[guest post by JVW]

Just before noon Pacific Time tomorrow, Gavin Christopher Newsom will become the fortieth governor of the state of California. Having come up through the political ranks as a member the city’s board of supervisors and then mayor of San Francisco, then as the lieutenant governor of the Golden State, he finally reaches the top office in the state which he no doubt expects to launch him to national prominence and perhaps blaze a pathway to the White House.

Believe it or not, once upon a time Gavin Newsom was (relatively speaking) a breath of fresh air in the stale and putrid Bay Area political climate, and was even popular among a subset of conservative activists. I first heard of him when he made appearances on Laura Ingraham’s radio show in 2002, just before his run for the mayor’s office the following year, to promote his successful “Care Not Cash” plan which sharply decreased cash subsidies paid to San Francisco’s homeless and replaced them with vouchers that could be used for housing and food, but not tobacco or alcohol. At a time when San Francisco seemed to be overrun with aggressive panhandlers (the more things change. . . ) this proposal turned out to be quite popular among Newsom’s constituents in the wealthy Pacific Heights and Marina area of town, though it was anathema to the city’s militant compassion brigades who fought the proposal tooth and nail. Newsom would finish first in a nine-person open primary for the 2003 mayor election, then defeat the runner-up, a hardcore Green Party activist, in that fall’s run-off election by a relatively narrow 53% – 47% margin.

Newsom thus took office as a straight white male (he had been the only one among the eleven San Francisco Supervisors) who had run on what was derided by activists as an anti-homeless platform, who had advertised himself as a fiscal conservative, and who had even paid the local GOP a $500 fee to be an endorsed candidate on one of their endorsement mailers in a previous supervisor election. To say that the far left activists who wield a great deal of influence in Baghdad by the Bay viewed their new mayor with a great deal of suspicion would be an understatement. So Newsom, recently turned 36 and already plotting a rise up the political hierarchy, set about mending fences. Understanding the awesome strength of the LGB (as it was styled in those days; I don’t think they had added the “T” or the “Q” or any other letters back then) lobby, he unilaterally declared that marriage licenses would be granted to same-sex couples in San Francisco. Though his edict was ultimately invalidated by the sate’s supreme court, his move immediately put him in the good graces of the lifestyle left and his support of striking hotel workers later that fall helped him with organized labor. Newsome coasted to reelection in 2007, winning nearly three-quarters of the citywide vote.

As he was ending his first mayoral term, Newsome’s backers were promoting their man as a strong candidate to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor in 2011, just as he would be completing his second term as mayor. These plans were derailed by two simultaneous personal embarrassments to Newsome: the acknowledgment that he had conducted a extramarital affair with his campaign manager’s wife during the dissolution of his marriage to former Victoria Secret model and current former Fox News hostess Kimberly Guilfoyle, and an announcement from Newsom that he would seek treatment for alcoholism, though he now claims that he never followed through with formal rehab and has resumed occasional drinking. After announcing his candidacy for governor in April 2009, 18 months before the election, he switched his objective to the lieutenant governor’s office later that fall once it became clear that Jerry Brown had a clear path to the top job. In an election that nationally rejuvenated the Republican Party owing to frustration with Obama’s Washington, Brown rode a wave of disillusionment with Schwarzenegger to victory and dragged along Newsom (who received half a million fewer votes than Brown) to Sacramento with him.

The Lieutenant Governor of California naturally has very little to do, so in many ways it is the perfect place for an aspiring politician to develop a statewide network and position himself for a future run for the big office (viz Gray Davis). Newsom set about styling himself as a leading advocate for technology (there’s big campaign money there, after all), and as both a member of the University of California Board of Regents and a trustee of the California State University system he dabbled in higher education policy, unsurprisingly coming out in favor of lower tuition and higher taxpayer contributions to the system. As he had done a decade earlier with gay marriage, Newsom jumped on the marijuana legalization bandwagon very early and advocated early parole for those convicted of drug-related crimes. This positioning paid off nicely as Newsom easily fended off what could have been a serious challenge from former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and coasted to victory in last fall’s gubernatorial race.

So what kind of guy is California getting as governor? For all of his earnest wokeness, Gavin Newsom is practically the definition of white privilege — er, White Privilege. He is at least the fourth generation of Newsoms to have attended college, and his father was a state appeals court judge and the attorney for Getty Oil, a connection which would grease the skids for young Gavin who had no problem raising capital to open his own winery and then expand the business which made him a multi-millionaire when he eventually sold his interests to embark upon his political career. Like his fellow Democrat Senator Kamala Harris, Newsom was guided into the San Francisco political world by the notorious fixer Willie Brown, though unlike the comely Ms. Harris, Newsome presumably maintained his feet on the ground throughout the mentorship.

Gavin Newsome reaches his (pen)ultimate dream tomorrow morning, but it may turn out that he’s grasping the poisoned chalice. Everyone from his predecessor to otherwise friendly newspaper opinion pages is warning that the strong economy might be in peril, and that the Golden State faces some serious challenges in pensions, education, housing, and water, issues that Brown left to fester during the past eight years, his victory lap notwithstanding. Considering the number of big-ticket items that Newsom has pledged to explore, from universal pre-K to paid work leave to universal healthcare for all state residents, even a slight slowdown in growth, let alone a recession, will make those plans little more than pipe dreams. The great white heterosexual male hope of progressives, perhaps the last one we see for a while in the intersectionality-obsessed Golden State, has his work cut out for him.

– JVW

It is the Epiphany of Our Lord. Today’s Bach music is Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, parts 5 and 6.

Today’s Gospel reading is Matthew 2:1-12:

The Magi Visit the Messiah

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the Jewish lands at the time of King Herod, behold, there came sages from the east towards Jerusalem and said:

Where is the new-born King of the Jews?
Seek Him within my breast,
He lives here, to His and my delight!

. . . .

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and with him all of Jerusalem.

. . . .

And he had all the high priests and interpreters of Scripture among the people gathered together, and inquired of them where Christ was supposed to be born. And they answered him: In Bethlehem in the Jewish lands: for thus it is written through the Prophets: and you, Bethlehem, in the Jewish lands, are by no means the least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come the leader to me, who shall be a Lord over my people Israel.

Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

[guest post by JVW]

Another year, more ridiculous opinions from the Los Angeles Times. This one is all about the fact that key organizers of the Women’s March have been exposed as rank anti-semites. That ought to be an embarrassment to anyone of good will and common decency, but the Dog Trainer gives space to the always-delusional columnist Robin Abcarian to argue, hey, what’s the big deal about a little bit of Jew-hating among allies?

The original Women’s March national co-chairs are a varied group: white, black, Latina, Palestinian.

Last March, according to a detailed account in Tablet, an online magazine that reports on Jewish news and culture, three of the Women’s March founders praised Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan during a conference call with leaders of the group’s state chapters, despite his abysmal record of anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism.

Tablet reported that some women were offended that the group’s leaders did not denounce Farrakhan on the spot. His rhetoric, they felt, could not be reconciled with the inclusive principles of the Women’s March.

Personally, I find Farrakhan’s world view vile. Yet, I think it is possible to be repulsed by his hateful rhetoric about white people, especially Jews, and still appreciate some of the empowerment work that he has done in the black community, including leading the 1995 Million Man March to promote African American family unity.

Yeah. Rev. Jim Bakker stole money and fooled around with his young secretary, but he led a bunch of people to Jesus Christ so let’s not dwell on what a sleazebag he was and let’s totally give the benefit of the doubt to all the televangelists who admire and seek to emulate him. Do you think Ms. Abcarian attempted to draw an equivalence to Donald Trump supporters too? But of course:

How about all those Trump admirers who overlook his constant and casual expressions of racism, or his more pointedly racist call to execute five young men of color — later exonerated in the rape and beating of a Central Park jogger — whom he described in four full-page newspaper ads as “roving bands of wild criminals”?

And hey, it hardly matters if the organizers are bigots and hypocrites when they are empowering women!

In January 2017, I flew to Washington to cover the march in a plane jam packed with women and girls flaunting pink pussy hats. Three generations of women in my family converged for the demonstration.

It was one of the most inspiring public events I’d ever attended — on par with the inauguration of President Obama in 2009 — a torrential display of high spirits, patriotism and idealism.
In November, I daresay, we saw the fruits of the original Women’s March on Washington.

[. . .]

While organizers of the Women’s March battled over who said what to whom about Jewish people when, and the merits of a noted anti-Semite, American women stood up by the millions and changed the country.

For that, everyone involved in the Women’s March can take a bow.

And with that, Robin Abcarian declares that angry leftist women greatly outrank the Jewish people — by several steps it would seem — in the intersectionality sweepstakes, and we should all just give a pass to the open ugliness of that whole crew. What an awful column, what a sadly blinkered woman, and what a garbage newspaper the Los Angeles Times continues to be. Happy New Year to them. I have never regretted cancelling my subscription to that rag fifteen years ago.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

We’re not even a full week into the new year and it looks like DUMB is already defining 2019. I’m annoyed, too, because I spent a ridiculous amount of time scouring the internet for those alleged evil Republicans/center-right/conservatives supposedly hating on everybody’s “lovable but earnestly dumb niece” because of a fun dance video that was posted on Twitter yesterday. Posted by some dope who apparently wanted to stir the pot, hoping a bunch of judgmental, tsk-tsking, repressed troglodytes on the right side of the aisle would point long, bony fingers of judgment because a college kid had some fun. (Like we never shook it with carefree abandon when that perfect beat pounded in our ears and we were on the eve of our lives.) Except, I couldn’t find any troglodytes criticizing her for the video. Instead, I found people on the right giving her a happy thumbs-up, while making fun of the individual who posted the video. Yet from the left side of the aisle came unfounded accusations that those on the right were attacking the congresswoman. There was no proof offered. Just a lot of indignant blathering. But we know the game: perception is everything. If it can be pushed hard enough into the collective mind, spread throughout the interwebs from “credible” sources, then it must be true.

Via Dan Jordan, here is the video of AOC, released by AnonymousQ, and captioned “Here is America’s favorite commie-know-it-all acting like the clueless nitwit she is…High School video of “Sandy” Ocasio-Cortez:

…High School video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Congratulations New York! pic.twitter.com/VSKdUImhZj

— Dan Jordan (@realdanjordan) January 2, 2019

Today Ocasio-Cortez demonstrated that, although a novice, she knows how this game is played. In a clever tweet, she didn’t just hit the Twitter user that posted the video, but instead she threw the entire GOP (Republicans/center-right/conservatives) into one big monolithic basket of deplorables as she poked back at the imagined outrage. That’s why she lost me. Well, that and her policy positions. She may hold pie-in-the-sky views that I think are just silly, but credit due: she is a quick study when it comes to understanding how optics and perception work in politics, and how far they can take you:

I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.

Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too! 💃🏽

Have a great weekend everyone pic.twitter.com/9y6ALOw4F6

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 4, 2019

Anyway, on to something equally ridiculous. Last night, a newly sworn in Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib partied at an event hosted by MoveOn. During the festivities, she told the crowd:

“And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look, you won. Bullies don’t win.’ And I say, ‘Baby, they don’t.’ Because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker.”

And the crowd whooped and hollered and cheered her on:

Congresswoman @RashidaTlaib tells cheering crowd that Trump impeachment coming

“We’re going to go in and impeach the motherfucker” pic.twitter.com/oQJYqR78IA

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 4, 2019

Tlaib, who is the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to Congress, was unapologetic today, saying:

I will always speak truth to power. #unapologeticallyMe

GOP leadership wasn’t happy with what Tlaib said, and called on Pelosi to condemn the Democrat’s comments about Trump:

“She has a freshman, incoming individual that uses that type of language that has a determination of what she’s going to do with no facts or basis,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Friday at a press conference. “I think this is a role as a leader and Speaker to have a conversation with this member on whether she approves of this or not.”

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) didn’t specify what type of disciplinary action he thinks should be taken, but said the language needs to be addressed by Democratic leaders.

“She’s got to make that decision. I’m surely not one to tell Nancy Pelosi what to do, but I think it’s a real test for her, how she responds to this. And it will continue happening if she doesn’t address the problem,” he told reporters Friday. “How was she going to stand up to the most radical-left elements of her party when they become unhinged? And it didn’t take long. Literally, on the first day it happened. That’s going to be a test for her and her Speakership.”

Pelosi responded to calls for Tlaib to be disciplined:

“I probably have a generational reaction to it,” Pelosi told MSNBC’s Joy Reid when asked her response to the comments. “But in any event, I’m not in the censorship business.”

“I don’t think that — I mean, I don’t like that language. I wouldn’t use that language,” Pelosi said. “I don’t, again, establish any language standards for my colleagues. But I don’t think it’s anything worse than what the president has said.”

(Other Democrats publicly called out the freshman for both her language and talk about impeachment. They include John Lewis, Emanuel Cleaver, and Jerry Nadler.)

All in all though, it’s pretty funny when you consider who the GOP members complaining about Tlaib’s language supported in the 2016 election. Yeah, this guy:

Here's the entire compilation of Trump swearing up a fucking storm.

If you are offended by Rashida Tlaib's colorful language but not Trump's, your problem might not be the language.#fridayfeeling #fridaymotivation pic.twitter.com/GaIIqu2qJL

— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) January 4, 2019

Because, in their world, the biggest concern about Tlaib is that shedirected profanity at the president, not her anti-Israel stand and the anti-Semitic company she keeps.

Seriously, though, who are the motherf*****s here?? Because it looks like any number of possible candidates are in the running.

Oh, and before I leave, here is President Trump’s reaction to Tlaib’s comments:

“I thought her comments were disgraceful” and “disrespectful” to the United States.

Now, please: go find a rooftop, Crank It Up, get moving, and have a great weekend!

(Cros-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

[Update by JVW]– Curse you, Kate Hyde!

I'm not sorry. pic.twitter.com/EuPOa2ashB

— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) January 4, 2019

– JVW

Many are responding to Mitt Romney’s critique of Trump’s character by saying that all Trump does is tweet mean stuff. Those who say that are laughably and willfully blind. Jonah Goldberg points out a few other glaring problems with the man, and notes the consequences: you will never be able to criticize a Democrat again for bad character, without being laughed at by people who will not forget:

Trump’s inability to hold onto cabinet secretaries of quality; his determination to shrink his political coalition; his refusal to do the minimum due diligence to understand and thereby explain his policy preferences; his incapacity to let insults, real or perceived, go unanswered; his relentless prevarication and insurmountable narcissism; his insistence on denigrating allies; his penchant for conspiracy theories and his unwavering pettiness: All of these things are reflections of his character, too. And they will have consequences for Trump, the GOP, the conservative movement, and the country. Roger can ignore or minimize these all he likes, but it will not persuade anyone who isn’t already a believer.

I often like to ask my AlwaysTrump friends, “What can the next Democratic president do that you won’t look like a hypocrite for criticizing?” No doubt there are some plausible policy answers to this. After all, Trump hasn’t pushed socialized medicine — at least not as president. But in terms of almost every other metric of the president’s role and responsibilities, Trump’s most unequivocal defenders are leaving themselves stranded on very small parcel of ground to stand upon once the Trump presidency is over. And their new attitude toward the issue of character barely leaves enough ground to stand on one foot.

There is much else to admire in Goldberg’s column. For example, he dissects several techniques used by Trump superfans, like whataboutism, box-checking (“to be sure, nobody thinks Donald Trump is a saint…”), the pretense to ignorance (“gee, I can’t remember his attacks on free speech!”), and the like. But the quoted passage strikes to the heart of it.

Read it all.

As Goldberg says, “the transactional defense of Donald Trump is intellectually defensible.” And I know that is the stance of many here. What irks folks like Goldberg and me is when people take the next step and engage in the various dishonest techniques described in this column, just because hey, we have chosen sides.

I long ago lost any respect for such people, and I no longer engage them. I consider discussion to be critical to society, but many people are simply not worth talking to. I liken it to jury selection. It is critical to talk to potential jurors and find out where they are coming from, but any trial lawyer worth his or her salt can easily spot the people not worth spending your limited time talking to. They are already against you and there is nothing more to be learned from further interaction.

So I don’t discuss Trump with such people. I simply don’t talk to them at all, unless it is to mock them for sport.

And when the next character-flawed Democrat comes along, I will be here to remind those people that they have no standing to complain about character.

Those who, like many of you, support the transactional defense — we don’t like the guy but we think he is good on balance and we will not dishonestly defend him — are still OK with me. I might think you’re wrong, but we can talk about it.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

[guest post by JVW]

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting profile of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid which is dated today but I assume will be running in this Sunday’s print edition. Though I have always found the former senator to be a loathsome character, let’s right away acknowledge a fact of which I was unaware and that I don’t know has been widely reported:

Reid, who is 79, does not have long to live. I hate to be so abrupt about this, but Reid probably would not mind. In May, he went in for a colonoscopy, the results of which caused concern among his doctors. This led to an M.R.I. that turned up a lesion on Reid’s pancreas: cancer. Reid’s subdued and slightly cold manner, and aggressive anticharisma, have always made him an admirably blunt assessor of situations, including, now, his own: “As soon as you discover you have something on your pancreas, you’re dead.”

I had planned to visit Reid, who had not granted an interview since his cancer diagnosis, in November, but he put me off, saying he felt too weak. People close to him were saying that he had months left, if not weeks.

The writer, Mark Leibovich, is likely a Democrat of some or other stripe, though his other writing for the magazine doesn’t appear at first glance to be heavily partisan. He gives his subject plenty of room to criticize the President, the GOP, and Washington in general, but he also reminds his readers that Harry Reid bears a great deal of responsibility for the ill will that pervades throughout Washington these days:

Reid once called the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan a “political hack,” Justice Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment” and President George W. Bush a “loser” (for which he later apologized) and a “liar” (for which he did not). In 2016, he dismissed Trump as “a big fat guy” who “didn’t win many fights.” Reid himself was more than ready to fight, and fight dirty: “I was always willing to do things that others were not willing to do,” he told me.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, he claimed, with no proof, that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes over the past decade. Romney released tax returns showing that he did. After the election, Reid told CNN by way of self-justification, “Romney didn’t win, did he?” Reid took rightful criticism over this.

[. . .]

In some ways, Washington, under Trump, has devolved into the feral state that Reid, in his misanthropic heart, always knew it could become under the right conditions.

Misanthropic, needy, and vain are some of the characteristics of Reid that come across in this profile. Though the future senator grew up in a broken home in a town that supposedly contained “at least a half-dozen brothels and not a single church” (this might be the kind of hokum and bunkum that someone like Harry Reid passes along to a NYT Magazine profiler), he now lives in what Leibovich calls “a McMansion in a gated community outside of Las Vegas,” and the former senator has round-the-clock security protecting him. Always bumbling and clumsy where issues of diversity are concerned, the host makes a big deal of showing his guest a menorah that he has brought out for Hanukkah, even though the reporter describes himself as having only nominal Jewish identity. In an era where intersectionality is now the organizing principle of the left, we aren’t likely to see a Harry Reid type in this kind of leadership role anytime soon.

It can’t be easy to have to come to grips with your legacy on your deathbed. Reid admits that he still follows the Washington scene pretty closely. He takes pride in his role in passing Obamacare, and he defends curtailing the filibuster for judicial appointments pointing out that it helped confirm 100 judges appointed by President Obama, even if it did allow Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to win confirmation to the Supreme Court. He speaks with his successor, Chuck Schumer, from time to time though it sounds as if Schumer is not particularly interested in any advice that Reid has to offer, and he maintains contact with old friends Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin. But Reid’s essential weirdness continues to be a hallmark of his character. He tells Leibovich a sappy and almost certainly untrue story of his last conversation with John McCain, which even the mostly respectful reporter finds highly unbelievable:

Reading Reid can be difficult. Is he playing a game or working an angle or even laughing at a private joke he just told himself? When speaking of his final goodbye with McCain, he broke into a strange little grin, his lips pressed upward as if he could have been stifling either amusement or tears. It occurred to me that Reid, typically as self-aware as he is unsentimental, could have been engaged in a gentle playacting of how two old Senate combatants of a fast-vanishing era are supposed to say goodbye to each other for posterity.

Harry Reid’s legacy is uniformly negative. He pursued political power relentlessly and showed no scruples about impugning the character and motives of men and women far more worthy than he as he scrapped his way through Washington. He’s one of those “public servants” who arrived in our nation’s capital as a man of moderate wealth, yet left 35 years later having increased his holdings by at least tenfold and possibly as much as fifteen times their original worth, all while keeping two households (Nevada and Washington) on a Senator’s salary which topped out at $194,000 and with a wife whom I don’t believe ever worked outside the Reid home. We can wish him smooth passage to his eternal reward yet still recognize that Senator Tom Cotton’s assessment of him is just as trenchant today as it was when it was delivered two-and-one-half years ago.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Mitt Romney published an op-ed in the Washington Post critical of President Trump and his lack of character:

The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.

It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.

It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.

The world is also watching. America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed. Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world…

Of course, right out the gate, it’s funny to watch those who who pinned the ridiculous “binders of women” label on Romney, and blamed him for a woman’s death from cancer, now cheering him on for his bravery in speaking out against Trump. It’s also equally funny to see Trump’s base not just bash Romney for going after Trump, but for going after him in a #FakeNews outlet!

Both President Trump and GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel came out responded to Romney’s op-ed in separate tweets:

Some people are suggesting this is Mitt’s first move toward a run in 2020. The GOP is obviously concerned about the possibility, given a sudden push to thwart any Trump primary challenge coming just two hours after Romney’s op-ed was published:

A member of the Republican National Committee, fearing primary challengers to President Trump in the wake of incoming GOP Sen. Mitt Romney’s scathing op-ed, is urging fellow committee members to change the rules to thwart intra-party threats to Mr. Trump in 2020.

In an email obtained by CBS News, Jevon O.A. Williams, the national committeeman for the Virgin Islands, urged fellow elected RNC members Tuesday night to push for an “unprecedented” rule change in the wake of the Romney op-ed’s “calculated political treachery.” Williams wants to close “loopholes” in the nomination in a way that would make it tougher for even token challengers to Mr. Trump to enter the fray. The Washington Examiner first reported the letter.

Specifically, Williams urged fellow RNC members to change Rule 40, which requires a candidate for the nomination to garner support from a majority of delegates in at least five states or territories in order to be placed on the nominating ballot at the Republican National Committee Convention. Williams also called for a resolution to declare Mr. Trump the presumptive nominee in 2020, calling for both of those moves to take place at an RNC winter meeting later this month.

“While President Trump would win re-nomination it wouldn’t come quick and it wouldn’t be inexpensive. Any contested re-nomination campaign—even a forlorn hope—would only help Democrats,” Williams wrote. “Accordingly, I am asking for your support to take the unprecedented step of amending the rules to close loopholes in the re-nomination campaign, including Rule 40.”

In light of Romney’s political history and policy stands, and the fact that he is not the “streetfighter” that Trump is (which his base loves), it’s very hard to see Trump’s populist followers shifting their support from Trump to a gentlemanly billionaire with a solid, working moral compass and less than hard right political stands. Moreover, this is the same Mitt Romney who went to meet with Trump after he was elected to kiss his ring, and praised Trump and his first year accomplishments.

There is the possibility that its Trump’s success or failure at building his wall that will be the determining factor for his supporters and fellow Republicans looking ahead to 2020, and not whether a president has character, is ethical, has executive experience, and has a complete understanding of history, law, politics, and how government works. Because those qualities obviously no longer matter to the GOP.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Good for Mitt. I’m not going to hail him as some kind of hero; his allowing himself to be used during the hunt for a Secretary of State is consistent with his long history of lacking backbone at important moments. That said, it’s important that a Senator say screamingly obvious things like this on his way in, and not just on his way out. It could conceivably give courage to others to do so.

The United States of America is the closest thing I have seen in my lifetime to the story of the emperor who has no clothes. All you need to do to make the congruence perfect is tweak the story a little. In the tweaked version, the emperor has no clothes, and emperor’s enemies all scream that he is naked and make up false claims about a deadly rash on his naked buttocks. Meanwhile, his supporters pretend not to notice his naked body and, when asked about it directly, uncomfortably say that the emperor’s clothes may not be what they themselves would wear, but let’s focus on what’s important and next question please.

Mitt here is clearly saying that the emperor has no clothes. That should not be an act that takes courage, but for an incoming Senator it is — although the amount of courage required in Utah is considerably less than would be required almost anywhere else.

I say we applaud Mitt for this op-ed, but it’s still Mitt. If you think this is the beginning of a long Senatorial career of proudly standing on principle, you’re bound to be disappointed.

UPDATE BY PATTERICO x2: Here’s Rand Paul demonstrating a distinct lack of the sort of courage Romney has displayed:

And *you* want to signal that you're kissing the ass of President Trillion Dollar Deficit. Go do anatomically impossible things to yourself. https://t.co/aaGQlTlkg3

— Patterico (@Patterico) January 2, 2019

UPDATE BY DANA: McKay Coppins sums up Romney’s appearance with Jake Tapper on CNN, which you can watch here:

[guest post by JVW]

Yesterday marked the start of the final week of the governorship of Edmund G. Brown, Jr., known to one and all as Jerry (or, from prior days “Moonbeam”). He is now the longest-serving governor of the Golden State, having been first elected as the successor to Ronald Reagan back in 1974 (Gerald Ford was President and “Angie Baby” by Helen Reddy was Billboard’s Number One Single when he was first inaugurated) and then making a return to office after the ignoble close of the Arnold Schwarzenegger experiment.

Jerry Brown’s first term as governor, coming as it did during the mid-70s recession, was a rather mixed affair. Only 36 when he took office, he blended a general fiscal pragmatism with aggressive social liberalism, a mix that proved popular in California despite Brown also developing a reputation as a vacillating flake due to his penchant for self-promotion and his ability to flip-flop on key issues such as support for Proposition 13, an initiative to limit property taxes and require a higher hurdle to enact tax increases which Brown first opposed and then, after its passage, came to embrace. (People forget that Arthur Laffer of the Laffer Curve fame was behind Brown’s flat tax proposal when he ran for President in 1992.) Though Brown left Sacramento in 1982 to mixed reviews — and having suffered the double indignity of losing his Senate race to Pete Wilson and seeing one of his harshest critics, George Deukmejian, succeed him as governor — he had done well enough so as to not foreclose any chances for future office.

And, of course, that’s how we ended up with him again eight years ago, after the dismal end to the Schwarzenegger years. Brown came into office facing a potential $27 billion deficit to what was then a $87 billion general fund budget and immediately imposed spending restraints on the Democrat leadership in the state legislature while also convincing the people of California to raise sales and income taxes with a 2012 ballot initiative (thereby keeping a promise that taxpayers would have to approve tax increases) and bring more revenue into the state. Brown and the state benefited greatly from the boom in tech companies during the aughts, which helped fill state coffers, kept the budget in balance despite a rather reckless increase in spending, and even set aside $14 billion in a “rainy day fund,” an idea promoted by Brown to help mitigate the effects on the budget of a future recession.

But contrary to Brown’s valedictory lap on his way out the door, he leaves behind some only barely-hidden problems that are sure to rear their heads probably sooner rather than later. He has done very little to prepare the state for the coming pension reckoning, other than supporting efforts to have the courts agree that pension promises can be scaled back to reflect economic reality. The fact that a Democrat governor with an overwhelmingly Democrat legislature was unable to cut a pension deal with public employee unions isn’t exactly a profile in courage, though it is certainly preferable to his successor who has vowed to protect the ridiculous promises even if the court rules that pensions can be cut. After keeping his party’s predilection for extravagant spending in line during the first four years of his second go-around in Sacramento, Brown largely capitulated to the big spenders and under his watch the budget’s general fund (i.e., expenses not paid for by issuing bonds) increased from $87 billion in 2011-12 to nearly $139 billion for 2018-19, with the total budget including bond revenue and expenditures now topping $200 billion. The growth in the general fund represents an increase of 60% at a time when the combined inflation rate and population growth over that same period came in at about 18%. Even accounting for exiting from a recession, that’s an irresponsible rate of growth. Ironically enough, Brown seems to understand that it is not sustainable, but he lacked the courage to end his second attempt at governing with the same budget sensibility with which he began it.

Along with his surrender to the big spenders, Brown’s weird obsession with the grossly mis-managed high-speed rail project and his refusal to ditch or even scale-back the project is likely to hurt his legacy, as will his inability to promote meaningful water storage legislation and wilderness fire abatement legislation, both of them hampered by his slavish devotion to the hardcore environmental movement. And, as even the NPR article acknowledges, California under Brown accelerated the rate at which middle class families were priced out of home ownership, and California under Brown’s watch remained the state with the highest percentage of residents in poverty when adjusted for cost of living, even as overall wealth in the state rapidly grew.

Oddly enough, though, we’re going to miss him. Despite the warnings from Brown and the ominous storm clouds gathering, Gavin Newsom seems determined to pursue progressive trophies such as single-payer health care, expanded public housing options for the indigent and mentally ill, rent control, government-mandated high wages, and business regulation that even Brown thought was unwise (more on Newsom later). With Democrat control essentially strangling the state, we can expect economic opportunity to retract while government primacy expands in every corner from Crescent City to Chula Vista, and from Tahoe to Tiburon. If it’s true that the measure of a successful politician is whether or not his or her successors continue with the same agenda, I fear that Jerry Brown will go down as a rank failure.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Well, it looks like 2020 is going to be quite the ride:

We know him. We’ve seen him like this before. Nothing new, but I’m buckling up just in case.

Thank you to all Patterico readers, commenters and lurkers for another year of debate, argument, and insight. Thanks to our host for opening up his place for us to meet. As considerate guests, let’s try not to spill on the carpet or on those sitting next to us. Put a coaster under your glass and don’t be sloppy. Let’s keep this place looking as nice as it was when we first arrived by making an effort to not interrupt the flow of conversation with a big, messy spill that needs to be cleaned up. Here’s to another year of hanging out in the best living room around.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

Can’t help but chortle at Liberty University’s (hello Reverend Falwell!) big win over UCLA in men’s basketball the other day. Preseason ranking for UCLA: 24. Preseason ranking for Liberty: 215. It got the UCLA coach fired.

I know we have readers and commenters with UCLA backgrounds. This isn’t meant to be a knock against you (though your alma mater did sell its soul to the Ball family three years ago). I am just enjoying the fact that a school which the majority of the people of the Golden State no doubt look down upon just whipped ass on the most storied program in NCAA basketball.

– JVW