We begin today’s roundup with Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times and her analysis of the new age of civic engagement for women:
It’s no secret that American women dislike Trump; a recent poll showed that 57 percent of all female voters disapprove of him, 43 percent strongly. But polls can’t capture the way gut-churning revulsion toward Trump is changing some women’s whole way of being in the world. You see it in the large number of women running for political office and winning. But you also see it in the women, many of them suburban, middle-aged and not particularly radical, who are making political activism the center of their lives.
At USA Today, Senator Diane Feinstein calls for delaying a hearing on Trump’s SCOTUS pick until after the election:
For 18 months, Senate Republicans have conspired with the Trump White House to pack federal courts with radical right-wing judges. They’ve run roughshod over Senate traditions meant to ensure a mainstream judiciary that will follow precedent and adjudicate cases fairly.
Now, facing a second Trump Supreme Court nominee, Republicans want to overturn their own standard, set in 2016, that a nominee shouldn’t be considered during an election year.
While the decision to block Merrick Garland is the most egregious example, Republicans have delayed or denied Democratic presidents their nominees to fill federal judgeships for decades.
At The Nation, John Nichols urges one Republican senator to do the right thing:
The Senate Democratic Caucus consists of 49 members: 47 Democrats and two independents (Maine’s Angus King and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders). If the caucus is united in opposition to a Trump nominee—certainly not an assured circumstance, but a possible one if defenders of an independent judiciary dial up their advocacy—then the opposition needs, at most, two Republicans to derail McConnell and the president.
While Pence can break ties, he cannot vote to create a tie. If the opposition can get a 51-49 vote against the president’s nominee, the nominee is blocked. If one Republican does not vote (presumably Arizona’s ailing Senator John McCain), then the opposition could combine 49 Democratic votes and one Republican vote to prevail on a 50-49 split.
Is this a realistic prospect? Absolutely. Holding 49 Democrats in line and getting one Republican—or, ideally, two—to take the side of right is certainly within the realm of possibility.
But the pursuit of this possibility will yield success only if it is grounded in realism. And underpinned by the hard work of state-based activism. A focus on Washington means little. A targeted and politically savvy focus on key states could mean everything.
Here is Norman Eisen and Andrew M. Wright’s analysis of Robert Mueller’s investigation:
In the Russia investigation, executive privilege will not spare Trump from submitting to questions from Mueller. The public interest in presidential testimony in this matter is compelling because it concerns issues central to a functional democratic system: foreign interference with national elections and any related obstruction of justice that violates the rule of law.
David Graham writes about the possibility of Michael Cohen flipping:
Whatever his motivations, Cohen is learning the lesson that Trump confidants since at least Roy Cohn have all eventually learned: Trump demands loyalty, but he does not offer it in return. It doesn’t matter how many professions of bullet-taking one offers; the president will cut anyone off if it’s useful to him.
As Trump demonstrates his haste to throw over old pals, old pals are reciprocating. The president has seen a surprising number of former aides turn away from him in one way or another. This is clearest in the legal sphere. In addition to Cohen, former National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. On a lower level, so did George Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy adviser to the campaign. Former deputy campaign chair Rick Gates agreed to cooperate, too, though only after having a second round of charges dropped on him. Sam Nunberg, a scorned former aide, testified to Mueller and has criticized Trump publicly. Now comes Cohen.
David Hogg takes on the gun lobby:
If more guns made us safer, the United States, with over 340 million guns – more than the total population of the U.S. – would be the safest country in the world. But the President has it all mixed up; the Second Amendment has us under siege. [...]
The NRA, as an organization (not the individual members), takes pleasure in attacking grieving kids who have survived a mass murder. That befuddled gun-runner, Ollie North, recently called my friends and I “civil terrorists.” We are nothing but school kids pitted against the most powerful lobby in the country. The NRA and politicians that are funded by them are being exposed; the young people can see through the lies that we’ve been force-fed for years.
On a final note, Eugene Robinson urges Democrats to ignore the concern trolling on the right:
Predictably, some Democratic hand-wringers are warning darkly that the very existence of left-of-center candidates such as Ocasio-Cortez, in the bluest districts in the land, will limit the party’s potential gains in the House and imperil some Democrats in the Senate. The thing to do, these worrywarts counsel, is have all candidates stick to bland centrist nostrums, saying nothing that anyone might disagree with.
Which is exactly what the GOP wants.
What Trump-era Republicans stand for is appalling, but it’s something — and you can’t beat something with nothing. At a time of loudmouth politics, the one thing Democrats cannot afford to do is muffle their voices.