#racism trump clinton obamacare democrats

[robertreich]

Unlike Republicans, Democrats Can Govern. But Can They Fight?

As America heads into its quadrennial circus of nominating conventions (this year’s even more surreal because of the pandemic), it’s important to understand the real difference between America’s two political parties at this point in history.

Instead of “left” versus “right,” think of two different core competences.

The Democratic Party is basically a governing party, organized around developing and implementing public policies. The Republican Party has become an attack party, organized around developing and implementing political vitriol. Democrats legislate. Republicans fulminate.

In theory, politics requires both capacities -- to govern, but also to fight to attain and retain power. The dysfunction today is that Republicans can’t govern and Democrats can’t fight.

Donald Trump is the culmination of a half century of GOP belligerence. Richard Nixon’s “dirty tricks” were followed by Republican operative Lee Atwater’s smear tactics, Newt Gingrich’s take-no-prisoners reign as House speaker, the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry, and the GOP’s increasingly blatant uses of racism and xenophobia to build an overwhelmingly white, rural base.

Atwater, trained in the southern swamp of the modern Republican Party, once noted: "Republicans in the South could not win elections by talking about issues. You had to make the case that the other guy, the other candidate, is a bad guy." Over time, the GOP’s core competence came to be vilification.  

The stars of today’s Republican Party, in addition to Trump, are all pugilists: Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio; Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Georgia’s Brian Kemp; Fox News’s Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson; and attack dogs like Rudolph Giuliani and Roger Stone.  

But Republicans don’t have a clue how to govern. They’re hopeless at developing and implementing public policies or managing government. They can’t even agree on basics like how to respond to the pandemic or what to replace Obamacare with.

Meanwhile, the central competence of the Democratic Party is running government -- designing policies and managing the system. Once in office, Democrats spend countless hours cobbling together legislative and regulatory initiatives. They overflow with economic and policy advisers, programs, plans, and goals.

But Democrats are lousy at bare knuckles political fighting. Their campaigns proffer policies but are often devoid of passion. (Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid was little more than a long list of detailed proposals.) Democrats seem stunned when their GOP opponents pillory them with lies, rage, and ad hominem attacks.

This has put Democrats at a competitive disadvantage. Political campaigns might once have been about party platforms, but today’s electorate is angrier and more cynical. Policy ideas rarely make headlines; conflict does. Social media favor explosive revelations, including bald lies. No one remembers Hillary Clinton’s policy ideas from 2016; they only remember Trump’s attacks on her emails.

As a result, the party that’s mainly good at attacking has been winning elections – and pushed into governing, which it’s bad at. In 2016, the GOP won the presidency, along with control over both chambers of Congress and most governorships. On the other hand, the party that’s mainly good a governing has been losing elections – pushed into the role of opposition and attack, which it’s bad at. (House speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, seems to have a natural gift for it.)

This dysfunction has become particularly obvious – and deadly -- in the current national emergency. Trump and Senate Republicans have let the pandemic and economic downturn become catastrophes. They have no capacity to develop and implement strategies for dealing with them. Their knee-jerk response is to attack – China, Democrats, public health officials, protesters, “lazy” people who won’t work.

Democrats know what to do – House Democrats passed a comprehensive coronavirus bill in May, and several Democratic governors have been enormously effective -- but they’ve lacked power to put a national strategy into effect.

All this may change in a few months when Americans have an opportunity to replace the party that’s bad at governing with the one that’s good at it. After all, Joe Biden has been at it for most of the past half century.

Trump and the GOP will pull out all the stops, of course. They’ve already started mindless, smarmy attacks.

The big question hovering over the election is whether Democrats can summon enough fight to win against the predictable barrage. Biden’s choice of running mate, Kamala Harris, bodes well in this regard. Quite apart from all her other attributes, she’s a fierce fighter.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Losing candidates of the last 60 years

1960: Richard Nixon, Vice President (1953 - 1961), unsuccessfully ran for governor of California in 1962 after which he threw a piss baby shit fit press conference where he vowed to retire from politics, but rescinded that vow to run for president again in 1968, this time successfully because the Democratic vote was split between liberal northerner Hubert Humphrey and conservative southerner George Wallace (Nixon won with 43.4% of the vote, a record low not broken until Bill Clinton with 43.0% in 1992)

1964: Barry Goldwater, Senator from Arizona (1953 - 1965, 1969 - 1987), segregationist, staunch "states rights" activist, mentor to Ronald Reagan, father of modern conservatism, retired in the 80s, replaced by the more moderate John McCain

1968: Hubert Humphrey, Vice President (1965 - 1969), former senator from Minnesota (49 - 64) father of modern liberalism, would be considered a progressive by today's standards, pro-civil rights, later re-elected to the senate (71 - 78, died in office).

1968b: George Wallace, governor of Alabama (63 - 67), staunch segregationist, made Barry Goldwater look like MLK, famously stood on the school house door to try and stop integration, didn't let black people vote, nearly assassinated in 1972, paralyzed, continued serving as governor (71 - 79, 83 - 87), renounced racism later in life, claimed he was never truly racist, just pretended to be because he supported "states rights" (bullshit). Most recent third-party candidate to win a state.

1972: George McGovern, senator from South Dakota (63 - 81), lost every state but Massachusetts and DC, in part because President Nixon cheated (Watergate scandal, Nixon hired goons to wiretap DNC and steal intel from their HQ, forged a letter to discredit strong candidate Edmund Muskie to he would drop out and give the nomination to weak McGovern, tried to plant McGovern's campaign literature in Wallace's assassins apartment so conservative southerners would associate the attack with the Democratic Party and vote for Nixon instead)

1976: Gerald Ford, President (74 - 77), Republican House leader (65 - 73), became VP in 73 after Spiro Agnew resigned due to a bribery scandal. Democrats controlled Congress, so Nixon nominated Ford because he was a popular bipartisan mediator who the Democrats wouldn't object to, became president when Nixon himself resigned due to Watergate (Ford is the only president who was never elected to the presidency of vice presidency), started out super popular but tanked his credibility when he pardoned Nixon for his crimes

1980: Jimmy Carter, President (77 - 81), governor of Georgia (71 - 75), elected as a Washington outsider, humble peanut farmer, boring, malaise, fumbled Iran thrice (the revolution, recession, and hostage crisis), lost re-election to actor turned governor Ronald Reagan (segregationist Goldwater's protege; started his career giving anti-union speeches in the 60s despite being the president of the Screen Actor's Guild, a major union), had a much more successfully post-presidency than presidency, Habitat for Humanity, philanthropy

1984: Walter Mondale, Vice President (77 - 81), Senator from Minnesota (64 - 76), protege and successor to Hubert Humphrey, decent man, very boring, lost every state but Minnesota and DC, would later become ambassador to Japan under Clinton (93 - 96)

1988: Michael Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts (75 - 79, 83 - 91), army specialist (55 - 57), rode in a tank wearing a bullet proof vest and doofy headphones, looked like an idiot, actually polled ahead of VP Bush for a while, forgettable

1992: George HW Bush, President (89 - 94), VP (81 - 89), relatively moderate before becoming Reagan's VP (referred to trickle down as "voodoo economics"), said "read my lips, no new taxes," then raised taxes, oversaw Gulf War, sent the troops in, Iraq retreated without a fight, war was over in a couple days. Didn't invade Iraq, didn't topple Saddam; his son claims this is why he lost re-election, so he invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam in 2003, to finish what his daddy started. Faced opposition from both Democrats under Clinton and Independents under Perot; Perot didn't win a single state, but took 19% of the vote, the strongest third-party campaign all century

1992b: Ross Perot, businessman, independent, very strong candidate, qualified for debates with the major party candidates, closest thing to a 3-way race we've had since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 (Wallace won some states in 68, but only had regional appeal; he was only on the ballot in the South, only conservatives liked him, whereas Perot was a nationwide spoiler)

1996: Bob Dole, senator from Kansas (69 - 96) senate majority leader (85 - 87, 95 - 96), fought in WW2, has a bum arm, the senate's version of Newt Gingrich, helped defeat Clinton's healthcare plan (he's part of the reason we can't have nice things). He was VP candidate under Ford in 76; Ford's VP Rockefeller was too liberal (yes, liberal Republicans used to exist, just as conservative Democrats exist), so Ford replaced him with the conservative Dole to appeal to Nixon and Reagan voters (Reagan almost unseated Ford in 76 for the nomination)

1996b: Ross Perot again, Reform Party, didn't get nearly as much support this time around (only 8.4%)

2000: Al Gore, Vice President (93 - 01), senator from Tennessee (85 - 93), very boring, but competent, actually won the election but Bush's brother was governor of Florida and illegally stopped the recount, delaying it until it was too late to restart it (subsequent investigation shows Gore would have won the recount and therefore the presidency), used his post-VP career to be a climate change advocate

2004: John Kerry, senator for Massachusetts (1985 - 2013), unremarkable but competent, lost because Bush started 2 wars and the country didn't want to change horses midstream, later became Secretary of State under Obama (13 - 17), and climate envoy under Biden (a position Biden made up to try and appeal to green advocates, but it doesn't really mean anything because he opposes the green new deal)

2008: John McCain, senator from Arizona (1987 - 2018, died in office), succeeded Goldwater but not nearly as conservative (at least, not a segregationist; he defended Obama as "a good man" when a Karen called him an Arab, got booed for it), Vietnam veteran, war monger (wanted to bomb Iran after Bush bombed Iraq and Afghanistan), actually saved healthcare by voting against Trump and McConnell's Obamacare repeal (he didn't support Obamacare, he just didn't want millions of Americans to lose their insurance; the Republicans didn't have a replacement plan, they were solely dedicated to getting rid of Obama's)

2012: Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts (03 - 07), relative moderate (Massachusetts is the bluest state in the country), super Mormon, hates poor people, kind of racist in a grandfatherly way ("oh, peepaw doesn't hate black people, he just grew up in a different era"), once wore brown face to try and appear tan to Hispanic voters, later became senator from Utah (2019 - present), first senator to ever vote to convict a president of their own party in impeachment (twice!)

2016: Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State (09 - 13), senator from New York (01 - 09), First Lady (93 - 01), boring gramma, disingenuous, moderate but pretends to be progressive, wasn't responsible for Benghazi but blamed for it anyway, out of touch, thinks she's the hottest shit since sliced bread, coasted to second place because she thought she didn't have to try, thought she deserved to be President, actually won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college because of low voter turnout, high third-party media coverage, and a major rightward swing in the Rust Belt

2020: Donald Trump, president (17 - 21), no prior experience, dumbest person to ever hold the office (makes George W Bush look like. Rhode's Scholar), diet Fascist: all the ideology, none of the appeal (fascists are usually good speakers, but Trump only had a base of about 35 - 40% of the country, which he couldn't grow, so instead he tried to shrink the opposition by attacking voting rights and calling the election fraudulent), super racist, super sexist, petty, vindictive, cruel, childish, spent the first two years just undoing everything Obama did for no other reason than he just hated the man (there are legitimate reasons to hate Obama, but Trump chose racism and jealousy over valid criticism), first president to be impeached twice, first president to have members of his own party vote to convict him, had a cult-like following among Republicans, close to zero support from everyone else

2024: TBD

[imagitory]

*exhales heavily*

Okay...I don’t usually go off the deep end in political essays that often. If it’s a quick thing like “f**k Neo-Nazis,” then sure, fine, that’s easy. I don’t have to explain why Neo-Nazis -- especially the cowardly ones that try to label themselves as the “alt-right” in a vain attempt to seem more acceptable to modern society -- can go screw themselves. Everyone already knows they’re awful -- or at least, everyone should already know they’re awful. If you’re the sort of person that wants to try to “teach” me about how the alt-right are not Neo-Nazis, then this post isn’t for you, so kindly don’t interact and keep scrolling.

This post is instead for my Democratic followers, whether you support Bernie, Biden, Warren, whatever. Please feel free to skip over it, though, my dear followers -- I know this whole political season has been very draining, and I have a lot more positive posts on my blog that you can consult instead. If you do want to read my thoughts, though, here’s a cut.

Hi, guys. How’s it going? We really dodged a bullet with Bloomberg dropping out of the race, didn’t we? At least now no one should be able to say Democrats and Republicans are alike, right? The Democrats kicked their racist, sexist, obnoxious, out-of-touch billionaire accused of multiple sexual assaults to the curb, while the Republicans made theirs president.

On that note, though...we still have the Republican version of Michael Bloomberg -- the one and only Donald Trump -- in office. We all remember how he got there...Hillary won the popular vote, but thanks to the ridiculously outdated electoral college rules and Russian interference, the electoral votes went Trump’s way. We could conjure up multiple reasons for Hillary’s loss, but at least in my opinion, I would say we learned a few lessons from the 2016 election that I think we should keep in mind. (Alongside making sure Russians butt the hell out of our elections and fact-checking all the rampant misinformation from our media outlets.)

1) We Democrats have more things in common than we might think, sometimes.

Clinton was infinitely closer to Bernie, politics-wise, than Bernie was to Trump or Gary Johnson. Yet there were those who were so upset about Hillary’s nomination and the role Democratic Party officials had in coaxing  delegates to support her that they protest-voted against Hillary, even if that vote wasn’t in their best interest. We don’t have a system that lets us rank who we want for office from most to least, so sometimes we have to accept a bird in the hand rather than reach for two in the bush. You might feel good about voting your conscience in the short term, but you probably won’t when it results in your vote being a drop in the bucket that doesn’t prevent someone like Donald Trump from winning. We’ve already seen this happen not just in the Trump-Clinton election of 2016, but in the Bush-Gore election of 2000.

2) Despite that first point, if we want unity, our Democratic candidate must be aware of how diverse our party is.

Even if we do end up having to settle for a less liberal candidate in order to win an election, that candidate MUST acknowledge that we are not like the Republican Party. We will not march lock-step with people we don’t agree with just because they’re in our party or we agree with some things, and we will certainly not be satisfied with simple pacifism. The Republican Party has been tilting farther and farther to the right over the last three decades, to the point that their policies now involve mass internment of Mexican immigrants and family separation, directly paralleling plans carried out by the THIRD EFFIN’ REICH. We cannot keep begging for civility and peace and trying to reach a compromise -- you cannot compromise with this kind of extremism without sacrificing all of your principles, because those kinds of people do not make concessions.

I remain convinced even after four years that Hillary should’ve chosen Bernie to be her running mate -- if she had, the rift between the centrist and more liberal branches of the Democratic Party might have been healed enough that we could’ve looked at our ticket with excitement and hope, as we had for Obama and Biden back in 2008. Instead Hillary chose Tim Kaine, an inoffensive centrist Democrat who added absolutely nothing to her presidential bid. He couldn’t even help Hillary out by boosting the campaign with youthful energy or natural charm -- Bernie would’ve both boosted morale among younger and/or more liberal voters and lit a fire under those who were anxious about what a Trump presidency could lead to. The same could’ve been true if Bernie had been chosen to be president -- if he’d chosen Hillary, she could’ve better appealed to moderate voters intimidated by the thought of voting for a Democratic Socialist and run on her international experience as Secretary of State.

3) In order to make any difference at all, we must vote, and we must win.

I’m the first person to acknowledge that I hate voting against my convictions. If the Democrats had chosen Michael Bloomberg, I would’ve probably been ready for whole-scale revolution, right then and there. But let’s be frank here -- in 2016, we got complacent. We assumed that Trump would lose. We assumed that America wouldn’t choose racism, or Islamaphobia, or sexism, or Nazism. BUT WE DID. In the end, our country -- like many other countries before us were -- is more afraid of the promise of social change than we are of the threat of fascism. Yes, I called Trump’s vision of the country fascism, and I stand by it. Fascism is defined as far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial authority, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy and often supplemented with government-sanctioned racism -- and yeah, given that Trump clearly wants to do whatever he wants whenever he wants without facing any consequences for his actions, persecute any so-called “enemies,” make money for himself while in office (even using his office and political power to achieve that end), and scapegoat minorities, I think my point is made. And so I will state it again -- America is more afraid of the future and the progress that could come with it than it is of the cruelty, bigotry, and tyranny of our past. It’s an absolute tragedy, but it’s true. Americans were absolutely terrified of Obamacare until it actually became law and people saw how cool it was, not to be booted off your care for preexisting conditions and stuff. Once that happened, Americans were ready to bite off the hand of any Republican who made any move toward repealing it. If it’s something we’ve never done before, it’s beaten back like the plague, but once it’s something we’ve become accustomed to, you can tear it from our cold, dead hands.

In the 1930′s, Germany had a choice between three political parties -- the Communists, the Democratic Socialists, and the Nazis -- and in the end, the reason the Nazis got power was because the Communists and the Socialists could not band together to stop that greater threat. The Nazis were able to paint a pretty picture to the German people of returning their country to its supposedly long lost, mythic greatness, and they won power, even if they were still not the majority when Hitler got into office. And as soon as the Nazis got power, they never let it go and went out of their way to destroy both Communists and Socialists, just like they did with Jewish people, the Romani, and the rest. We are at such a crossroads now. I am deathly afraid that the Republicans will try to find some way to keep power even if Trump were to lose, but we cannot let that happen. We must stand together, strong and united.

The more liberal of us must acknowledge that radical change cannot be put into place quickly. Our system is broken and falling apart thanks to the Republicans’ on-going sabotage, and we cannot hope to remodel our house until our foundation is secure. Even the Republicans were not able to destroy our country in so many ways these last four years without dismantling a lot of other things first -- corrupting our elections with money thanks to the Citizens United ruling -- sparking two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that drained us of money and added to the backlog of veterans that have yet to receive their deserved financial support -- intimidating political officials away from substantive gun control legislation -- chipping away at abortion rights nation-wide -- stacking the courts, both local and Supreme, with unqualified, strongly right-leaning candidates -- gerrymandering districts like crazy so as to split Democratic-leaning areas and puff up Republican-leaning ones -- even spreading misinformation through shows on their own private so-called “News” network. It will take time to repair all of the damage the Republicans have wrought, but we must first win if we are even to have the chance to try.

On the flip side, the more centrist of us must acknowledge that we cannot go back to the way we were because the way we were was WRONG. We might have nostalgic visions of it being more civil and peaceful, but the tremors of war were still rippling under our feet. The Neo-Nazi rats that elected Trump were gathering under us, and we let them. We let them gain enough confidence to come out into the light in large numbers and we stood by, assuming that they wouldn’t succeed in their goals. We ignored the rampant spread of anti-immigrant rhetoric and Islamaphobia -- we downplayed the racism, the homophobia, and the sexism. Sometimes it was due to arrogance, and sometimes it was due to flat-out indifference, because those things didn’t directly affect us. We should know by now that that rosy view of our past was not how things were -- just as many of our Founding Fathers were still slave owners, and America interned our own citizens in camps during World War II, and the supposedly great Ronald Reagan turned a blind eye while thousands of Americans died of AIDS, our country saw the signs of racism, xenophobia, and ultranationalism coming out in full again and didn’t fight back. And now that racist, xenophobic ultranationalism is in control of the Oval Office. If we have any chance of stopping them, we can’t simply go backwards -- we must charge ahead. We can’t simply pretend like everything can go back to normal -- we must accept responsibility for what we’ve done and pursue justice in making things right. We must fight back against these far-right, tyrannical policies and we must pay restitution to those our country has hurt. I do not want the Mexican families we have destroyed to be treated the way our Japanese American brethren were after they were released from the internment camps in the 40′s -- dismissed and forgotten, with our flag figuratively slapping them in the face every time some stupid guy crowed his head off about America being the greatest country on earth. I may have hated Trump’s immigration policy -- I might not have voted for him -- but he still represents my country, and therefore me, to the rest of the world, and even if he’ll never apologize for a single damn thing that he’s done, I want my country to make things right.

Maybe once a Democrat -- even if it’s a centrist like Biden -- is in the White House again, we’ll have the chance for real change -- good change. We certainly won’t get it as long as we’re stuck on the outside looking in.

Now of course, even when this whole presidential thing is done, we can’t rest on our laurels. We must get out in force for local elections too -- we must take back the Senate and keep control of the House. We must pressure our lawmakers to get the money out of politics, and fix gerrymandering, and restore environmental protections, and hold corporations accountable, and tax the rich, and abolish the Electoral College, and put term limits on Congresspeople, and impeach Brett Kavanaugh, and fund dismantling the backlog on VA benefits, and cancel student loan debt, and implement universal health care, and pass gun control legislation, and do all the other things we need done.

I really hope that whichever candidate we end up with -- whether it’s Biden (*sighs begrudgingly*), Bernie (*smiles*), or Warren (*wiggles in glee*) -- that candidate will strongly consider choosing a Vice President who is either more centrist (if they’re more liberal) or more liberal (if they’re more centrist) and filling their Cabinet with those other ex-presidential hopefuls who still have something to offer. Kamala Harris was Attorney General of California -- why not have her become Attorney General of the United States next? How about Tom Steyer as Head of the EPA, or Cory Booker as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development?

Here’s the thing about us being more diverse in thought than the Republicans -- it means we have a great swath of very different members with very different skill sets, as well as the ability to learn, critique, rationalize, change, and improve. And if we are to defeat an institution like Trump’s that demands lock-step, mindless obedience and praise, it seems to me that’s something we should use to our advantage.

[doctrinendonuts-blog]

Yes, Pennsylvania. You are a bigot.

Yes, Pennsylvania: you are a bigot. Dear Progressives: I understand that you’re in shock, because I am too. My Nasty Women Vote sticker is stuffed in my desk; I can’t bring myself to let it go even though I know that Nasty Women are outnumbered. As an American, I want to learn my lesson, so I can stop the internal and national bleeding. As a teacher, I know the difference between learning and making an unsupported argument (note to students—your final exams will reflect this). It feels like progressives are doing the latter. I’m hearing: Democrats focused too much on people of color and LGBT people (who apparently don’t work?) and not enough on the “working class.” “Working-class” anger, not racism and sexism, explains Trump’s win. The Democratic Party should simultaneously tack to the Left and stop focusing on progressive values such as reproductive choice and racial justice. “Identity politics” is dead, except if your identity is white, male, resident of a former manufacturing region. If you’re in mourning for America’s Unclean Coal, the Democratic Party should listen. If you’re concerned about your mom being deported, about becoming a mother against your will, or about being arrested for using a bathroom, then please take a seat. Your needs lost us one too many elections already. Yeah, no. First, can we please stop saying Trump won because steel and coal lost? The death of steel and coal predates NAFTA, according to economists, historians, and Billy Joel’s classic 1982 classic “Allentown.” Second, Trump voters weren’t poor and many voted against their economic interests. Knowing this, we have two choices: we can assume they’re stupid, or you can believe something other than steel motivated them. The road to 11/8/16 isn’t lined with shuttered steel mills, but with closed minds. The sooner progressives get used to saying this out loud, the better. Remember when we elected our first black president and many voters lost their collective minds? Trumpism in the form of birtherism was born of an explosive, racist rage among people who saw Michelle Obama as an ape and Trayvon Martin as a thug. Meanwhile—and this hurts, because we love our President– the Obama Administration allowed Republicans to falsely paint him as a divisive, my-way-or-the-highway partisan even when his compromises were enraging liberals. The stimulus bill was almost 1/3 tax cuts the GOP wanted. Had the White House crowed about this compromise, they could have painted the GOP into a corner and killed their message he was a divisive partisan before it could take root. Instead, like Lucy with the football, the GOP got everything they wanted, rejected the bill on party-line vote in the House (three GOP senators voted for it), and won the message battle. Lucy got the football back with health care. Instead of a single-payer system, we got a compromise bill based on a Heritage Foundation model. Again, the Administration failed to convey that this was a compromise bill or sell its own policy to the people who would benefit—the same Trump voters who are about to lose their health care. This enabled the 2010 electoral “shellacking” for which our President graciously accepted some responsibility, though the Democratic voters who stayed home bear just as much. Obamacare and infrastructure investments benefited the very people whom the pundits now claim the Dems forgot in our misguided insistence on insisting transgender people are human beings. The truth is, Obama did good things for working-class people, including millions of Trump voters who rely on Medicaid expansion and health care exchanges. But white America didn’t believe it, for some reason. When the incumbent president’s signature accomplishment is unpopular, you’re going to pay for it at the polls, and Hillary Clinton probably did. In spite of Obama Derangement Syndrome, Secretary Clinton left office with a 64% approval rating— 14 points higher than the President’s. The GOP resumes its war on Clinton, spending millions of tax dollars to wound her. They find no wrongdoing. Nonetheless, by the time Senator Sanders the presidential race on April 30, 2015, Clinton’s approval is down to about 46%. And that’s when it got really ugly. Any progressive who tangled with the Bernie Bros (and then got called a c--- for using the term Bernie Bros, and then got called a c--- again for calling out sexism) can tell you—that primary damaged her. Do you remember? Sanders, not Trump, introduced the rigged system into the election cycle. Sanders painted Clinton as an establishment hack owned by Goldman Sachs and unaccountable to real people. “Weak” candidate Clinton wins the primary anyway, and not because it was rigged. Sanders refuses to acknowledge the math and then claims that superdelegates he’d previously railed against as part of the rigged system should actually rig the system for him precisely because he was successful in weakening her. By the time AP declared Clinton the presumptive nominee on June 6, she was 17 points underwater. Although it’s true the email investigation remained active during this time, her decline among Democrats points to something else going on. Her trend line and Sanders’ go in opposite directions. Meanwhile, the GOP nominates a candidate who on a wave of racism, harnessing the rage of voters who have been seething since a black president was elected. America clutches its collective pearls. Nate Silver says oopsie but doesn’t mention racism because why mention racism? Thanks to pressure from Sanders and his energized base, the Democratic Party assembles its most progressive platform ever. But like Lucy with the football, his revolutionaries still don’t want to play for their own team. Sanders doesn’t do much to change that. After promising to rally his troops around Clinton and stop the bleeding from the primaries, Sanders retreats to Vermont, where he buys a third home, and tweets about billionaires while his disappointed supporters fall for former Lexington Town Meeting Representative Jill Stein, who claims that Clinton is more dangerous than Trump. Then Russia joins the Trump campaign and the FBI helps out (because why should Hillary be able to waltz into the presidency just by beating the GOP and the left wing of her own party?). Our nation holds the first presidential election since a right-wing Supreme Court gutted the Voting rights Act. North Carolina Republicans brag about suppressing black votes, and the results prove they were right to brag. In spite of Russia, the FBI, recalcitrant left wingers, Obama Derangement Syndrome, and the Roberts Court, Clinton still wins close to 3 million more votes than Trump, yet loses the presidency. (Breathe. I’ll wait). It doesn’t take long for the far left to blame Democrats for failing to see the electorate through a class-driven lens. Bernie Sanders takes a dig at Clinton and her supporters, saying “It is not good enough for someone to say I’m a woman, vote for me.” He does not consider that Clinton’s gender caused anyone not to vote for her. In stating that “The working class of this country is being decimated. That’s why Donald Trump won,” he does not account for all of the working class people of color who voted against Trump. Or that the majority of Trump supporters believe President Obama is a Muslim. Our class-first revolutionary says “Identity politics” is a game for middle-aged women. And look where that got us. But funny thing about identity politics is – white people play too, and Trump’s America is proof positive. We have a rash of hate crimes. White nationalists are celebrating with good reason. David Duke has praised Team Trump, including an attorney general designee who once prosecuted voting rights workers (ominously, Trump claims three million “illegals” voted in 2016, foreshadowing federal voter suppression efforts led by AG Sessions). But pay no attention to the chorus of “heil Trumps” behind the screen. With the threat of a Muslim registry, mass deportations, the end of Roe, and renewed assaults on LGBT rights, it’s astonishing—and frankly embarrassing—that so many Democrats believe it’s time to focus on (a) wooing the free college, anti-Establishment (white) youth voters who just weren’t feeling Clinton and (b) charming the working-class whites who were insufficiently alarmed by the "build the wall" and "lock her up" tendencies of Trumpism to reject them. Yes, we need to have a good long talk with those young progressive voters, nine percent of whom voted third party in the face of the Trump threat to progressive priorities. But let’s not apologize for failing to give them the candidate of their dreams. I’m a college teacher, and it’s my job to tell young people when they’re full of shit. Here’s an idea that’s full of shit: it’s a candidate’s job to earn your very special vote, and if she fails to do so, none of the consequences are on you. This idea is the civic equivalent of standing over a drowning person, dangling a life preserver just out of reach, and saying “you didn’t say please.” Saying Hillary Clinton didn’t deserve your vote misses the point. The point is, America deserved better than Trump, and you knew that, and you didn’t step up. Yes, we need to talk to white Trump voters. But let’s not reassure them we don’t think they’re racists just because they voted for a KKK-endorsed candidate who promised to build a wall, register Muslims, and promote stop-and-frisk. To paraphrase Chris Rock, what does a person have to do to earn the term racist—shoot Medgar Evers? The fact is, many voters are racist. Some who acknowledge Trump is racist support him anyway. We’re not going to make this racism go away by pretending white people have a right to be told it doesn’t exist. And so, my dear progressives: I ask you to remember how comfortable we were with saying (accurately) that many Americans rejected President Obama because of racism. Do you? Good. So do I. Now it’s time to acknowledge that Trump benefitted from racism. Now close your eyes and remember how, when only one third of Americans supported marriage equality, we committed to change voters' minds because the long-shot cause of equality was a moral imperative. Do you? Good. So do I. Well, 62.5 million Americans just voted for a KKK-endorsed presidential candidate. We must again commit to change voters' minds, because the long-shot cause of equality is a moral imperative. So say it with me: Yes, Pennsylvania. You are a bigot. Was that so hard?

[evilelitest2]

“oh Fox news will destroy that" This especially. People think that Trump can replicate in one year the decades long smear against Hillary Clinton's name with some other candidate without the same history. This is just not so. It isn't possible to gin up that level of resentment with the time we have left to the point of where it'll irreparably damage a new candidate.

Yeah democrats really have a tendency to overestimate Fox New’s Power, I think because they can’t think of any other reason for why they lose.  The “casual liberal” as it where, has a few assumptions, specifically that the adverage American is a basically decent person, and that the only reason why rural red state voters don’t support policies that should be in their self interest.  Why do Republicans, many of whom need Obamacare to live, actively support candidates who are anti-Obamacare.  Casual leftists are like “OMG, it must be the Fox News propaganda poisoning their mindssss” and that isn’t wrong, people who watch only Fox News are going to be radicalized into supporting stupid policies, but it also gives Fox a bit too much credit.  IN this telling, Hillary CLinton was a super popular beloved candidate until Fox News talked about emails and then suddenly she was the second most unpopular candidate in US history.  And this ignores the fact that Fox news basically only reaches Rightists.  WHile it is entirely possible that had Fox not existed in 2016, some republicans would be willing to hear her out and vote for her, that doesn’t explain the independents or leftists who stayed home in 2016.  

THe notion that any cannidate we nominate in 2020 will be inevitably tarred as unpopular as Clinton was in 2016 is just weird fatalism, because if that were the case, how did Obama win twice despite also having the issue of systemic racism working against him?  How did Bill Clinton win twice?  The fact is Democrats have a tendency to put up weak cannidates (Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton) and then act surprised that they never caught on.  Fox News is a factor, but we need to pick less uninspiring candidates.  

Bringing this back to 2020, at this point in the 2016 election Hillary CLinton was much more unpoular, in large part because the Republicans have been working to undermine her image for over two decades before the election. By 2016, there was an entirely weird creepy sub genre of republican books on the Clinton’s supposed conspirtorial crimes, Clinton Cash being just one example.  This decade long hate totem can’t just be created on the Fly, and none of the Democratic candidates has this creepy anti cult, that is a uniquely Hillary Clinton experience.  So while none of them are likely Republican voters, with the except of Gabbard and Williamson, none of our people are that level of unpopular, though it would be nice if we didn’t choose Biden. 

[patriotsnet]

Why Are The Republicans So Evil

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-are-the-republicans-so-evil/

Why Are The Republicans So Evil

In 2008 Republicans Said That If We Elect A Democratic President We Would Be Hit By Al Qaeda Again Perhaps Worse Than The Attack On 9/11

A VOTERS’ GUIDE TO REPUBLICANS

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney stated that electing a Democrat as president would all but guarantee that there would be another major attack on America by Al Qaeda. Cheney and other Republicans were, thankfully, completely wrong. During Obama’s presidency, we had zero deaths on U.S. soil from Al Qaeda attacks and we succeeded in killing Bin Laden along with dozens of other high ranking Al Qaeda leaders.

Republicans Will Likely Take Control Of The Senate By 2024

The usual midterm House losses by the White House party dont always extend to the Senate because only a third of that chamber is up for election every two years and the landscape sometimes strongly favors the presidential party . But there a still generally an out-party wave that can matter, which is why Republicans may have a better than average chance of winning in at least some of the many battleground states that will hold Senate elections next year . If they win four of the six youll probably be looking at a Republican Senate.

But its the 2024 Senate landscape that looks really promising for the GOP. Democrats will be defending 23 seats and Republicans just 10. Three Democratic seats, and all the Republican seats, are in states Trump carried twice. Four other Democratic seats are in states Trump won once. It should be a banner year for Senate Republicans.

The Corruption Of The Republican Party

The GOP is best understood as an insurgency that carried the seeds of its own corruption from the start.

About the author: George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal,Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century,The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, and The Assassins Gate: America in Iraq.

Why has the Republican Party become so thoroughly corrupt? The reason is historicalit goes back many decadesand, in a way, philosophical. The party is best understood as an insurgency that carried the seeds of its own corruption from the start.

I dont mean the kind of corruption that regularly sends lowlifes like Rod Blagojevich, the Democratic former governor of Illinois, to prison. Those abuses are nonpartisan and always with us. So is vote theft of the kind weve just seen in North Carolinaafter all, the alleged fraudster employed by the Republican candidate for Congress hired himself out to Democrats in 2010.

The fact that no plausible election outcome can check the abuse of power is what makes political corruption so dangerous. It strikes at the heart of democracy. It destroys the compact between the people and the government. In rendering voters voiceless, it pushes everyone closer to the use of undemocratic means.

Read Also: How Many Republicans Voted To Impeach Trump In The House

Opinion: If The Gop Is Now Home To Evil Lunacy Its Time To Leave

The Republican Party refuses to investigate the most violent act of insurrection since the Civil War because it might make the party look bad.

Think about that. It would look bad because it would be obvious that their cult hero incited a MAGA mob and because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy , who pleaded with the president to call off the rioters at the Capitolon Jan. 6, would be compelled to testify. He might then have to explain why he still takes direction from someone who betrayed his oath.

A commission would look bad for the GOP because it would short-circuit the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, confirming that this effort at subterfuge was intended to assuage the ego of a dangerous man-child. The optics, as they say, would be bad because the GOPs continued refusal to renounce its disgraced former leader would affirm its willingness to open the country up to another violent insurrection. It would also look really bad if some members of Congress were shown to havecommunicated with the Jan. 6attackers. We get hung up on Republicans refusal to endorse the commission, but we should remain focused on their original sin: subversion of democracy.

With or without the commission, the Republican Party is a danger to the republic. And that gets back to the central question as to why any respectable patriot remains in the party. The GOP of Ronald Reagan, of John McCain, of Mitch Daniels does not exist. But dont take my word for it.

Read more:

Think Republicans Are Disconnected From Reality It’s Even Worse Among Liberals

A new survey found Democrats live with less political diversity despite being more tolerant of it with startling results

In a surprising new national survey, members of each major American political party were asked what they imagined to be the beliefs held by members of the other. The survey asked Democrats: How many Republicans believe that racism is still a problem in America today? Democrats guessed 50%. Its actually 79%. The survey asked Republicans how many Democrats believe most police are bad people. Republicans estimated half; its really 15%.

The survey, published by the thinktank More in Common as part of its Hidden Tribes of America project, was based on a sample of more than 2,000 people. One of the studys findings: the wilder a persons guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

This effect, the report says, is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree. And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion.

Should the US participate in the Paris climate accord and reduce greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do? A majority of voters in both parties said yes.

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Prior To Going To War In Iraq Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Optimistically Predicted The Iraq War Might Last Six Days Six Weeks I Doubt Six Months

What’s more, Vice-President Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people after we overthrow Saddam.

They were both horribly wrong. Instead of six weeks or six months, the Iraq war lasted eight long and bloody years costing thousands of American lives. It led to an Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites that took hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Many Iraqi militia groups were formed to fight against the U.S. forces that occupied Iraq. Whats more, Al Qaeda, which did not exist in Iraq before the war, used the turmoil in Iraq to establish a new foothold in that country.

The Iraq war was arguably the most tragic foreign policy blunder in US history.

Why Is Billionaire George Soros A Bogeyman For The Hard Right

US mail bomb threats

He’s a Jewish multi-billionaire philanthropist who has given away $32bn. Why does the hard right from America to Australia and from Hungary to Honduras believe George Soros is at the heart of a global conspiracy, asks the BBC’s Mike Rudin.

One quiet Monday afternoon last October in leafy upstate New York, a large manila envelope was placed in the mailbox of an exclusive country mansion belonging to multi-billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

The package looked suspicious. The return address was misspelt as “FLORIDS” and the mail had already been delivered earlier that day. The police were called and soon the FBI was on the scene.

Inside the bubble-wrapped envelope was a photograph of Soros, marked with a red “X”. Alongside it, a six-inch plastic pipe, a small clock, a battery, wiring and a black powder.

More than a dozen similar packages were sent to the homes of former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats.

None of the devices exploded. The FBI traced the bombs to a white van covered in pro-Trump and anti-Democrat stickers, parked in a supermarket car park in Florida.

Immediately the right-wing media claimed it was a “false-flag” operation intended to derail President Donald Trump and the Republican campaign, just two weeks before the crucial US mid-term elections.

Soon the internet was awash with allegations that the bomb plot was a hoax organised by Soros himself.

Also Check: Why Are Republicans Trying To Repeal Obamacare

The Banality Of Evil And The Evanescence Of Democratic Governance

On May 28, Republican U.S. Senators chose to prevent the creation of an independent commission to investigate the insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. They did so after Democratic Party leaders had acceded to their many demands concerning the composition and remit of the body and despite the fact that many who voted to oppose the commission, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, had previously embraced the need for just such a group and investigation. More, they quite openly justified their vote by contending that the findings of such a body might prove difficult for the GOP politically as it seeks to win control of the Congress in 2022.

;;;;;;;;In a commentary entitled the Banality of Democratic Collapse, published before the Republican Party took this historically significant anti-democratic step, the likelihood of which was then all but certain in any case, New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman contended:; ; ; ; ;;

;;;;;;;;The GOP Senate vote to prevent creation of the commission is surely an example;of the phenomenon to which Krugman pointed. He went on to argue that this action and the weakness and cowardice of far too many craven careerist Republican officeholders is why American democracy is hanging by a thread. Cowardice, not craziness, is the reason government by the people may soon perish from the earth.

;;;;;;;;Elon observed that Arendt insisted,

Notes

Krugman. The Banality of Democratic Collapse.

Republicans Are Suddenly Afraid Of Democracy

Comedian: Being Taught That Republicans Are Evil (Pt. 2) | Bridget Phetasy | COMEDY | Rubin Report

In a series of tweets, Senator Mike Lee laid the groundwork to contest the results or block an elected majority from governing.

About the author: George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal,Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century,The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, and The Assassins Gate: America in Iraq.

Were not a democracy, Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeted in the middle of Wednesday nights vice-presidential debate. He was reacting to something hed heard onstage there, in his home state of Utah. Another tweet: The word democracy appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. Its a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few. Hours after the debate Lee was still worrying the thought: Democracy isnt the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

My guess is that Lee wasnt just being pedantic. Worried about an election in which the people can express their will, Lee was laying the groundwork to contest the results or block an elected majority from governing.

Also Check: Did Republicans Lose Any Senate Seats

Republicans Claim That Raising The Minimum Wage Would Kill Jobs And Hurt The Economy

There is far more evidence to the contrary. Cities and states that have higher minimum wages tend to have better rates of job creation and economic growth.

Detailed analyses show that job losses due to increases in the minimum wage are almost negligible compared to the economic benefits of higher wages. Previous increases in the minimum wage have never resulted in the dire consequences that Republicans have predicted.

Republicans have accused President Obama of “cutting defense spending to the bone”. This chart of 2014 discretionary spending firmly disproves that argument.

In 2001 When George W Bush Cut Taxes For The Wealthy Republicans Predicted Record Job Growth Increased Budget Surplus And Nationwide Prosperity

Once again, the exact opposite occurred. After the Bush tax cuts were enacted:

The budget surplus immediately disappeared.

The budget deficit eventually grew to $1.4 trillion by the time Bush left office.

Less than 3 million net jobs were added during Bushs eight years.

The poverty rate began climbing again.

We experienced two recessions along with the greatest collapse of our financial system since the Great Depression.

In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.

Recommended Reading: What Did The Democratic Republicans Stand For

In The 1960s Republicans Claimed That The Passage Of Medicare Would Be The End Of Capitalism

California Governor Ronald Reagan even proclaimed Medicare would lead to the death of freedom in America. Of course, they were laughably wrong. Since the passage of Medicare, capitalism has thrived and millions of elderly Americans have had longer, healthier lives and greater personal freedom. Medicare remains the most popular form of health insurance in the United States.

When Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.5%, Republicans predicted a recession, increased unemployment, and a growing budget deficit. They were wrong.

The 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Close Even If Trump Is The Gop Nominee

One very important thing we should have all taken away from both the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests is that the two major parties are in virtual equipose . The ideological sorting-out of the two parties since the 1960s has in turn led to extreme partisan polarization, a decline in ticket-splitting and and in number of genuine swing voters. Among other things, this has led to an atmosphere where Republicans have paid little or no price for the extremism theyve disproportionately exhibited, or for the bad conduct of their leaders, most notably the 45th president.

Indeed, the polarized climate encourages outlandish and immoral base mobilization efforts of the sort Trump deployed so regularly. Some Republicans partisans shook their heads sadly and voted the straight GOP ticket anyway, And to the extent there were swing voters they tended strongly to believe that both parties were equally guilty of excessive partisanship, and/or that all politicians are worthless scum, so why not vote for the worthless scum under whom the economy hummed?

The bottom line is that anyone who assumes Republicans are in irreversible decline in presidential elections really hasnt been paying attention.

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But What About Conservatives

I could say some very similar/but different things about conservatives. But a lot of that brings us back to the start and perceptions.

Liberals think that the only way to solve things is with government/taxes/regulations to try to fight injustice… thus not doing so, must be because they just don’t care. Which is where the left’s view of the right as being greedy and morally inferior comes from.

But not choosing the same solutions, isn’t the same as not caring. Some just know they can help more by NOT getting involved and letting them learn/work it out on their own. Or that short term economic benefits with long term economic costs aren’t always a good trade .

That doesn’t mean Republicans are never wrong, or don’t go too far. And of course Government CAN help with some problems, in the short term. Just long term, many of those solutions will make things worse . But either extreme: Always Government or Never Government – can be equally wrong. But the point is perceptions. Once you assume the other side is evil , they’re going to get back to assuming your stupid.

The majority of impassioned and frank discussions with the left, from my side , often gets them to claim I hate the poor, or am just greedy, self deluded and so on. And when I share what I’ve done in my past, to try to convince them otherwise, they get mad . Good people can disagree on how to solve things. Or even on priorities of what should be solved first.

In 2009 Republicans Predicted That The Economic Stimulus Package Would Only Make The Recession Worse And Cause More Unemployment

The results show they couldn’t have been more wrong. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ended the recession after only a few months. Although 750,000 people were losing their jobs each month when Obama took office, after the Recovery Act was passed the rate of job loss immediately decreased each month and within a year the economy showed positive job growth.

Considering the severity of the 2008 economic collapse and the total opposition by Republicans to do anything at all to stimulate the economy, it is remarkable that the US economy recovered as quickly as it did.

Looking at the rate of job loss and job creation, its easy to see that the stimulus of 2009 was highly successful in stopping the job losses and turning the economy around.

Also Check: How Many People Are Registered Republicans

Republicans Said Waterboarding And Other Forms Of Enhanced Interrogation Are Not Torture And Are Necessary In Fighting Islamic Extremism

In reality, waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation that inflict pain, suffering, or fear of death are outlawed by US law, the US Constitution, and international treaties. Japanese soldiers after World War II were prosecuted by the United States for war crimes because of their use of waterboarding on American POWs.

Professional interrogators have known for decades that torture is the most ineffective and unreliable method of getting accurate information. People being tortured say anything to get the torture to end but will not likely tell the truth.

An FBI interrogator named Ali Soufan was able to get al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to reveal crucial information without the use of torture. When CIA interrogators started using waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods, Zubaydah stopped cooperating and gave his interrogators false information.

Far from being necessary in the fight against terrorism, torture is completely unreliable and counter-productive in obtaining useful information.

[socialjusticeartshare]

GOP's Border Stunt 'Nothing But a Divide and Distract Tactic' Say Immigrant Rights Advocates

"Their focus on the border is a cynical and strategic racist play for political gain."

As Republicans attempt to portray the arrival of unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors at the U.S.-Mexico border as a threatening crisis caused by the Biden administration's supposedly lenient policies, immigrant rights advocates are warning that this right-wing framing of the situation is a "trap" designed to score political points while dehumanizing migrants.

"The GOP's framing of migrant children arriving at the border as a 'crisis' is nothing but a divide and distract tactic," America's Voice, an immigrant rights organization, said Saturday in a video statement. "Their focus on the border is a cynical and strategic racist play for political gain."

America's voice pointed to what Stephen Miller, a white nationalist and top adviser to former President Donald Trump, said last month: "From a purely political standpoint, [immigration] is a recipe for Democrats to have a historic drubbing in the midterms if we can make it even as big an issue or bigger than Obamacare."

As America's Voice noted, many in the GOP are "fully embracing" Miller's strategy. The National Republican Senatorial Committee "has already started running xenophobic dog-whistle ads" against President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats, and more than 32 GOP lawmakers have "used the hashtag 'BidensBorderCrisis' alongside hate groups and far-right media personalities."

The most high-profile stunt came Friday when more than a dozen congressional Republicans traveled to Texas, where they engaged in a "fear-mongering photo op," as America's Voice described the lawmakers' tour of the Rio Grande aboard machine gun-equipped boats.

"For the GOP, the border is all about politics and cruelty, not policy," said America's Voice. The organization alluded to a tweet shared last week by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that criticizes Biden for "emphasiz[ing] the humane treatment of immigrants, regardless of their legal status," rather than following in the footsteps of former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat who cracked down on immigrants in the 1990s.

Congressional Democrats also sent a delegation to the border on Friday.

In sharp contrast to the GOP—which is "terroriz[ing] the children who are coming here to seek asylum," as journalist Jacob Soboroff put it—Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said the purpose of their visit was to ensure that unaccompanied minors being detained in Texas are "treated humanely."

"This isn't about politics and it isn't about playing games," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Friday from the Carrizo Springs detention facility. "It's about the humanity of these children. It's about respecting their dignity and it's about empathizing on what it means to be in their situation."

America's Voice argued that "the GOP's coordinated efforts are meant as a tactical political distraction." 

As the Washington Post reported Thursday, there has not been an uncharacteristic "surge" in migrants entering the U.S. at the southern border, but rather a predictable bump in border crossings that typically happens at this time of year, augmented by the arrival of people who would have come in 2020 but could not due to the clampdown on immigration during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that "since March 20, 2020, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its order invoking Title 42, U.S. border officials have claimed unchecked, unilateral authority to summarily expel from the country hundreds of thousands of" undocumented immigrants—including single adults, families, and even unaccompanied children and mothers with infant U.S. citizens—"without due process or access to asylum."

While Biden has kept the Trump-era policy in place for single adults and families, the White House last month reversed the previous administration's xenophobic "Remain in Mexico" policy for asylum-seekers and announced that it would not deport unaccompanied minors.

Thousands of migrant children are now being held in overcrowded facilities run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which falls under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Although DHS is supposed to transfer minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours—after which children are housed in Department of Health and Human Services-approved shelters until they can be placed with a family member or another suitable sponsor—thousands have been stuck for far longer than legally allowed in squalid conditions.

The Post emphasized that the changes enacted by Biden are not responsible for the rise in border crossings: "We analyzed monthly U.S. Customs and Border Protection data from 2012 through February and found no clear evidence that the overall increase in border crossings in 2021 can be attributed to Biden administration policies. Rather, the current increase fits a pattern of seasonal changes in undocumented immigration combined with a backlog of demand because of 2020's coronavirus border closure."

"CBP has recorded a 28% increase in migrants apprehended from January to February 2021," the Post noted. "During fiscal year 2019, under the Trump administration, total apprehensions increased 31% during the same period."

"Migrants still came to the U.S. under the cruelty and chaos approach the GOP employed under Trump," America's Voice pointed out, which negates the claims of Republican lawmakers and right-wing media outlets that the recent uptick in apprehensions—part of a seasonal pattern—is a reflection of the Biden administration's deviation from the Trump administration's maximally cruel response to immigrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to America's Voice, "The new administration is fixing an intentionally broken mess and trying to build a safe, humane, and timely system to process asylum claims."

Biden has come under fire, however, for restricting media access to CBP's detention facilities, which some have described as "border jails."

Progressives, such as Denise Bell, Amnesty International USA's researcher for refugee and migrant rights, have acknowledged that unaccompanied minors need a safe place to stay "while the government identifies and reunites them with appropriate sponsors," but insist that detaining them for long periods of time in ill-suited facilities "cannot become status quo."

"Kids need a place to call home," Bell said. "That's why they should be with their families, friends, and community members; this in the child's best interests."

Meanwhile, in a Boston Globe column published Saturday, Marcela García criticized Politico for validating Stephen Miller—"the architect of family separation"—by seeking his input on the Biden administration's handling of migrants at the border.

Even though "Trump banned reporters and members of Congress from child detention centers in the summer of 2019," Politico allowed Miller to "gasligh[t] the public" with his opportunistic critique of Biden's lack of media transparency, García wrote.

She continued:

Miller's appearance not only reflects media amnesia, but also the new obsession with the border, which is rife with falsehoods and phony narratives. It bears repeating: Foreigners who show up at our borders to request asylum are following American and international law. But some of the journalists at Biden's first press availability Thursday framed their border questions using the Republican, right-wing lens. As Washington Postcolumnist Greg Sargent noted, that's a deeply flawed exercise because it assumes that not letting migrant children into the United States is an acceptable option.

And yet, the false framing of calling what's happening at the border a "crisis" can be traced back to—wait for it—Miller himself. And some in the mainstream media were happy to follow suit.

America's Voice said that the GOP "hopes to fear-monger at the border to distract from their failures," which the organization listed: "Zero Republicans voted for the relief bill that gave Americans stimulus checks, extended unemployment, and helped reduce child poverty. They helped stoke a terrorist attack on the Capitol and refused to confront those responsible."

"Instead," the group added, Republicans "blame children seeking refuge," as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did earlier this month when he said that "they are children today, but they could easily be terrorists tomorrow."

The framing of border crossings as a "crisis" is a "trap," argued America's Voice—one that "only helps dehumanize migrants... and perpetuates the GOP's strategic racism." The group implored people to not be deceived by right-wing lawmakers and media personalities who are "dividing Americans and distracting from the work of providing real solutions."

America's Voice added that if the GOP actually wants to reform the country's immigration system and improve migrant welfare rather than engage in photo ops at the border, there are several bills that have been introduced in Congress this year that Republican lawmakers could help pass.

Article Source

[expatimes]

With the support of the left, Biden can deliver progressive gains

Days after the 2020 presidential race was finally called for Joe Biden, there is still cause for progressive Americans who voted against Trump and Trumpism to be concerned.

Support for Trump has increased in real terms - from nearly 63 million votes in 2016 to well over 73 million this year. Trump's refusal to concede to his Democratic rival and his attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the election results with false allegations of voter fraud are increasing anxiety among those eager to see the demagogue leave the White House. Moreover, post-election tensions are emerging between progressive and centrist factions of the Democratic Party who had not long ago joined forces to run a disciplined and unifying electoral campaign.

Centrists such as James Clyburn and Abigail Spanberger are holding the progressive wing of the party responsible for what they view as Democratic underperformance in the election, and casting doubt on the viability of running on a progressive platform in the two Senate runoffs in Georgia in January - which might end Republican control of the Senate.

Prominent left-wing intellectuals, meanwhile, are warning the Biden-Harris victory could end up being just a progressive “mirage”.

In the immediate aftermath of the election, Judith Butler issued a powerful rebuttal of Trump and Trumpism but also distanced herself from the centrism of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Naomi Klein also voiced her pessimism about the progressive prospects of this ticket. In a recent opinion piece, she criticized the Democratic Party's inability to gain widespread popular support, and echoing Butler, stressed that “a great many people did not vote for Joe Biden, they voted against Trump”.

Is the left's lukewarm reception of the Biden-Harris victory justified? Do we really have reason to be sceptical of the progressive prospects of the incoming democratic administration?

Reason for optimism

As the vote count reaches the final stages, Biden's win is looking much more decisive than it did in the early post-election days. He is now leading with nearly six million votes nationally and has registered the largest number of votes for a US president ever, in an election marked by the highest voter turnout in more than a century.

He managed to flip Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Clinton lost to Trump in 2016. He also scored historic wins in Arizona and Georgia, traditionally Republican states.

Biden and Harris have benefitted from the mobilisation of a broad multi-racial coalition of working- and middle-class voters. Black voters were decisive in key battleground states in the Midwest and in Georgia, especially in urban and suburban areas. Latinx and Native American votes were crucial in flipping Arizona, and Latinx votes played a significant role in turning Wisconsin blue. Democrats also gained the support of white working-class voters in the Midwest, showing the dominant narratives about this group were incomplete.

A major surge in youth voter turnout benefitted the Democrats, which bodes well for the future. Young voters, especially Black and Asian Americans, supported Biden in great numbers.

This increased support from younger generations shows that this year's mass protests for racial justice have brought real gains for the Democratic Party in the ballot box. This is an important shift from previous years when similar forms of popular mobilization did not always translate into electoral politics. The Black Lives Matter movement, climate justice organisers, and Latinx migration rights activists played a significant role in the Biden-Harris victory.

Cori Bush perhaps embodies this development best - a grassroots activist and a nurse, she went from the streets of Ferguson to the House of Representatives, on a promise to help address systemic racism and economic inequalities through concrete policies designed and implemented in the federal legislature.

Bush and her fellow rising stars of the left in Congress, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Jamaal Bowman, have successfully placed social, climate and economic justice demands on the political agenda: data from exit polls tells us that Democratic voters are very concerned about racial inequality, the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare policy and climate change.

A pragmatic left

From early on, pundits have adamantly praised Biden's pragmatism. What most analysts failed to notice, however, is that the left of the Democratic Party has grown savvier and more pragmatic as well. Through relentless grassroots activism and frank dialogue, they have strategically built a coalition with the center of the party to deliver a decisive win for Biden and Harris. It is the same pragmatism that led Stacey Abrams in Georgia to carry on one of the most effective campaigns of voter mobilization among populations whose right to vote has been regularly suppressed.

Pragmatism has also led the Biden-Harris ticket to embrace progressive policies in their program.

The transition team's plans state the intention to substantially increase federal government intervention in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including creating jobs in public health, boosting domestic manufacturing of personal protective equipment, and providing economic aid to the unemployed, workers and small businesses. The plan mentions using the Defense Production Act, which would give significant leeway to Biden to make bold moves to bring back the state into managing public health and the economy even if finding a majority in Congress might prove difficult.

Biden and Harris promise massive investment in green infrastructure as well as the manufacturing, caregiving and education sectors. The new government aims to “create millions of good-paying union jobs”, increase workers' ability to organize and to engage in collective bargaining, increase protections such as paid family and leave sick, and increase minimum wages to $ 15 an hour. The president-elect and the vice president-elect also want to increase taxation for the rich and big business and reinforce and expand Obamacare.

They talk openly about the need to boldly address systemic racism. On this issue, the measures proposed are still vague, but the commitment to police reform legislation and reducing the prison population sets the agenda for pursuing deeper changes in the future. The new administration knows that they will have to deliver on the expectations raised by the overwhelming support the majority of Democratic voters have for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Of course, it would be naïve to think the US will dismantle white supremacy and turn into a well functioning social democracy overnight - grassroots activists are well aware of that. Yet, the Biden-Harris administration does have a real shot at reversing the effects of decades of rampant neoliberalism and heightening inequalities.

The need for unity

The new government will not have it easy. Biden will have to move fast in the middle of a pandemic that continues to ravage the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, with a divided Congress, and a divided country where voter support for Trumpism is on the rise.

Trump's racist, sexist and incompetent rule culminated in the disastrous mishandling of the pandemic, and yet, the incumbent president's campaign deployed a sophisticated propaganda machinery that delivered targeted disinformation, ranging from coronavirus denialism to stoking fears of a communist takeover and more. These messages emboldened Trump's white followers, kept Republican core support among older voters, and made significant inroads into conservative Latinx communities in Florida and Texas.

With Trump on the way out, the end game for right-wing media such as Fox News and for the Republican Party will be to keep riding the destructive and divisive politics of disinformation, fear and resentment that sustained the Trump presidency.

The effective mix of pragmatism and cautious optimism that has united the left and the center of the Democratic Party in the ballot box is now needed to stave off the looming threat of never-ending divisions and internecine conflicts that Republicans will try to fuel and manipulate to their advantage. The election results, and the spontaneous mass gatherings that saw Americans taking to the streets to celebrate Biden's victory as much as Trump's demise, show that the prospects for progressive gains under the new administration are good.

The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=14450&feed_id=18706

[opedguy]

Dueling Town Halls Expose Fake News

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Oct. 18, Instead of debating last night, 74-year-old President Donald Trump and 77-year-old former Vice President and Democrat nominee Joe Biden held dueling town hall meetings exposing for all to see the fake news media.  When Trump took the stage in Miami, he was treated to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie who proceeded to ambush him with a series of left wing talking points.  Biden, on the other hand, greeted ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, stepping into a warm Jacuzzi of softball questions, showing the stark contrast the fake news media gives to either candidate.  Let there be no mistake, the news media has an ax to grind in the 2020 race putting their credibility on the line to get Biden elected.  With a bombshell report in the New York Post about newly discovered emails between Hunter and Burisma Holdings businessman Vadym Pozharskyi, showing that Joe met with Pozharskyi, not one question.     

        No, Stephanopoulos spent the entire 90 minuets on nothing controversial, the closest thing being what would Joe pack the Supreme Court.  But the venerable New York Post has carefully researched story implicated Joe in egregious corruption while Vice President, it’s completely ignored.  Watching Guthrie, in contrast, grill Trump on old stories like failing to disavow white supremacy, accepting the election outcome or his stance on climate change, showed how NBC News sought to sabotage Trump.  Trump handled Guthrie with aplomb, making her look like a pugnacious sophomore, focusing only on Democrat talking points.  Guthrie slammed Trump for his Supreme Court pick, threatening Roe v. Wad and the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare, hitting Trump with worn out Democrat talking points.  Biden sat back and listened to Stephanopoulos stroke his old tired ego.      

       When the politically biased Commission on Presidential Debates changed the format to Zoom Conferencing Oct 8, Trump refused to play along, saying he would not participate.  Settling on dueling town hall meetings, Trump knew he was walking into an ambush, with Guthrie going after him like she was his debate opponent.  Guthrie looked foolish going toe-to-toe with Trump, exposing to a national audience the egregious political bias against Trump.  When Trump debated Biden Sept. 29 in Cleveland, he faced Fox News moderator Chris Wallace, another well know Trump critic.  So, truth be told, there’s no safe place in the broadcast or print media for Trump, with even Fox News setting him up.  Trump commented during the debate he was debating two-against-one, with Wallace going after Trump. Stephanouplos let Biden focus on key Democrat talking points:  Covid-19 and racism.      

       Guthrie’s revolting bias against Trump had to offend fair-minded voters helping Trump make a comeback in the last weeks of the campaign.  Voters saw first hand that the media ‘s bias against Trump, looking for anyway to sabotage his campaign.  Guthrie said nothing when Trump raised the four-year media hoax that Trump colluded with Russia.  Guthrie hammered Trump on fake news saying Trump would not accept the outcome of the election.  When, in fact, it was former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who told Biden publicly Aug. 26 that “he should not concede under any circumstances.”  Guthrie doesn’t bring that up only more fake news that Trump wouldn’t concede it he loses.   Guthrie and her network accused Trump of threatening to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller for two years before he issued his Final Report March 23, 2019, clearing Trump of Russian collusion.      

       While Biden was giving barely coherent platitudes about race in America, Trump was hammered by Guthrie about QAnon, a conspiracy group that reportedly opposes pedophilia but somehow supports Trump.  Guthrie didn’t like it when Trump said he knew nothing about them.  Guthrie couldn’t wait to ht Trump with an unverified New York Times report that he paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017, holding $421 million in debt.  “The amount of the money, $400 million, is a peanut.  It’s extremely underleveraged.  And it’s under leveraged with normal banks,” Trump told Guthrie, drawing a grown.  Democrat talking points hold that Trump’s on the verge of another bankruptcy, another fake news story.  Guthrie finally got to some audience questions, the whole purpose of a town hall meeting.  Even then she selected people largely against Trump’s reelection.      

       When you consider that Trump and Biden have another debate coming up on Oct. 20, it makes you wonder why go through it.  Debate moderators like Wallace, Guthrie and Stephaopoulos are so anti-Trump, what’s the point of another debate?  Even so called nonpartisan CSPAN had their long-time anchor Steve Scully resign, admitting he lied about having his computer hacked.  If the Commission on Presidential Debates and today’s journalism says anything, it’s that U.S. journalism is hopeless overrun by Democrat Party operatives.  When it comes to the media’s narrative on Biden, he didn’t make a major gaffe, largely because Stephanoupolos asked him almost nothing significant.  How low have expectations gone for Biden gone when they assess his performance as not making a major gaffe?  Given today’s media, there’s absolutely no reason to hold another debate.

 About the Author 

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  Reply  Reply All  Forward 

[commonsensewizard]

Understanding “Liberal” Speak

For those of you who are not acquainted with debating liberals, or...if you are deciding to nestle within the liberal camp and want to know how to uh...er...communicate with those of your tribe, here are a few tidbits to help.

1.  Racist:  Anyone who disagrees with you about any topic.

2.  Racism: An act of hatred perpetrated only by Caucasians against all other ethnic groups.

3.  White Privilege: A fabricated term to denounce the Caucasian ethnic group.

4.  Social Injustice: Refers to anything negative that happens to a person, persons, or group of people...regardless of their actions...and they are not Caucasian.

5. Donald Trump: Epitome of evil. Poster child for all that is evil. Can never say anything positive about this person. If a liberal, you must scream at the sky when his name is mentioned. 

6. Fox News: Fake News. When Fox is mentioned, always snarl and hiss your disapproval. 

7. Hillary Clinton: The female incarnation of God. At least...we think she’s female.

8. Democratic Party: The savior of the universe.

9. Republican Party: Satan.

10. United States Constitution: Outdated document, written by evil slave holders. Has no bearing on today’s America.

11. Chris Matthews: The male voice of all reason. Do not be confused because he is a Caucasian. Inside, he is many colors.

12. Rachel Maddow: The female voice of all reason. Do not be confused because she is a Caucasian. Inside, she is many colors.

13. Barak Obama: The greatest man who ever lived. This includes Jesus.

14. Obamacare: The greatest, most stupendous passage in the history of the universe. It is so great, nobody had to read it to sign it into law. THAT’S how great it was!

15. Liberal: All things good.

16. Conservative: All things bad.

17: Nazi: See 16, 9, 10, 5 and 6.

18. White Supremacy: See 17 and all that goes with 17. OH, and 2 and 3.

19. George Bush II: All things that are wrong in the universe are to be blamed on this guy.

20. Any foul language adjective: To describe anyone who disagrees with liberals. Needs to be expressed loudly, to suppress other liberals from hearing facts. Liberals hate facts.

There are more, but I hope this helps get you started. Good luck!

[robertreich]

How To Stop Trump

Why did working class voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful, megalomaniac for president?

With the 2018 midterms around the corner, and prospective Democratic candidates already eyeing the 2020 race, the answer is important because it will influence how Democrats campaign.

One explanation focuses on economic hardship. The working class fell for Trump’s economic populism.

A competing explanation – which got a boost this week from a study published by the National Academy of Sciences – dismisses economic hardship, and blames it on whites’ fear of losing status to blacks and immigrants. They were attracted to Trump’s form of identity politics -- bigotry.

If Democrats accept the bigotry explanation, they may be more inclined to foster their own identity politics of women, blacks, and Latinos. And they’ll be less inclined to come up with credible solutions to widening inequality and growing economic insecurity.

Yet the truth isn’t found in one explanation or the other. It’s in the interplay between the two.  

Certainly many white working class men and women were – and still are -- receptive to Trump’s bigotry.  

But what made them receptive? Racism and xenophobia aren’t exactly new to American life. Fears of blacks and immigrants have been with us since the founding of the Republic.

What changed was the economy. Since the 1980s the wages and economic prospects of the typical American worker have stagnated. Two-thirds now live paycheck to paycheck, and those paychecks have grown less secure.

Good-paying jobs have disappeared from vast stretches of the land. Despite the official low unemployment rate, millions continue to work part-time who want steady jobs or they’re too discouraged to look for work.

When I was Secretary of Labor in the 1990s, I frequently visited the Rust Belt, Midwest, and South, where blue-collar workers told me they were working harder than ever but getting nowhere.

Meanwhile, all the economy’s gains have gone to the richest ten percent, mostly the top 1 percent. Wealthy individuals and big corporations have, in turn, invested some of those gains into politics.

As a result, big money now calls the shots in Washington – obtaining subsidies, tax breaks, tax loopholes (even Trump promised to close the “carried interest” loophole yet it remains), and bailouts.

The near meltdown of Wall Street in 2008 precipitated a recession that cost millions their jobs, homes, and savings. But the Street got bailed out and not a single Wall Street executive went to jail.

The experience traumatized America. In the two years leading up to the 2016 election, I revisited many of the places I had visited when I was labor secretary. People still complained of getting nowhere, but now they also told me the system was “rigged” against them.

A surprising number said they planned to vote for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump – the two anti-establishment candidates who promised to “shake up” Washington.

This whole story might have been different had Democrats done more to remedy wage stagnation and widening inequality when they had the chance.

Instead, Bill Clinton was a pro-growth “New Democrat” who opened trade with China, deregulated Wall Street, and balanced the budget. (I still have some painful scars from that time.)

Obama bailed out the banks but not homeowners. Obamacare, while important to the poor, didn’t alleviate the financial stresses on the working class, particularly in states refused to expand Medicaid.

In the 2016 election Hillary Clinton offered a plethora of small-bore policy proposals – all sensible but none big enough to make a difference.  

Into this expanding void came Trump’s racism and xenophobia – focusing the cumulative economic rage on scapegoats that had nothing to do with its causes. It was hardly the first time in history a demagogue has used this playbook.

If America doesn’t respond to the calamity that’s befallen the working class, we’ll have Trumps as far as the eye can see.

A few Democrats are getting the message -- pushing ambitious ideas like government-guaranteed full employment, single-payer health care, industry-wide collective bargaining, and a universal basic income.

But none has yet offered a way to finance these things, such as a progressive tax on wealth.

Nor have they offered a credible way to get big money out of politics. Even if "Citizens United" isn't overruled, big money’s influence could be limited with generous public financing of elections, full disclosure of the source of all campaign contributions, and a clampdown on the revolving door between business and government.

Trump isn’t the cause of what’s happened to America. He’s the consequence -- the product of years of stagnant wages and big money’s corruption of our democracy.

If they really want to stop Trump and prevent future Trumps, Democrats will need to address these causes of Trump’s rise.  

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

Election 2017 rundown

On the anniversary of a just historically shitty day, have this rundown of the good election news.

The big story was Virginia. The current lieutenant governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, won by a nine point blowout. His successor as lieutenant governor, Democrat Justin Fairfax, will be the second African-American elected statewide in Virginia. Democrats also won the attorney general race.

What is really exciting, though, is not just that the Democrat won the governor’s race, but how he won. 

Dr. Northam’s dedication to reproductive rights and gun safety is arguably why he won the primary, and neither that nor his vocal criticism of Gillespie’s Trumpian racism turned out to be a liability in the general election. #ThoughtsandPrayers to the socially conservative minority in the Democratic coalition. A Neoliberal Establishment $hill(TM) curb-stomping the opposition by going hard at his sexism and racism is a disappointing blow to their argument that the left needs to abandon “identity politics” in a false zero-sum tradeoff for economic populism.

Northam’s margin of victory was around 230,000 voters. That’s not a whole lot more than 163,000 formerly incarcerated people whose voting rights were personally restored by outgoing governor Terry McAuliffe. (Seriously. He tried to restore their rights by executive order but Republicans had it shot down. So his office printed out 163,000 certificates to mail out to all those individuals, and then he sat there and individually signed every single one.) There’s no guarantee they all voted Democratic, but of course it’s Republicans who have worked so hard to disenfranchise them, so odds are pretty good most did. Good policy is not always good politics. This time, it was.

The Trumpsters have done what years of effort by progressive activists could not: roused the sleeping millennial giant. Turnout of voters under 30 was way up, and they went for Northam by almost 40%. 

College educated white voters swung hard for Democrats. It might not be obvious why that’s big. These voters are not, in any moral sense, more important than other voters. Tactically, however, they’re going to be important to taking back the House of Representatives in 2018. This group of voters leans Republican, though they’re less likely to be conservative social grievance die-hards than most GOP voters. When state Republican parties got the chance to draw up state electoral maps a few years back, they relied on this data to distribute their voters as efficiently as possible. Last year, college educated whites were far more likely to vote for Clinton than white voters overall, and yesterday we saw that trend carry over. So if you look at districts which are close enough that Democrats might be able to win, there’s a substantial group of, you know, Episcopalian small business owning soccer parents who a) Republicans can’t afford to lose and b) are disgusted enough by Trump that they can be picked off by Democrats.

WE ARE WOKE AF NOW, DONNIE!!!1!!!

Elections for the state legislature are similarly exciting. Virginia is – for now – one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country. Winning around 9 points more votes total, Democrats have fought the state house of delegates to a draw and, depending on how a few recounts shake out, may actually take control of the house of delegates. At least fifteen seats have been flipped by Democrats. Eleven of those Democrats are women.

From the view of Virginia, this is what the future looks like: 

A state delegate who describes himself as “Virginia’s chief homophobe” has been defeated by progressive journalist Danica Roem. She will be the first openly trans person to serve as a state legislator in Virginia; only the second to serve anywhere in the country. 

One of her future colleagues is immigration advocate Kathy Tran, who came to America as a refugee when she was a child and will be the first Asian-American woman in the Virginia legislature. 

Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala also routed entrenched Republican opponents to become the first Latinas in that statehouse. 

Democratic socialist Lee Carter beat the one of the highest ranking Republicans in the state. 

Every state house and governor’s mansion on the west coast has unified Democratic control. So does New Jersey, after a resounding victory by former ambassador Phil Murphy. 100% of people who voted for governor in New Jersey supported a pro-choice candidate. A local official in Atlantic City who made a sexist joke about the Women’s March will be replaced by a progressive Black woman. Shut him down like the Trump Taj Mahal! BOOM! 

Maine voters overwhelmingly approved overrode their governor’s veto and expanded Medicaid in their state. Primarily, that’s good because people in Maine who need health care. It’s also indirectly good for the rest of us because it tells congressional Republicans that Americans support expanding Obamacare, not eliminating it.

Democrat Vi Lyles will be the first Black woman sworn in as the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Hoboken City Councilman Ravi Bhalla will be the first Sikh mayor in the state of New Jersey.

Wilmot Collins, who came to America as a refugee from Liberia, will become the first Black mayor anywhere in the state of Montana. 

There are so many of these stories. Donald Trump and his Pepe goons try so hard to convince us, the world, even themselves, that America is theirs to define. And people stood up across the country to say, oh, no, you don’t.

This past year has felt like the longest of my life. Probably yours too. It has been three months since Nazis laid siege to Charlottesville, Virginia.

They lost.

History is much longer than that.

It has been fifty-two years since a young man named John Lewis was beaten within an inch of his life at a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. He has been a member of the United States Congress for thirty-one years.

It has been forty years since Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in our country. His colleague Dianne Feinstein is one of the most powerful women in the history of the United States Senate.

It has been forty-nine years since the great Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American woman elected to the United States Congress. It has been both lifetimes and the blink of an eye since her prescient statement that “women in this country must become revolutionaries.”

So we must. And maybe we are.

Hang in there. Take care of yourself. Support your community. Let them support you. I can’t promise you we’ll make it through this, though it looks like we might. I can only promise that we are stronger together.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

After President Trump won the 2016 election, there was a big debate over the role “identity politics” played in his victory. Some scholars argued that many white voters without a college degree — a group that proved pivotal in that election — jumped from supporting then-President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 largely because they liked Trump’s framing of identity issues, such as immigration, more than Hillary Clinton’s.1 After the election, some (usually white) liberal and Democratic-leaning voices said that Democrats needed to abandon “identity politics” or face more defeats like Clinton’s. Other liberal voices (often Black) said that Trump had successfully tapped into the racist views of many white Americans. Both of those perspectives implied that debating issues of identity and race was bad for Clinton and good for Trump, and in the future it would be good for the GOP and bad for Democrats.

Never mind all that, at least for now. America is talking about identity and race, and so are both presidential candidates. And all that racial talk seems to be helping Democrats, not Republicans. Joe Biden led Trump by about 6 percentage points in national polls on May 25, the day a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd. Biden leads Trump by an average of nearly 10 points now, after weeks of race and racism dominating the national discussion.

Obviously a lot of factors could explain Trump’s decline in the polls, most notably the coronavirus outbreak and the president’s failure to come up with any real plan to limit the virus’s spread.

But it’s worth exploring this question: Why aren’t identity politics backfiring on Biden and helping Trump? It’s hard to say for sure, but here are five theories, ordered roughly from strongest to weakest.

Trump is in the White House now

Some political science research suggests that public opinion on major issues tends to move against the sitting president. So if President John Doe says he hates Granny Smith apples, Americans will begin consuming them by the bushel. And that pattern has already played out with Trump, with Americans becoming more supportive of immigrants and Obamacare, likely in reaction to the president’s attempts to limit immigration and repeal the health care law.

Current polling — and even polls from earlier in the Trump presidency — has shown Americans expressing more liberal views on racial issues. Those numbers might suggest real change in racial attitudes among Americans. (More on that in a bit.)

But what looks right now like increasing racial liberalism may really just be anti-Trump sentiment. If Americans, particularly Democratic-leaning Americans, perceive that Trump is opposed to the Floyd protests and to racial justice causes more broadly, they might become more supportive of such causes, consciously or unconsciously, simply as a reaction to the president’s sentiments.

So in terms of identity politics and their role in presidential elections, it may have been that a racialized discourse was electorally bad for Democrats when their party controlled the White House, like in 2016. But this kind of discourse is fine and perhaps even electorally beneficial for Democrats with a Republican president in office.

Also, the story here could simply be that Trump is a flawed candidate who was going to struggle in 2020 no matter what issues were dominating the news at the time. After all, he was viewed unfavorably by 60 percent of voters on Election Day in 2016, according to exit polls, and he has remained fairly unpopular throughout his presidency. In 2019 and earlier this year, Democrats spent a lot of time debating which of their potential presidential candidates was most “electable.” But Biden’s almost-10-point lead suggests that basically any of the other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would likely be leading Trump right now if he or she were the presumptive Democratic nominee.

2016 was a fluke and identity politics don’t always hurt Democrats

Part of the focus on identity issues as an electoral liability stems from the current makeup of swing states and the Electoral College. White voters without degrees have become increasingly Republican-leaning and represent a disproportionate share of the electorate in key swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. So Democrats need to worry more about appealing to white voters without degrees to win an Electoral College majority than they would if presidential elections were decided by a simple national plurality vote. Thus, a lot of post-2016 coverage started from the assumption that Democrats have an identity and race problem because they must appeal to white voters without degrees and that voting bloc — at least based on the 2016 results — seemed to be put off by Democrats’ approach to identity issues.

But that framing might be wrong, or at least a bit overstated. Why? First, there’s an alternate reading of the 2016 results that suggests race wasn’t an unusually important factor in motivating the white voters who switched to Trump. Second, the overall racial dynamics of American politics are not that bad for Democrats and perhaps even favorable to them.

Zoom out beyond 2016 and take the long view: The last seven presidential elections have featured four Democratic victories in both the popular vote and the Electoral College (1992, 1996, 2008, 2012); one instance where the GOP won the popular vote and Electoral College (2004); and two kind of fluky GOP wins in which Republicans lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College (2000, 2016).

That long view doesn’t look great for Republicans, and identity and race help explain why. Democrats have been handily winning the vote among Asian, Black and Hispanic Americans, who combined are growing as a share of the electorate. (The share of nonwhite U.S. voters was about 26 percent in 2016, compared to about 13 percent in 1980.) Democrats’ status as the party of minorities helps them in some ways, requiring the GOP to consolidate an increasingly high percentage of the country’s white voters to win elections.

But it isn’t easy or necessarily guaranteed that the Republicans will overwhelmingly win the white vote overall or the white non-college vote specifically — even in an election that’s centered on race. The 2017-2018 period was full of racialized political debate, most notably on immigration policy, but the exit polls suggest Democrats lost white voters without a college degree by 24 percentage points in 2018, compared to 37 points in 2016. So far in 2020, polls show Biden losing white voters without a degree by a margin closer to 20 points.

Meanwhile, Biden might carry white voters with a college degree by a large margin, in part because those voters have been turned off by Trump’s approach to racial issues. Indeed, white voters with a college degree or postgraduate education have been trending Democratic for years, and the GOP approach to race and ethnicity is likely a factor.

In short, the evidence suggests that Trump’s approach on racial issues never really appealed to people of color in the first place and, outside of November 2016, it has also been really off-putting to white voters with degrees and not that appealing to white voters without degrees.

It’s harder to use Biden as a wedge

On policy issues, including those around identity and race, Biden’s positions are clearly to the left of the ones Obama ran on in 2008 and arguably to the left of Clinton’s in 2016. In explicitly promising to pick a woman as vice president and a Black woman as Supreme Court justice, Biden has gone beyond Clinton or Obama in terms of allocating very important government posts based on gender and race. And Biden’s rhetoric on racial issues is similar to Clinton’s in 2016. After Floyd’s death, while Trump largely dismissed the protests, Biden called for “an era of action to reverse systemic racism.”

But Biden is an older white man. So his identity likely makes it harder for Trump to run an identity-based campaign against Biden than against Clinton and, to some extent, incumbent president Obama. (The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer made this argument explicitly in a recent piece.) Biden does not visually symbolize a changing America the way President Obama did and the way a President Hillary Clinton would have.

Also, Biden has self-consciously positioned himself as a more moderate Democrat and has distanced himself from more liberal elements of the party, including the causes favored by more liberal Black Americans, like defunding the police.

The electorate has really shifted on racial issues

It’s possible that Trump’s identity politics are less effective in 2020 than they were in 2016 because the events of the last four years have resulted in a real leftward shift on racial issues among Americans. And that shift is fundamental and real, not just about partisanship or anti-Trump sentiment, as I suggested above. After all, in interviews with reporters, more liberal-leaning people and even some former Trump voters are suggesting that they understand racial inequality more deeply now than ever before.

Institutions are aligned with Biden on these issues

Major U.S. businesses, corporations and other elite institutions are typically wary of being perceived as partisan. But in the wake of Floyd’s death, corporate America seems to have decided, for whatever reason, that support for Black Lives Matter and comprehensive, aggressive efforts to reduce racial inequality are either not that partisan or that they’re stances worth taking even if they annoy some Republicans.

So at least right now, it’s not really Biden and Democrats versus Trump and Republicans on issues of identity and race in America; rather, it’s Biden, Democrats, Facebook, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Netflix, Nike, Stanford and lots of other major institutions versus Trump and Republicans.

This dynamic is not totally unique to the spring and summer of 2020. Major companies in America are often aligned with liberal cultural values — for example, supporting gay marriage even before the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated any remaining bans on same-sex unions.

But even if corporate America’s recent posture on racial issues isn’t that surprising, it’s still important. With a lot of major institutions in America echoing his general message, it’s not surprising that Biden’s identity politics are resonating more than Trump’s.

I’m writing this article at a particular moment in time. Perhaps there will be a backlash to the Floyd protests and public opinion will shift. Maybe Trump will benefit from that. If Biden picks a female vice presidential nominee, particularly one who is also a person of color, perhaps Trump’s identity tactics will resonate more with voters because he’ll then have a foil who is more like Clinton and Obama. Alternatively, Trump could make up ground in the polls due to unrelated issues and factors.

And even if Biden wins, that won’t totally answer the question of whether identity politics is bad or good for Democrats. LIke I said, perhaps basically any Democratic candidate would beat Trump amid a viral outbreak the president mishandled.

All that said, it appears right now that the identity politics of 2020 are a net plus for Democrats — and perhaps they weren’t too big a problem for Democrats in the first place. It’s hard to prove any of this, but it’s an important discussion to have. In 2008, it seemed like Democrats won a presidential contest that was largely about race. But even though the presidential nominees were white in 2016 and 2020, those may have been more racialized campaigns. And if the current polls hold up, Democrats, after losing a very racialized campaign, may show that they can win one.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Resisting Trump and building an alternative: interview with John Catalinotto

By Alex Anfruns, Investig’Action

A year has passed since Donald Trump took office as president of the United States. We talked to author and socialist activist John Catalinotto to get an idea of where the Trump administration is going and how a progressive alternative can be built. 

Where are progressive forces currently standing?

First let’s define what we mean by progressive forces. I’m going to divide these forces into two groups. They were roughly defined by the two demonstrations at the time of Trump’s inauguration. On January 20, a radical movement made up of anti-fascist forces, both anarchist-oriented and communist-oriented, fought in the streets of Washington and were attacked by police. On January 21, the women’s march was much larger and broader, but its politics were much closer to the Democratic Party.

This broader group, even though it was mainly women, was probably closer to Bernie Sanders in its politics than to Hillary Clinton. I would guess that millions of people have become politically active to work against Trump. It is a new phenomenon in the United States. They half-jokingly call themselves “the Resistance,” as much of their work is confined to getting Democrats elected and replacing Republicans in Congress and in state and local offices.

Beyond the limitations of the Democratic party, are these groups able to play a significant role on the key issues?

Yes they are. Actually they also hold actions independent of the Democratic Party, for example, defending the rights of immigrants that the government is trying to expel from the country. They were also very active supporting the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, and helped prevent severe cuts to health care from being passed by Congress. Some of these forces are led astray by those who focus on the alleged Russian intervention in the U.S. elections as a legal weapon against Trump.

Although this broad anti-Trump group has something like what in Europe would be considered social-democratic politics (that is, before all the European “Socialist” parties became identified with neo-liberal economics), their continued activity creates a big space for more radical intervention in the struggle because they feed the anger against the president. This anger can be turned against the ruling class in its entirety. Trump, after all, does represent this ruling class, but does it in a blatant way that any decent person in the U.S. who isn’t racist can see through clearly.

The bad side of Trump being a monster is that by expressing his racism, chauvinism and misogyny openly, he has opened a space for openly white supremacist and fascist elements to speak and mobilize publicly. We saw this on the weekend of Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia. In response, the more radical wing of the anti-Trump forces has begun to confront the fascists, to battle the fascists in the streets. Among these are many who have become anti-capitalist and a smaller number who are pro-socialist, pro-communist, who begin to read Marx and Lenin and look for a revolutionary answer.

[cksmart-world]

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

by Christopher Smart

July 30, 2019

A MIRACULOUS MAYOR'S RACE

Do you believe in miracles? Well, the campaign to elect Salt Lake City's next mayor is chock full of great ideas that could solve our most pressing problems. One candidate wants to  move the Inland Port to Wendover. Is that a good idea, or what? Instead of having all those warehouses and trucks and congestion and air pollution, we just put it out in the desert. Another candidate would move the oil refineries on Salt Lake City's north end. Talk about miracles. He hasn't said where they would be moved, but the possibilities are endless. How about Rob Bishop's backyard — he really likes fossil fuels. Not to miss such an opportunity, we assigned the Creativity Department here at Smart Bomb to come up with more great stuff candidates could promise: They could pledge to take the salt out of The Great Salt Lake. Fresh water would be so much better. They could promise to pass an ordinance against ugly, new apartment buildings. That would be grand. And they might even pledge a mass transit system that works for everyone. Oh, wait, that's already been promised —  a bunch of times. Oh well, as Jake Barnes said to Lady Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises: “It's pretty to think about.”

Bummer — Utah Gets Medicaid Expansion

It's a dark day for Utah lawmakers: Voters are getting what they asked for. (We are not making this up.) Last year, Utahns, through a voter initiative, told the Grinches on Capital Hill that they wanted to expand Medicaid under provisions outlined in the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare. Not so fast, said Republican legislators, who found the suggestion tantamount to socialism. Just 'cause the voters want something, doesn't mean they get it — well, not in Utah, anyway. The Republican caucus put their heads together — as they often do — to cheap it. So what if a few more thousand people go without health care — the slackers. As luck would or wouldn't have it, the Trump Administration unexpectedly denied the Legislature's proposal because the White House braintrust hopes pending litigation elsewhere in the country will succeed in finding ObamaCare unconstitutional. That would result in loss of coverage for about 20 million Americans — but hey, it's just collateral damage. For now, ObamaCare is still the law of the land and Utah lawmakers and the governor will be forced to fully expand Medicaid as outlined in the ACA. It’s such dumb luck — but in Utah, you gotta take it when you can get it.

What If Republicans Renounced Racism?

What if President Trump didn't call Congressman Elija Cummings a “brutal bully” whose district in Baltimore is a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess, [Where] no human being would want to live.” What if President Trump didn't tell four freshmen congresswomen of color to “go back where you came from.” What if President Trump didn't say Mexican immigrants are “rapists.” What if President Trump didn't say there were “good people on both sides” after a white supremacist rally turned violent in Charlottesville. What if President Trump didn't imply that federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel could not fairly hear the case against Trump University because of his Mexican heritage. What if President Trump didn't refuse to renounce white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke. What if President Trump didn't put an immigration ban on Muslims. What if Mr. Trump, before he was president, didn't posit that Barack Obama could be a muslim from Kenya. What if Utah's political leaders and Republicans in Washington didn't remain silent in the face of Trump's blatant racism, calculated to divide the country for political gain. And what if pigs could fly?

Victimhood by Jason Chaffetz

This is really horrible. Former Republican Congressman Jason “Benghazi” Chaffetz is a victim of meanness and he is coming out with a new book to prove it. You remember Jason, the one-time chairman of the House Oversight Committee who orchestrated a half-dozen probes into Hillary Clinton for killing everyone in the American embassy in Libya. Jason's first book, "The Deep State: How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda,"  is a real eye-opener. Who knew that the Russia investigation was really a ploy to turn America into a place where people get healthcare? As chairman of the Oversight Committee in 2017, it was Jason's job to hold President Trump accountable. Unfortunately, Jason had to spend more time with his family. Now that he's thought things over, Jason realizes that he was targeted by socialists and Democrats. And he has proof: Some people yelled at him in a 2017 town hall meeting and chanted, “Do Your Job.” His new book, “Power Grab: The Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP and Our Republic,” explains the whole thing. And even though the president hates reading stuff, he can get all he needs from the title.

Well, that just about does it for July 2019, a time that Americans will one day look back on and say, “What the fuck?” Nonetheless, here in Utah, we do have a lot to be thankful for: It's hotter in London and Paris than it is here. (Think of all the dough we saved not traveling there.) We don't have Boris Johnson. (Wilson and the band say they'd trade Trump for Johnson any day.) Speaking of Trump, he hasn't called us a horrible shit-hole, infested with big rats. We can be thankful for that. And the Olympics aren't coming anytime soon. Rob Bishop isn't running for another term in Congress. And Pat Bagley is still drawing cartoons for The Salt Lake Tribune.

We're now into the Dog Days of Summer and for the staff here at Smart Bomb that means feet in the pool and Mai Tais in the hands. Nothing is really possible between now and Labor Day. That's just the way it is — so you don't have to feel guilty. All right Wilson, tell the guys to put down those stupid, little umbrellas and take us out with a little something that will leave us in the deep chill:

We skipped a light fandango / Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor / I was feeling kinda seasick / The crowd called out for more / The room was humming harder / As the ceiling flew away / When we called out for another drink / The waiter brought a tray...

[politicaltheatre]

Team Building Exercises

If there was an irony in the NFL protests of this past weekend, it wasn't that athletes and executives in the NFL rallied around Colin Kaepernick and others who have been protesting during the national anthem - after Trump's attacks, that was entirely predictable - but rather that the result was ever in doubt.

When members of a group are attacked, even unpopular ones, the other members take notice; the more the threat appears to threaten them as well, the more they will step in to protect all of the other members. That is what groups do, they protect each other so that individuals among them can feel safe.

In attacking Kaepernick and those kneeling, arm locking, and raising a fist with him, it would be fair to say that the President of the United States, nominally speaking to support a candidate for Senate who would support him, hoped to gain and/or retain the support of his rally's Alabama audience, people who surely don't want anyone telling them they have to accountable to others, only that others have to be accountable to them.

Choosing as his victims black men who have been making more money than his audience can for playing a game that they can't must surely have seemed perfect to Trump. Kaepernick has effectively been blackballed by his league in a way not seen since the dark days of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Those still protesting, even with the (slowly) growing support of white teammates and the emerging dialogue with NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, had, until Sunday, remained comparatively few and, as more and more games had been played this season, had mostly been forgotten by fans.

Picking on outsiders with little or no support from their group is, after all, what bullies do. That this involves race and violence against unarmed black men and women is important - it's what Kaepernick was protesting against - but that is actually secondary to what was said and done this weekend. This is first and foremost about what bullies will do to gain support from one group and what happens when they finally threaten another group as a whole. This is about what pulls groups together, both for aggression and defense. In no small way, this is just another story about the "game" of politics.

You see, the greater part of what got Trump elected might actually be thought of as something of a team building exercise. When we talk of "dog whistles" and "coded language", we aren't talking about simple, wired-in racism, we're talking about rallying supporters and allies by giving them the justification for fear, anger, isolation, and, ultimately, violence. To take from others anything they should have an equal right to, such as the famous "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", requires all of those things. Bullies from the playground to the workplace to the halls of power all know that and cultivate it. Trump may offering a new brand, but it's the same old, shitty product.

What may be most surprising for many following this past weekend is that Trump and those around him welcome the NFL response. If it seemed strange that he was taunting the league and those playing in it for trying to reduce the violence of the game, remember that he was speaking, and tweeting, to two distinct audiences, one that resists change and fears losing its power and another that welcomes progress and resists losing any progress made. 

To the league and its players, past and present, changing the rules to reduce the risk of traumatic and chronic injuries makes sense, but it is change and in a culture in which social and political strength is still associated with brutal manliness it is the wrong kind of change. Is it really a surprise that NASCAR owners stepped in to back Trump after NFL owners - well, all but four - sided with their players? It certainly wasn't to Trump.

He and his advisors no doubt also welcomed the responses to his attacks on Stephen Curry and his Golden State Warrior teammates, and for the same reasons. Trump wants to fire up his base, to draw them closer together, so he gives them an opposing group to fear, to be angry at, and to isolate themselves from. Stephen Curry makes more in a single year between salary and endorsements than perhaps Trump's entire audience in Alabama will make, combined, in their lifetimes. That he has earned it doesn't make it easier for them to take. That his success and wealth have given him a voice others will listen to when they feel silenced only makes it worse.

When Trump talks about Curry, Kaepernick and others as "ungrateful employees", it most certainly is coded language, but not just because of race. His base is terrified of chaos, of the lack of order in the world. When Trump presents himself as a strongman in the mold of Putin, Erdogan, or names we're not supposed to say, he is telling his audience that he will defend them against chaos, that he will restore order, that he will make them feel safe. He is the strong father, the protector, and the enforcer. Employees will respect the will of their employers. Children will respect the will of their parents. And, yes, blacks will respect the will of whites.

This was the core message of Trump's presidential campaign (and the reelection campaign he's already running right now). Trump won't outright say women will respect the will of men, but he doesn't really have to. It's baked in. As Hillary Clinton, who has had her own unfortunate history with coded language, rambles her way through her "What Happened" book tour this month, she has mostly ignored this group and its fearful, angry needs. As she has acknowledged more than once, her most notable attempt to address its culture and Trump's use of it, the "basket of deplorables" comment, backfired spectacularly.

That comment brought many Trump voters closer to him and each other, much in the same way Trump's "son of a bitch" comment just did for the NFL, but that alone could not explain why she lost, not that a political memoir is a good place to look for answers. 

Clinton lost for many, many reasons. Many. Ignore, if you can, the quotes and sound bites pulled from the book in which she blames Bernie Sanders and others, including the Trump-crazy media. That's just that very same news media stirring up conflict, which is it's own version of team building. They want an audience, with ratings numbers and clicks sending advertising money their way. In focusing our attention on those quotes they actually make much of her case for her. Then again, that she participates in much of that coverage without drawing attention to that makes another kind of case entirely.

Even though the title of Clinton's memoir suggests that it will explain "what happened" that led to her defeat, the title itself reveals why that answer is nowhere to be found. It's possible that there really was nothing she could have done to prevent losing as she did, but asking what she did rather than what happened is the difference between actively seeking answers and passively accepting the next best thing. Whatever is in the book, Clinton the TV star seems content with the latter.

The world Clinton presents in her book and on tour is one with which she is at war. She is beset on all sides by the same sexism and bullying that plagues women the world over. And you know what? She's right. It was there and has been with Clinton since before her own attempt to reform health care almost twenty five years ago. In that case, sexist attacks on her served as a means to undermine not only women in positions of power but congressional Democrats and her husband, President Clinton. For the right wing, that's Christmas.

That she as the wife of a male politician was expected to have the right hair and the right clothes and not much else was a constant drum beat during her years as First Lady. That role, even after Clinton and Michelle Obama have fought to change it, is still engrained in our culture. It is the vestige of "older, simpler times". It represents a kind of order, a world in which everyone knows their place and doesn't step out of line, which is exactly what appeals to Trump's base.

It's a good narrative and it serves to hold Clinton's own Pantsuit Nation together and that will serve her well as a base going forward. As we've seen in Congress with the seemingly unending Republican war on Obamacare, in today's political world a niche group is all you need. You don't have to build consensus or even try. Clinton writes and talks about achieving the possible, but from the tone of her book and her book tour, we should recognize that it's also kind of bullshit. Clinton sells herself as a political pragmatist, and in some way she may actually want to see herself as one, but "pragmatist" is really just another piece of coded language.

Whatever her political base, Clinton's real group is that of the DNC, the Democratic party elite who work the Beltway and Wall Street in and out of office. It's a community like any other. The argument that she literally ignored white working class voters in the Rust Belt is demonstrably false, but the myth gained traction only because of Clinton's reputation for speaking fees and cozy inside deals. The Democratic party she and her husband have represented for the past quarter century is every bit that, and those members of that group clinging to power in the party since last November are, like her memoir, doing whatever they can to avoid facing reality.

Why Clinton lost can actually be demonstrated in just two interviews from her book tour. In one at the very start of it, she sat down with Jane Pauley on CBS. In the interview Clinton presented herself as we saw her in the campaign. She is stiff, clearly trying to project herself as she wants to be perceived. It wasn't terribly revealing about the campaign or Clinton herself, but Pauley did manage to draw out two phrases that accurately sum up the inaccuracies in the book: "It is my truth" and "what I believe happened". When Clinton said those words, she might as well have called the book "fiction", but the way she said them, oddly, was the most revealing thing about her, her campaign, and politics in America to day than anything else she has said or written.

Her interview with Ezra Klein on Vox went much better, both for her and for us. In it, she was relaxed. She was confident and competent. She was the version of herself her friends have always been telling us was there but we never got to see. She was, above anything, authentic. Really authentic. 

Watching her, we don't even have to agree with her on anything she says, but we can't help but like that someone so smart and knowledgable and engaged is so great at talking about it. Imagine this person debating Senator Bernie Sanders. Imagine this person debating Senator Barack Obama. If this had been the Hillary Clinton we saw throughout either of her presidential campaigns, she very well would have done better in both.

That's the shame of it for us right now. She still refuses to accept that her perceived lack of authenticity was a big reason for her defeats, and that in no small way is why she lost. Authenticity builds trust. It builds political capital. It builds a base. Donald Trump has built a devoted, trusting base with tens of millions of Americans, and he lies about everything. They know he lies about everything and they still love him. Why? Because he sounds authentic. Enough.

They love him so much it probably never even occurred to them that their president just used the exact same tactic on Kim Jong-Un and North Korea that he used on Colin Kaepernick and the NFL. Sure, he sounds tough. Sure, he sounds certain. He also just gave North Koreans the best reason they've had in years to stick together and support their lunatic man-child of a dictator. How's that NFL thing working for Trump in the long run? How’s it even working right now?

Yikes.

- Daniel Ward