Jack Lessenberry

The U.S. Supreme Court has made some controversial decisions this term, including Monday, when the nation’s highest court struck down a Texas law designed to make it harder for women to get abortions, something that is now a long-established constitutional right. But the court also did something that was entirely predictable and scarcely controversial at all. They declined to hear yet another appeal by former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of his public corruption conviction. That means that

I've been avidly interested in presidential politics since I was about eight years old, and have followed or personally covered every election since Kennedy barely beat Nixon. remember Michigan Governor George Romney refusing to endorse Barry Goldwater because of that year's Republican nominee's stand on civil rights. I remember various Michigan Democratic politicians trying not to appear on the same platform as George McGovern. But I've never seen a candidate like Donald Trump. The morning after the shocking British vote to leave the European Union, the networks put Trump on the air from Scotland to see what he would say, and he gave us an eleven-minute infomercial for his golf course. What little he said about the news was mostly ill-informed, undiplomatic, or just plain wrong, as when he congratulated Scotland for voting to leave – which it didn't. Watching him, I had the distinct feeling I was seeing Homer Simpson pretending to be a salesman. Conservative intellectuals pretty much agree. Columnist George Will, who once taught at Michigan State, announced he was leaving the Republican Party and, without explicitly endorsing Hillary Clinton, said it was conservatives' job to "make sure (Trump) loses." Whether or not they agree with that, many Republicans and their allies have increasingly become convinced that regardless of what kind of president Trump would be, as a candidate he's likely to take their party down to a cataclysmic defeat. The Detroit News editorial page has long been something of the conscience of the Michigan Republican Party. The News has never endorsed a Democrat for President – though it declined to endorse either nominee in 2004. Yesterday, beneath an immense headline "Dump Trump," the newspaper urged the party to change its rules and nominate someone else at their national convention three weeks from now. Calling Trump an "evolving train wreck" who is unfit for the office, the newspaper said "Republicans should go to Cleveland next month with self-preservation at their top priority," and change the rules so that Trump could be denied the nomination. Well, I sympathize – but thinking the party can or should deny Trump the nomination at this point is absolutely crazy. First of all, he won by the rules in force – fair and square. He has more than two hundred more delegates than he needs. He got almost 14 million votes, more than six million more than his closest competitor for the nomination. Regardless of what kind of candidate or president you think he might be, Trump was his party's voters' clear choice. Denying him what he rightfully won would be a travesty. Not to mention something that doesn't seem to occur to the stop Trump crowd: What do you suppose Donald Trump will do if he feels he has been cheated out of a nomination that is rightfully his? Every indication is that he would launch an independent, kamikaze bid whose first priority would be wreck the GOP – and which would be virtually certain to give Democrats control of both houses of Congress and who knows how many state legislatures. Republicans may well want to consider what they need to do to avoid a similar nominee four years from now. But Trump played by their rules, and he won. They now have a few years to figure out what that means. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Earlier this week, I received a couple indignant emails from friends who had learned that Rick DeVos, the founder of the magnificent international competition ArtPrize, was willing to pay three people $500 each to redesign Michigan’s flag. Well, I was indignant too, but not for the same reason. They were upset because DeVos, one of the heirs to the Amway fortune, was offering so little. “He can afford a lot more than that,” Becca said. “Like his family hasn’t tried to buy the state already,” Tom

For years, one of the nation's most sinister figures was Roy Cohn, best known as the young chief counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy's crusade to expose Communists in government. McCarthy and Cohn never uncovered a single Communist agent, though they ruined lives and careers and greatly worsened the climate of suspicion and fear called the Red Scare. Eventually, thanks in part to the pioneering broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, the true nature of McCarthy and McCarthyism was exposed to the nation. Eventually, when Cohn pushed McCarthy to take on the U.S. Army, the Senate decided it had enough. Late in 1954, they censured McCarthy and took his power away, and within two and a half years, he had drunk himself to death. But Roy Cohn's career was just starting. He was still in his 20s when he became famous, and after McCarthy's fall he left government and went into private practice in New York City. His client list included many prominent Mafia figures, George Steinbrenner and oddly, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. Cohn was frequently charged with professional malpractice, and was disbarred for "particularly reprehensible conduct" shortly before his death from AIDS, a condition he had tried to conceal. That was 30 years ago, and Cohn had since become mostly a distasteful memory. That is, until a blockbuster story in the New York Times Tuesday, revealing that he left one final protégé, whose lawyer and mentor he had been for many years: Donald Trump. The newspaper concluded, "Decades later, Mr. Cohn's influence on Mr. Trump is unmistakable. (His) wrecking ball of a presidential bid, the gleeful smearing of his opponents, the embracing of bluster as brand, has been a Roy Cohn number on a grand scale." Well, there's a man in Lansing who knows more about Cohn and McCarthyism than most people: Mike Ranville, a retired lobbyist whose highly praised book To Strike a King looked at how Edward R. Murrow used the case of a Michigan victim of the Red Scare as preparation to go after McCarthy. Few have studied the era more intensely. Last night, Ranville told me there are many similarities between McCarthy and Trump. "Demagogues both, they appeal to the lowest common denominator. Both are disciples of "The more outrageous the statement, the longer it will be remembered." Ranville told me the marks of Cohn's influence are all over the presumptive Republican nominee. "Both McCarthy and Trump set up (phony) demons in order to slay them. Trump goes after Mexicans and Muslims; McCarthy, Communists." Both attack anyone who seeks to examine their methods. McCarthy went after Murrow; Trump bars the Washington Post and levels sexist insults at Megyn Kelly. And in both cases, Ranville says the media were complicit. "Reporters would rather cover PT Barnum and be the lead story on the evening news," he said. Claiming Mexico is sending rapists here gets you on page one; a principled plan to save Social Security gets buried deep inside the newspaper. Ranville thinks Murrow's words at the end of his McCarthy broadcast are as valid now as then: "He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it – and rather successfully." And then, quoting Shakespeare, he added, "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

For years, one of the nation’s most sinister figures was Roy Cohn, best known as the young chief counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy’s crusade to expose Communists in government. McCarthy and Cohn never uncovered a single Communist agent, though they ruined lives and careers and greatly worsened the climate of suspicion and fear called the Red Scare. Eventually, thanks in part to the pioneering broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, the true nature of McCarthy and McCarthyism was exposed to the

I wasn't at my university job in Detroit Tuesday, which may have been lucky for me. I normally travel the Lodge Freeway. About the time I usually come home, somebody ran into another car, and then apparently assaulted the other driver. When someone stopped to possibly try to help, the first driver started shooting at the Good Samaritan, who prudently took off. Eventually the police arrested the man who was shooting into traffic, and took him out of his car at gunpoint. Police said he had at least five weapons in his car, including handguns and rifles. Police tried to interview him about his motives, but said "he appears to have mental health issues, which is making it difficult to determine what caused this incident." For all we know, he may have been heading to Comerica Park, where the Detroit Tigers were playing last night, to try to take the record for killing people with guns from the Orlando shooter. We may never know the Lodge Freeway man's motives, but we do know this. No matter how deranged he was or what he might have done, the United States Senate doesn't want to make it any harder for him or any terrorist to get a gun. The day before the freeway shootings, the Senate rejected four proposed timid little gun control amendments, two from each party. The Democratic bills were ones which any legislature which cared about its citizens should have adopted unanimously. One would have required background checks for all gun sales, just in case we should ever decide we want to stop violent felons from purchasing weapons of mass destruction. The other would have prevented people on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms. Most people I asked about this yesterday thought such people were already prevented from buying weapons. They had forgotten that a distorted misunderstanding of the Second Amendment has come to trump all other rights in America. By the way, the Republicans, who have a majority in both houses of Congress, offered two absurd amendments of their own. The first would have increased funding to the background check program, while failing to require any new background checks. This was apparently to give the appearance of doing something while doing nothing. The second would have instituted a three-day delay of sorts when someone on the terror watch list tried to buy a gun. They didn't really propose to deny terrorists the right to buy weapons. But they would have allowed law enforcement to go before a judge and try to "prove" the gun buyer was up to no good. These amendments also failed. Democrats voted against them, perhaps because they were a total farce. A few Republicans also voted no, presumably because they feared the wrath of firearms fanatics if they appeared to favor even meaningless gun control legislation. Naturally, not to make it harder for crazy people and would-be terrorists to kill us is insane, and not what polls show people want. But it is what certain groups who fund political campaigns want. Which means more mass shootings. Today, we all have the ability to get just about any kind of weapon we want. What we've lost is working representative democracy. I wonder whether we're satisfied with the trade. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Most religions have some basic creed all members are supposed to profess. Many political parties do as well. I’m not sure what that would be for Democrats these days. But for today’s Republicans, one basic article of faith is bitter opposition to the Affordable Care Act, perhaps better known as Obamacare. Virtually every Republican running for federal office has vowed to work to repeal Obamacare. Actually, they usually say “repeal and replace,” though they are usually pretty vague about what, if

On Friday, I was sharply critical of Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley for a statement he made last week in an interview. The lieutenant governor, who is supporting Donald Trump, indicated he was doing so mostly because he was concerned about the next several appointments to the United States Supreme Court. He added, "The next president will decide whether our Bill of Rights remains as it has been understood to be all this time." I took him to task for that, because the President does not, of course, have the power to say what the Bill of Rights means; only the federal courts, and ultimately the United States Supreme Court, does. To my surprise, the lieutenant governor called me later that evening, as he was driving across the Upper Peninsula. He was extremely courteous and wanted to explain his reasoning – and later continued the conversation in a series of text messages. Calley said he thought it was clear from the context of the story published by the Gongwer News Service that when he said the next president would decide the meaning of the Bill of Rights, he was referring to U.S. Supreme Court vacancies. The current one, for the seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and presumed future vacancies in the next administration. He said he was primarily concerned about First and Second Amendment issues. The Second Amendment is, of course, about the right to keep and bear arms. When it comes to the First Amendment, Calley seems to be primarily concerned with freedom of religion issues, and to be afraid the court might do something to inhibit that. Last month, Mr. Trump did release a list of judges he might said he would use as a guide to making Supreme Court appointments. The lieutenant governor told me, "I believe given the list he put out, we have a much, much better chance at maintaining the status quo than an appointment from Hillary Clinton." Lieutenant Governor Calley is certainly entitled to think that, though one of Justice Scalia's clerks told the New York Times that whether Mr. Trump "could actually be counted on to pick folks like this is a different question." What bothers me most, however, is the notion that a President should cherry-pick justices based on their guess as to how they are likely to come down on one or two issues the politician cares about. Supreme Court justices are supposed to be constitutional scholars. Mr. Calley said of himself, "you don't make it through the MPA program at the Kennedy School of Government without a fairly strong grasp of these things." But in fact, neither he nor Donald Trump is even an attorney, much less a constitutional scholar. Thirty years ago, when President Reagan nominated Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court, he was confirmed unanimously. He was well known to be deeply conservative. But, as is the case with nominee Merrick Garland today, his intellectual credentials were impeccable. Back then, nominees tended to be rejected only in the case of financial or moral issues. We rightly expected them to be better equipped to interpret the Constitution than an ideological politician. The lieutenant governor might not agree. But I am convinced returning to that assumption might go a long way towards having us see ourselves as truly one nation again. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

On Friday, I was sharply critical of Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley for a statement he made last week in an interview. The lieutenant governor, who is supporting Donald Trump, indicated he was doing so mostly because he was concerned about the next several appointments to the United States Supreme Court.

Like most people, I haven’t paid a lot of attention to Brian Calley, Michigan’s lieutenant governor. Generally speaking, there’s a quiet understanding that lieutenant governors are standby equipment whose job is to stay out of the limelight. They break ties on important legislation before the Senate, represent the governor at all sorts of second-tier functions, and preside over the state when the governor is off on trade missions. Calley, who is 39 but looks younger, is even more invisible than