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We have been thinking about the Republican Party and how it can come backworthily, constructivelyafter the splits and shatterings of recent years. The GOP is relatively strong in the states but holds neither the White House, House nor Senate and in presidential elections struggles to win the popular vote. Entrenched power centers are arrayed against it, increasingly including corporate America. But parties have come back from worse. The Democrats came back from being on the wrong side in the Civil War.

Some thoughts here on Republicans and immigration.

From Pew Researchs findings on U.S. immigrants, published in August 2020: America has more immigrants than any other nation on earth. More than 40 million people living here were born in another country. According to the governments 2020 Current Population Survey, when you combine immigrants and their U.S.-born children the number adds up to 85.7 million. Pew estimates that most (77%) are here legally, including naturalized citizens. Almost a quarter are not.

Where are Americas immigrants from? Twenty-five percent, the largest group, are from Mexico, according to Pew. After that China at 6%, India just behind, the Philippines at 4%, El Salvador at 3%.

America hasnt had so many first- and second-generation Americans since the great European wave of the turn of the last century. The political party that embraces this reality, that becomes part of it, will win the future.

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Republicans and Immigrants Need Each Other - The Wall Street Journal

After the Republican Party suffered a surprising (well, to Republicans) defeat in the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee famously commissioned an autopsy that tried to analyze how the party had fallen short. It made a range of recommendations, but they were distilled by the headlines and the wishful thinking of certain party elites into a plan for the G.O.P. to win back the presidency mostly by shifting left on immigration.

Then, of course, Donald Trump came along and put that particular vision to the torch.

After Trump went down to his own defeat, it was clear that there wouldnt be a repeat of the autopsy. Not only because the last experience ended badly, but because Trumps narrative would not allow it: To publicly analyze what went wrong for Republicans in 2020 would be to concede that the incumbent president had somehow failed (impossible!), that Joe Bidens victory was totally legitimate (unlikely!) and that the party somehow might need to move on from Trump himself (unthinkable!).

But just because there hasnt been a formal reckoning, thick with focus groups and bullet points, doesnt mean that G.O.P. elites dont have a theory of how to fix their partys problems in time for the next presidential cycle. Its just that this time the theory is less a message than a man: Right now, the partys autopsy for 2020, and its not-Trump hopes for 2024, are made flesh in the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.

The proximate cause of the enthusiasm for DeSantis is his handling of the pandemic, and the medias attempted manhandling of him. When the Florida governor began reopening Florida last May, faster than some experts advised, he was cast as a feckless mini-Trump, the mayor from Jaws (complete with open, crowded beaches), the ultimate case study in Florida Man stupidity.

A year later, DeSantis is claiming vindication: His states Covid deaths per capita are slightly lower than the nations despite an aged and vulnerable population, his strategy of sealing off nursing homes while reopening schools for the fall looks like social and scientific wisdom, and his gubernatorial foils, the liberal governors cast as heroes by the press, have stumbled and fallen in various ways.

Meanwhile many media attacks on his governance have fizzled or boomeranged, most notably a 60 Minutes hit piece that claimed to have uncovered corruption in the states use of the Publix supermarket for its vaccination efforts but produced no smoking gun, conspicuously edited out much of DeSantiss rebuttal, and fell afoul of fact checkers. The governors public outrage in response was justified, but he must have been privately delighted, since theres nothing that boosts the standing of a Republican politician quite like being attacked deceptively or unsuccessfully by the press.

So DeSantis has a good narrative for the Covid era but his appeal as a post-Trump figure goes deeper than just the pandemic and its battles. The state he governs isnt just a test case for Covid policy. Its also been an object lesson in the adaptability of the Republican Party in the face of demographic trends that were supposed to spell its doom.

When the 2000 election famously came down to a statistical tie in Florida, many Democrats reasonably assumed that by 2020 they would be winning the state handily, thanks to its growing Hispanic population and generational turnover among Cuban-Americans, with an anti-Castro and right-wing older generation giving way to a more liberal younger one. But instead Floridas Democrats keep falling short of power, and the Republicans keep finding new ways to win, culminating in 2020, when the Trump-led G.O.P. made dramatic inroads with Hispanics in Miami-Dade County and took the state with relative ease.

DeSantiss career has been a distillation of this Florida-Republican adaptability. Born in Jacksonville, he went from being a double-Ivy Leaguer (Yale and Harvard Law) to a Tea Party congressman to a zealous Trump defender who won the presidents endorsement for his gubernatorial campaign. A steady march rightward, it would seem except that after winning an extremely narrow victory over Andrew Gillum in 2018, DeSantis then swung back to the center, with educational and environmental initiatives and African-American outreach that earned him 60 percent approval ratings in his first year in office.

Combine that moderate swing with the combative persona DeSantis has developed during the pandemic, and you can see a model for post-Trump Republicanism that might might be able to hold the partys base while broadening the G.O.P.s appeal. You can think of it as a series of careful two-steps. Raise teachers salaries while denouncing critical race theory and left-wing indoctrination. Spend money on conservation and climate change mitigation through a program that carefully doesnt mention climate change itself. Choose a Latina running mate while backing E-Verify laws. Welcome conflict with the press, but try to make sure youre on favorable ground.

This is not exactly the kind of Republicanism that the partys donor class wanted back in 2012: DeSantis is to their right on immigration and social issues, and arguably to their left on spending. But the trauma of Trumpism has taught the G.O.P. elite that some compromise with base politics is inevitable, and right now DeSantis seems like the safest version of that compromise Trump-y when necessary, but not Trump-y all the time.

Of course all of this means that he may soon attract the ire of a certain former president, who has zero interest in someone besides himself being the party front-runner for 2024. And the idea that a non-Trump front-runner could be anointed early and actually win seems at odds with everything weve seen from the G.O.P. recently.

Then, too, having the press as your constant foil and enemy isnt necessarily a plus if they manage to come up with something genuinely damaging. There is a resemblance between DeSantis and Chris Christie, who looked like a 2016 front-runner before certain difficulties involving a bridge intervened.

Still, if you were betting on someone who could theoretically run against Trump, mano a mano, and not simply get squashed, I would put DeSantis ahead of both the defeated Trump rivals (meaning Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz) and the loyal Trump subordinates (meaning Mike Pence or Nikki Haley). Not least because in a party that values performative masculinity, the Florida governors odd jock-nerd energy and prickly aggression are qualities Trump hasnt faced before.

The donor-class hope that Trump will simply fade away still seems nave. But the donors circling DeSantis at least seem to have learned one important lesson from 2016: If you want voters to say no to Donald Trump, you need to figure out, in a clear and early way, the candidate to whom you want them to say yes.

See more here:
Opinion | Ron DeSantis Is the Republican Autopsy - The New York Times

Texas Senator Ted Cruz and other members of a Republican delegation attend a press conference after a tour around a section of the U.S.-Mexico border on a Texas Highway Patrol vessel in Mission, Texas, U.S., March 26, 2021. REUTERS/Go Nakamura

Five Republican senators introduced a bill on Wednesday to strip Major League Baseball of its immunity to antitrust law, saying the legal shield wasnt deserved after the league moved its All-Star game away from Georgia to protest a law that could make it harder to vote.

Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn and Mike Lee introduced the bill in the Senate, Lee's office said in a statement. A version of the bill was also introduced in the House of Representatives by a group of Republican lawmakers.

"If Major League Baseball is going to act dishonestly and spread lies about Georgia's voting rights bill to favor one party against the other, they shouldn't expect to continue to receive special benefits from Congress," Cruz said in a statement, saying that MLB has enjoyed a special exemption from antitrust laws that other professional sports leagues do not.

MLB could not be reached immediately for comment.

MLB said earlier this month that it would move its All-Star Game out of Georgia to protest the states new voting restrictions.

Major League Baseball won exemption from the Sherman Antitrust Act under a 1922 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which determined that professional baseball is not interstate commerce, according to a 2019 article in the Wake Forest Law Review. MLB's exemption has protected the league in its exclusive contracts for airing home team games on local cable television networks, the article said.

Under a bill passed by Congress in 1998, the Curt Flood Act, MLB did, however, lose its antitrust exemption related to labor issues.

Other professional sports leagues enjoy more limited antitrust exemptions.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Excerpt from:
Republicans want to yank baseball's antitrust immunity after MLB reaction to Georgia voting law - Reuters

After Rep. Matt Gaetz accused a Florida lawyer of a $25 million extortion scheme to make sex trafficking allegations disappear, Republicans on and off Capitol Hill on Wednesday largely kept their mouths shut.

Gaetzthe Trump-loving, Fox News-grinning, 38-year-old Florida Republicanhas a less-than-sterling reputation among his congressional colleagues. More than a half-dozen lawmakers have spoken to these reporters about his love of alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as his proclivity for younger women. Its well-known among Republican lawmakers that Gaetz was dating a college studentone over the age of consentin 2018. She came to Washington as an intern.

In response to these allegations and a question about whether he had ever had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old while in Congress, Gaetz told The Daily Beast late Wednesday night:

The last time I had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, I was 17. As for the Hill, I know I have many enemies and few friends. My support generally lies outside of Washington, D.C., and I wouldnt have it any other way.

As for his few friends in Washington, The Daily Beast found that to be true. One former GOP staffer said Wednesday that their office had an informal rule to not allow their member to appear next to Gaetz during TV hits, fearful of the inevitable scandal that would come out one day.

On Tuesday, it might finally have dropped.

According to The New York Times, Gaetz is under investigation by the Justice Department for potentially having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. While Gaetz has denied the existence of a 17-year-old lover, hes been less offended about the suggestion that hes dated women much younger than him while in Congress. And hes openly admitted that hes paid for flights and hotels for women to visit him.

Ive been, you know, generous as a partner, Gaetz said Tuesday.

Now, Gaetz may be finding generosity in short supply among his colleagues. Only two House Republicans jumped to his defense on Wednesday: Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Jim Jordan (R-OH), who himself has been accused of turning a blind eye to sexual assault; and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has repeatedly boosted the QAnon conspiracy theory accusing Democrats of abusing children.

While Greene compared the Gaetz allegations to a witch hunt and the conspiracy theories and lies like Trump/Russia collusion, Jordan was more muted. I believe Matt Gaetz, he said in a statement to CNN.

GOP aides noted to The Daily Beast that Jordan has been one of Gaetzs closest allies in Congressand the most he would offer was that tepid statement and his support for Gaetz staying on the Judiciary Committee.

I dont think a lot of people are going to go out of their way to defend him, especially with this outlandish-sounding defense.

More importantly, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wasnt exactly jumping to Gaetzs corner.

McCarthy said on Fox News that he wanted to wait for the facts before meting out any punishment, like removing Gaetz from committees, but the GOP leader also offered that, If it comes out to be true, yes, we would remove him.

Those are serious implications, McCarthy said.

It was not surprising to some observers that the wagons didnt circle around Gaetz in the explosive 24 hours after the scandal, even as the congressman produced documents that lent some weight to his extortion claims. I dont think a lot of people are going to go out of their way to defend him, especially with this outlandish-sounding defense, one GOP staffer said. I dont think youll find a lot of people who are desperate to keep him involved in Republican politics.

The cartoonishly scandalous perception of Gaetz is so commonplace that sometimes its visible, literally, in the halls of Congress. A Hill source sent The Daily Beast a photo of a trash bin outside Gaetz's office as lawmakers cleared out their offices at the end of a recent session. At the top of the heap was an empty Costco-size box of Bareskin Trojan condoms.

While hes openly courted a number of women in Washington, Gaetz has not exactly made it a priority to court fellow lawmakers since arriving in Congress in 2017. He even wears his reluctance to win friends and influence GOP lawmakers as a badge of honor.

I dont really socialize with my colleagues, Gaetz said in a 2019 profile in BuzzFeed News.

One person he does actively socialize with is the 45th president. He proved quick to defend Donald Trump at nearly every opportunity, yes, but even quicker to criticize his GOP colleagues for insufficient Trump support. At the same time, hes also run afoul of Trump: he was reportedly iced out of the White House in 2020 when he backed a resolution curbing the presidents ability to wage war with Iran, after Democrats said they would give Gaetz a vote on one of his amendments if he would support the overall war powers bill.

The rift was short-lived, however, as Trump looked for Capitol Hill allies during the early days of the COVID crisis and Gaetz was more than happy to defend the president.

His desire to be on TV most days of the week has shown lawmakers what Matt Gaetzs primary goal is in Congress: the promotion of Matt Gaetz. He rarely partners with colleagues on bills and has yet to see any legislation he authored become law. Constant rumors about his ambition to seek higher office in Floridaor even Alabamaunderscored the perception he didnt prioritize the job.

Even the Republican Party doesnt like him very much.

Four years into his House career, Gaetzs theatrics have put off Democrats and Republicans alike. His visit to Wyoming in February to host a rally condemning House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) for her vote to impeach Trump rubbed many the wrong way, even if they opposed Cheneys vote.

Even the Republican Party doesnt like him very much, said a Republican operative familiar with the Florida congressional delegation.

Still, Gaetz does have alliestheyre just less interested in defending him at the moment than they are in attacking the media.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential candidate, said he thinks the New York Times is a joke and has no confidence in their reporting. Huckabee was an early backer of Gaetzshe hosted a fundraiser for the congressman in 2018 at his beach home not far from the congressmans hometownand is reportedly close with his family.

He said it didnt happen, Huckabee told The Daily Beast. Until proven otherwise, I think he deserves the same consideration of the presumption of innocence and due process as anybody else.

Back home in Gaetzs deep red Florida district, the story is also landing with a skeptical audience. John Roberts, the chair of the Escambia County Republican Party, said he doubted any reporting from the Times and other mainstream media after the Trump era. Republicans arent here saying, Oh dear whats happening, Roberts told The Daily Beast. Everyones like, Oh, another smear job.

But even Robertswho leads the GOP organization in the largest county in the district where Gaetz and his father, former state Sen. Don Gaetz, have been fixtures for decadesclaimed he did not personally know the congressman, saying he has talked with him a few times briefly.

Weve been very supportive of him politically. Im just very skeptical of this whole thing, Roberts said.

The most deafening silence, though, is that of another Florida resident: the former president.

Gaetz is perhaps Trumps biggest defender in Congress. In February, Gaetz offered to resign his office if it meant he got the opportunity to defend the ex-president at his impeachment trial. And a story where the New York Times attacks a GOP politicianwhen that politician is actually the victimalmost seems made for Trump.

But so far, the ex-president has remained on the sidelines, waiting to see what comes out next. So has his son, Don Jr., who is an influential Gaetz ally, too. He has tweeted numerous times since Tuesday evening, but offered no defense of the congressman.

As much as Trump would probably like to slam the media for allegedly inaccurate and irresponsible reporting, it appears hes unwilling to attach his name to Gaetz right now the way that Gaetz has attached his name to Trumps.

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Republicans Have Been Waiting for a Matt Gaetz Scandal to Break - The Daily Beast

Similarly, in the 2014 case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held that businesses seeking a religious exemption from a law may have it holding, for the first time, that such exemptions may be allowed even when they diminish the rights of others. That case permitted employers with religious objections to birth control to deny contraceptive coverage to their employees, even though a federal regulation required employer-provided health plans to cover contraception.

Before Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, however, a majority of the justices were very reluctant to grant religious exemptions to state regulations seeking to limit the spread of Covid-19. Yet after she became a justice, the courts new majority started granting such exemptions to churches that wanted to defy public health orders.

Its plausible that the Republican Party did not campaign on its old legislative agenda in 2020 because it was busy rebranding itself. Under Mr. Trump, Republicans attracted more working-class voters, while Democrats made gains in relatively affluent suburbs. So Mr. Ryans plans to ransack programs like Medicaid arent likely to inspire the partys emerging base.

And yet the courts conservative majority is still pushing an agenda that benefits corporations and the wealthy at the expense of workers and consumers.

Its easy to see why government-by-judiciary appeals to Republican politicians. Theres no constituency for forced arbitration outside of corporate boardrooms. But when the court hands down decisions like Circuit City or Epic Systems, those decisions often go unnoticed. Employers score a major policy victory over their workers, and voters dont blame the Republican politicians who placed conservative justices on the court.

Judges can also hide many of their most consequential decisions behind legal language and doctrines. One of the most important legal developments in the last few years, for example, is that a majority of the court called for strict new limits on federal agencies power to regulate the workplace, shield consumers and protect the environment.

In Little Sisters v. Pennsylvania (2020), the court signaled that its likely to strike down the Department of Health and Human Services rules requiring insurers to cover many forms of medical care including birth control, immunizations and preventive care for children. And in West Virginia v. E.P.A. (2016), the court shut down much of the E.P.A.s efforts to fight climate change.

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Opinion | Republicans Have an Agenda All Right, and They Dont Need Congress for It - The New York Times