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NeverTrumpers, let's talk: We want your help, but so far your advice sucks
There's room for the NeverTrump contingent. But if their advice is "Stop being Democrats," that ain't working
https://www.salon.com/2019/07/16/nevertrumpers-lets-talk-we-want-your-help-but-so-far-your-advice-sucks/
Bob Cesca
July 16, 2019 12:00PM (UTC)
Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed that the NeverTrumpers — repentant Republicans and conservatives — have been offering up lots of advice for how the Democrats can win the next election. Their jackhammer advice has basically been limited to urging the party to disavow its activist, progressive members in order to secure the contrarian swing voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama twice, then switched to Donald Trump in 2016.
Before I offer up a come-to-Jesus moment for the NeverTrumpers, let me say that as many of you know, I’ve defended members of this exiled faction in the past, and continue to stand by the idea that we need to form a coalition to close the loopholes exposed by Donald Trump’s malfeasance as a means of preventing another, perhaps more dangerous monster from sashaying through the Trump-shaped hole in the wall.
To be clear: I’m not talking about conceding on policy or platform planks. I’m merely suggesting a detente between voices who all agree that Trump is a menace and his presidency is an existential national crisis.
By the way, while I’m here, there’s also an electoral motive behind finding a Venn-diagram overlap with the NeverTrumpers. Specifically, elections in this era are decided by a few percentage points, raising the salient question: Can Democrats afford to marginalize any voters, irrespective of where they land on the spectrum? This is as much a question for Nancy Pelosi and Rick Wilson as it is for “the Squad,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies.
Benefit of the doubt: The NeverTrumpers mean well, I guess. They want to defeat Trump as much as we do. Perhaps their motives for doing so aren’t precisely the same as ours, but motives don’t matter as long as we’re all pulling the same levers on Nov. 3, 2020.
Nevertheless, the approach the NeverTrumpers have taken on Twitter, and in various op-eds for The Bulwark is to hector Democrats to fully accept their advice — or else.
Too often, these tips are presented alongside brags about how the NeverTrumpers have pantsed the Democrats for decades. We need to cloak our nominee in their conservative drag because, they say, the Democrats are too feckless to find 270 electoral votes with a flashlight and GPS. It isn't quite the brand of outreach that makes friends or wins acolytes.
Unless we obey the NeverTrumpers, they argue, we’ll just keep on being losing losers who lose, re-electing Trump. Their acidic tone secondarily renders any coalition between these disaffected former Republicans and the rest of the anti-Trump Normals an impossibility, augmenting the chances of more Trumps. My coalition idea is already a non-starter in many liberal circles due to the inartful tone with which these handy-dandy tips have been doled out.
What I’m hearing, generally, among NeverTrumpers is a form of defeatism that only actually helps Trump. Either the Democratic Party accepts a centrist nominee and a watered-down platform, or we’re all screwed — and it’ll be the party’s fault for being filled with nincompoops. Thanks, guys, but that’s not quite how it works.
The NeverTrumpers aren’t greenhorns by any stretch, so they ought to know by now that big-tent party politics is a constant plate-spinning act. Those of you who remember the "Ed Sullivan Show" might recall the vintage variety-show performers who spun dinnerware on pointed sticks. The idea was to keep every plate spinning for as long as possible. Pay too much attention to any one plate, and the others start to wobble and crash.
Here's a related fact: there were five Senate races and 45 House contests last year that were decided by less than five percentage points. If the party spends too much time and money cajoling the middle, the left will start to wobble — and vice versa.
Lose the left and a repeat of 2016 becomes a possibility, with the Greens or some other kittywampus third party picking up election-deciding votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The key to winning in 2020, or any election, for that matter, is successfully keeping all the plates in motion, thus manufacturing a semblance of party cohesion — keeping the middle, the center-left and the left as happy as possible.
While it would be outstanding if the Democrats could attain party cohesion by prioritizing Trump as the unifying enemy, it’s not as simple as that. USA Today’s Chris Truax observed this week: “Democrats are already guaranteed a nominee that will excite their base and drive a big turnout.
His name is Donald Trump.” I truly wish that were so, I assure you. See also my previous Green Party remark. Trump was on the ballot in 2016, too, and yet Jill Stein won enough votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to award those states and their electoral votes to Trump, chiefly because Stein voters believed Hillary Clinton wasn’t enough like Bernie Sanders.
I agree wholeheartedly that Trump should be the prime mover for the entire Democratic tent to unite and turn out in record numbers, but my confidence in such an outcome is less than stellar, given what happened last time. The fact remains that in a world of wafer-thin margins, even the slightest lack of energy here or there could spell disaster. That means the plate-spinning has to be executed with laser-focused attention on every plate.
Former Reagan and George H.W. Bush policy adviser Bruce Bartlett has the right idea. Not too long ago, Bartlett warned:
I think the strongest political argument for nominating a progressive over a moderate is that, whoever the Democratic nominee is, he or she will be painted by Fox, Trump and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber as far, far left, a socialist. A moderate cannot parry these charges except by moving right, which will be disastrous. An experienced progressive will be far better able to respond to right-wing attacks, in my opinion.
Knowing that Trump and his allies in the GOP will accuse any Democrat, including Joe Biden, of being a Venezuela-style socialist, a move to the right will be seen as weak and compliant, turning off the base and many former Obama supporters like me.
Conversely, the only viable response is to simply own the position. Don’t hesitate. Don’t apologize. This isn’t quite what we’re hearing from the NeverTrumpers because, I presume, being an unapologetic Democrat is (in their view) by definition a losing posture.
Americans want leadership above all else. Democrats fail on this front when they vacillate and apologize for believing what they believe. But when Democrats show leadership and backbone and stand up for what they believe, they win, even in red states. Barack Obama won Indiana and North Carolina in 2008, two states that even Democratic strategists didn't believe were in play.
He won an electoral vote in Nebraska, typically viewed as among the reddest of red states. None of that happened because he ran to the right. It was because he displayed leadership and strength in the days after the October crash of the financial markets, and never once backpedaled on his values while endeavoring to win those bright-red electoral votes.
Badgering Democrats to shift rightward, and insulting anyone who dares to reply with questions, concerns or counterpoints, won’t win any Democratic supporters for the NeverTrumper plan, regardless of how well intentioned it might be.
Indeed, the NeverTrumpers' effort to help is only hurting Democratic prospects by calling attention to what they see as the party’s flaws, while reinforcing the stereotype that the party is wired to lose. I can’t imagine why Democrats are bristling at their advice. Similarly, if I were presumptuous enough to direct traffic at a meeting of the Freedom Caucus, prefaced with a you-people-suck-without-me posture, I’d surely only last a few seconds before being shouted out of the room.
I mean, Democratic skepticism in the face of these new kids at camp is warranted. Through their years of electoral expertise, they ended up manufacturing a rainbow bridge for the rise of George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Fox News' prime-time lineup, the Tea Party and eventually Trump. If we’re not as open-armed as they’d like us to be, perhaps these are some of the reasons why.
All told, we’re not breaking any news in concluding that the 2020 election is an all-hands-on-deck emergency, and that every vote against Trump counts, no matter where it comes from. That means there’s zero latitude for allowing any plates to fall. (It also means AOC and Nancy Pelosi need to declare a ceasefire, like, yesterday.)
Consequently, here’s the kind of help the Democrats need from NeverTrumpers. It’d be immensely useful if these guys, many of whom are former strategists, took on the role of the metaphorical Bothan Spies, showing us the location of the Death Star’s thermal exhaust shaft, rather than simply hectoring Luke Skywalker for turning off his targeting computer.
In other words, the NeverTrumpers possess unique insights into the internal workings of the Republican Party machine. Show us the plans, then. Show us the weak spots. Show us how to outflank their media strategy, how to nullify the impact of their propaganda, how to spike the Republican guns — and how pull it off without urging the Democratic Party to sell out its values or its progressive platform, weakening Democrats as viable leaders. Show us how we pull it off without nagging and insulting the people the NeverTrumpers are trying to convince.
I’m all ears.
Clearly, Democrats want to defeat and humiliate Trump, yes, but we want to do it with our heads held high, rather than defeating Trump by becoming just a little more like him in order to appease regional voters — who as I see it, ultimately want to support a party that knows what it is, a party that’s confident in its platform.
If you want to help the Democrats win, NeverTrumpers, then help. But so far, it's not working. Your defeatism, your inattention to big-tent politics during a primary, and your caustic tactics are only inflicting damage. Whose side are you really on?
NeverTrumpers, let's talk: We want your help, but so far your advice sucks
There's room for the NeverTrump contingent. But if their advice is "Stop being Democrats," that ain't working
https://www.salon.com/2019/07/16/nevertrumpers-lets-talk-we-want-your-help-but-so-far-your-advice-sucks/
Bob Cesca
July 16, 2019 12:00PM (UTC)
Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed that the NeverTrumpers — repentant Republicans and conservatives — have been offering up lots of advice for how the Democrats can win the next election. Their jackhammer advice has basically been limited to urging the party to disavow its activist, progressive members in order to secure the contrarian swing voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama twice, then switched to Donald Trump in 2016.
Before I offer up a come-to-Jesus moment for the NeverTrumpers, let me say that as many of you know, I’ve defended members of this exiled faction in the past, and continue to stand by the idea that we need to form a coalition to close the loopholes exposed by Donald Trump’s malfeasance as a means of preventing another, perhaps more dangerous monster from sashaying through the Trump-shaped hole in the wall.
To be clear: I’m not talking about conceding on policy or platform planks. I’m merely suggesting a detente between voices who all agree that Trump is a menace and his presidency is an existential national crisis.
By the way, while I’m here, there’s also an electoral motive behind finding a Venn-diagram overlap with the NeverTrumpers. Specifically, elections in this era are decided by a few percentage points, raising the salient question: Can Democrats afford to marginalize any voters, irrespective of where they land on the spectrum? This is as much a question for Nancy Pelosi and Rick Wilson as it is for “the Squad,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies.
Benefit of the doubt: The NeverTrumpers mean well, I guess. They want to defeat Trump as much as we do. Perhaps their motives for doing so aren’t precisely the same as ours, but motives don’t matter as long as we’re all pulling the same levers on Nov. 3, 2020.
Nevertheless, the approach the NeverTrumpers have taken on Twitter, and in various op-eds for The Bulwark is to hector Democrats to fully accept their advice — or else.
Too often, these tips are presented alongside brags about how the NeverTrumpers have pantsed the Democrats for decades. We need to cloak our nominee in their conservative drag because, they say, the Democrats are too feckless to find 270 electoral votes with a flashlight and GPS. It isn't quite the brand of outreach that makes friends or wins acolytes.
Unless we obey the NeverTrumpers, they argue, we’ll just keep on being losing losers who lose, re-electing Trump. Their acidic tone secondarily renders any coalition between these disaffected former Republicans and the rest of the anti-Trump Normals an impossibility, augmenting the chances of more Trumps. My coalition idea is already a non-starter in many liberal circles due to the inartful tone with which these handy-dandy tips have been doled out.
What I’m hearing, generally, among NeverTrumpers is a form of defeatism that only actually helps Trump. Either the Democratic Party accepts a centrist nominee and a watered-down platform, or we’re all screwed — and it’ll be the party’s fault for being filled with nincompoops. Thanks, guys, but that’s not quite how it works.
The NeverTrumpers aren’t greenhorns by any stretch, so they ought to know by now that big-tent party politics is a constant plate-spinning act. Those of you who remember the "Ed Sullivan Show" might recall the vintage variety-show performers who spun dinnerware on pointed sticks. The idea was to keep every plate spinning for as long as possible. Pay too much attention to any one plate, and the others start to wobble and crash.
Here's a related fact: there were five Senate races and 45 House contests last year that were decided by less than five percentage points. If the party spends too much time and money cajoling the middle, the left will start to wobble — and vice versa.
Lose the left and a repeat of 2016 becomes a possibility, with the Greens or some other kittywampus third party picking up election-deciding votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The key to winning in 2020, or any election, for that matter, is successfully keeping all the plates in motion, thus manufacturing a semblance of party cohesion — keeping the middle, the center-left and the left as happy as possible.
While it would be outstanding if the Democrats could attain party cohesion by prioritizing Trump as the unifying enemy, it’s not as simple as that. USA Today’s Chris Truax observed this week: “Democrats are already guaranteed a nominee that will excite their base and drive a big turnout.
His name is Donald Trump.” I truly wish that were so, I assure you. See also my previous Green Party remark. Trump was on the ballot in 2016, too, and yet Jill Stein won enough votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to award those states and their electoral votes to Trump, chiefly because Stein voters believed Hillary Clinton wasn’t enough like Bernie Sanders.
I agree wholeheartedly that Trump should be the prime mover for the entire Democratic tent to unite and turn out in record numbers, but my confidence in such an outcome is less than stellar, given what happened last time. The fact remains that in a world of wafer-thin margins, even the slightest lack of energy here or there could spell disaster. That means the plate-spinning has to be executed with laser-focused attention on every plate.
Former Reagan and George H.W. Bush policy adviser Bruce Bartlett has the right idea. Not too long ago, Bartlett warned:
I think the strongest political argument for nominating a progressive over a moderate is that, whoever the Democratic nominee is, he or she will be painted by Fox, Trump and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber as far, far left, a socialist. A moderate cannot parry these charges except by moving right, which will be disastrous. An experienced progressive will be far better able to respond to right-wing attacks, in my opinion.
Knowing that Trump and his allies in the GOP will accuse any Democrat, including Joe Biden, of being a Venezuela-style socialist, a move to the right will be seen as weak and compliant, turning off the base and many former Obama supporters like me.
Conversely, the only viable response is to simply own the position. Don’t hesitate. Don’t apologize. This isn’t quite what we’re hearing from the NeverTrumpers because, I presume, being an unapologetic Democrat is (in their view) by definition a losing posture.
Americans want leadership above all else. Democrats fail on this front when they vacillate and apologize for believing what they believe. But when Democrats show leadership and backbone and stand up for what they believe, they win, even in red states. Barack Obama won Indiana and North Carolina in 2008, two states that even Democratic strategists didn't believe were in play.
He won an electoral vote in Nebraska, typically viewed as among the reddest of red states. None of that happened because he ran to the right. It was because he displayed leadership and strength in the days after the October crash of the financial markets, and never once backpedaled on his values while endeavoring to win those bright-red electoral votes.
Badgering Democrats to shift rightward, and insulting anyone who dares to reply with questions, concerns or counterpoints, won’t win any Democratic supporters for the NeverTrumper plan, regardless of how well intentioned it might be.
Indeed, the NeverTrumpers' effort to help is only hurting Democratic prospects by calling attention to what they see as the party’s flaws, while reinforcing the stereotype that the party is wired to lose. I can’t imagine why Democrats are bristling at their advice. Similarly, if I were presumptuous enough to direct traffic at a meeting of the Freedom Caucus, prefaced with a you-people-suck-without-me posture, I’d surely only last a few seconds before being shouted out of the room.
I mean, Democratic skepticism in the face of these new kids at camp is warranted. Through their years of electoral expertise, they ended up manufacturing a rainbow bridge for the rise of George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Fox News' prime-time lineup, the Tea Party and eventually Trump. If we’re not as open-armed as they’d like us to be, perhaps these are some of the reasons why.
All told, we’re not breaking any news in concluding that the 2020 election is an all-hands-on-deck emergency, and that every vote against Trump counts, no matter where it comes from. That means there’s zero latitude for allowing any plates to fall. (It also means AOC and Nancy Pelosi need to declare a ceasefire, like, yesterday.)
Consequently, here’s the kind of help the Democrats need from NeverTrumpers. It’d be immensely useful if these guys, many of whom are former strategists, took on the role of the metaphorical Bothan Spies, showing us the location of the Death Star’s thermal exhaust shaft, rather than simply hectoring Luke Skywalker for turning off his targeting computer.
In other words, the NeverTrumpers possess unique insights into the internal workings of the Republican Party machine. Show us the plans, then. Show us the weak spots. Show us how to outflank their media strategy, how to nullify the impact of their propaganda, how to spike the Republican guns — and how pull it off without urging the Democratic Party to sell out its values or its progressive platform, weakening Democrats as viable leaders. Show us how we pull it off without nagging and insulting the people the NeverTrumpers are trying to convince.
I’m all ears.
Clearly, Democrats want to defeat and humiliate Trump, yes, but we want to do it with our heads held high, rather than defeating Trump by becoming just a little more like him in order to appease regional voters — who as I see it, ultimately want to support a party that knows what it is, a party that’s confident in its platform.
If you want to help the Democrats win, NeverTrumpers, then help. But so far, it's not working. Your defeatism, your inattention to big-tent politics during a primary, and your caustic tactics are only inflicting damage. Whose side are you really on?
Why Democrats Still Have to Appeal to the Center, but Republicans Don’t
Polarization has changed the two parties — just not in the same way.
By Ezra Klein
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/democrats-republicans-polarization.html
Mr. Klein is the author of “Why We’re Polarized.”
Jan. 24, 2020
American politics has been dominated by the Democratic and Republican Parties since the Civil War. That gives us the illusion of stability — that today’s political divisions cut roughly the same lines as yesteryear.
But in recent decades, the two parties have been changing, and fast. Those changes are ideological — the Democratic Party has moved left, and the Republican Party has moved right. But more fundamentally, those changes are compositional: Democrats have become more diverse, urban, young and secular, and the Republican Party has turned itself into a vehicle for whiter, older, more Christian and more rural voters.
This is the root cause of intensifying polarization: Our differences, both ideological and demographic, map onto our party divisions today in ways they didn’t in the past. But the changes have not affected the parties symmetrically.
Put simply, Democrats can’t win running the kinds of campaigns and deploying the kinds of tactics that succeed for Republicans. They can move to the left — and they are — but they can’t abandon the center or, given the geography of American politics, the center-right, and still hold power. Democrats are modestly, but importantly, restrained by diversity and democracy. Republicans are not.
Let’s start with diversity. Over the past 50 years, the Democratic and Republican coalitions have sorted by ideology, race, religion, geography and psychology. Not all sorting is the same. Sorting has made Democrats more diverse and Republicans more homogeneous. This is often played as a political weakness for Democrats. They’re a collection of interest groups, a party of list makers, an endless roll call. But diversity has played a crucial role in moderating the party’s response to polarization.
Appealing to Democrats requires appealing to a lot of different kinds of people with different interests. Republicans are overwhelmingly dependent on white voters. Democrats are a coalition of liberal whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and mixed-race voters.
Republicans are overwhelmingly dependent on Christian voters. Democrats are a coalition of liberal and nonwhite Christians, Jews, Muslims, New Agers, agnostics, Buddhists and so on. Three-quarters of Republicans identify as conservative, while only half of Democrats call themselves liberals — and for Democrats, that’s a historically high level.
As a result, winning the Democratic primary means winning liberal whites in New Hampshire and traditionalist blacks in South Carolina. It means talking to Irish Catholics in Boston and atheists in San Francisco. It means inspiring liberals without arousing the fears of moderates. It’s important preparation for the difficult, pluralistic work of governing, in which the needs and concerns of many different groups must be balanced against each other.
The Democratic Party is not just more diverse in who it represents; it’s also more diverse in whom it listens to. A new Pew survey tested Democratic and Republican trust in 30 different media sources, ranging from left to right. Democrats trusted 22 of the 30 sources, including center-right outlets like The Wall Street Journal.
Republicans trusted only seven of the 30 sources, with PBS, the BBC and The Wall Street Journal the only mainstream outlets with significant trust. (The other trusted sources, in case you were wondering, were Fox News, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart.)
Fox News, in particular, holds a unique centrality in Republican media: Sixty-five percent of Republicans say they trust it, more than twice as many as trust any other outlet, and 60 percent of Republicans said they relied on Fox News in the previous week — again, more than twice the proportion who relied on any other news brand. Among Democrats, by contrast, the most-trusted and frequently consulted outlet was CNN.
The Democratic Party’s informational ecosystem combines mainstream sources that seek objectivity, liberal sources that push partiality and even some center-right sources with excellent reputations.
On any given question, liberals trust in sources that pull them left and sources that pull them toward the center, in sources oriented toward escalation and sources oriented toward moderation, in sources that root their identity in a political movement and in sources that carefully tend a reputation for being antagonistic toward political movements.
There is no similar diversity in the Republican Party’s trusted informational ecosystem, which is heavily built around self-consciously conservative news sources. There should be a check on this sort of epistemic closure.
A party that narrows the sources it listens to is also narrowing the voters it can speak to. And political parties ultimately want to win elections. Lose enough of them, enough times, and even the most stubborn ideologues will accept reform. Democracy, in other words, should discipline parties that close their informational ecosystems. But America isn’t a democracy.
Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and a majority of governorships. Only the House is under Democratic control. And yet Democrats haven’t just won more votes in the House elections. They won more votes over the last three Senate elections, too. They won more votes in both the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections.
But America’s political system counts states and districts rather than people, and the G.O.P.’s more rural coalition has a geographic advantage that offsets its popular disadvantage.
To win power, Democrats don’t just need to appeal to the voter in the middle. They need to appeal to voters to the right of the middle. When Democrats compete for the Senate, they are forced to appeal to an electorate that is far more conservative than the country as a whole.
Similarly, gerrymandering and geography means that Democrats need to win a substantial majority in the House popular vote to take the gavel. And a recent study by Michael Geruso, Dean Spears and Ishaana Talesara calculates that the Republican Party’s Electoral College advantage means “Republicans should be expected to win 65 percent of presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.”
The Republican Party, by contrast, can run campaigns aimed at a voter well to the right of the median American. Republicans have lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections.
If they’d also lost six of the last seven presidential elections, they most likely would have overhauled their message and agenda. If Trump had lost in 2016, he — and the political style he represents — would have been discredited for blowing a winnable election. The Republican moderates who’d counseled more outreach to black and Hispanic voters would have been strengthened.
Instead, Republicans are trapped in a dangerous place: They represent a shrinking constituency that holds vast political power. That has injected an almost manic urgency into their strategy. Behind the party’s tactical extremism lurks an apocalyptic sense of political stakes.
This was popularized in the infamous “Flight 93 Election” essay arguing that conservatives needed to embrace Trump, because if he failed, “death is certain.”
You could hear its echoes in Attorney General William P. Barr’s recent speech, in which he argued that “the force, fervor and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion” poses a threat unlike any America has faced in the past. “This is not decay,” he warned, “it is organized destruction.”
This is why one of the few real hopes for depolarizing American politics is democratization. If Republicans couldn’t fall back on the distortions of the Electoral College, the geography of the United States Senate and the gerrymandering of House seats — if they had, in other words, to win over a majority of Americans — they would become a more moderate and diverse party. This is not a hypothetical: The country’s most popular governors are Charlie Baker in Massachusetts and Larry Hogan in Maryland. Both are Republicans governing, with majority support, in blue states.
A democratization agenda isn’t hard to imagine. We could do away with the Electoral College and gerrymandering; pass proportional representation and campaign finance reform; make voter registration automatic and give Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico the political representation they deserve.
But precisely because the Republican Party sees deepening democracy as a threat to its future, it will use the power it holds to block any moves in that direction.
The alternative to democratizing America is scarier than mere polarization: It is, eventually, a legitimacy crisis that could threaten the very foundation of our political system. By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. That means 70 percent of America will be represented by only 30 senators, while the other 30 percent of America will be represented by 70 senators.
It is not difficult to envision an America where Republicans consistently win the presidency despite rarely winning the popular vote, where they typically control both the House and the Senate despite rarely winning more votes than the Democrats, where their dominance of the Supreme Court is unquestioned and where all this power is used to buttress a system of partisan gerrymandering, pro-corporate campaign finance laws, strict voter identification requirements and anti-union legislation that further weakens Democrats’ electoral performance. Down that road lies true political crisis.
In the meantime, though, it’s important to recognize the truth about our system: Both parties have polarized, but in very different ways, and with very different consequences for American politics.
Why Democrats Still Have to Appeal to the Center, but Republicans Don’t
Polarization has changed the two parties — just not in the same way.
By Ezra Klein
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/democrats-republicans-polarization.html
Mr. Klein is the author of “Why We’re Polarized.”
Jan. 24, 2020
American politics has been dominated by the Democratic and Republican Parties since the Civil War. That gives us the illusion of stability — that today’s political divisions cut roughly the same lines as yesteryear.
But in recent decades, the two parties have been changing, and fast. Those changes are ideological — the Democratic Party has moved left, and the Republican Party has moved right. But more fundamentally, those changes are compositional: Democrats have become more diverse, urban, young and secular, and the Republican Party has turned itself into a vehicle for whiter, older, more Christian and more rural voters.
This is the root cause of intensifying polarization: Our differences, both ideological and demographic, map onto our party divisions today in ways they didn’t in the past. But the changes have not affected the parties symmetrically.
Put simply, Democrats can’t win running the kinds of campaigns and deploying the kinds of tactics that succeed for Republicans. They can move to the left — and they are — but they can’t abandon the center or, given the geography of American politics, the center-right, and still hold power. Democrats are modestly, but importantly, restrained by diversity and democracy. Republicans are not.
Let’s start with diversity. Over the past 50 years, the Democratic and Republican coalitions have sorted by ideology, race, religion, geography and psychology. Not all sorting is the same. Sorting has made Democrats more diverse and Republicans more homogeneous. This is often played as a political weakness for Democrats. They’re a collection of interest groups, a party of list makers, an endless roll call. But diversity has played a crucial role in moderating the party’s response to polarization.
Appealing to Democrats requires appealing to a lot of different kinds of people with different interests. Republicans are overwhelmingly dependent on white voters. Democrats are a coalition of liberal whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and mixed-race voters.
Republicans are overwhelmingly dependent on Christian voters. Democrats are a coalition of liberal and nonwhite Christians, Jews, Muslims, New Agers, agnostics, Buddhists and so on. Three-quarters of Republicans identify as conservative, while only half of Democrats call themselves liberals — and for Democrats, that’s a historically high level.
As a result, winning the Democratic primary means winning liberal whites in New Hampshire and traditionalist blacks in South Carolina. It means talking to Irish Catholics in Boston and atheists in San Francisco. It means inspiring liberals without arousing the fears of moderates. It’s important preparation for the difficult, pluralistic work of governing, in which the needs and concerns of many different groups must be balanced against each other.
The Democratic Party is not just more diverse in who it represents; it’s also more diverse in whom it listens to. A new Pew survey tested Democratic and Republican trust in 30 different media sources, ranging from left to right. Democrats trusted 22 of the 30 sources, including center-right outlets like The Wall Street Journal.
Republicans trusted only seven of the 30 sources, with PBS, the BBC and The Wall Street Journal the only mainstream outlets with significant trust. (The other trusted sources, in case you were wondering, were Fox News, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart.)
Fox News, in particular, holds a unique centrality in Republican media: Sixty-five percent of Republicans say they trust it, more than twice as many as trust any other outlet, and 60 percent of Republicans said they relied on Fox News in the previous week — again, more than twice the proportion who relied on any other news brand. Among Democrats, by contrast, the most-trusted and frequently consulted outlet was CNN.
The Democratic Party’s informational ecosystem combines mainstream sources that seek objectivity, liberal sources that push partiality and even some center-right sources with excellent reputations.
On any given question, liberals trust in sources that pull them left and sources that pull them toward the center, in sources oriented toward escalation and sources oriented toward moderation, in sources that root their identity in a political movement and in sources that carefully tend a reputation for being antagonistic toward political movements.
There is no similar diversity in the Republican Party’s trusted informational ecosystem, which is heavily built around self-consciously conservative news sources. There should be a check on this sort of epistemic closure.
A party that narrows the sources it listens to is also narrowing the voters it can speak to. And political parties ultimately want to win elections. Lose enough of them, enough times, and even the most stubborn ideologues will accept reform. Democracy, in other words, should discipline parties that close their informational ecosystems. But America isn’t a democracy.
Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and a majority of governorships. Only the House is under Democratic control. And yet Democrats haven’t just won more votes in the House elections. They won more votes over the last three Senate elections, too. They won more votes in both the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections.
But America’s political system counts states and districts rather than people, and the G.O.P.’s more rural coalition has a geographic advantage that offsets its popular disadvantage.
To win power, Democrats don’t just need to appeal to the voter in the middle. They need to appeal to voters to the right of the middle. When Democrats compete for the Senate, they are forced to appeal to an electorate that is far more conservative than the country as a whole.
Similarly, gerrymandering and geography means that Democrats need to win a substantial majority in the House popular vote to take the gavel. And a recent study by Michael Geruso, Dean Spears and Ishaana Talesara calculates that the Republican Party’s Electoral College advantage means “Republicans should be expected to win 65 percent of presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.”
The Republican Party, by contrast, can run campaigns aimed at a voter well to the right of the median American. Republicans have lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections.
If they’d also lost six of the last seven presidential elections, they most likely would have overhauled their message and agenda. If Trump had lost in 2016, he — and the political style he represents — would have been discredited for blowing a winnable election. The Republican moderates who’d counseled more outreach to black and Hispanic voters would have been strengthened.
Instead, Republicans are trapped in a dangerous place: They represent a shrinking constituency that holds vast political power. That has injected an almost manic urgency into their strategy. Behind the party’s tactical extremism lurks an apocalyptic sense of political stakes.
This was popularized in the infamous “Flight 93 Election” essay arguing that conservatives needed to embrace Trump, because if he failed, “death is certain.”
You could hear its echoes in Attorney General William P. Barr’s recent speech, in which he argued that “the force, fervor and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion” poses a threat unlike any America has faced in the past. “This is not decay,” he warned, “it is organized destruction.”
This is why one of the few real hopes for depolarizing American politics is democratization. If Republicans couldn’t fall back on the distortions of the Electoral College, the geography of the United States Senate and the gerrymandering of House seats — if they had, in other words, to win over a majority of Americans — they would become a more moderate and diverse party. This is not a hypothetical: The country’s most popular governors are Charlie Baker in Massachusetts and Larry Hogan in Maryland. Both are Republicans governing, with majority support, in blue states.
A democratization agenda isn’t hard to imagine. We could do away with the Electoral College and gerrymandering; pass proportional representation and campaign finance reform; make voter registration automatic and give Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico the political representation they deserve.
But precisely because the Republican Party sees deepening democracy as a threat to its future, it will use the power it holds to block any moves in that direction.
The alternative to democratizing America is scarier than mere polarization: It is, eventually, a legitimacy crisis that could threaten the very foundation of our political system. By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. That means 70 percent of America will be represented by only 30 senators, while the other 30 percent of America will be represented by 70 senators.
It is not difficult to envision an America where Republicans consistently win the presidency despite rarely winning the popular vote, where they typically control both the House and the Senate despite rarely winning more votes than the Democrats, where their dominance of the Supreme Court is unquestioned and where all this power is used to buttress a system of partisan gerrymandering, pro-corporate campaign finance laws, strict voter identification requirements and anti-union legislation that further weakens Democrats’ electoral performance. Down that road lies true political crisis.
In the meantime, though, it’s important to recognize the truth about our system: Both parties have polarized, but in very different ways, and with very different consequences for American politics.
I'd say there's no chance that Schiff hasn't seen it.
In fact all lawyers in law school probably view it in Trial Summation to the Jury class. I'm guessing, but it seem likely.
And costly. You'd think that there would be a 'service life replacement clause' in the contracts. I'm certain they ball park service life.
So lets say that within 1 year of that date the client company receives an estimate of the replacement and launch costs based upon quarterly increments right up to the 'on the cusp of failure' date. Recognizing that those numbers are variable and likely rising.
Better, more economical, to replace early rather than too late.
Gee, how timely. Hope they can fold this into the obstruction arguments. Graphics are already available.
Matt McDermott??Verified account? @mattmfm
CBS News reports that GOP Senators have been warned by Trump team: "Vote against the president, and your head will be on a pike." How is this acceptable?
4. He's never been fishing. A pike already has a head. (rimshot)
I hope a felony like jury tampering is an impeachable offense.
Just keep those crimes coming, douche.
Gee, how timely. Hope they can fold this into the obstruction arguments. Graphics are already available.
Matt McDermott??Verified account? @mattmfm
CBS News reports that GOP Senators have been warned by Trump team: "Vote against the president, and your head will be on a pike." How is this acceptable?
4. He's never been fishing. A pike already has a head. (rimshot)
I hope a felony like jury tampering is an impeachable offense.
Just keep those crimes coming, douche.
ABC: 'Take her out': recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine a
Source" ABC News
January 24, 2020, 9:09 AM
9 min read
Full Headline: ‘Take her out’: recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired
Trump apparently heard discussing firing Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired – and speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman -- two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.
The recording appears to contradict statements by President Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018 dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.
"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it."
On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates are telling President Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the President. The recording was made by Fruman according to sources familiar with the tape. The White House did not respond to an ABC News request for comment.
During the conversation, several of the participants can be heard laughing with the President. At another point, the recording appears to capture Trump praising his new choice of Secretary of State, saying emphatically: “Pompeo is the best.” But the most striking moment comes when Parnas and the President discuss the dismissal of his ambassador to Ukraine.
Parnas appears to say: "The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration," Parnas can be heard telling Trump. "She's basically walking around telling everybody 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached, just wait," he said. (Yovanovitch actually had served in the State Department since the Reagan Administration.)
Link: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/recording-appears-capture-trump-private-dinner-ukraine-ambassador/story?id=68506437
Fixing broken satellites in space could save companies big money
In-orbit repair may be on its way
By Loren Grush@lorengrush Jan 10, 2019, 1:10pm EST
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/10/18173600/worldview-4-satellite-servicing-repair-gyroscope-space
Thinking about all of this now is key, as aerospace companies like SpaceX, OneWeb, Iridium, and more want to send hundreds to thousands of satellites into orbit within the next decade. That will just increase the percentages of probes that break in space. Blackerby says his company has estimated that about 5 to 10 percent of satellites malfunction in some way before their missions have been completed, and he says that’s a conservative number.
Open Letter to Lindsey Graham
RE: Your latest hissy-fit statement: “I'm exposing your hatred of this president.”
This impeachment trial is not about hatred. It’s not about dislike or distaste; it’s not even about utter disgust. It’s about the Constitution and the rule of law. Perhaps if you spent as much time in the hearings as you do outside the room (as has just been reported), you’d know what was going on.
Yes, there are many of us – dare I say millions? – who hate Donald Trump. And as opposed to the hatred the GOP demonstrated daily towards Barack Obama, our hatred is based on the behaviour, statements, and actions of this “pResident” – all of which have rightfully prompted that emotion.
You can’t collude with our enemies, insult our allies, and lie to the citizenry on a daily basis, and not expect to be hated. You can’t disrespect our laws and defiantly abuse the powers of your office, and not accept that you’ll be hated for it – and justifiably so.
Oh – and you can’t lock innocent children in cages and expect anything less than hatred. A lot of people are really touchy about that sort of thing.
That being said, the Democrats are presenting the overwhelming evidence against your “pResident” based on facts and witness testimony, not on hatred – facts and testimony they were able to establish despite your “pResident’s” refusal to produce witnesses or documents.
And as is now very clear, your side has yet to present anything remotely close to a defence of Trump’s obvious corruption – other than to say inane things like, “I'm exposing your hatred of this president,” as though that has any relevance to the issues at hand.
If you really want to expose hatred towards this “pResident”, you might want to talk to your fellow Republicans. We know that the majority of them despise Trump, which makes their willingness to lie for him, cover for him, and acquit him without a fair trial is all the more contemptible.
Apparently, they don’t like what he’s doing to the party’s brand, but have absolutely no qualms about what he’s doing to the country – and will continue to do if not held to account.
But buckle-up, Linds, because it’s going to get a lot worse. As the evidence against Trump continues to come to light, the hatred towards him will grow as people begin to understand the depths of his crimes – and the corruption of the party that supported and enabled him.
If you think that “but everybody hates him” is a defence, please proceed with that legal argument. But the only reaction you’ll get is, ”Yeah. So what?”
But at this point, I guess that’s all you’ve got.
Eventually, the truth always outs – the truth about everything and everyone. I look forward to one day knowing why people like you were willing to abandon their once-touted principles in order to kiss the ass of a treasonous bastard.
I can’t help but wonder what it was that led you to sit in silence while your beloved “pResident” demeaned John McCain, the man who you once claimed as a best friend. I wonder what caused you to protect Donald Trump (aka Cadet Bonespurs) as he disparaged your best bud McCain as a fake hero because he 'got caught' and spent his wartime years being tortured in a POW camp.
I’m sure that’s a very interesting story – and make no mistake, it's a story that will eventually be told.
Yours Truly,
--- NanceGreggs
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212900170
Open Letter to Lindsey Graham
RE: Your latest hissy-fit statement: “I'm exposing your hatred of this president.”
This impeachment trial is not about hatred. It’s not about dislike or distaste; it’s not even about utter disgust. It’s about the Constitution and the rule of law. Perhaps if you spent as much time in the hearings as you do outside the room (as has just been reported), you’d know what was going on.
Yes, there are many of us – dare I say millions? – who hate Donald Trump. And as opposed to the hatred the GOP demonstrated daily towards Barack Obama, our hatred is based on the behaviour, statements, and actions of this “pResident” – all of which have rightfully prompted that emotion.
You can’t collude with our enemies, insult our allies, and lie to the citizenry on a daily basis, and not expect to be hated. You can’t disrespect our laws and defiantly abuse the powers of your office, and not accept that you’ll be hated for it – and justifiably so.
Oh – and you can’t lock innocent children in cages and expect anything less than hatred. A lot of people are really touchy about that sort of thing.
That being said, the Democrats are presenting the overwhelming evidence against your “pResident” based on facts and witness testimony, not on hatred – facts and testimony they were able to establish despite your “pResident’s” refusal to produce witnesses or documents.
And as is now very clear, your side has yet to present anything remotely close to a defence of Trump’s obvious corruption – other than to say inane things like, “I'm exposing your hatred of this president,” as though that has any relevance to the issues at hand.
If you really want to expose hatred towards this “pResident”, you might want to talk to your fellow Republicans. We know that the majority of them despise Trump, which makes their willingness to lie for him, cover for him, and acquit him without a fair trial is all the more contemptible.
Apparently, they don’t like what he’s doing to the party’s brand, but have absolutely no qualms about what he’s doing to the country – and will continue to do if not held to account.
But buckle-up, Linds, because it’s going to get a lot worse. As the evidence against Trump continues to come to light, the hatred towards him will grow as people begin to understand the depths of his crimes – and the corruption of the party that supported and enabled him.
If you think that “but everybody hates him” is a defence, please proceed with that legal argument. But the only reaction you’ll get is, ”Yeah. So what?”
But at this point, I guess that’s all you’ve got.
Eventually, the truth always outs – the truth about everything and everyone. I look forward to one day knowing why people like you were willing to abandon their once-touted principles in order to kiss the ass of a treasonous bastard.
I can’t help but wonder what it was that led you to sit in silence while your beloved “pResident” demeaned John McCain, the man who you once claimed as a best friend. I wonder what caused you to protect Donald Trump (aka Cadet Bonespurs) as he disparaged your best bud McCain as a fake hero because he 'got caught' and spent his wartime years being tortured in a POW camp.
I’m sure that’s a very interesting story – and make no mistake, it's a story that will eventually be told.
Yours Truly,
--- NanceGreggs
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212900170
Start at 0.34; Newman channeling Schiff? Schiff channeling Newman?
He just placed Barr's nuts on the coverup chopping block....advice to IG on handling of whistleblower report...... repeatedly.
Oopps, feel that bump? Schiff Bus just rolled over Giuliani's fat ass too.
Watch for the commentary on it tonight and tomorrow.
Good one. Let's round out the field with...Stable Genius.
I'm giving myself extra points for the dual meaning of 'stable'.
I meant worse for them, no better alternatives.
Not a good place to spend a Chicago winter.
Hey, they'll be coloring the Chicago River green in less than two months.
How long before horses named Perfect Call, Beautiful Chocolate Cake and Fake News are circling the tracks?
We're in the stretch, it's Per..fect...Callll by a length. Bee... utifu...Choc...o ...late...Cake is closing. And here come Faaake Newssss.
Used to be worse than this....
https://www.nbcchicago.com/local/chicago-fights-homeless-on-lower-wacker-drive-as-shelter/147505/
Surely Planters will be reading all the memes. They may reshoot and we’ll see an ambulance pull up where he fell….how fast, how hard, can a peanut fall? And then we’ll see the ambulance speeding away with…..the Nutcracker in the drivers seat. To be continued.
The average cat watching the fall will think, 'he's got no problem'.
Nah, can't do that. Not even a judge in a courtroom can object, only overrule, sustain or clear.
But he probably could say 'approach the bench' or 'I want to see you and you and you in my chambers right the fuck now!'
Underground Wacker, I wore it out driving from the U of I Chicago Circle to the Prudential Bldg. where I worked part time.
Worth a copywrite. Do it quickly, or endure the bad taste of your own genius, stable or otherwise, fed back to you by another.
This is whatcha get when you stir an old man's memories with a reference to the Ike. Shit, I remember when they built the Eden's Superhighway (Kennedy)….still says that on an overpass over Cicero Ave.
Displaced
When the Eisenhower Expressway Moved in,
Who Was Forced Out?
https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/eisenhower/
It’s a good question, and it gets even better when you add up some of the basic details surrounding the Eisenhower (or the Ike, or I-290, if you’re so inclined), which runs almost due west from Chicago’s Loop out to Oak Park and beyond.
For example, the Eisenhower — built between 1949 and 1961 at a cost of $183 million — displaced an estimated 13,000 people and forced out more than 400 businesses in Chicago alone. Who were these people, indeed?
And, another reason to look at the Ike: It was the first superhighway in the heart of Chicago. However, by the 1960s — after more expressways were built, more neighborhoods were torn up, and traffic stayed as terrible as it was before — grassroots groups began fighting against these projects and even managed to kill one off.
The traffic in Chicago was so bad that people were desperate for a solution. In the 1920s and ’30s, more and more cars were filling the streets. “Cars really overwhelm the city — not just Chicago, but everywhere,” says David Spatz, a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library who’s writing a book on the history of Chicago’s expressways. “Many community groups are demanding expressways because traffic is really dangerous and unmanageable.”
An early proposal to develop a network of expressways. (Source: A Comprehensive Superhighway Plan for the City of Chicago, 1939)
The interstate highway system didn’t exist yet, but planners across the country envisioned superhighways without any stop signs or traffic lights to slow down cars. In 1940, the Chicago City Council approved plans for a local system of superhighways. Traffic was worst on the West Side, Spatz says, so that’s where the highway builders started first.
They chose to follow the path of Congress Street.
Why Congress? In a way, City Hall and its planners were following the advice of Daniel Burnham. Back in 1909, when Burnham and Edward Bennett wrote their famous Plan of Chicago, they’d proclaimed that Congress Street should become the city’s “grand axis.” Burnham and Bennett imagined Congress as a glorious boulevard from Grant Park to a towering new civic center at Halsted Street.
That center was never built, but the idea of Congress Street as an axis persisted. “It was the site that had the most support … because of Burnham,” Spatz says. “It tapped into a spirit of Chicago pride.”
A rendering of Burnham and Bennett's vision of Congress Street as a "grand axis" through the city as published in the 1909 Plan of Chicago. (Jules Guerin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
All of this was happening at a time when city officials were trying to get rid of dilapidated and unsightly buildings. “Expressways were seen as a way to kill two birds with one stone — to modernize the city by retrofitting it for cars and for traffic,” Spatz says. “And at the same time, clear out neighborhoods that were blighted.” Of course, it was questionable which buildings and neighborhoods qualified as “blighted.”
“It’s something that's used sometimes for nefarious purposes,” Spatz says. “It makes eminent domain easier. And certainly the people living there contested the idea.”
In the late 1940s, the Oak Leaves newspaper in Oak Park predicted that the new superhighway would replace the West Side’s “appalling slums” with “orderly dwellings where orderly people are living in health and comfort.”
Dad, we gonna be able to drive all the way to Iowa? Well, Oak Park anyway.
The city’s portion of the expressway was complete in 1956, but Cook County and the state continued building the road through the suburbs. Unlike Chicago neighborhoods, the village of Oak Park actually fought to change the highway plans.
A crowd gathers near Oak Park on the opening day of the expressway. In the background, you can see the exit ramp the suburb fought for. (Photo courtesy CERA Archive)
Oak Parkers opposed building exit and entrance ramps from the expressway’s right lanes — where they normally go. They were against the standard clover-leaf-style ramps because those take up more land along the side of the expressway. And that would have meant tearing down more buildings. As a result of these protests, the highway builders put the ramps on the left side — in the middle of the expressway — at Austin Avenue and Harlem Boulevard. That unusual configuration is something that “a lot of people still complain about today,” says Frank Lipo, executive director of the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest.
"It was five years of hell, to put it very bluntly."
-Marguerite Studney, Oak Park resident
Oak Park also stopped plans to build another interchange at either East Avenue or Ridgeland. In spite of Oak Park’s efforts to minimize destruction, about a hundred buildings were demolished in the village. Several buildings were moved to new locations. Lipo says some of the displaced people found new homes elsewhere in Oak Park.
The late Marguerite Studney said it was miserable living near the expressway construction zone in Oak Park. “It was five years of hell, to put it very bluntly,” Studney recalled. “They had a permit to work 24 hours a day. That meant, that often during the night, a pile driver was in action. And when the pile driver was pounding, the bed would vibrate. And often in the morning, you’d find that you’ve have to push your bed back three feet to the wall, where it was to begin with.”
On Jan. 10, 1964, the Chicago City Council renamed the Congress Expressway after former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And so, the highway’s name honors the president who’d proposed the interstate system in 1955.
Spatz says Chicagoans learned a lesson from the Eisenhower Expressway. “It took so long and it was so difficult,” he says. “You're seeing no tangible results from all of this destruction. The traffic is still terrible. A lot of people were displaced. … And so there was a good bit of bitterness about … the inability to actually carry out these projects quickly.”
As Chicago built more expressways — the Kennedy, the Dan Ryan, the Stevenson — people stopped being so complacent. They complained against demolition and displacement. Protests were one reason why another highway never got built — the Crosstown Expressway, which would have followed a north-south route near Cicero Avenue.
Pretty much his job description for these proceedings.
Much as his predecessor viewed it:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/29/politics/william-rehnquist-impeachment-trial-senate/index.html
"On several occasions when asked what I did at the trial," Rehnquist wrote to a man in Carson City, Nevada, "I took a leaf out of [the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera] Iolanthe and replied, 'I did nothing in particular, and did it very well.'" The gold stripes that Rehnquist had affixed to his robe years earlier also had been inspired by a character in Iolanthe.
I think that many of the Senators are thinking he's better by far than 3/4 of the people sitting up here.
Feinstein's successor.
Roberts is probably thinking the same about the solicitors general who've argued before him.
Hadda know Jimmy would slip into the memeometer.
The contents of his open shell tested positive for...
...niacin, folate, pantothenic acid, thiamin, riboflavin, choline, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin E and rich in minerals like magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, zinc, iron, copper, manganese and selenium, healthful fats, protein, and fiber.
Announcements for Lehrer, Mr. Peanut and your old Mac; sad day.
Turn on the fucking Google Machine and then just go for a swim in the shallow end of the gene pool from whence you came.
At least hunter Biden didn't put his name on failing casinos, a scam university, a crooked foundation and a host of shit products.
https://www.reuters.com/www.reuters.com › article › us-hunter-biden-ukraine › what-hunter-bi...
What Hunter Biden did on the board of Ukrainian energy ...
https://www.reuters.com/
Oct 18, 2019 - Biden's role at Burisma Holdings Ltd has come under intense ... that Hunter engaged in wrongdoing at any point during his five-year term.”.
https://www.businessinsider.com/www.businessinsider.com › ukraine-gas-company-burisma-holdings-j...
Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company tied to Joe Biden's son ...
https://www.businessinsider.com/
Nov 19, 2019 - Biden's son, Hunter Biden, began working for Burisma Holdings in 2014. ... His hiring by Burisma was seen as an attempt by the company to ...
https://www.foxbusiness.com/www.foxbusiness.com › money › ex-polish-president-kwasniewski-hunt...
Hunter Biden hired because of his name: Burisma board ...
...
We don't know if he had children. Perhaps playfully named Cashew and Pistachio.
You are completely full of shit for posting such a pathetically labored attempt to spin what happened into something it was not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/politics/trump-whistle-blower-complaint-ukraine.html
WASHINGTON — President Trump had already been briefed on a whistle-blower’s complaint about his dealings with Ukraine when he unfroze military aid for the country in September, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Lawyers from the White House counsel’s office told Mr. Trump in late August about the complaint, explaining that they were trying to determine whether they were legally required to give it to Congress, the people said.
If Sen Warren were running the ad campaign she'd have shot the ad with the Nutcracker biting Mr. Peanut's aristocratic head clean off.
It wasn't just aid that Trump was engaging in extortion to secure a favor, it was a visit to the WH. Which has yet to happen.
Aid was released because of the whistleblower.
Meanwhile the Russian foreign minister has a fucking hallway pass to the WH.
Notorious B.I.G. Inspires A Rap Battle At Trump's Impeachment Trial
Notorious B.I.G. Inspires A Rap Battle At Trump's Impeachment Trial
Your TV has lost its sound?
You buried the lead. Trump was NOT spied upon anymore than anyone else is if they turned up in the investigation of a suspect who was the TARGET of the investigation.
As we've subsequently learned from, you know, indictments and convictions, those surveillances were absolutely warranted.
Why was Trump surrounded by so very many NOT 'the best people'?
That's the same day that the Asshole in Chief called Zelinsky to shake him down. Trump learned exactly the wrong lesson from the Mueller Report.
Enormous stupidity should be one of the articles of impeachment.
Weak spin. Rex's observation has been corroborated by many others and though direct observation...Sharpie altered weather map, colonial airports, strong look at electric appliances, light bulbs and windmill oncology.
How would you describe a Dem president who said/did all of that, and more? Begins with 'F' and end with 'M'.