Susan J. Demas: Under Republicans, the Center Doesn’t Hold

Last week, yet another troubled man armed with an AR-15 assault weapon committed mass murder.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17, mostly children, is the 1,607th mass shooting since a gunman blew away 27, mostly first-graders, in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.

Gun control debates typically go nowhere afterward. Most Republicans roundly reject mainstream, popular and common-sense ideas like universal background checks, banning assault rifles and regulating online, private and gun show purchases.

It’s not a mystery why.

The powerful NRA has become completely unhinged, routinely releasing violent, apocalyptic videos urging people to embrace “the clenched fist of truth” against the “madness” of progressive protests against President Trump and ominously warning the New York Times: “We’re coming for you.”

And so the mainstream conservative position is now to reject nearly any regulation on personal gun ownership. In Michigan, Senate Democrats couldn’t even get domestic abusers and those on the no-fly list banned from the GOP’s “guns everywhere” concealed carry expansion legislation.

There’s hope for some small changes after Parkland, as student survivors like Emma Gonzalez are speaking out, even as some right-wing lunatics spread disgusting conspiracy theories about them.

“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS,” Gonzalez declared at a gun-control rally just two days after her classmates were murdered.

But Trump is already pushing cockamamie ideas like arming teachers, which doesn’t inspire confidence.

The problem is GOP has veered so far right on issues that reasonable reforms seem like pipe dreams. It’s almost impossible to win Republican primary today supporting abortion rights and it’s fashionable to say you don’t even believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s life. The President Reagan approach to immigration is now “amnesty” and most Republicans say nothing as ICE tries to round up parents dropping their kids off at school. The market-based approach of Obamacare was derided as socialism.

Perhaps this ideological inflexibility emerged from how the GOP approaches taxes. After winning lower taxes in the 80s and revitalizing their party, Republicans now see this as the prescription for any economic circumstance.

It doesn’t matter if the stock market is booming or crashing, the economy is growing or shrinking or unemployment is rising or falling. It doesn’t matter if people are hurting, roads are crumbling or schools are failing. Cutting taxes is the only way to go. Those who say maybe enough’s enough are shunned.

So realistically, the only way to enact what used to be considered moderate policy on pressing moral issues like guns, immigration and health care is to elect Democrats in Washington, Lansing and other state capitols.

The center doesn’t hold right now.

We need to stop pretending that it can, just because U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) did the bare minimum of his job and met with his constituents after a massive tragedy at the CNN town hall. We need to stop pretending that vague tweets from the president about saving the Dream Act, which protects undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, mean anything after he unilaterally killed it last year.

I know and like many Republican legislators personally. I’ve sometimes been one of those “both sides” columnists. But the GOP, as an institution, has shown little ability for compromise and moderation in the last decade. And its embrace of Trump’s nativism, sexism and corruption will go down as a very dark chapter in our country’s history.

As the mother of two teenagers who I pray never experience anything like Parkland, I say enough. As the mother of an LGBT high-schooler who was mercilessly bullied by Trump-supporting upperclassmen after the election, I say enough.

And as someone who believes in those quaint notions of liberty, equality and justice for all, I say enough.

Dante famously wrote that “the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.” That’s where we are right now. No one should pretend otherwise.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: When Kids’ Health Becomes a Bargaining Chip

Susan J. Demas

I don’t want to live in a world where politicians killing health care for 9 million needy children is okay. And I definitely don’t want to read hot takes exalting heinous opportunists for mastering the art of political hardball.

But that’s where I fear we are.

Congressional funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired on Sept. 30 and many states are set to run out of money as early as today. The federal government will also shut down at midnight without a spending deal.

It’s hard to believe we’ve gotten to this point. CHIP was founded in 1997 with bipartisan support, as most people used to agree that making sure all kids could afford to go to the doctor was one of those universal goods. U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who co-sponsored the original bill, famously told the New York Times the program would prove the Republican Party “does not hate children.”

In the last few decades, the party has won support for cuts to undeserving bums on welfare or even on unemployment in states like Michigan. Hatch summed up the conservative philosophy thusly:

“I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger, and expect the federal government to do everything. Unfortunately, the liberal philosophy has created millions of people that way, who believe everything they are or ever hope to be depend on the federal government rather than the opportunities that this great country grants them.”

But most Republicans, even Ayn Rand-worshipping House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), probably never dreamed that they could get away with ripping health insurance from the angelic Tiny Tims of society.

It’s important to remember that Republicans currently control every branch of government in Washington. However, they grew frustrated last year over their stalled conservative agenda. Most notably, the Senate piled up failure after failure to repeal Obamacare — that monstrous program that’s allowed 20 million more Americans to gain health insurance.

So GOP leadership made the call to hold CHIP hostage (yes, as a proverbial bargaining chip), most recently in negotiations to prevent a government shutdown.  

Republicans have argued that CHIP would add too much to the deficit. Originally, it was estimated that it would add $8.3 billion. However, a new nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report found that CHIP would actually save $6 billion over the next 10 years. How is that possible? Turns out, CHIP is cheaper than the alternatives, like private insurance bought on the exchange or employer-based coverage.

But Republicans pretty much gave the game away by rushing through their tax plan before Christmas. It’s estimated that these tax cuts primarily benefiting corporations, millionaires and billionaires will add $1.4 to $2 trillion to the deficit. Because my daddy is a CPA, I know that that’s a much bigger number than the $8.3 billion CHIP was once thought to cost.

Of course, now we know CHIP will dent the GOP’s deficit damage by saving us $6 billion. And we could all sleep better at night knowing 9 million children can still afford to get sports physicals for school, immunized against communicable diseases and chemotherapy for leukemia.

That’s why renewing CHIP is what would happen in a just world, perhaps somewhere on Earth 2, as the kids say.

In the real world, however, I wouldn’t place any large bets on it.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Snyder Decides It’s Necessary To Destroy His Legacy To Save It

Some days, it feels like Gov. Rick Snyder is just going through the motions, running out the clock until December 31, 2018.

Gone are his peppy promises of working in “dog years” on his agenda, complete with PowerPoint-heavy special messages on problems he’d quickly dispatch with “Relentless Positive Action.” His zest for playing the “One Tough Nerd” persona that got him elected has certainly faded.

Snyder isn’t the first governor to get worn down by the job. Running a state home to 10 million people and a $57 billion budget is no easy task.

And many critics, myself included, noted Snyder’s predecessor, Jennifer Granholm, seemed to be looking for the exits in her last two years. As the Great Recession barreled through Michigan, she was constantly tormented by rumors the Obama administration would tap her for a cabinet or Supreme Court slot.

Snyder isn’t looking for his next political gig, however. Oh, there was a time when he was the belle of the pragmatic conservative ball. Detroit News Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley started breathlessly banging the Snyder-for-president drum in the summer of 2014. A fews months later, Ron Fournier, now of Crain’s Detroit, tweeted: “Watch this Snyder guy in 2016. He gets stuff done.”

But now, in a time when the national media churn out endless speculative candidate stories, Snyder’s name is never mentioned to challenge U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) in ‘18 or for any other high-ranking job. And no reporter even bothers to explain why.

Because everyone has heard of the Flint water crisis. And no one waxes eloquent about Snyder’s decisive leadership and innovative data-driven approach anymore.

Of course, President Trump has never been one to hold failure against anyone (the thrice-bankrupt real estate developer has seen fit to hire several alumni of Goldman Sachs, which helped cause the aforementioned Great Recession). But Snyder shot himself in the leg there, as he refused to endorse Trump. So Snyder can’t really pin his hopes on an administration post, no matter how many people quit.

Flint has irrevocably diminished Snyder’s governorship. But the curious thing is that he seems content to finish the job himself.

Snyder could have helped rehabilitate himself by leading the conservative opposition to Trump’s authoritarian nativism, as I noted after the election. He already made himself a powerful enemy by withholding his endorsement, so why not stick to core principles and send a powerful message as a Rust Belt governor?

Naturally, that was expecting too much of Snyder. But he did manage to surprise even some cynics like me by backing away from two big fights that defined him in the media as a “moderate” governor: immigration and health care.

After declaring himself to be the “most pro-immigration governor in the country” back in 2011, Snyder refused to condemn Trump’s Muslim ban in a mush-mouthed statement. He also said nothing when ICE agents raided a restaurant (after enjoying breakfast there first) in his hometown of Ann Arbor.

And the governor has failed to lead the fight against deporting Chaldeans, Iraqi Christians who fled their war-torn homeland for metro Detroit. That decision is a humanitarian travesty, but it’s also politically perplexing one, as Chaldeans are a fundraising force in the GOP.

Perhaps Snyder’s biggest success was getting the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare through the hostile GOP-led Legislature. Not only has that made it possible for almost 700,000 more Michiganders to have health insurance, but it’s also generated more than $550 million for the state budget in 2016, according to a University of Michigan study.

Medicaid is under attack from Republicans in Washington desperately trying to repeal Obamacare. So where’s Rick Snyder?

He’s been conspicuously absent from the bipartisan group of 10 governors working on health care solutions. They most recently opposed the Graham-Cassidy bill, while Snyder was still hemming and hawing. Studies show the plan would cost Michigan $8 billion, but that won’t really hit until long after he moves out of the governor’s mansion.

So should we conclude that Snyder has just given up on his legacy?

Actually, I believe it’s quite the opposite. Snyder’s lieutenant governor, Brian Calley, would like nothing more than to succeed him. But most politicos doubt he can win. In the GOP primary, he would face Attorney General Bill Schuette, an ace fundraiser and politician who likely started to practice his inauguration speech during kindergarten recess.

Calley is weighed down by Snyder’s dismal poll numbers and has his own problems with the base, as he unendorsed Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape. The LG is trying desperately to prove his conservative cred with his part-time legislature gambit, but he has a lot of ground to make up.

If Calley can somehow pull it off and become Michigan’s 49th governor in spite of Trump, Flint and a restless electorate, that would be quite the vindication for Rick Snyder.

So no, he’s not going to tangle with Trump. He’s not going to stand up against ICE raids and 700,000 people losing health care. He’s not going to do anything that will hurt Calley.

Snyder has decided that’s the way to salvage his legacy — even if it means sitting back while many of his accomplishments unravel.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: I’ve Been Covering Politics for 16 Years. I’ve Never Seen Anything Like Trumpcare’s Collapse Last Night.

I’ve been covering politics for 16 years and obsessively tracking current events since my high school goth phase. And I’ve never seen anything like I did last night when the U.S. Senate’s version of Trumpcare spectacularly went down.

You couldn’t script a more dramatic scenario, with U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who survived five years in the Hanoi Hilton only to recently be diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, came back from his hospital bed to cast the deciding vote against the so-called “skinny repeal” (which would have left 16 million without health insurance by next year).

Before midnight, it looked like Trumpcare was a done deal. When I watched McCain brush off Republican pressure on the floor and hug U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) I refused to believe my own eyes. It was going to pass. It was just a matter of time. That was where the smart money was.

But I have never been so happy to be wrong. Why? It’s pretty simple. Trumpcare’s failure means 20,000 fewer deaths and a lot less suffering. This is not an exaggeration. That’s what the research shows.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) had hung tough against various versions of Trumpcare and also voted “no.” No, it’s not fair that McCain has overshadowed their repeated principled stands, but the sheer drama of the staunch conservative riding back into D.C. to fight for people — which seemed unbelievably ripped out of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — was always going to be the main storyline.

Likewise, many stories don’t mention that every single Democrat in the House and Senate, from the most liberal single-payer advocate like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to vulnerable 2018 red state conservative Dems like Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), never wavered and voted against Trumpcare. Not bad for #DemsinDisarray.

And, as always, the tireless work of everyday people who called, wrote and protested about their health care being snatched away often gets short shrift. But that’s how social change really happens. And it did make a huge difference.

I was trying to think of a comparable scenario to the early-morning drama in the U.S. Senate. I guess it would be like if four more GOP state senators had stood up on Dec. 6, 2012, and shockingly voted against Right to Work in Michigan. But as much of a might-makes-right spectacle as that was, it was not a matter of life or death like Trumpcare is for thousands of Americans.

The last time I was this shell-shocked was starting at 9 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2016, when I saw where the returns were heading in Wisconsin and Michigan for the presidential race. This feeling is much better, so if you’ll excuse me, I am going to savor it for just a little longer.