Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com.  

Well, it took long enough, but it appears that winter has officially gotten with the whole “snow” business, and, depending on where you live, it has done so in impressive fashion. Regardless of whether you’re snowed in or out, let your hearts be warmed, for the mailbag is here.

Q: Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston asks: “Will this set of conservative justices overturn Chevron deference?”

A: I certainly think it’s more likely than in the past. For those who don’t know, Chevron deference has given a wider latitude to administrative agencies in the past, which has caused a ruffling or two of the feathers for conservatives. By all accounts, we have five justices who have expressed opposition to the Chevron deference, and, depending on what happens with our friend Ginsburg*, we could be looking at a sixth justice in the coming months. So, on paper at least, Chevron’s time is limited. Now, that being said, there are a couple ways this could play out.

1. It is entirely possible that one of the conservative justices flinches and keeps Chevron at least relatively intact. This is more or less the Roe reasoning at work, seeing as the Court is less willing to start shucking precedent at a moment’s notice, though I can’t let this point go without mentioning that there is a considerable cultural and political aspect to this as well. Abortion, for instance, is a very hot-button topic, and, honestly, the Court’s five conservative justices would probably just prefer to avoid the question. At the same time, we saw last year in Janus that they are not always opposed to making landmark decisions in a conservative direction that overturn old precedent. Some of that bearing is just based on what the public face of the issue looks like at the time of ruling. Chevron deference probably wears more of a Janus style public face, so I doubt we’d see this result.
2. If we get a Justice Thomas type of result, this would probably be the most complete pushback against Chevron deference. More than likely, his ruling would be a short, succinct rebuke and include (a) something about founding intent and (b) a stick-figure drawing with its tongue stuck out, blowing strawberries and going “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.”
3. The final, broad result I could foresee would be a Chevron-lite result. Right now, the administrative interpretations and decisions are largely left alone, so long as they fall under a “reasonable” interpretation of the applicable statute. For those unacquainted with judicial terminology, “reasonable” can mean just about anything your little, Machiavellian heart wants it to be if you try hard enough. If we get Chevron-lite, the Court could come up with a stricter test without obliterating the underlying principle.

In short, I think we’ll see some progress on this front should an appropriate case come up.

Q: Henry also asks: “Thoughts on Joe Biden’s potential 2020 candidacy – is he the best Democrat for anti-Trump purposes, the best Democratic candidate in general, or what?”

A: I’m actually in favor of creating a house for the nation’s uncles and nominating Joe Biden for a post. He’s just so doggone charismatic as Uncle Joe. But, in all seriousness, I think Biden would have been a great candidate in 2016 for the Democrats, but that ship may have sailed. In some ways, we are seeing the internal conflict that Republicans faced in 2015 and 2016 surface in the Democrat party, only this time it’s a young, vigorous, and aggressively socialistic front. One of the best op-eds I’ve read this year was from the Washington Post, which I can’t unfortunately can’t find right now. The essence of it was that the writer knew exactly who should run, and it was definitely Joe Biden because America needed an older, moderating voice….except maybe it was time for younger blood. So, in that case, it was definitely to be someone like Beto O’Rourke because of all his passion and vigor and popularity…..except his politics may be too radical and he’s already lost an election. So, we definitely need someone the public hasn’t seen before….on and on it went like this for about 40 candidates until it ended with, “unless, what we really need is an older, moderating voice…which in that case means they should run Joe Biden.” Wash, rinse, repeat.

There was much talk about the overabundance of candidates in the 2016 Republican process, but we could actually run out of debate space in 2020 for the Democrats. We are two years out, and we already have 3 or 4 candidates who have declared for the Democrats. In all honesty, I really don’t know who the Democrats will run or should run right now, and, realistically, it won’t really matter if Democrats bite the bullet and just vote for their nominee like Republicans did in 2016. If forced to choose, however, I think the Democrats should nominate Michelle Obama. Toss away what you think about her politics or experience; you have to admit that the Obamas are cool in the public’s eye. She has the name recognition, she has intersectionality cards, she has the decorum, and Trump has broken the experience barrier for her. Do I think she’d be a good President? Heavens no, but I do think she could win.

Q: Henry finally asks: “How do you foresee this shutdown ending?”

A: I debated how to answer this, and I think I’m just going to go for broke. I think Trump ends up getting some funding for his border wall. He bungled the first stage of this shutdown by saying he would own it, but I think this shutdown favors the Republicans on the whole. Usually we see a little more fear and trepidation from them on this front, but they are holding strong right now.

I think the way Republicans actually end up winning this fight is by sticking to the strategy of replaying Democrats’ past hypocrisy on the matter. Every single day, they need to be rolling old footage of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi calling for more border security and showing their old votes in favor spending way more money on a border wall than $5 billion. Hold the Democrats’ feet to the fire and force the to explain why they are not willing to spend a measly $5 billion on the border wall. Honestly, this isn’t complicated. So what if the media and Democrats badger you about the shutdown. Badger them right back with a counter narrative. We’re in the thick of it now, so we might as well just take this shutdown as an opportunity for everyone to blow off some steam.

I think that’s all for this week, so we’ll reconvene next week for more mailbag fun. As always, send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com

* I should make it clear that I wish Justice Ginsburg no harm. From what I have been reading though, it is entirely possible that she is nearing the end of her term, possibly in retirement. The White House is making arrangements right now in case she does, so there seems to be something in the air.