Utah Legislature asks, “pretty please?”

Posted on 2024-08-22 by David

After gutting the Better Boundaries initiative and having the Utah Supreme Court tell them that wasn’t okay, the Utah Legislature is now asking voters for permission to gut Better Boundaries or any other initiative.

They can wring their hands and clutch their pearls all day long about the dangers of having “super-laws” but the fact is that citizen initiatives are probably the hardest way to pass extreme legislation. Better Boundaries wasn’t extreme (except that it was extremely inconvenient for the GOP majority in the legislature) but the legislature is just using the spectre of extreme initiatives to try to convince us that they should be allowed to override (not simply clarify or amend) the will expressed by the voters at the ballot box.

This is a case study in why it is dangerous to have a single party consistently dominating the politics of the state.

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A perfect endorsement

Posted on 2024-08-19 by David

In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law. As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.

Judge J. Michael Luttig

Judge Luttig has been a strident defender of our constitutional order and I share his view that Trump is “singularly unfit” to be president.

“In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own, but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.”

Judge J. Michael Luttig

I absolutely echo his argument: policy beliefs need to take a back seat to maintaining democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law.

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Tim Walz: The Internet’s dad du jour

Posted on 2024-08-16 by David

This captures why Tim Walz is an example of the man America needs right now:

The meme-ification of Walz seems rooted in a longing for a type of masculinity that’s going extinct in America: the power of a cheerful, useful, helpful, competent, and moral man. A man who knows how to fix things himself, who can make pleasant conversation with strangers, who is polite and courteous rather than boorish and obnoxious.…

…In the MAGA view, the American man has been unjustly torn down and humiliated, and the only way to rectify this is by seeking revenge. But Walz is a living counterexample to their claims. In a time when many American men feel lonely and useless, Walz is presenting an alternative: To be loved and celebrated, you don’t need to be a billionaire…All you need to be is a good guy.

Esquire 2024-08-09

Hopefully nobody thinks I’m suggesting that Tim Walz should be at the top of the ticket—I’m just pleased to see a positive example of a genuinely good guy (regardless of any political leanings) being put in a place of prominence. We need more of that across the political spectrum.

Part of the reason this race was so uninspiring a month ago was that the closest we had to that back then was Joe Biden well past his prime.

Trump, even back in his prime, was never a positive example of a genuinely good guy. There is no time when “bombastic playboy with a fragile ego” is the example we should hold up for a model of manhood.

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How a good Republican lost my vote

Posted on 2024-08-14 by David

{Spencer} Cox recently endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, …

Cox said he changed his position in the wake of the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump.

Newsweek Aug 14, 2024

Over the years that Trump had been turning the GOP into an ideological dumpster fire Spencer Cox has consistently been one of the shrinking cohort of Republicans that managed to keep acting like the pre-Trump GOP—advocating for social conservatism, limited government, and a strong economy.

Apparently having a very concerning version of Joe Biden on the ballot meant that a failed assassination attempt was all the excuse he needed to endorse Trump. With that, he lost my vote.

If Cox had simply encouraged Trump publicly to try unifying the nation I could accept that but getting shot at isn’t any qualification to hold office. Anyone who can’t recognize that Trump is uniquely and permanently unqualified to ever again hold office will find it extremely difficult to get my vote.

I don’t expect a large number of voters would be like me and abandon Cox over this but if they did (and if Phil Lyman could miraculously duplicate his primary results by collecting 45% of the GOP vote) we could end up with a democratic Governor in Utah and serve as an example to the national GOP of just how toxic Trump should have been politically ever since January 6th (the day he lost any remaining shred of qualification to hold office).

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The right tone for Harris Supporters

Posted on 2024-08-12 by David

I’ve been thinking about different ways of campaigning.  I’ve watched 8 presidential campaigns as an eligible voter and until 2016 none of them were dominated by fear and anger. We have learned in the last 8 years that fear, anger, and division are Trump’s natural comfort zones.

With that in mind it has become clear to me that the best path forward for those who don’t want to see another Trump term is to make sure to spend a lot more time sharing a positive vision of the future under a Harris administration than they do spending time sharing a gloomy vision of what the future would look like under a 2nd Trump administration.

Harris and Walz are showing the way in that regard responding to chants of “lock him up” with admonitions to go win at the ballot box in November and just let the courts do their own jobs. They are leading the way as they campaign with joy and enthusiasm with a message of ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to get ahead rather than just scraping by.

The candidates are doing their job in this race. It’s up to those who support them to follow that lead and not get mired in gloomy prognostication about the alternative.

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A solid, down to earth running mate

Posted on 2024-08-09 by David

Just like I didn’t start out hoping for Kamala Harris as the candidate I wasn’t rooting for Tim Walz as the running mate—I hadn’t even heard of him until late in the veepstakes. Before the selection I had concluded that Josh Shapiro would be the best choice.

I’ve always considered that the most important thing about the selection of a running mate is what it signals about how the candidate makes decisions and what they value. In picking Walz, Harris has shown that she recognizes and values someone who’s not busy trying to make a name for themselves. (A sharp contrast to both Trump and Vance.)

Like Harris, I quickly discovered that I really appreciate where Walz is coming from and the more I hear Republican attacks on Walz the more I think, “in his 60 years—including 20 in public office—that’s how you have to stretch to attack him? Sounds pretty good to me!”

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A very fast shift

Posted on 2024-08-08 by David

I was shocked with how quickly my perspective on Kamala Harris began to shift after Joe Biden dropped out. In the first day I forgave Biden for endorsing Harris as I recognized and began to appreciate the magnitude of the compressed timeline remaining in the election. (First I grieved that he had waited so long to drop out.) Shortly after that as I began to listen to Harris articulate for herself instead of trying to promote Biden and as I started hearing more about her background I started to get excited that she was well suited to make the case against Trump and remind viewers what it was like to have a decent candidate who didn’t already belong in a senior center.

I was startled to realize that not only was willing to vote for Harris but I liked her and would be seriously considering her even if her opponent weren’t the least qualified person to ever receive a major party nomination.

What shocked me even more was when, not even 100 hours after Biden stepped out, a voter of my acquaintance proactively brought up how much Harris changed the race for the better. This was the exact kind of voter this race will hinge on—educated, suburban, Republican who votes consistently. She was not a fan of Trump but was concerned enough about Biden to be seriously considering RFK until after Harris became the presumptive nominee. What she said to me that day was, “I certainly don’t agree with her on many issues but it is SO NICE to have a fundamentally decent candidate that I don’t worry if they will be able to fulfill the duties of the office.”

When I heard that I realized that there was a real opening for this race to not only be won by Harris but potentially for Harris to make it a convincing win. I would LOVE to see that.

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Where I’m coming from to support Harris

Posted on 2024-08-07 by David

I’ve already been clear that I am supporting Harris in 2024 but before I explain the why and how of my support I thought it would be helpful to provide some context. In short, my support is not coming from being a longtime fan of Harris.

I have never been a fan of Donald Trump but when he got elected I gave him every chance to prove me wrong. The only way he ever proved me wrong is that I somewhat underestimated exactly how terrible he would be for the country.

In 2020 Joe Biden was not my first choice to run against Trump but I voted for him without hesitation when he was the nominee (first time I’ve voted for a Democratic candidate for president). Before Joe even got elected I argued that he should be a one-term president based on his age. When he decided to run again I was disappointed that nobody seriously challenged him for the nomination. When the possibility of him exiting the race began to gain steam the last thing I wanted was for the party to simply fall back to Kamala Harris.

I would have voted for a comatose Joe Biden rather than vote for Trump and I knew I would vote for Harris over Trump but that was because there were no other reasonable options. When Harris began her campaign I was happy that Biden had stepped aside but sad that he had endorsed her as his replacement in the same breath. Suffice it to say, on July 21st I was expecting to resignedly vote for Harris in November.

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Conservative for Harris

Posted on 2024-08-05 by David

With only 13 weeks to go before the election much of what I say as I start sharing my thoughts online again will be to make the case for why Kamala Harris can win this election and why, from the perspective of a lifelong conservative, the nation would be best served if she did win.

Conveniently I discovered today that a group called Republicans for Harris (@RepsForHarris) launched yesterday. I feel confident that they will be making some of the same arguments I expect to articulate. I had been thinking recently that certain formerly influential Republicans really should publicly endorse Harris and make the case for why Republican voters should support her. I was happy to see that many of the names I had thought of were included on the list of Republicans in this new group

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My new visionary site

Posted on 2024-08-03 by David

I ran into problems with ActivityPub that seem to be due to the hyphens in the site URL. Because of that I decided to transition to a subdomain without hyphenation. I’m leaving Pursuit of Liberty so that I don’t need to update any old links but I brought the history from that site over here so that anyone who comes here will have everything available.

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