I’ve been pleased of late to see that a lot of liberal writers are focusing on the Confederacy as I long have been: as an act of treason. Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns & Money wrote two good articles about this recently. The first was, The Confederacy Won the Peace. Now, that is to some extent a distortion. The big problem with the sudden end of Reconstruction and the establishment of slavery by another name, was that the country as a whole reminded racist. As discussed in Ian Millhiser’s Injustices, it was many Lincoln appointed Supreme Court justices who allowed the south to establish a terrorist regime. The south did indeed win the peace, but only because the nation as a whole didn’t care.

A good example of this comes from an article that Lemieux quotes, from sociologist James Loewen, Why Do People Believe Myths About the Confederacy? Because Our Textbooks and Monuments Are Wrong. He noted that Kentucky officially stayed with the Union. The people were split, but not that much: 72% fought on the side of the Union. Yet “the state now has 72 Confederate monuments and only two Union ones.” That’s staggering. But it probably doesn’t have much to do with the failure of Reconstruction.

I think that Confederate monuments and indeed, the Confederate flag itself, are the results of later efforts. For example, the Jefferson Davis Highway didn’t exist until 1913. The final part of this, Washington State Route 99, wasn’t so named until 1939. Similarly, the Colfax Massacre — more or less the beginning of terrorist rule in the south — saw the despicable “Colfax Riot” sign put up in 1950. I’m not saying that any of these things were necessarily celebrated elsewhere in the nation. But by and large the country got on with its business. There was really only one group in the nation with a real incentive to rewrite history — and that was the traitors in the south and their ideological followers.

In a second article, Scott Lemieux wrote, Why Honoring Jefferson Davis Is Unacceptable. In that article, he pointed out something that is profound and part of this whole tendency for us to ignore both the south’s treason and its continued disinformation campaign. One of the “liberal” arguments in favor of accepting the Jefferson Davis High School, for example, goes like this, “Davis was a slaveholder, but we have slaveholders on the $1 and $2, a white supremacist on the $5, a slaveholder and ethnic cleanser on the $20, and so on. Why is Davis different?”

I’ll admit, the argument has a certain resonance for me. I’m not too keen on the founders of the country. The only one who I hold in high standing is Thomas Paine. Washington and Jefferson were major slave holders. Adams was a royalist. And later, Jackson was truly horrific. There are things I like about them all, but they are soiled. Lemieux noted that there is a clear distinction: there’s only one reason that Jefferson Davis has roads named after him. And that reason is because he committed high treason against his country — in the name of one of the vilest of human behaviors. And we reward him with roads and public schools? It’s shocking.

It is all part of a larger effort to exonerate the south for the Civil War. And it is hard to believe that there aren’t people who think that the south will indeed rise again. They effectively reversed slavery; they’ve reversed history; they now have a small majority on the Supreme Court and complete control of one of the two political parties. What can they not achieve? I’ve long been on record for getting rid of Confederate generals’ names from our military bases. But as Lemieux implies, we need to go much further than that.

I know that going around closing public monuments to the Confederacy might seem like a vicious thing to do. But I discussed this last week, Confederate Flags and Nazi Tattoos. After the Civil War, the nation took a “look forward” approach to the south. The south returned this favor by doing nothing but looking back. Under normal circumstances, Jefferson Davis would have been hanged after the fall of the Confederacy and that would have been that. But he really wasn’t punished at all and he was allowed to go back to his old life, eventually dying rich and widely admired — for his treason.

After the fall of Iraq, we toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein. After the fall of the Soviet Union, statues of Stalin came tumbling down. It just makes sense that we should destroy laudatory monuments to the Confederacy. They are a pox not only on the south but on the whole nation. The only thing we might want to think seriously about is how we allowed such things to be built up over the last 150 years.

Over at The Intercept Tuesday, Liliana Segura wrote, What Justice Breyer’s Glossip Dissent Exposes About the Death Penalty. It is about Glossip v Gross, the case that questioned the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s lethal injection death penalty procedure. On the right, the response was, “Yippee, we get to continue killing people!” On the left, people have been focused more on Justice Alito’s callous comment, “While most humans wish to die a painless death, many do not have that good fortune. Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essentially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether.” It is a shocking statement: people burn to death in fires so we should execute people by burning them alive?

But Stephen Breyer (along with Ginsberg) argued that the entire death penalty is cruel and unusual. This idea was dismissed by the majority, of course. I think there is something fundamental here. There are simply some people who really want to kill other people. It is like Dick Cheney’s idea about having to work the “dark side.” Or Tom Clancy Combat Concepts. It’s about being “hard” and “tough.” Americans — men especially — are terrified to be seen as weak. I’ve always found it bizarre in a country that is so Christian. Americans apparently don’t go in much for sissy Christian concepts like mercy and grace.

What’s perhaps most interesting is that Breyer’s dissent is fact based. He talks about various problems with the death penalty: its racist application; its randomness; prosecutorial misconduct; and the fact that we kill innocent people all the time. The majority brushes all that aside. To them, as long as the states give it the old college try, it doesn’t matter if people are tortured to death or that we kill innocent people. Justice isn’t a matter of something that happens to individual people. It’s really just about the process. If innocent people have to die in the name of Americans feeling tough, well that’s a small price to pay. Besides, that kind of thing would never happen to someone Samuel Alito knows.

What’s notable about all of this is the lack of empathy when it comes to the death penalty. For a long time, I thought that The Mythical Perfect Government Killing Machine would make the death penalty untenable to most Americans. Once people saw that the system wasn’t perfect, they would rebel against it. After all, it would be one thing to be put to death by the government if you were guilty. Most people imagine they would never be in that position because they would never murder anyone. But being put to death when you are innocent? Well, that could happen to anyone.

But it turns out that even an argument based upon self-preservation doesn’t work. They think (rightly) that getting railroaded is something that happens almost exclusively to the poor and those with darker skin. The odds are already relatively low that one will be put to death. It is even lower that one will be innocent. And it is lower still that either of those things would happen to a nice middle class white person. So they just don’t care. The deaths of innocent people are just not that big a deal compared to being “tough.” And apparently, the conservatives on the Court don’t think any more deeply about this than the American people themselves.

In an article last weekend, Jonathan Chait took on Ross Douthat, Same-Sex Marriage Won Because Its Opponents Never Had an Argument. Overall, it is very good; he’s right: Douthat’s argument against same sex marriage is stupid — and he’s the best the conservatives have. But it shocks me that smart people like Chait don’t understand why LGBT rights have made such quick progress in this country. Chait noted, “The movement owes its success to any number of things, but surely preeminent among them is the clarity of its core rationale.” Not really — not a number of things, and the clarity of its core rationale surely doesn’t have much if anything to do with it.

If you want to understand why LGBT rights have had such unbelievably great success compared to other civil rights causes, all you have to do is look at Dick and Lynne Cheney. They are two of the most conservative people on the planet. But they were among the majority of Americans who were happy to see marriage equality be the law of the land. This is not because they are evolved on this particular topic. It is because they have a daughter Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian. It is hard to maintain your hatred for “the other” when that “other” is your own daughter.

The smartest thing the LGBT community ever did was decide that they had to destroy the closet. As long as people thought that “gays” were just horrible men having unprotected sex in the bath houses of San Francisco, it was trivial for people to vilify them. But once the LGBT community was everywhere — our sons and daughters, our friends and acquaintances, our postal delivery people and the bag boy at the supermarket — it was impossible to discount it as “those people” who show up only in our fever dreams.

What’s sad is that most groups do not have the luxury that the LGBT community has. Trans-gender people are born everywhere. But our society has done an outstanding job of keeping African Americans and Latinos cut off — living in their own ghettos. The fact that there is the occasional African American and Latino outside the ghettos only highlights the difference. Unless these outliers knew the “rules” of the ruling class, they wouldn’t be allowed outside the ghettos — even though everyone could learn the “rules” if given the chance.

I’ve said it before a lot, “The Cheneys could never give birth to a poor child.” They will never have direct access to the inequities of poverty. So they will never know what it is like and they will never care to find out. It’s great that the LGBT community has the special attribute of being equally distributed throughout society. That has made the recent search for equality easier. But there is no special lesson to be learned from its success. Other groups — poor groups — must try to engender empathy from afar. And that is a far harder sale. Just look at any of the Republican presidential candidates.

We don’t hear much about the filibuster these days, because there is nothing to be done about it. There is a Democrat in the White House, the Republicans have control of the Senate. There is nothing to be gained from cutting back on the filibuster. The only question ever was whether Mitch McConnell might make the calculation that the next president will be a Democrat and the Senate might slip back into the hands of the Democrats. In that case, McConnell’s having restored the full filibuster might make it more toxic for the Democrats to again cut it back. But frankly, I don’t think politicians ever think that strategically. And if things go better for the Republicans in 2016, such a move could ties their own hands.

So I wasn’t at all surprised when The Hill reported Monday, Senate Republicans Slam the Door on Scrapping the Filibuster. They have absolutely no incentive to do anything else. If they find themselves in control of the White House and Congress in 2017, they will absolutely get rid of the filibuster. And they will blame it on the Democrats — who did, after all, make it far less powerful. The fact that this was done because the Republicans had abused it so excessively will not matter in the least — especially to our pathetic press corps.

Let me explain how this works. The Republicans have become the “by any means necessary” party. That’s why they’ve spent millions of dollars looking for any way available to destroy Obamacare. They’ve always known that as long as Obama is president, they won’t be able to do it legislatively. And so they’ve clogged up the courts with the most ridiculous of attacks. Too many liberals now seem to think that John Roberts is on the right side of history. He clearly isn’t. His decision in King v Burwell was really one of exasperation. He was saying, “Stop bugging me! There are some things that you need to do the old fashioned way. Go out and win some elections.”

So if the Republicans find themselves in control of Washington in 2017, they will not let a little thing like the filibuster — that they have so depended upon for decades — stand in the way of the kind of sweeping changes that they want to make. They will lower the top tax rate to 25%. They will savage safety net programs. They will abolish the estate tax. They will fill our courts with ideologue judges who make Clarence Thomas look reasonable. But all of that is on the table only if they maintain control of the Senate and gain control of the White House. There is absolutely no reason to do anything right now.

What’s sad is that The Hill article makes it like the Republicans in general, and Mitch McConnell in particular, are reasonable when it comes to the filibuster. Back in 2005, McConnell thought that the Democrats were abusing the filibuster. He was also in favor of the “Nuclear Option,” which he has more recently claimed is such a terrible thing. This is not a reasonable man. This is a man who does whatever is in his immediate best interests. Right now, it is in his best interests to claim the high ground. The moment that changes, the filibuster is gone. The Hill and everyone else should know this.

Last last week, Politicus USA reported, Maine Lawmakers Move to Impeach Republican Governor Paul LePage. It sounds serious, “Governor LePage is accused of blackmailing the Good Will-Hinckley School board by threatening to withhold half a million dollars in funding if they extended a job offer to Democratic House Speaker Mike Eves.” It’s really petty nonsense, so exactly what you would expect from Paul LePage. But what’s most important is that LePage is not popular in his state. He’s been twice elected president because (1) there have been three way races; and (2) they are off year elections when not many Democrats go out to the polls. In 2010, LePage got less than 38% of the votes cast; he did much better in 2014, but still only got 48% of the votes.

What’s more, whenever the people of Maine are asked, they don’t like the job that he’s doing. So sure: impeach him. Throw him out of office! And then what? He’ll just run again and the voters of Maine will re-elect him. Who knows? He might get a full majority in a new election. Clearly, Maine has a screwed up system. But it is hardly unique. I’ve written before about the tendency for blue and swing states to regret their recent governors — and even red states. It doesn’t seem to matter. On the day of the election, it’s a matter that “they’re all the same,” and then a couple months later, it is “I never imagined they’d do that!”

I’d love to see LePage impeached. God knows he deserves it. But ultimately, the people have to take responsibility. What LePage is doing — which he doesn’t deny — is entirely in keeping with what he’s done before. No one can reasonably claim that they are shocked by him. I suspect that the world gets rid of LePage the way that it got rid of Rob Ford. First LePage has to be caught on video tape using an illegal substance. Then his behavior has to get so bad that he checks himself into rehab. But note: Rob Ford may not be mayor, but he’s still on the city council. So maybe there is no way of getting rid of Paul LePage.

This, my friends, is how empires fall. We really do live in a post-truth world. Nothing matters — most of all policy. And on that count, I don’t really blame voters. For a good forty years now, they have watched as they have elected conservatives and “liberals” and nothing especially changes. Yes, things get modestly better under the Democratic Party than under the Republican Party. But it is easy enough to consider that a coincidence. And I really think we are at the point where most of what we once called the middle class look at the increased pain with a sense of schadenfreude — as though the pain of others makes up for their own pain.

So go ahead, Maine: impeach Paul LePage. But even if he is expunged from the good graces of the body politic, the blight he represents will go on. We will still live in a society that doesn’t think things can get better. We live with a system that makes voting difficult, and privileges the rich and the old — just incidentally the base of the conservative movement. We live with media that sees politics as a game devoid of meaning. It would take a kind of revolution of thought for the people to push back against that. I still hope. But I would find it shocking if it ever occurred.

Jim Naureckas at FAIR made a great catch, George Will Won’t Throw Out a Perfectly Good Column Just Because Its Premise Is Completely Wrong. Apparently, George Will publishes his columns first in Investor’s Business Daily and only later do they appear in The Washington Post. In between these publication, someone at The Washington Post actually fact checks the article. Because Will made a huge mistake: he thought that the decision in King v Burwell was based on the so-called Chevron deference.

This is based upon the case Chevron USA, Inc v Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. In that case, the Court decided that when a statute is ambiguous, deference should be given to the reading of the executive agency. Before the King v Burwell decision arrived, a lot of people speculated that the Court might find against the plaintiffs using Chevron deference. But after the case came out, it was widely reported that Roberts specifically did not use Chevron deference. This was a big deal because it made the case all that more stronger a decision for the government because it meant that a future Republican president couldn’t just decide not to offer the subsidies to people buying insurance on the federal exchanges.

Somehow, George Will missed this. Like I said: it was widely reported — so widely that I knew about it and when I started reading Naureckas’ article, I thought, “But this case wasn’t based on Chevron!” I soon learned that was the whole point. But the fact that George Will missed it is probably an indication how cut off he is from normal news. The conservative media were too focused on how the decision was the very end of freedom in America. Just look at Will’s overblown headline, “On Obamacare, John Roberts helps overthrow the Constitution.” But it’s so much worse than just being wrong.

In his first draft, George Will wrote, “Rolling up the sleeves of his black robe and buckling down to the business of redrafting the ACA, Roberts cites a doctrine known as ‘Chevron deference.'” By the time the editors at The Washington Post got done with it, it read, “Rolling up the sleeves of his black robe and buckling down to the business of redrafting the ACA, Roberts invents a corollary to ‘Chevron deference.'” And it goes on from there. Rather than just replacing the three paragraphs about the Chevron deference — just 160 words — he made minor edits to keep it there, even though it isn’t central to what is, after all, just a rant.

I understand this. After you write an article, it is really hard to delete it, even if it turns out to be based upon a misapprehension. But I suspect that it just doesn’t matter to George Will. Here is the critical paragraph — the one where he makes his central point:

What you will notice there is that it is not falsifiable. “Progressivism” is some monster that he’s conjured; it isn’t a thing and and it doesn’t have a “central objective.” The claim that the separation of powers was meant to stop progressive action is just one of those conservative canards that people like George Will “know” to be true without evidence. So what would be the point of giving up the Chevron deference section? It’s just words. The point is that George Will is really really unhappy with John Roberts and he wants us all to know that freedom is dead.