The Republican Party, these days, is the Party of Donald Trump. The question the 2022 elections might answer is precisely how Trumpy the party is going to get, for at least the next two years. A corollary question is how big Trump's influence truly is with both Republican voters and Republican donors. Many are fervently hoping Trump's influence will fade to at least some degree if a few of his anointed candidates lose spectacularly, but no matter how many wind up losing, the near-certainty is that Donald Trump is going to make another presidential run in 2024 -- meaning the 2022 results may not actually matter all that much. An election with no Trump on the ballot is one thing, but if he's at the top of the ballot the next time around then all bets will -- once again -- be off.

Trump's influence will first be measured in the 2022 primaries, which are fast approaching. Texas will be the first major test, in less than two weeks. The incumbent Republican governor (even though he's already been endorsed by Trump) and the attorney general both face insurgent Republican candidates from the right, as well as a few other GOP-v-GOP state races and House contests. If any of the incumbents lose to challengers seen as more pro-Trump than they are, it might be the beginning of a shift towards Trump which could reverberate in other red states as the primaries unfold. But if the incumbents beat the Trump-favored challengers, it could signal that a Trump endorsement isn't the magic bullet many Republicans now see it as.

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I've said it before and (sadly) I expect I will say it again, but it continually amazes me that the Republican Party could sink even lower than it already has. It used to be (according to them) the party of morals, of law and order, and of personal responsibility. It is none of those things any more. The last to go was the "law and order" stance, but now they are openly taking political stances that are absolutely astonishing for their support of lawlessness. Such as standing up for the right of airplane passengers to be as disruptive as they please while breaking the rules all who fly must follow. That's not hyperbole or any type of overstatement, that is exactly what just happened.

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That headline is specific because I have my own personal bias from living in California, but it really could have been generic instead: "All States Should Vote The Way Alaska Votes." Because Alaska (of all places) seems to have come up with the best mix of new ideas in redesigning how people get to vote. They've combined the "jungle primary" system with "ranked-choice voting" and by doing so eliminated the worst aspects of both while keeping the best parts intact. That's quite a feat, which is why I am so strongly endorsing their concept.

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The Canadian trucker protest seems to be winding down, at least somewhat. The vital bridge between Detroit and Windsor has been cleared and reopened. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a national public emergency, which will allow him to clear the protests in Ottawa as well. But the big remaining question further south is whether American truckers will stage their own protest or not. The right-wing media echo chamber is rooting for such a protest to take place, but so far nothing tangible has emerged from the effort. Perhaps this is because there just isn't any great reason for them to protest here in the first place?

In Canada, the truckers were ostensibly protesting mask and vaccine mandates. However, with each week that goes by there are fewer and fewer pandemic measures even in effect down here in the United States. There is no nationwide vaccine mandate for truckers at all. Mask and distancing mandates are being lifted daily, even in blue states, as everyone rushes to get back to normal again. Give it a few more weeks and there just won't be anything left to protest at all, at least on the pandemic front.

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Did what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 constitute "legitimate political discourse" or not? That was the question that has divided the Republican Party all week, and may serve to be the one memorable phrase that sums up the difference between those in the GOP who have completely surrendered all their morals and thought processes and attachment to reality to Donald Trump -- and those who have not. Because that's what it all boils down to, really.

Was January 6th a bunch of harmless tourists wandering through the Capitol in search of legitimate political discourse with their elected officials, or was it a violent insurrection perpetrated by a terrorist mob chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" who were intent on stopping the constitutional transfer of power between presidencies? The answer's pretty obvious, one would think, but apparently not -- not over in Republicanland, at least.

The raging debate over January 6th, what to call it, whether to condemn it, and whether it should be investigated as the worst crime against the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812 was all succinctly summed up by the "legitimate political discourse" phrase, since it was deployed in a censure against two Republican House members who actually had the temerity to make good on their oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." A violent attack on the Capitol while Congress was attempting to certify the winner of a presidential election would certainly seem to qualify as something to be defended against, since the insurrectionist mob was so obviously comprised of domestic enemies of the Constitution.

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Inflation is rapidly turning into President Joe Biden's Achilles' heel. In the midst of an economy that is by every other measure booming, inflation remains the unsolved problem that affects all Americans at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and at the used car lot. Unlike more esoteric economic indicators, people see inflation's effects very directly, as they pay more for basic supplies every week. This represents an enormous political problem not just for Democrats but for Joe Biden personally.

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made some news today, by tentatively signalling she is now more open to the idea of banning members of Congress from making individual stock trades while they serve in office. The easiest way to do this, of course, would be to require all members to turn over all their holdings to a blind trust before they are sworn in. That would solve the problem entirely, but there are currently multiple proposals floating around Capitol Hill with various ideas as to how best achieve a trading ban. Pelosi's previous position had been to reject the idea entirely, saying back in December (when asked about banning members from individual trades): "We're a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that." She got a lot of blowback for this, while the idea has continued to gain steam among not only Democrats but also some Republicans as well. Today on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer got behind the idea wholeheartedly, addressing the Senate: "I believe this is an important issue that Congress should address, and it is something that has clearly raised interest on both sides of the aisle over the last few weeks." He urged senators to act sooner rather than later, as well. Pelosi, when asked about Schumer's comments, had a more-nuanced response: "I do believe in the integrity of people in public service. I want the public to have that understanding. We have to do this to deter something that we see as a problem.... And if that's what the members want to do, then that's what we will do."

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President Joe Biden missed an opportunity to make good on a campaign promise this week. It's not the most significant thing happening in the White House right now, I will admit, but it was a missed opportunity nonetheless. Biden could have stood strongly (as he had pledged to do) for the rights of people working for him not to be bullied while doing their jobs. Instead, he wound up looking detached and weak. Perhaps this was the fault of overzealous aides who did their best to not allow a controversy to actually enter the Oval Office, but there's also a danger in protecting the president too much from having to make hard choices.

The story starts with Politico, who was researching an article exposing Dr. Eric Lander, Biden's cabinet-level chief science advisor, as being a bad boss. Plenty of evidence of this exists, apparently, as he would routinely berate and belittle people working for him -- women, in particular. Although Lander is seen as somewhat of a technological wunderkind in the medical research area, that doesn't always equate to being a good boss. Or even one that doesn't break workplace rules, for that matter.

After it was revealed that there had been an internal investigation into Lander that did indeed find evidence of Lander mistreating underlings, the White House's initial response was beyond weak. It recommended that Lander do some touchy-feely events with his staff (brown-bag lunches'll fix everything!) and that the whole department (but not Lander himself) undergo workplace sensitivity training.

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Today Politico caused somewhat of a stir, by publishing an article that examined the question of the chances Democrats will have to avoid getting wiped out in the midterm elections this November. Up until now, the conventional inside-the-Beltway cocktail-party-chattering-class wisdom was that Democrats were toast and might as well not even bother running much of a campaign at all. Historical trends were against them, gerrymandering was going to take the House of Representatives away from them, and Republicans were going to emerge with new congressional majorities pretty much no matter what Democrats did or said in the meantime.

The Politico article challenged all of this, in admirable detail for such a short article. Summarized a bit, the main reasons why Democratic odds might be significantly improving were:

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President Joe Biden had a pretty good week, as political weeks go in Washington. First and foremost, the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 pandemic is fading fast -- the numbers are now down below half of the peak they hit roughly two weeks ago. That's good news for everybody, not just President Biden.

Then it was announced that the United States military had taken out the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. Questions still remain about the mechanics of this daring raid in Syria, but nobody is questioning the fact that the targeted terrorist leader is now dead.

The monthly jobs report came out today and it was astonishingly good, showing not only that the economy added 467,000 jobs in January (even in the worst part of the Omicron spike) but also that the previous two months had been adjusted upwards by a whopping 700,000 more new jobs than had been reported at the time. This stunned analysts who had been fully prepared for the jobs report to show the economy had lost jobs in January. The recovery continues apace, and Joe Biden oversaw more than six million jobs created in his first year in office (closer to seven million, actually) -- a jaw-dropping and record-setting number.

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