were hacked, but that risk would likely be offset by a sharp reduction in drivers operating under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And, yes, terrorists would most certainly find a way to turn autonomous cars to their advantage. But terrorists will find a way to turn every new technology to their advantage. That’s a reason to fight a war on terror, not a war on technology.

Built To Thrill

On a trip to Japan’s Hanegi Playpark, or “Savage Park,” Amy Fusselman found herself surrounded by “structures that looked like what remained when my sons decided to build an airport out of Legos and then abandoned the project halfway through.” She reflects on the history of such free-wheeling “adventure parks”:

A very good resource for someone who is interested in going to a playpark and picking up a hammer and nails and pounding away at scraps of crap to make something is the work of the 19th-century British writer John Ruskin. In Ruskin’s On Art andLife, a contemporary repackaging of two of his essays, “The Nature of Gothic” and “The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy,” he offers a moving plea for allowing men—in particular, the men who built the Gothic cathedrals of the age—to be, as he says, “fully men” and not mere tools of the architect; to be allowed to use their imaginations in their work, to be allowed to make mistakes.

Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try and do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, all his dullness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: But out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon him. And whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will be transfiguration behind and within them.

In this, written more than a 150 years ago, he articulated why my modern-day love of Savage Park was so immediate. It wasn’t just that the children were flying in the air there, it wasn’t just that they were making insanely great structures, it wasn’t just that the playpark hut was a junk lover’s dream. It was because the place existed at all for just this reason: the full and complete allowance of a self, including all the ineptness, failure, and possibility of death—because it is understood that only with this allowance do we have the capacity to be great.

(Photo of Hanegi Park’s “Play at your own risk” area by Driscoll Reid & Bonnie McElfresh)