I am taking a brIef break from the Hays issue to respond briefly to what I have been seeing(and hearing)on television. This mostly related to guns, attempting to bring about a coup, and Roe V Wade. My questions are 1) What does this mean for each of our parties? 2) What will be the effect on the mid-term elections? The two are not unrelated.

First, the gun decision. The court spoke strongly, 6-3. But do note that 1/3 of that 6 member majority did not go along with the other 4 all the way. Justice Kavanaugh filed a “concurring opinion” and was joined by the chief justice. This means that they agreed with the overall decision but not all the legal reasoning and/or fine points involved. These two justices are considered what some legal scholars call “controlling,” because on some issues they could flip to the other side which would give them and the three liberals a 5-4 majority.

This is not too likely and it is possible that , as some commentators have suggested, they did it as a maneuver to make the court appear more moderate, but it is potentially significant. There is also an issue regarding the 43 states that are defined as “may carry” states. This gets too complicated to go into here, but see a good article in the current USA Today, i.e. the Jun 24 edition (where I got most of my info) for more.

Of course, the bottom line, at least for now, is that the Supreme Court has cast its weight and prestige behind those who favor extensive freedom in gun carrying and are hostile to attempts to restrict it. This is likely, at least in the short term, to mean more people carrying more guns. My own opinion is that this is a bad decision, potentially worse than just bad, on two levels.

Most importantly, it will mean more outrages and more people victimized by other people, some of them clearly mentally/emotionally unstable, carrying guns. This is simply the conclusion one reaches when looking at the facts and using common sense. The court took a wrong turn and many may pay for it. I know the argument that the law is the law(likewise, the Constitution), but I cannot get on board with it here. How much pain is enough for this legal point?

(There have been many discussions in legal history of whether one should insist on a literal interpretation of the law–and by extension, a constitution–or consider the social effects of a legal decision– “Fiat Justitia Ruat Coellum” in Latin, or, roughly, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” This theory, dating back at least to ancient Rome and maybe even to the Old Testament, has much to be said for it. But when public lives are at stake I think some allowances for both compassion and reality have to be made)

In any event, we have here a clear demonstration of something we already knew–Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Appointees will nearly always vote together and they do make a difference. In my opinion, this is too bad. I don’t like where they are leading the USA

Then we have the recent(and by no means finished)hearings on what now cannot be denied was an attempt by Trump to pull off something like what we would call a coup in somebody else’s country. He planned and tried to instigate a reversal of a Presidential election. There have always been disputes about the honesty of elections(This too goes back at least to Ancient Rome)and we have had one disputed presidential election that brought us close to disaster in 1876. But that was essentially a matter of sorting out what happened in a number of states in which there was some serious doubt(on the part of many) about the voting, though not much about the fact that some of it was crooked. I will even go so far as to say a politically motivated Congress likely made the wrong decision.

Even so, there still has been nothing before like what Trump and a few of his closer supporters tried to do. This involved a serious attempt to corrupt state officials in several states, particularly Arizona and Georgia and simply ignore the real vote. It also involved doing this via an organized attempted intimidation of the Justice Department including the subornation of illegal actions on the part of a number of its leaders. Fortunately, most of the people he tried to corrupt have more of a sense of honor and simply more sense than their boss. But taken together with the riot of Jan 6, it looks as if it might have been a close thing. So far the Committee is doing what appears to be an excellent job and I think it may be enough to sink Trump’s possible future Presidential ambitions. But this remains to be seen.

Then(and it we knew it was coming , but not when or exactly what it would be)came the Supreme Court again, this time on Roe v Wade. Once again we have a 6-3 conservative ruling on one aspect, the Mississippi law–it was 5-4 with the chief justice joining the 3 liberals on Roe itself. There are around a thousand opinions of what this does and what it is going to mean. What there s no doubt about, however, is that this is the most serious court initiated disturbing of the civil peace and our social order in years, perhaps decades. Just the Roe decision appears to be enough to have done this. These three issues create a truly volatile situation which will certainly lead to at least harsh words and further misunderstanding and hostility between(or among)the different segments of our population which are involved.

My primary–and possibly only–interest in the rest of this blog is the likely political results of the above events. On the whole all the smart money(which mainly means TV commentators and editorial writers)is on the Republicans to do well in the mid-terms. The country may go through a number of traumas involving physical violence, bad inflation and others. Approval of the President has dropped significantly. The GOP is gaining in popularity polls and the Democrats are slipping badly. I see why many people feel it looks like a Republican year. I nearly feel so too.

In addition to the above matters, it seems to me that Trump may still help his party even though a number of Republicans now clearly wish he’d just shut up. Trump no longer has the grip on the GOP he had right after leaving office. This is apparent in a number of recent primaries. But this slight waning of his power may encourage some non-Trump(or anti-Trump)Republicans and Independents to consider returning to the fold.

Somewhat ironically, the fact that Trump’s influence remains considerable in spite of the above, may keep some others on the Republican path . He still has what appears to be an unshakable grip on somewhere in the vicinity of 1/2(maybe more) of the nation’s Republicans, and his continued still strong influence is likely to solidify their loyalty to him and the party. So the Republicans might profit from both people who adore Trump and those who have some doubts remaining faithful at the polls.

Actually, there seems no doubt that the current facts of American life favor the GOP. Inflation is high and while not all of that is Biden’s fault, he is likely to get nearly all the blame, particularly considering his White House’s so far disappointing performance on communicating with the public.

Secondly there is a widespread and I think not very well reasoned doubt of Biden’s ability to handle the job. With the exception of Afghanistan(and I think there’s never been an adequate explanation OR investigation of that particular disaster)he seems to have done the job fairly well. But his explaining his actions to the public has often sounded uncertain and weak-willed.

Of course, this may be turning around. I thought he was close to eloquent in denouncing the Supreme Court Second Amendment case. He also appears to have had success in rallying NATO against Putin and for Ukraine.(Two new members for NATO and 200,000 more US troops in Eastern Europe were not what Putin was hoping for when he stared this mess last winter) But foreign policy usually does not overcome domestic, particularly with strong emotions involved, such as those engendered by guns and abortion. It also rarely takes precedence over the economy when people are feeling pain and/or angry about their personal and familial situations. Of course, there is a new joker in the deck thanks to the spectacular hearings regarding Trump and Jan 6 and it may be some time before even an educated guess can be made on the effect of all this. The immediate effect of the Jan 6 Hearings seems to be anti-Trump and by extension most likely anti-Republican. But will that last long?

I will say, for the second time I guess, that I think Donald Trump’s chances of ever being President again are about gone. But this could be neutral or even good for other Republicans and how the party fares in the mid-terms.

So as of now, my own thoughts are these–the odds strongly favor the Republicans. They are almost certain to win the House of Representatives where they only need about a 5 seat gain. The average gain in mid-term elections for the party not holding the Presidency is more like 20 to 30. So they appear solid favorites there. (Since the end of WWII the average gain for the non-White House holding party is 26 seats–or maybe 29–it depends on whose statistics you look at—with an unpopular President–popularity rating less than 50%–it may be as high as the upper 30’s–with a popular President–more than 50% approval ratings–it may be in the low to mid teens. Obviously, we now have the former situation. This could change dramatically, but might still leave Biden below 50%)

The now evenly divided Senate is a tougher call. There are more Republican Senate seats up for grabs than the Democrats have and the Dems have found some good candidates. But despite this, the latest polls show the GOP gaining prospective voters for the House AND the total number of registered Republicans increasing. If I had to risk money on this and had no other interest in it I’d bet on the GOP to win the House of Representatives With some trepidation I’d bet on the Dems to increase a little bit their Senate majority. I’d look for a GOP victory of 30 seats or so in the House giving them about a 25-30 vote majority. The Dems might increase their ranks by 2 or maybe 3. Two should and three would pretty much guarantee an end to the Sinema-Manchion era of obstructing their party. Such a set up–with the two Houses split in their loyalties would actually be a Republican victory because it would be close to impossible to get agreement between the two on any important issue. This would mostly put paid to Biden’s agenda–given the circumstances it might also make the economy worse.

There are, however, ways the Republicans might let this slip through their fingers. If the more fanatical Trump advocates are allowed too much influence(and the GOP leadership, which is more or less cynical/”realist” seems still to be afraid of them) this might have serious results. They likely would be inclined to go mostly for the social issues and therefore to spend a lot more time on guns and abortion and less on the economy. If the economy shows no signs of improvement and, particularly, if it appears to be worse, this might not make much difference. But if there is even a slight indication of stabilization, then it would be a plus for the Dems.

Almost regardless of the state of the economy, too much influence from the Trumpist/right wing extremist people(they are similar but not always exactly the same) could be a GOP hindrance, at least a small one, and possibly more. The public seems to be coming down against the court regarding its friendly attitude toward the NRA leadership, while the right wing crowd are in love with it. Likewise about 2/3 of the people surveyed seem to be hostile to the court’s wandering into the more extreme Pro-LIfe Areas on abortion. Even fairly extreme American voters usually want their leaders somewhere within hailing distance of reality and here lies the possible GOP difficulty.

Some of their people who attract the most enthusiastic support(Green, Boebert, Gaetz, etc) appear to be genuinely disturbed or extreme examples of GOP cynicism, saying what they know is ridiculous but popular among some of the more unhinged Republican voters. It is not impossible that such politicians could be a bit of each, really believing some of it and at the same time quite aware of the possibilities of using it in a manipulative way.

I think there may be a considerable number of Republicans who are fairly far right, some of them even enthusiastic Trumpies, but still doubtful of the extreme wing and not too comfortable with it. Getting candidates and ideas which would keep both groups not only on the reservation but enthusiastic about it might be tricky.

Much of this is still to be determined, but this is how it looks to me right now. This is a very unsteady situation, so pay attention–it could change hour by hour.