Trump is - Thankfully - Driving Away Suburban Voters

Across America - Virginia is a perfect example - suburban area voters are rejecting the racism, far right religious extremism, and reactionary policies that now define the Republican Party under Donald Trump.  Neither Trump nor the base of the GOP - white supremacists and Christofascists - seem to have gotten the message.  Hence, the primary defeat in Virginia's 5th congressional district of a Republican likely to have won reelection by an extremist with ties to Liberty University who may well lose to his Democrat opponent in November.  At the national level Trump is doubling down on precisely the things that alienate suburban voters in the effort to retain the loyalty of his knuckle dragging, Klan supporting base.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the situation which hopefully proves fatal to Trump's reelection hopes.  Here are excerpts:

In 2016, Trump won the overall suburban vote by five percentage points, and those votes were largely responsible for his narrow victory in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The campaign sent surrogates including Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who became a top aide in his White House, and Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, to connect with suburban voters such as white women and working moms who were uncomfortable with Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival.

But Trump’s responses to several of today’s most significant issues in the past week are making the already unpopular president less popular with these voters.

1. Despite increases in reported coronavirus cases — so severe in some states that their leaders have ordered some shutdowns again — Trump is pressuring schools to reopen this fall.

2. While most Americans believe that monuments honoring Confederate soldiers who fought to keep black people enslaved should be removed, Trump does not — and has even used racist slurs to attack his political opponents on the issue.

3. Days after speaking near Mount Rushmore — a monument to presidents carved on a mountain that some Native American tribes consider sacred — Trump criticized athletic teams that are changing their names and mascots from those deemed racist toward Native Americans.

[Trump’s] eagerness to send students back to school as soon as possible seems more rooted in his desire to give the impression that the pandemic is under control as opposed to data supporting that things are actually improving. That could hurt him with suburban voters — and particularly the women and mothers who supported him in the past.

And while Trump opposes removing Confederate memorials — a position he also took in August 2017 when he defended white nationalists who marched to preserve the monuments — most Americans do not. I previously reported that most voters — 52 percent — support removing Confederate statues from public spaces around the country, according to a June Quinnipiac University poll, a significant increase in support since August 2017, when fewer than 40 percent of voters supported removing such statues.

Among the Americans who feel uncomfortable with Trump’s position on racial issues are suburban voters — and that can have real ramifications for November. Marc Thiessen, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, wrote in The Washington Post last week:

In the wake of recent racial unrest, Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has opened a commanding 25-point lead over Trump in the suburbs. Two-thirds of Americans say the president has made racial tensions worse since the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Trump’s uncompromising rhetoric and retweets are driving away swing voters who don’t want to be associated with a senior citizen shouting “white power!”

The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll shows the president receiving about a third of the suburban vote — a significant decline from the nearly 50 percent of support he received in 2016. With several months left before the election, that number could drop more, and perhaps is likely to if Trump continues to address these issues in the same way. And all indicators suggest that he will. . . . . it will be very difficult for him to win the election if he continues to take stances on issues that suburban voters oppose.

One can only hope Trump continues to drive away suburban voters.

Vichy Republicans Fear the Consequences of Self-Prostitution to Trump

The Republican Party I grew up in and once supported is dead and gone.  In its place is a party that rejects science and education, embraces white supremacy and has completely prostituted itself to Donald Trump and the ugliest elements of his base of support, namely openly racist whites and white evangelicals (although at times it is difficult to differentiate the latter the former).  Now with Trump's support seemingly eroding and a majority of Americans tiring of Trump's non-stop racism,  congressional Republicans, especially those in the Senate fear that they may be in for a much deserved reckoning come November.  As a former Republican I have zero sympathy for today's Republicans who now disingenuously seek to pretend they find Trump's white nationalism distastefully.  They are little better than the Vichy French who collaborated with the Nazi's in occupied France. Like the Vichy French, these Republicans sold their souls for short term power and need to pay a high price.  A long piece in the Washington Post looks at this self-made crisis for Republicans.  Here are highlights:

President Trump’s unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement Friday night at Mount Rushmore, has unnerved Republicans who have long enabled him but now fear losing power and forever associating their party with his racial animus.

Although amplifying racism and stoking culture wars have been mainstays of Trump’s public identity for decades, they have been particularly pronounced this summer as [Trump] the president has reacted to the national reckoning over systemic discrimination by seeking to weaponize the anger and resentment of some white Americans for his own political gain.

Trump has left little doubt through his utterances the past few weeks that he sees himself not only as the Republican standard-bearer but as leader of a modern grievance movement animated by civic strife and marked by calls for “white power,” . . . . Trump put his strategy to resuscitate his troubled reelection campaign by galvanizing white supporters on display Friday night under the chiseled granite gaze of four past presidents memorialized in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He celebrated Independence Day with a dystopian speech in which he excoriated racial justice protesters as “evil” representatives of a “new far-left fascism” whose ultimate goal is “the end of America.”

Over the years, some Republicans have struggled to navigate Trump’s race baiting and, at times, outright racism, while others have rallied behind him. Bursts of indignation and frustration come and go but have never resulted in a complete GOP break with the president. Trump’s recent moves are again putting Republican officeholders onto risky political terrain.

On Friday night at Mount Rushmore, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of the party’s leadership, and other top Republicans were seen applauding as Trump spoke.

Trump’s repeated championing of monuments, memorials and military bases honoring Confederate leaders has run up against the tide of modernity and a weary electorate that polls show overwhelmingly support the Black Lives Matter movement — a slogan that Trump said would be “a symbol of hate” if painted on Fifth Avenue in New York.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans fret — mostly privately, to avoid his [Trump's] wrath — that Trump’s fixation on racial and other cultural issues leaves their party running against the currents of change. Coupled with the coronavirus pandemic and related economic crisis, these Republicans fear he is not only seriously impairing his reelection chances but also jeopardizing the GOP Senate majority and its strength in the House. . . .  “The problem is this is no longer just Trump’s Twitter feed. It’s expanded to the podium, and that makes it more and more difficult for these campaigns.”

Racial animus and toxicity were woven throughout Trump’s 2016 campaign. Patrick Gaspard, a former Obama White House political director who is now president of the Open Society Foundations, credited Trump with understanding “that there is a constituency — a deep constituency, a solid constituency, a resolute constituency — in the electorate for these views.”

The difference now, four years later, Gaspard argued, is that the sentiments of many Americans about justice and disparity appear to have evolved.

Former Ohio governor John Kasich, a Republican who ran against Trump in 2016, said the GOP’s muted and scattered response to the president on race this week underscores how the party is “in decline” and has become a vessel for Trumpism — even as polls show Trump losing ground among seniors and white evangelicals and trailing Biden in every key battleground state. 

“They coddled this guy the whole time and now it’s like some rats are jumping off of the sinking ship. It’s just a little late,” Kasich said. “It’s left this nation with a crescendo of hate not only between politicians but between citizens. . . . It started with Charlottesville and people remained silent then, and we find ourselves in this position now.”

Kasich added, “I’m glad to see some of these Republicans moving the other way but it reminds me of Vichy France where they said, ‘Well, I never had anything to do with that,’ ” a reference to the French government that continued during Nazi occupation in the 1940s. 

“Trump is pretty predictable with his racism and his racialized take on things,” Wright Rigueur said. “Every once in a while the Trump administration and campaign have flashes of what look like sincere outreach efforts to various racial communities. . . . But that’s the part that’s insincere, and he always circles back to his core, and it renders all of this other stuff around the economy and criminal justice reform completely invalid because there’s no way of ignoring the central component of his campaign.”

Dianne Pinderhughes, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who focuses on race and politics, said Trump’s latest outbursts are the culmination of his nearly decade-long effort to remake the GOP in his own image, going back to his racist “birther” attacks on Obama’s credentials and love of country.

Trump’s racism, she said, “is not subtle at all. Every step he takes, every comment about human beings, murders or killings, he can’t hold back. Even as Mississippi and other parts of the country remove Confederate symbols, he goes in the opposite direction as hard as he can.”

Some senators and their advisers believe they must expand their vote share beyond Trump’s base to win reelection.

“[Trump's] The president’s base is locked in. They love him, they’re going to turn out and they’re going to vote for him,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said. “The problem is that the base is not enough to win. You can make a case that protecting Confederate monuments is very popular among at least a portion of his base, but it does nothing to expand the coalition, and that’s the imperative at the moment and will be going forward if the party hopes to govern.”

Trump has not made it easy for embattled Republicans to duck him. He reaffirmed Tuesday that he would veto this year’s proposed $740 billion annual defense bill if an amendment is included that would require the Pentagon to change the names of bases named for Confederate military leaders — an amendment that has bipartisan support. 

Trump’s approach has deep roots in Republican politics. Beginning with the violent opposition among some white voters to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Richard Nixon and other Republican politicians appealed to white voters — especially in the South — with calls for “law and order” and vows to defend states’ rights as the federal government enforced the new laws.

Most congressional Republicans in challenging races this year have long been mute on Trump’s racist comments, or they have cast them as unhelpful or combative but not racist — a method that has largely helped them avoid Trump’s anger.

Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who has done extensive research on racial divisions, argued that Trump is likely to continue to play to “white resentment politics” because it is the only strategy that could stave off further erosion of his support.

“Without white resentment, there is no rationale for Donald Trump,” Belcher said. “Without that, what reason do his supporters have to be with Donald Trump if he’s not going to be your tribal strong man? He started there and will end there.”

Trump, Tulsa and Gratuitous Misogyny

Perhaps I cannot fully escape my Catholic upbringing that stressed that the difference between good and evil and the call to treat others as one would want to be treated.  The Church turned out to be full of evil itself as demonstrated by the still ongoing sex abuse scandal that touches literally every part of the globe.  Yet the concept of good and evil remains relevant as does the so-called Golden Rule. Donald Trump embodies evil and a shredding of the Golden Rule.  Fanning hate, division, and never ending lies are the norm for Trump as is the denigration of others, especially non-whites and non-heterosexuals. What is most appalling about Trump and his supporters is that they know the are guilty of misogyny but simply do not care.  Selfishness and in Trump's case, narcissism, are a defining feature as is a desire to trumpet a white supremacy message even as the majority of Americans are facing the reality of the nation's historic racism and the brutality many blacks have suffered at the hands of whites. Trump's decision to hold a MAGA rally in Tulsa underscores the evilness of Trump's agenda. While moving the rally date to the day after Juneteenth, Trump knows precisely the message he is sending by holding a rally in Tulsa, the site of one of the worse massacre of blacks in the 20th century.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Trump's sick message to his followers.  Here are highlights:

Trump has decided to push his first post-pandemic campaign rally to the day after Juneteenth. Known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth commemorates the date in 1865 when the last remaining enslaved blacks in Texas learned, two years late, that the Emancipation Proclamation had set them free. He was wise to listen to his African American friends and advisers on that score.

But he is still plowing ahead with a rally in Tulsa, the wrong city for a “Make America Great Again” event in this incendiary moment for our country. Tulsa was the site of one of the most vicious acts of racial violence in U.S. history. In 1921, an angry white mob attacked homes and businesses in a thriving community known as “Black Wall Street,” killing some 300 people and leaving thousands homeless. In another time, and perhaps with a different president, a trip to Tulsa could be an occasion for absolution or remembrance, a chance to talk courageously about healing America’s gaping racial wound.

But for this administration, the decision to hold a rally in that city constitutes an act of diabolical irony. A man who rode to the White House on a hot gust of racial grievance will be visiting a place where white resentment exploded into two days of epic terror, wiping one of history’s most prosperous black communities off the map.

All these years later, they are still trying to find where the bodies of black victims were buried in Tulsa, still trying to calculate the loss of property and income, still trying to determine who set the fires and flew the planes that dropped burning balls of turpentine onto black-owned buildings, still trying to piece together the full history because there was a concerted effort to erase that, too, from news archives and history books.

[T]he voters who allegedly want to make America great again already know Trump is their guy. He doesn’t need to send up a dog whistle to win their approval. But he does crave their roar of affirmation. Why else hold a rally in the midst of a pandemic?

Trump’s office has reportedly been crafting a speech on race. That’s a complicated exercise for a president whose default is to divide and demean.

If this president wants to visit Tulsa on the day following Juneteenth, let’s follow that city’s lead and make sure everyone in America knows about the Tulsa massacre and Juneteenth history.

This would also be a very fine pulse point to talk about the racial bitterness toward black financial success that led white people to burn a prosperous Oklahoma community to the ground. White violence against black aspiration occurred elsewhere: Rosewood, Fla., in 1923; Springfield, Ill., in 1908; and Elaine, Ark., in 1919. It happened after both world wars to returning black servicemen, whose military rank and training conflicted with America’s subordinate station for black men.

The birtherism movement that challenged the fact of Obama’s citizenship was fueled by those who had difficulty accepting a black family in the White House — a backlash that elevated the person who lives there today. This is not to say that racial resentment percolates in everyone who voted for Trump. We know that is not true. But we also know that a number of studies have shown it was a factor for a large percentage of voters. Trump’s appeal was not just about economic anxiety.

[L]et’s make sure that we accept the tragic message from Tulsa: Black success matters, too.

The NFL's "Black Lives Matter Moment" Shows Trump’s Growing Weakness

I will admit I am not a fan of professional sports, especially football.  I go to a friend's annual Super Bowl party for the social event aspect, but never the game.  To the extent I follow sports at all, it's at the college level, typically focused on my alma mater and that of my late parents. And growing up, I focused on individual sports like cross country, skiing, water skiing and surfing.  All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I'm not a fan of the NFL which is all about money and appeasing fans as opposed to sportsmanship.  As for NFL/football fans, if as much attention and time was placed on politics so as to elect decent politicians and on bettering our communities, the nation would be a far better place.  Thus, I found it interesting that outwardly the NFL altered its position on racial discrimination and embraced (somewhat insincerely, in my view) the Black Lives Matter cause.  I doubt that the move was motivated by any real conviction but instead due to (i) the shifting winds of public opinion and (ii) the flagging influence of the racist-in-chief in the White House.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at Trump's shrinking ability to intimidate the NFL.  Here are excerpts:

When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell admitted in an oddly low-res video on Friday evening that the league was wrong for “not listening to NFL players earlier” — and then actually uttered the phrase “Black Lives Matter” — it was widely seen as a cynical gesture from a company hack who finally acquiesced to public pressure, rather than a heartfelt gesture of genuine remorse.

Slate’s Joel Anderson saw Goodell’s pandering for what it was, writing, “Goodell’s empty gestures tell us nothing about what the NFL thinks of black lives. . . . . the NFL loves nothing more than a hollow branding opportunity. Goodell’s “admission” was yet another one.

What happened next should not have been surprising. On Sunday night, President Trump, tweeting through it as always, attempted to bust out one of his greatest hits.

[B]ack when the NFL-kneeling story line began, Trump muscled his way into the conversation by claiming that owners should “get that son of a bitch off the field right now” when players took a knee, and encouraging fans to leave the stadium when it happened. (A month later, his vice-president would do just that, at considerable taxpayer expense.) Goodell called Trump’s comments “divisive,” but ignored players’ requests that he support a racial equality program. Ultimately, Goodell caved to Trump and his supporters by banning kneeling altogether during the national anthem; nevertheless, Trump was back at it a year later, just to make sure Goodell remembered who held the leash. That Goodell acceded so quickly and totally to Trump three years ago is one of the reasons his statement on Friday felt so empty; nobody believes his platitudes anymore, nor should they.

[T]here is reason to think that this time will be different. That’s partly because Goodell and the NFL owners have witnessed the same shift in power and influence over the last fortnight that you and I can. And it’s partly because so much of the frustration with the NFL’s stance on Black Lives Matter has come from inside Goodell’s organization; a terrific Athletic piece details how a video made by NFL players, and produced internally by a “rogue” employee, forced Goodell’s hand. I wonder, though, if the bigger reason for Goodell’s new posture is even simpler: Goodell isn’t particularly scared of Trump anymore. There was a time when Goodell had to bob and weave along with every presidential broadside, when he had to pattern league policy around Trump’s Twitter mood swings. But the Trump of 2017 — or even of a few months ago — was a much more powerful Trump than the one we have before us now.

You could attach Trump’s diminishment in influence to the widespread condemnation and disgust with his gassing of protesters for a particularly lame-brained photo-op stunt last Monday. You could say it’s because of his lagging poll numbers generally, or the fact that Trump is looking more and more like a scared man hiding inside a black-fence-fortified prison of his own making. But one of the undeniable takeaways from the last week is that Trump looks weaker than he has at any time during his presidency. (We have reached the point of the cycle when aides are anonymously complaining that his wife is undermining him.) And when you are weak, no matter how much you might bluster and stomp your feet, people don’t fear you like they once did. Even someone as skittish as Goodell.

When Trump’s national anthem tweets were front-page news, the NFL owners and a few player representatives held a secret meeting, which the Times obtained audio of. What’s telling reading that story today is how terrified the league was of Trump:

If there’s a lesson the NFL earned from the entire debacle, it’s that Trump didn’t have the power back then that they feared he did … and that he definitely doesn’t have it now. Look at the week Drew Brees just had. On Wednesday, he told Yahoo Finance he would “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag.” There has probably never been a time in NFL history, up until now, when  expressing that opinion would have constituted  a problem for Brees. But on Thursday, after an overwhelming uproar (including among his own teammates), Brees apologized, and then apologized again. That led Trump to tweet that he was a “big fan” of Brees but that he should have never said sorry,  and that “OLD GLORY is to be revered, cherished, and flown high.” But Brees, smartly, realized that Trump was nothing to be scared of. He went on Instagram and addressed the president directly: “We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systemic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial & prison reform.”

That has to be a large part of the mindset of Goodell: While the safe thing three years ago might have been to capitulate to Trump, the safe thing now is to do the exact opposite. In 2017, you knew you had to deal with the president, one way or another, for the next three years. Now? Now you might be rid of him in a few months. And you’re aware — more aware than you were then — that his bark is a lot worse than his bite. This is the one trick he has, the Big Kneeling Threat. He’s beginning to look like an elderly coach trying to win in today’s NFL with the old T-formation playbook he used in the 1950s — in other words, like someone whose time has passed.

How is the league going to deal with Trump trying to turn this into a wedge issue once again? I think Goodell and the NFL are going to just ignore him. The players have shown the power they have in this situation, and their willingness to wield it. The fan base has shown it isn’t actually going to stop watching football because of Trump’s perpetual culture war.

The proper response, it’s becoming increasingly clear, is to either pretend he doesn’t exist — or maybe even to actively defy him. He’s not the Trump of three years ago. The movement and the people are more powerful than he is, and they always were. Roger Goodell knows that now. The NFL knows that now. Maybe, now, we all do.

Trump’s Racism Will Bring the GOP Down with Him

The title of this post states what hopefully - and deservedly - will happen to the GOP.  By extension, it hopefully applies to white evangelical Christians - 49% of who attend church weekly or more frequently say Trump was "anointed by God" according to the Christian Post - as well since their racism strongly overlaps with that o the GOP and the white supremacists key to Trump's base of support.  In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, explains why Trump and his racism (against all non-whites) should be the Republican Party's undoing.  Especially when combined with Trump's massive failure on the Covid-19 pandemic which is alienation older voters some of who rightly believe the GOP is willing to allow them to die in exchange for reopening the economy.  Here are column highlights:   

President Trump can’t help himself. The former reality-TV host was warned by White House staff, his campaign team, financial contributors and Republicans on Capitol Hill that his afternoon news conferences were causing political damage. But after a weekend of tweeting out conspiracy theories about former presidents and insults aimed at cable-news pundits, the president was at it again Monday.

And, true to form, Trump burned himself.

His coronavirus “update” ended abruptly after he hurled a bigoted remark toward an American journalist who grew up in West Virginia. When CBS News’s Weijia Jiang asked Trump about his misleading testing comments, the president blurted out: “You should ask China.” Jiang’s family emigrated from China when she was 2. For what it’s worth, Trump’s own mother immigrated to the United States when she was 18, and his wife, Melania, gained an “Einstein Visa,” reserved for those of “extraordinary ability,” in 2001. After Trump’s snarling China comment, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump until he abruptly retreated from the presidential podium.

As he stumbled away, one couldn’t help but be reminded of Trump’s racist 2016 attacks aimed at Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel. The then-candidate said he couldn’t trust Curiel because he was “Mexican,” but Curiel is an Indiana native; his parents immigrated there from Mexico before he was born.

Four years later, Trump’s Republican Party has become numbed to its party leader’s daily outrages — the racist attacks, the 18,000 lies (and counting), the petty insults, the breaches of constitutional norms, and the gross incompetence that has worsened the covid-19 crisis in the United States and has driven America to the edge of a depression. These GOP politicians have long believed that ignoring Trump’s unfitness for office is their best political play, but the Democratic Party’s historic landslide in 2018 along with their Southern gubernatorial victories last year suggest just the opposite. Public and private polls are looking worse for Republicans than they have since 2008.

If Democrats win back the White House and control of the Senate in 2020, much of that will be because black and Hispanic voters continue to reject Republican candidates. But Monday’s ugly display also brought into sharp relief another glaring problem for the Party of Trump: Asian Americans. . . . By 2014, Democrats were winning 49 percent of Asian Americans, and after two years of Trump in the White House, that number jumped to 77 percent. With outbursts such as Monday’s, one wonders how much worse things will be for Trump’s Grand Old Party this fall.

Republican incumbent senators in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Maine and North Carolina face serious threats from their Democratic opponents in recent polls. Once-safe states such as Kansas and Georgia are in play, and Trump himself is losing head-to-head matchups with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida. Recent polls show the two are even tied in traditionally Republican strongholds like Georgia and Texas.

With the prospects of a historic Democratic landslide building with every Trump news conference, every deranged tweet, every racist remark, wouldn’t now be the time for Republican candidates to stand up, speak out and finally stop following a man so ill-equipped for the presidency?

To quote Trump himself, with control of Congress and the White House slipping away: “What the hell do they have to lose?”

Trump's Cynical - and Racist - Re-election Strategy

A piece in the Washington Post looks at who is funding and organizing the anti-lock down protests and the reality that, while aimed at looking like a "grass roots," they are being backed by billionaires, including some of the most far right vulture capitalists.    True to form, Trump devotees are being duped into playing a role in Trump's re-election strategy which, as in 2026, has a strong racist element and is intended to mask Trump's epic failures in handling the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that he doesn't actually give a rats ass about the fools being duped into participating in the anti-lock down protests.  As a lengthy column in the New York Times lays out, it is all part of a cynical strategy to use racism (it is no coincidence that the anti-lock down protests all feature Confederate flags even in places like Michigan) and rural voter hatred of educated and culturally elite cities to boost right wing turnout in November 2020.  It's cynicism is disgusting, but then again, Trump (like his billionaire sycophants) only cares about himself.  Here are column highlights: 

President Trump has chosen his pandemic re-election strategy. He is set on unifying and reinvigorating the groups that were crucial to his 2016 victory: racially resentful whites, evangelical Christians, gun activists, anti-vaxxers and wealthy conservatives.

Tying his re-election to the growing anti-lockdown movement, Trump is encouraging a resurgence of what Ed Kilgore, in New York magazine, calls “the angry anti-government strain of right-wing political activity that broke out in the tea-party movement” — a movement now focused on ending the virus-imposed restrictions on many aspects of American life.

Jeremy Menchik, a political scientist at Boston University, . . . . makes the point that anti-quarantine protests . . . will distract the electorate. If the election is a fight between Trump vs governors who refuse to open their economies, Trump doesn’t have to defend his record on Covid-19. He’s an advocate for liberty!

Studies of the 2009-10 Tea Party movement, Menchik writes, suggest that “continued protests will boost conservative turnout in Nov 2020.”

Casting the coronavirus epidemic as a wedge issue, Trump is playing both ends against the middle, in an attempt to veil his own inconsistencies. Following up on this idea, Noah Rothman, associate editor of Commentary, asked on April 20: “Can Trump Be All Things to All People?”

The calculation underlying Trump’s “liberate” crusade was revealed in a comment on the Facebook page of Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine:

The eastern border, Philly, and the western border Pittsburgh, is what is causing the state to stay shut down. What about the rest of us??

In other words, Trump and his followers want to place the onus for the social and economic restraints that are still in effect in much of the country on cities, many of them heavily black, where the coronavirus has been most destructive.

Along similar lines, Carol Hefner, co-chair of Trump’s 2016 campaign in Oklahoma and an organizer of an anti-lockdown protest in Oklahoma City, told KOMO TV News on April 15: “We’re not New York. Their problems are not our problems.”

Trump continues on a well-trodden path as he promotes the corona-liberation movement — stigmatizing inner-city dwellers, scapegoating “foreigners” and blaming the Covid-19 pandemic on China.

The demonization of China, Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, noted in an email, . . . is central to his strategic racism. Trump uses this wedge to solidify and turn out his base and persuade white, blue collar voters. Trump believes strategic racism worked for him in 2016 so why not 2020?

On April 21, Trump resumed his assault on immigrants, issuing an order blocking new green cards and instigating a 60-day moratorium on immigration: “I will be issuing a temporary suspension of immigration into the United States,” he said during the daily White House coronavirus briefing. “By pausing, we’ll help put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs. Steve Schmidt — a former Republican consultant and prominent Never Trumper who served as a senior adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid — described the shape he saw Trump’s 2020 re-election drive taking. As the “administration continues to lie, fumble and flounder,” Schmidt wrote in an April 17 Twitter thread, . . get ready for the noxious blend of Confederate flags, semiautomatic weaponry, conspiracy theorists, political cultists, extremists and nut jobs coming to a state Capitol near you.

The 2020 incarnation of the Tea Party, Schmidt continued, will be stoked by Trump every step of the way as they help make the air fertile for his blame gaming, scapegoating, evasions of responsibility, populist fulminations and nationalist incitements. They will be on TV every night storming the battered ramparts of our politics and civics.

Thomas M. Nichols — a professor at the Naval War College who abandoned the Republican Party in 2018 — succinctly described on Twitter on April 19 how Trump’s alignment with anti-shutdown forces works: This is perfect for the Angry White Trumper: People in blue states, guided by the elites and know-it-alls they hate, stealing a march on them by being better and more civic minded citizens than they are. So now it’s ‘fighting tyranny,’ because they’ve got nothing else.

The key battleground states in the Midwest are rich soil for the tactics outlined by Lake, Schmidt and Nichols.

The racial divisions in the Midwest, Austin writes, were crucial to the outcome of the 2016 election: Racially divided regions such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee fed the rise of Donald Trump, with his scapegoating of people of color and nostalgic appeals to white working-class voters yearning for a return to the “good old days.”

Bringing the issue back to the present election, Austin pointed out: In our state capital of Lansing, an April 15 rally ostensibly protesting social distancing measures was notable for its participants’ use of Trump and Confederate iconography.

The pandemic has, in turn, inspired a renewed Christian right critique of America’s cities. . . . . the unbelievers whom Erickson contends populate American cities are getting their comeuppance: “Those who’ve had a good life now outside the presence of God will find nothing good while those who believe will live in splendor.”

Trump is egging on lockdown protesters in order to generate enthusiasm and drive turnout on Election Day, but Ron Brownstein, writing in The Atlantic, warns that this gambit could backfire.

The Coronavirus pandemic appears destined to widen the political divide between the nation’s big cities and the smaller places beyond them. And that could narrow Donald Trump’s possible pathways to re-election.

Will Bunch, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, is more outspoken in his critique of Trump and the coronavirus liberation movement, arguing that the protesters are unknowingly fronting for the wealthiest Americans: Right-wing special interests, like the billionaire family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, are terrified that the 22 million unemployed will demand a social welfare state.

Their goal? To “shift blame away from Trump’s multiple failures on the coronavirus and instead onto public-health-minded governors.”

“These billionaires and millionaires,” Bunch continued, “have zero moral qualms about working with some of the worst white-supremacists or neo-fascists in order to make sure a crowd turns out.”

Trump faces the cold reality of a health care crisis — and that voters may not give him as much leeway as in the past: This may be one instance in which reality and personal experience stand up to political bluster and misstatements. Undoubtedly, many Trump supporters will stick with him and regard the public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic as a costly overreaction. But there will also be political moderates and independents who regard the administration and president as increasingly incompetent in a domain in which it really matters.

More than anything, Trump is a gambler and he is taking a high risk approach to re-election. Given public wariness of his handling of the pandemic — and much else — and the recent drop in his favorability rating, he may have no other choice than to stake his political future on his ability to turn the anger and frustration of his credulous audience to his advantage one final time.

Former G.W. Bush Staffer: Latinos Must Vote Trump Out

Decent,moral Republicans for the most part have left the Republican party in the age of Trump.  Those who remain are (i) delusional and pretending the GOP is the party it once was several generations ago, or (ii) totally subscribe to the racism, misogyny and xenophobia Trump uses as his stock in trade. Either way, there truly is no excuse for remaining in the GOP, a party I once served more than a generation ago.  The Trump/GOP tax cuts for the wealthy - which created a huge surge in the federal deficit - destroyed any fig leaf for the pretense that one votes Republican "supports fiscal responsibility."  Likewise, the Trump/Christofascist effort to inflict right wing religious beliefs on all shows the falsity of the pretense that the GOP stands for smaller government.  Now, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, an apparent former Republican who served as associate director of public liaison in the George W. Bush White House from 2001-2004 is urging Hispanic Americans to register to vote and go to the polls in 2020 to voted Donald Trump out of office.  Here are excerpts:

Sept. 15 was the start of Hispanic Heritage Month — a time that celebrates a community built on faith, family and a strong work ethic. We are teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges, members of the military, police officers and even astronauts. All contribute greatly to the United States.

The feeling is not reciprocated by today’s Republican Party. It is no place for Latinos. We don’t feel welcome in a party that condones racism and looks away while the president degrades our community and destroys America. The once-proud party of Lincoln, established to abolish slavery, has been transformed into a comatose crew brainwashed by white identity politics and narrow-minded nationalist nostalgia.

I know a little about this. I am a Republican. I worked in the George W. Bush White House. And I say to my fellow Latinos: I’m not asking you to become a Democrat. But I am asking you to vote President Trump out of office.

Some of us have already left the GOP, of course, disgusted by Trump and his accomplices. Others among us remain alienated and aloof, waiting out the Trump tornado.

But the wait-him-out approach is no longer viable. Republicans have lost control of the monster they helped create. Trump hasn’t changed. From day one, Trump spewed his white-supremacist views, promising to halt the invasion of immigrants and spurring a rhetoric of resentment and retaliation against the “other.” No matter our background, we have been vilified as invaders, marked as illegal and degraded as subhuman. The silence from prominent Republicans is deafening. They have allowed Trump to normalize bigotry and use it as a winning strategy for their benefit. They enabled him to turn racist rhetoric into racial conflict, dividing our nation.

Worse than saying nothing or tolerating his tantrums, some even protect Trump, colluding with the devil for fear of political demise.

And now, they have blood on their hands. The Walmart shooting in El Paso on Aug. 3 was the inevitable outcome of 30 straight months of hate speech coming from the White House. Fueled by the president’s vitriol, a killer sought out immigrants to slaughter. The shooting isn’t just a tragedy; it’s a massacre, a direct hit against our community.

Republicans will pay a price for this situation and for their silence. By the 2020 election, Hispanics will be the largest racial or ethnic minority group in the electorate — 32 million will be eligible to vote. At the same time, 1 in 10 eligible voters will be Generation Z, those between the ages 18 and 23, who are socially liberal and more racially and ethnically diverse. A vote against Trump is a stand for human freedom and a future where America is again known for its ideals and not ignorance.

Republicans need to dust off their moral compass and remember what they stand for — and what they stand against. If they do not, they will lose Latinos forever and relegate themselves once more to minority status, likely unable to regain control of Congress or the White House again. If countering racism is not motivation enough for the GOP to act, perhaps its looming political demise will be.

The United States is a great country. Hispanic Heritage Month honors the contributions the community has made — and will keep making — to keep it that way. And without Trump, the United States will be even better.

I urge all decent and moral Americans eligible to vote to register and cast votes against Trump and the GOP in 2020.  We are no longer talking about political differences.  The choice is between morality and decency and immorality and hate.    If you live in Virginia, strike a blow for decency and morality this November: vote a straight Democrat ticket and send the GOP a strong message.

National Cathedral likens Trump to Joseph McCarthy

Washington National Cathedral.

Far too often those  I refer to as "good Christians" remain silent and allow the hate and misogyny of evangelicals and far right Catholics define Christianity.  The result is the exodus of many from religion, especially those under age 30 where 40% want no more of organized religion.  Thus, it was a pleasant surprise to see the leadership of the National Cathedral sharply rebuke Donald Trump and condemn his racism and the hatred he sows on a daily basis.  Indeed, they likened him to Joseph McCarty and the manufacturer "red scare" of the 1950's.  If Christianity is to retain any legitimacy in the minds of many, we need more "good Christians" speaking out and condemning evil and countering the poison peddled daily by evangelicals and their toxic leadership.  NBC News looks at this much needed condemnation of Trump.  Here are highlights:

In unusually forceful language, the leadership of the Washington National Cathedral condemned what it called the "racialized rhetoric" of President Donald Trump and directly compared him to 1950s anti-communist demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

The statement, released Tuesday, isn't so much an appeal for Trump to retract or soften his statements as it is a call for the nation as a whole to reject them.

It asks: "After two years of President Trump's words and actions, when will Americans have enough?"

The criticism comes after a particularly inflammatory month for Trump. He has publicly told four outspoken congresswomen of color — three of whom were born in the U.S. — to "go back" where they came from. He also feuded with Rev. Al Sharpton, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and called the city of Baltimore a "rodent-infested mess."

The statement, issued in the name of three of the cathedral's top leaders — Revs. Mariann Budde, Randolph Hollerith and Kelly Douglas — makes multiple direct references to the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s led by McCarthy.

It accuses Trump of deliberately fanning racial divisions for political gain in the same way that McCarthy used fears of communist infiltration.

"When such violent dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a clarion call and give cover to white supremacists," it states. "We have come to accept a level of insult and abuse in political discourse that violates each person's sacred identity as a child of God."

It [belongs to the Episcopal Church] has a history of liberal political stances and has condemned Trump's ban on transgender members of the U.S. military and the policy of separating immigrant families at America's southern border.

Judge Denies Trump DOJ Request to Replace Census Case Legal Team

Trump and fellow liar, Wilbur Ross.

In the legal realm, attorneys on a litigation case can withdraw and be replaced only under limited situations and such withdrawal requires court approval.  Among these situations are (i) a private party litigant elects to hire new legal counsel, (ii) the client has failed and refused to pay legitimate legal fees of its legal counsel, and (iii) legal counsel believes the client is attempting to perpetrate a fraud on the court.  In the case of the lawsuit brought by the Trump DOJ seeking to force a citizenship question on the 2020 census - which the U.S. Supreme Court remanded back to the lower court while noting the alleged need for the question was contrived - the first two situations do not apply.  Now, with a federal judge refusing to allow the Trump DOJ to replace it legal team without explanation, some are conjecturing that the third situation may be what is really going on.  Stated another way, some commentators suspect the original DOJ legal team may be seeking to withdraw because the Trump regime is pressuring the lawyers to lie and defraud the court. In addition to seeking to under count non-whites in the census, Trump appears to be playing to his racist base. As prior post noted, the language directly from the U.S. Constitution mandating the census says NOTHING about citizenship.  It mandates a count of ALL people within the boundaries of the nation. Numerous news outlets are reporting on the court's refusal to grant the request to replace the entire original legal team.  Here is are highlights from the Washington Post: 

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday denied a bid from the Justice Department to replace the team of lawyers on the case about the census citizenship question, writing that its request to do so was “patently deficient.”

The department had earlier this week announced its intention to swap out the legal team on the case, without saying exactly why.

A person familiar with the matter said the decision was driven in part by frustration among some of the career lawyers who had been assigned to the case about how it was being handled, though the department wanted to replace those in both career and political positions.

But U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman denied the formal, legal bid to do so.

“Defendants provide no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel,” Furman wrote. He also noted that a filing in the case was due from the department in just three days, and that the department had previously pushed for the matter to be moved along quickly.

“If anything, that urgency — and the need for efficient judicial proceedings — has only grown since that time,” Furman wrote.

He said the department could refile its request, if it gave “satisfactory reasons” for the attorneys’ withdrawal and promises that the attorneys who had worked the case previously would be available upon request. The judge also asked the department to “file an affidavit providing unequivocal assurances that the substitution of counsel will not delay further litigation of this case (or any future related case).”

The judge’s decision was the latest development in the continuing effort by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.

The Justice and Commerce departments then effectively conceded defeat — but Trump soon ordered the lawyers to do an about-face and come up with ways to keep the fight alive.

Furman’s move could force the Justice Department to expose more of its messy, internal debates over the census case. Those attorneys who object to the handling of it might proceed without signing briefs, serving up a regular, public reminder of how fraught the case has become internally. The department might also choose to lay out more detailed reasons for wanting the attorneys off in a subsequent request.

New York Attorney General Letitia James took a tacit swipe at Trump in reacting to the ruling.  “Despite the president attempting to fire his lawyers, this is not an episode of ‘The Apprentice.’ Judge Furman denied his request and required the administration to comply with the rules regarding substitution of counsel, ” said James, in a reference to Trump’s onetime television show.

Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Law School who was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division from 2015 to 2017, said he had never seen the department swap out an entire team in the middle of litigating a case.

The move was particularly odd given that the previous team was composed of experts in administrative procedure who were steeped in the details of the census litigation, he said. The new team, pulled together from the department’s consumer protection, civil fraud, and office of immigration litigation components, is “a truly random assortment,” he said.

Intensifying the political battle, House Democrats threatened to block funding for government efforts to ask about citizenship status as the White House continued to ponder an executive order to force the issue. 

“I have no intention of allowing this flagrant waste of money,” Rep. José E. Serrano (D-N.Y.), who leads the House panel overseeing funding for the Commerce and Justice departments, said in a statement. “I once again urge the Trump administration to give up this fight and allow for a depoliticized and accurate census, as we always have.”

A spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee confirmed Democrats would seek to block taxpayer money from funding any efforts by the Trump administration to ask about citizenship in next year’s survey “if the issue has not been rendered moot by the courts.”

Trump's Warped and Dangerous View of America

Personally, I have never fully bought into the American exceptionalism myth.  Truth be told, throughout history, various nations have viewed themselves as exceptional and special: Great Britain, France, Russia, ancient Rome - the list goes on and on. That said, America has been unique in that its better angels have relied on concepts and ideals that more defined the nation than its ethnic make up or one prevailing culture.  At least until now in the era of Donald Trump and his racist and religious extremist base.  To Trump and his followers, it is all about skin color and one's ancestral origin.  Those of white European ancestry count while everyone else does not. As a prior post noted, evangelical Christians are all on board with this limiting view of who are "real Americans" and "leaders" like James Dobson and Tony Perkins are preaching it to the hapless followers who can only see common humanity in those that look like them and hold the same archaic and exclusionary religious beliefs.  Michael Gerson, a conservative who in my view, like many never Trumpers, was far too slow in condemning the racist trajectory that the Republican Party began to follow years ago now, laments what Trump's view of America means for the country and the future in a column in the Washington Post.  Here are highlights:

The celebration of American independence is supposed to be a unifying national ritual. But we are a country with profound differences over the meaning of nationhood itself.

People in more typical countries — such as Belgium, Japan and Russia — are attached primarily to a unique piece of earth, a unique language, a unique culture and (perhaps) a unique ethnicity. Their celebration of nationhood is the celebration of particularity. One may become a naturalized citizen of such a country, but it is less clear what it means to become Belgian, Japanese or Russian. If possible, it would require total immersion in national distinctiveness.

This is how the current U.S. president appears to view his native land. President Trump’s Fourth of July remarks did make reference to the abstract promises of the Declaration of Independence, but he mainly praised his nation as a place and a power. . . He talked about the nation’s military victories, but not much about the nation’s character. He seems to love America because it is his country and a powerful country, but not because it is a country with a calling.

Contrast this with the national story told by Ronald Reagan or Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy or George W. Bush. American ideals — while growing out of a specific culture — are transcendent and universal. . . . It wins a global competition of ideals because it accords most closely with the durable dreams of humanity for liberty and justice.

This differing emphasis has dramatic implications. If the United States is primarily a normal nation, united by a common culture, then it is diluted by outsiders and weakened by diversity. In this circumstance, cultural differences lead inexorably to conflict and disunity. A nation defined primarily by culture or ethnicity is a fortress to be defended.

“America has never been united by blood or birth or soil,” said George W. Bush in his first inaugural address. “We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.”

And if our main source of national unity is cultural, then the composition of America’s foreign-born population would matter greatly. According to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Trump expressed disdain for immigrants from countries such as Haiti and said, “We should have more people from places like Norway.” It is difficult to separate such statements from their racial context. In this view, a national culture largely shaped by white European migrants is better carried forward by white European migrants.

This conception of nationhood can descend quickly into dehumanization. If Hispanic migrants are defined as a threat to national security and national identity, then it becomes easier to separate crying children from their parents. It becomes easier to store migrants in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions. And it becomes easier — following the tragic drowning of a father and daughter trying to cross the Rio Grande — to blame migrants for their own desperation.

A broader definition of American identity does not require the decriminalization of all border crossings, or the abolition of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It does require the construction of a humane asylum system that treats oppressed and frightened people with respect. It forbids the dehumanization or cruel treatment of migrants under any circumstance. And it embodies the generosity of spirit on which American greatness depends.

Michael Cohen: Trump Knew Roger Stone Talked with WikiLeaks

As Donald Trump kisses the ass of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, his former consigliore, Michael Cohen prepares to spill his guts before Congressional committees.  Among the expected bombshells: Trump knew of the Roger Stone communications with Wikileaks and that Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting between Donald Jr. and Russian operatives.  Personally, I have always assumed that Trump was fully aware of all of this. A piece in CNN sums up Cohen's coming testimony this way: Cohen calls Trump a "racist," a "con-man" and a "cheat."  The big issue will be whether Cohen has corroborating documentation and/or whether others will knowledge will stop covering for Trump.  Here are excerpts from the CNN piece:

Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.

In a stunning 20-page statement provided Tuesday night to lawmakers, Cohen details a wide range of allegations against Trump -- from making racist comments about African-Americans to participating during his presidency in an illegal hush-money scheme to keep his alleged extramarital affairs quiet -- as well as suggesting Trump faked a medical condition to get out of serving in the Vietnam War. And Cohen will provide new details saying Trump was engaged in an aggressive pursuit of a major project in Russia in 2016, alleging the [Trump's] President's attorneys edited Cohen's 2017 testimony when he lied to Congress, downplaying the efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

 In short, Cohen calls Trump a "racist," a "conman" and a "cheat." In the testimony, Cohen will allege that, in 2016, he witnessed Trump taking a phone call from Stone, who was on speakerphone.  "Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign," Cohen will say, according to his prepared testimony. Trump responded, according to Cohen: "Wouldn't that be great." Cohen's allegations, if true, would amount to the first time anyone with direct knowledge has said that [Trump] the President had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton emails. Cohen also said [Trump's] the President's personal lawyers "reviewed and edited" his 2017 statements when Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Organization's pursuit of a massive project in Moscow. Cohen's opening statement also suggests that Trump may have been aware in advance of a 2016 meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. and Russians at Trump Tower -- something that Trump and his eldest son have long denied. Cohen will tell Congress that he witnessed Trump Jr., in June 2016, tell his father: "The meeting is all set." Cohen acknowledges not knowing for sure that Trump's son's comments were in reference to the meeting with Russians. "I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval," Cohen will say. "So I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary." According to a copy of the opening statement he prepares to deliver to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen says Trump lied repeatedly about a number of matters -- and made a host of racist statements. [I]n the testimony, Cohen recounts how he was visiting Trump in February 2017 in the White House when the President assured him his reimbursement checks were coming in the mail. He said Trump made 11 payments of $35,000 each to reimburse him in the hush-money scheme, saying he's providing the House panel with a copy of an August 2017 check signed by[Trump] the President from his personal bank account. "The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws," Cohen will say.

Get out the pop corn.