Code Red: Electing the Trump Resistance

For years now I have been saying that the only way to stop the anti-democratic, enrich the already rich agenda of the Republican Party is to vote for Democrats in every election possible.  Only in the face of sustained electoral defeat will the GOP modify its increasingly extreme and harmful agenda and maybe finally eject the white Christian extremists and white supremacists from the party who in a large party have set the stage for not only the election of Donald Trump but also a world and political view where lying is completely acceptable.  The 2018 midterm elections and other state level elections in November provide the most critical chance to stop the toxicity and, in my view, destruction of the country.  As a column in the New York Times notes, "vote for a Democrat, any Democrat."   It is the only way to stop the Trump/GOP agenda that is harming a majority of Americans.  Remember that only around 27% of registered voters put Trump in office.  Huge numbers of Americans failed to vote.  Its time for a high voter turnout to end the madness. Here are column excerpts:

With the primary season winding down and the midterms soon upon us, it’s time to point out that this election is not about what you may think it’s about. It is not a choice between the particular basket of policies offered by the candidates for House or Senate in your district or state — policies like gun control, right to choose, free trade or fiscal discipline. No, what this election is about is your first chance since 2016 to vote against Donald Trump.

As far as I am concerned, that’s the only choice on the ballot. It’s a choice between letting Trump retain control of all the key levers of political power for two more years, or not.

If I were writing the choice on a ballot, it would read: “Are you in favor of electing a majority of Democrats in the House and/or Senate to put a check on Trump’s power — when his own party demonstrably will not? Or are you in favor of shaking the dice for another two years of unfettered control of the House, the Senate and the White House by a man who wants to ignore Russia’s interference in our election; a man whose first thought every morning is, ‘What’s good for me, and can I get away with it?’; a man who shows no compunction about smearing any person or government institution that stands in his way; and a man who is backed by a party where the only members who’ll call him out are those retiring or dying?”

If your answer is the former, then it can only happen by voting for the Democrat in your local House or Senate race.

[W]hat we’ve learned since 2016 is that the worst Democrat on the ballot for the House or Senate is preferable to the best Republican, because the best Republicans have consistently refused to take a moral stand against Trump’s undermining of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Civil Service, the basic norms of our public life and the integrity of our elections.

These Republicans have made the craven choice to stand with Trump as long as he delivers the policies they like on tax cuts, gun control, fossil fuels, abortion and immigration, even though many privately detest him.

[U]nderstand that as long as Trump is president, he’s unlikely to sign any legislation a Democratic majority in Congress would pass — but that’s not their job for the next two years. Their job is to protect America from Trump’s worst impulses.

Their job is to get hold of at least one lever of power — the House or the Senate — in order to oust the most corrupt Republican lawmakers who lead key committees, to properly oversee the most reckless cabinet secretaries, like Scott Pruitt, and to protect the F.B.I., the Justice Department and Robert Mueller from Trump’s intimidation.

I’m not a card-carrying Democrat. I favor free trade, fiscal discipline, pro-business regulations, a democracy-expanding foreign policy, and I have an aversion to identity politics.

But all of that is on hold for me now, because something more fundamental is at stake: It’s not what we do — it’s who we are, how we talk to one another, what we model to the world, how we respect our institutions and just how warped our society and government can get in only a few years from a president who lies every day, peddles conspiracy theories from the bully pulpit of the White House and dares to call our F.B.I. and Justice Department a “criminal deep state” for doing their job.

So that’s why I have only one thought for this election: Get power. Get a lever of power that can curb Trump. Run for the House or the Senate as a Democrat; register to vote as a Democrat; help someone else register to vote as a Democrat; send money to a Democrat; canvass for a Democrat; drive someone to the polls to vote for a Democrat.

[Democrats] can, and must, out-organize him, out-run him [Trump], out-register him and out-vote him. Nothing else matters now.

Democrats can’t count on winning by just showing up. They still have to connect with some centrist and conservative voters. . . . In the end, I don’t want to see Trump impeached, unless there is overwhelming evidence. I want to see, and I want the world to see, a majority of Americans vote to curtail his power for the next two years — not to push a specific agenda over his but because they want to protect America, its ideals and institutions, from him — until our next presidential election gives us a chance to end this cancer . . . .

Again, this is Code Red: American democracy is truly threatened today — by the man sitting in the Oval Office and the lawmakers giving him a free pass.

All of us can do our part be it volunteering, providing housing for a Democrat candidate staffer - something the husband and I have done before and may do again this year - and making a small campaign contribution.  Most importantly, be registered to vote and get to the polls and encourage family and friends to do so as well and make the see who critial voting is this November. 

GOP Insiders Brace for a 2018 Trumpocalypse

With the news that the Trump/Pence regime plans to issue new rules that would allow heath care providers to refuse to treat LGBT individuals, perform abortions or withhold treatment from anyone who offends their religious sensibilities (see the subsequent post to this one), it is more urgent than ever that Democrats, Millennials, minorities and, of course, LGBT citizens mobilize to deal Republicans a bloodbath defeat in the 2018 midterm elections.   Thankfully, indications are that social and other forces are coming together to make that needed electoral blood bath a reality.  A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the fear gripping veteran GOP operatives in the run up to November.  Frighteningly, Der Trumpenführer cited the 2002 midterms and suggested that a terror attack might help GOP prospects - a GOP equivalent to the Reichstag fire that Hitler used to assume dictatorial powers.   Here are highlights from Vanity Fair:

It doesn’t take a stable genius to comprehend the trouble that Republicans find themselves in 10 months before President Donald Trump’s first midterm election. Ignore the optimistic bromides about “fake news,” “fake polls,” and the political savior of a federal tax overhaul that Trump, and the Republican-controlled Congress, delivered late last year. . . . But veteran Republican operatives, scrambling to help the party survive the gathering storm, know better. The Democratic base is apoplectic and energized. The number of Republican lawmakers who are opting to retire, rather than walk into the electoral buzzsaw, is matched only by the surge of Democratic candidates running in suddenly competitive districts. And Trump, despite the occasional good news cycle, has become no less toxic.

“It’s bad,” a senior Republican strategist involved in a 2018 campaign told me flatly. “The environment is really bad. It’s challenging and it could get worse.”

Each of the dozen or so Republican strategists I spoke to offered a similar assessment. A Democratic base that couldn’t be bothered to show up to the polls for Hillary Clinton just 14 months ago is now supercharged. And a critical sliver of the traditional Republican coalition—the college-educated, upscale suburbanites, especially women—is disgusted with Trump despite the booming economy.

But as a senior Republican congressman told me during a recent conversation: with this president, Republicans have to navigate “political crosswinds.” Do Republicans run with Trump or against him? Do they run as traditional Republicans or Trump Republicans? How should Republicans on the 2018 ballot talk to all of the various voting blocs of G.O.P. voters, never mind swing voters and Independents, especially in instances where they have to hug a Trump-friendly primary electorate while appealing to a Trump-hostile crowd in the general election? “We’re not prepared,” the Republican congressman said. . . . . “If you don’t succeed in selling the middle-class tax cut, then the only villain is Trump.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are leaning on Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California to keep the blue tide at bay. . . . . Democrats are dismissive, noting that anti-Pelosi messaging failed in 2006, during President George W. Bush’s second midterm, in which they won control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years.

And this year has all the hallmarks of a wave against the president and the ruling party. The G.O.P. didn’t just blow the gubernatorial race in purple Virginia, on its own not necessarily a death knell. The party lost 15 state legislative contests, many in seats gerrymandered for G.O.P. control, and nearly control of the legislature. The Republicans also saw their power upended in historically red suburban counties outside of Philadelphia and New York City.

Those are the warning signs before accounting for Trump and his Twitter feed, and why many Republican strategists are resigned to the crash that’s coming, absent an intervening event, like a war or something unexpected that would rally the country behind the president. All that’s left to do is mitigate the damage. “It’s impossible to navigate Trump,” a Republican consultant said. “And it’s all about him.”

Democrats need to replicate the Northam grassroots organizing effort in Virginia in 2017 and Millennials - who will suffer the most from GOP/Trump/Pence policies long term - minorities and LGBT citizens mobilize to get people registered to vote and to the polls in November to deal Republicans an electoral bloodbath defeat in the 2018 midterm elections. 

Will Democrats Do What it Takes Claim a New Majority?

An op-ed in the New York Times makes the case that if Democrats will up their ground game and spend more attention and money on getting out minority voters (and by extension, younger voters) who often fail to vote, they have an opportunity to become the new American majority.  The piece cites Doug Jones' victory in Alabama as a shining example.  But a similar phenomenon made the Democrat sweep in Virginia possible as well - the Northam campaign, in coordination with the Herring and Fairfax campaigns, invested a huge effort in the turn out the vote drill, especially with minority and younger voters.  Having a Northam staffer live with us for over 4 months, the husband and I witnessed first hand the intensity of the effort. It is a lesson that Tim Kaine and Virginia congressional candidates in 2018 need to take to heart and replicate.  The same goes for the rest of the country.  If Trump/Pence has done anything, it has shown the dangers that not voting can unleash on minority communities and those not favored by the white, racist, Christofascist base of today's Republican Party.  Yes, you need an on air ad campaign, but the old fashion approach remains crucial.  Here are column highlights:

The Alabama special election for the Senate affirms that the coalition that elected and re-elected an African-American as president of the United States remains a majority of the country’s population. By combining a large and inspired turnout of voters of color with the meaningful minority of whites who consistently vote progressive — even in a state like Alabama — Democrats can win across the country.

A majority of people who voted for Doug Jones in Alabama were black — 56 percent, in fact, according to the exit polls. Mr. Jones’s stunning election victory highlights the path to victory for Democrats. The question is whether they will be smart enough to follow it.
African-American voters were a decisive force in the election, showing up in huge numbers and casting nearly all their votes — 96 percent — for Mr. Jones. They made up a larger percentage of the electorate than they represent in the state as a whole (29 percent versus 27 percent). Overperformance by African-Americans — in an election decided by about 21,000 votes — amounted to 38,000 more Democratic votes than would have been cast had African-Americans been just 27 percent of the that side’s total.

The task should be easier in other states, considering Alabama’s history of supporting racial segregation. . . . . The composition of a progressive multiracial coalition — what I call the New American Majority — in the rest of the country, however, is much more promising.

[W]hat made the difference in Alabama were independent, under-the-radar, grass-roots, on-the-ground voter turnout efforts by black leaders and organizers in black neighborhoods across the state. . . . . Organizations such as BlackPAC blanketed the state with canvassers doing the old-fashioned work of picking people up and escorting them to the polls. These groups and leaders are the “hidden figures” of the Alabama election . . . .

Looking ahead to 2018, can Democrats progress from being lucky to being smart? Being smart means learning the lessons of Alabama and moving money in ways that will continue to chalk up wins. . . . . The outlook for 2018 is hopeful with the right plans. . . . . this formula for victory is more applicable in other states because most white voters outside of Alabama are not as conservative as those inside the state.

By emphasizing turnout in 2018 — especially of voters of color — Democrats can take control of the Senate, the House of Representatives and at least five statehouses. Republicans’ margin in the Senate has now slipped to just a two-seat advantage, and the Senate contests in Arizona, Nevada and Texas are all winnable if there is a robust turnout of voters of color. Texas may be considered as conservative as Alabama, but its actual demographics are much more favorable: Only 53 percent of Texas eligible voters are white (and a quarter of the whites are strong Democrats). Mr. Trump won Texas by 800,000 votes, but there were four million eligible, nonvoting people of color in 2016, three million Latinos alone.

In the 2018 races for governorships, six states could swing from red to blue with the right voter mobilization plan and the proper funding and support. Maryland and Illinois are decisively Democratic, for example, but have Republican governors because Democratic turnout has been abysmal in the off-year elections.

The demographics in other Southern and Southwestern states — Georgia, Florida, New Mexico and Arizona — have brought them within striking distance with a well-funded Sun Belt game plan.

Ultimately priorities are expressed through budgets, and the allocation of political dollars will show whether Democratic strategists have learned the right lessons from the Alabama upset. Which leaders will spend the millions of dollars to win in 2018?

If Democrats want to win, they will elevate and give broad budgetary authority to strategists and organizers with long histories and deep ties in the country’s communities of color. They sent Doug Jones to the United States Senate, and they can bring Democrats back to prominence and power in states and districts across the country.

A Lesson from the Grassroots: What the Democrat Party Needs to Learn

I have been involved in politics now for well over two decades - actually, closer to three - and one of the aggravating factors I have witnessed in both major parties is the tendency of the leadership in both parties engaging in pissing contests and losing site of the larger picture and what motivates the grassroots effort where elections are often won or lost.  That is not to say that all decisions should be left to the grassroots.  A prime example is the GOP which invited the Christofascists and white supremacists (they are often one and the same) into the party with horrific results as embodied by the current occupant of the White House.  Nonetheless, Democrats need to look to the grassroots now for a lesson on how to win elections.  Virginia provides one such lesson despite the wrongheaded efforts of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to interfere in the Democrat primary last June - something I will forever hold against them.  A column in the Washington Post outlines the lessons that need to be learned by Democrats in Washington, D.C.  Here are highlights:

Sometimes, the Democratic Party amazes me. And not in a good way. Here is a party fresh off a series of big election triumphs all over the country. The nation faces an unprecedented challenge brought on by President Trump’s breathtaking irresponsibility. Republicans are pushing through the most reactionary tax bill since the 1920s.

And what do leading Washington Democrats want to do? They would have us engage in the “move left” vs. “move to the center” squabbles that have obsessed the party for at least three decades. 

[N]ew research is finding that this bickering does not match the mood of local anti-Trump activists.

Ever since Trump’s surprise victory, the distinguished Harvard University scholar Theda Skocpol has been spending a lot of time in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio with her colleagues Mary Waters and Kathy Swartz. They are talking to leaders and rank-and-file citizens in two counties in each state to track changes in our politics wrought by the 2016 outcome.

All the counties they are studying voted for Trump, yet in every one of them, new anti-Trump organizations have risen up. The researchers have found 10 such groups so far. (By the way, all these groups are led or co-led by women, many of whom are also deeply involved in their local churches.)

What’s struck Skocpol is how irrelevant the Democrats’ tired quarrels are to these freshly engaged citizens. “At the grass roots, people are dealing with the crisis Trump’s presidency presents to America, and they’re not refighting the election of 2016,” she said in an interview. “They’re not talking about whether the Democratic Party should be more progressive or more centrist.”

In fact, she finds that “both Bernie [Sanders] and Hillary [Clinton] supporters are involved,” which shows how “you can have energetic citizen action that doesn’t have to sort out national labels.”

This activism, as Skocpol sees it, is motivated by a simple but powerful civic sense that Trump is violating basic norms and principles of American life. The troops on the ground don’t need programs or litmus tests imposed from on high, she adds. They need practical support and the freedom to act as they see fit in their own areas.

This was also the lesson of this month’s elections, which saw victories by Democrats across the party’s spectrum of opinion. In Virginia, Gov.-elect Ralph Northam ran a moderate statewide campaign, while down-ticket winners in legislative races included a member of the Democratic Socialists of America as well as the first openly transgender person elected to a statehouse. Voters in Virginia (and New Jersey and elsewhere) said to Washington Democrats: Stop it with your stupid fights. We have work to do.

 

[Y]es, the party is more progressive on certain questions than it used to be. It is rightly more committed, for example, to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights — but so is the country as a whole. There has been a strong response from Democrats of all races to police shootings of young, unarmed black men. But this is less a move to the “left” than an expression of simple decency. A lot of this left/center business is about abstractions imposed on reality rather than a reflection of it.

The combatants in the intraparty arguments might usefully start by acknowledging the merits of some of the insights their opponents offer. Jared Leopold, the communications director of the Democratic Governors Association, said that Northam’s approach resonated with Virginia voters who “were looking for a calm and strong leader in the midst of chaos in Washington.” Moderates have a point when they say that voters nationally are similarly seeking steady and reliable leadership.

For now, the imperative is to check Trump’s abuses and to stop the truly radical agenda that Republicans are advancing, including their continuing efforts to wreck Obamacare and to pass an unpopular, budget-busting corporate tax cut that redistributes large sums of money to society’s wealthiest.

The grass-roots activists know how important these battles are. The ideological infighters should learn from them.

The Women’s March: the Largest Inauguration Demonstration?

Other than evangelical Christian women whose "faith" seemingly tells them they are to be subordinate to and ruled by men and perhaps very wealthy women seeking tax cuts, one of the most baffling aspects of the 2016 presidential election is the number of women who voted against their own best interest and supported a sexual predator who bragged about assaulting women.  We may never know if it was Trump's appeals to racism and anti-immigrant bigotry that won the day with these women, but thankfully, many women are shocked by and opposed to Der Fuhrer.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the growing effort to have a Women's March on Washington the day after inauguration day. Over the next four years, we will need much more of such wide scale activism and opposition to Herr Trump.  Here are story highlights:

Teresa Shook never considered herself much of an activist, or someone particularly versed in feminist theory. But when the results of the presidential election became clear, the retired attorney in Hawaii turned to Facebook and asked: What if women marched on Washington around Inauguration Day en masse?

She asked her online friends how to create an event page, and then started one for the march she was hoping would happen. . . . Now, more than 100,000 people have registered their plans to attend the Women’s March on Washington in what is expected to be the largest demonstration linked to Donald Trump’s inauguration and a focal point for activists on the left who have been energized in opposing his agenda.

Organizers say plans are on track, after securing a permit from D.C. police to gather 200,000 people near the Capitol at Independence Avenue and Third Street SW on the morning after Inauguration Day. Exactly how big the march will be has yet to be determined, with organizers scrambling to pull together the rest of the necessary permits and raise the $1 million to $2 million necessary to pull off a march triggered by Shook’s Facebook venting.

The march has become a catch-all for a host of liberal causes, from immigrant rights to police killings of African Americans. But at its heart is the demand for equal rights for women after an election that saw the defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential nominee of a major party.

“We plan to make a bold and clear statement to this country on the national and local level that we will not be silent and we will not let anyone roll back the rights we have fought and struggled to get,” said Tamika Mallory, a veteran organizer and gun-control advocate who is one of the march’s main organizers.

More than 150,000 women and men have responded on the march’s Facebook page that they plan on attending. At least 1,000 buses are headed to Washington for the march through Rally, a website that organizes buses to protests. Dozens of groups, including Planned Parenthood and the antiwar CodePink, have signed on as partners.
Organizers insist the march is not anti-Trump, even as many of the groups that have latched on to it fiercely oppose his agenda.

Shook said her aim was not to co-opt any other movement. It was just an idea that took hold after the victory of a president-elect caught on tape boasting of grabbing women’s private parts and the defeat of a woman who seemed to her much more qualified for the job.

People traveling to attend the march seem less concerned with behind-the-scenes politics than the chance to call for more family-friendly government policies, equal pay for women or reproductive rights. Some say they simply want to stand against the crass way Trump has spoken about women.

Feminist scholars say the march reflects an emerging view of feminism: one that is less defined by reproductive issues, such as birth control and abortion, and more by how the challenges faced by women intersect with those encountered by African Americans, the LGBT community and immigrants.

Is The LGBT Movement in Chaos

While the Republican Party is clearly in crisis, so to is the LGBT movement in the view of some.  After success on the marriage equality front - spearheaded in large part by groups other than HRC, the Task Force and other self-proclaimed leaders of the community - now things appear to be in disarray as  Christofascist controlled Republicans pus anti-gay laws and the granting of special rights to Christian extremist.  Rather than focusing on this threat, HRC has insanely been calling for Barack Obama to nominate an out gay to the Supreme Court, as if any such nomination would have a snowball's chance in Hell of success.  Indeed, the fight of LGBT protections now seems to be resting on state level organizations (I have ceased all financial support to HRC and give instead to Equality Virginia) given the vacuum in serious leadership at the national level.  A piece in The Advocate looks at the disturbing situation.  Here are highlights:

Just as the sun was setting on the landmark year that delivered marriage equality — an achievement unthinkable just a decade earlier — an unsettling headline appeared from Time magazine: “2015 Made History for LGBT Rights. Why Few Are Optimistic About 2016.”

The piece was written by veteran reporter Philip Elliott from Las Vegas, where LGBT leaders had gathered to assess both the progress made and the road ahead. After interviewing some 25 movement leaders, Elliott noted, “a fractured picture emerges that suggests little agreement about what should — or even what can — come next.”

Of course, just as the LGBTQIs’ diversified agendas defy uniformity, no single answer to that question has emerged over the past year. But perhaps more disconcerting, nor has a single leader delivered anything that amounts to a compelling narrative on the way forward.

It is a muted chaos, to some extent. Most of the basic structures of our modern-day movement — such as the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, to name a few — aren’t going anywhere in the near term. Yet we are also seeing signs of transition with Kevin Cathcart, who has led Lambda Legal for nearly 25 years, announcing his retirement effective April 2016. And some movement staples, such as Freedom to Marry and the Empire State Pride Agenda, are ceasing operations.

[S]ome new arrivals, like the progressive-conservative donor mind meld Freedom for All Americans (FFAA), have begun to lay out their visions for achieving nondiscrimination protections nationwide, starting at the state level and eventually moving to the federal level. This organization is interesting in two respects. First, it represents a significant point of differentiation between the LGBT movement and other progressive movements in that we are actually increasingly being resourced by both liberal and conservative donors. Even if many Republican politicians don’t yet reflect this reality in rhetoric, the LGBT movement has still managed to reach across the aisle for critical legislative wins in states such as New York (enacting marriage equality in 2011) and even federally (passing employment protections through the U.S. Senate in 2013). 

Second, FFAA embodies an organizational model that is more Freedom to Marry and less Human Rights Campaign — the organization is not intended to exist in perpetuity but rather to achieve its stated goal, and then fold. In many ways, this should help keep it focused on its goal rather than on continually growing a budget to meet multiple objectives that require the organization to become more territorial even as it becomes less accountable.

While this model will perhaps make the organization more nimble, it does not guarantee the type of visionary leadership that has thus far been missing to combat new obstacles to LGBT equality, such as 2015’s right-wing attack on the toilet.

Chad Griffin, president of HRC, suggested in several different interviews that if only the local [Houston] TV stations that ran the opposition’s deplorable “No men in women’s bathrooms” ads had rejected them instead, we somehow could have avoided disaster. If that’s one of the big takeaways of our lead organization on how to combat what’s emerging as the homophobes’ next line of attack, we are in real trouble.

Our large organizations know we’re in  trouble too. That’s why they have been advising against pushing a pro-LGBT nondiscrimination initiative in Michigan that, at the time of this writing, appears to have a shot at making the ballot in November. [Update: The Michigan initiative has now been pulled.]

I’m pleased to see Fair Michigan pushing the issue for several reasons. First of all, they have little to lose. LGBT Michiganders don’t currently have nondiscrimination protections, so if you start with nothing and you lose, you’ve still got what you had before — nothing. However, if you win, you’ve got something you never had before. 

Second, anyone who thinks the right-wing Michigan legislature is going to start cozying up to equality based on lobbying efforts anytime in the near future is living in an alternative universe. This is the same GOP-controlled body that watched Indiana take it on the chin last year following the passage of its anti-LGBT initiative and yet still moved forward with enacting a package of antigay “religious refusal” laws that allow publicly funded adoption agencies to deny adoptions to same-sex parents. Waiting on Michigan’s hyper-conservative government to enact equality measures is nothing but a prescription for justice delayed. Some of those lawmakers are going to have to lose their seats over an anti-LGBT vote before they start going the right way on our issues, and I don’t see anyone pouring the resources into Michigan to unseat anti-LGBT lawmakers.

Third, the past decade has shown our major organizations to be preternaturally risk averse. I say this even as I believe that our legal advocates at places like Lambda Legal and GLAD are doing incredibly good work. But grassroots efforts like those being pushed by Michigan attorney Dana Nessel and Fair Michigan are a necessary part of our movement’s process.

The fact that no one agrees on anything isn’t necessarily cause for despair. What’s most important is that we have an aggressive grassroots effort to push the establishment groups out of their comfort zone. That’s a tension that forces the innovation necessary to propel our movement forward.

Perhaps it's because of my background as a former political party activist and the fact that I believe in playing hard ball, I agree that lobby efforts will do little to changes the minds of Republicans only too happy to prostitute themselves to Christofascists. Even in Virginia a few Republicans are coming to see that long term, anti-gay bigotry and such self-prostitution will be the death of the party.  Most, however, or only to happy to ask "how high" when hate merchants like Victoria Cobb and The Family Foundation tell them to jump.  We need to ruthlessly go after some of these individuals who make tawdry whores look virtuous.  Meanwhile, don't hold your breath waiting for me to be invited to join the board of Equality Virginia or similar organizations. 

Jeb Bush Is Losing and The GOP Establishment Is to Blame

Yes, Jeb "Jebbie" Bush is a crappy candidate in my estimation (as a number of past posts have laid out), but in the bubble world of the GOP establishment, he was supposed to soar.    That plan to date has not played out and  Jebbie has been languishing in a distant second or even third place.  Meanwhile, loud mouth buffoon extraordinaire continues to surge.  If the GOP establishment wants to know why, it needs to look in the mirror.  It has in the past embraced and welcomed into the party the insane elements - i.e., Christofascists, open white supremacists, etc . - now viewing and following  Trump with adoration.  When you allow the insane to take over the grassroots of your political party, bad things are going to happen.  A piece in Salon throws the blame for Jebbie's losing effort at the feet of the GOP establishment.  Here are excerpts:

With polls showing Donald Trump in a better position than ever, and with the next presidential debate still nearly a month away, now appears to be the summer of the Republican Party donor class’s discontent.

Their favored candidate, Jeb Bush, has been (obsessively) tagged by Trump as a “low-energy person.” And Bush’s attempts to nab some of “The Donald’s” presumably invigorating xenophobia have been embarrassing, to say the least. For the CNBC-watching plutocrats who comprise “the establishment” of the Republican Party, the summer has been, if not quite a disaster, certainly a mess.

For the Very Serious People in U.S. punditry, however, the situation may be even worse. If you’re the kind of elite hot-taker who tries to understand Republicans by watching “Morning Joe” and reading George Will, Trump’s ascendancy undermines your entire political worldview. It seems to validate the liberal claim that GOP voters care more about whiteness than free markets. And it suggests that the Wall Street Republicans you rely on for insight into the GOP don’t have a clue.
[T]he truth is that Bush’s struggles — like Trump’s triumphs — are the product of conservative ideology itself.

Specifically, it’s the fault of Citizens United, and the tidal wave of outsider spending that it’s unleashed on American politics. If it weren’t for that essentially limitless outsider spending, there would likely be considerably fewer candidates in the GOP race. And if there were fewer candidates in the race, Bush would have an easier time joining together those Republicans who do not want to nominate Trump.

As things stand, Bush cannot distinguish himself from the rest of his “establishment”-friendly competitors, so he ends up looking like just one of the dozen-plus candidates who are not Donald Trump. Worse still, because Bush has already raised such an unfathomable amount of money for his super PAC, his inability to stand toe-to-toe with Trump makes him look in comparison not only drab but also weak. And there’s no one Republican voters hate more than the weak.

As my colleague Joan Walsh has been rightly noting for a while, “Jeb!” has been a straight-up bad candidate. He’s repeatedly done exactly what he shouldn’t. It has been 13 years since Bush last won an election, and one gets the sense that, when he wasn’t cashing checks from Lehman Brothers or hanging out with Michael Bloomberg, he spent the time forgetting everything he’d learned.

But it’s possible for two things to be true. Bush can be both a bad candidate and be wounded less by his own hand than by the results of conservatism itself. The men and women (but mostly men) in the Republican Party can rail against Bush to the Matt Bais of the world all they want. It won’t change the fact that when the Citizens United ruling was handed down and forever changed the rules of American politics, they were cheering as loud as anyone else.

The piece is on point so far as it goes, but it fails to look at the composition of the lunatics swarming to Trump - they are those who in my days in the GOP would have been viewed with disdain at best and barred from local city and county committees and caucuses.  Now, they are controlling them.   Just ask Eric Cantor what has become of the GOP grassroots. 

West Continues to Drift into Democrats' Column

While the GOP continues to try to gerrymander districts and subvert the Electoral College to insure future electoral wins rather than face the fact that its policies favoring the wealthy, white supremacists and religious fanatics, not its "messaging" are the root of its problems, more and more formerly dependable states in the West are slipping from its column.  As noted before, one can only hope that the GOP is committing a slow suicide since I do not see how it can free its county and city committees from the grasp of the Christofacists and Tea Party lunatics who have taken them over.   These people are a form of political cancer that has metastasized and the only cure may be the death of the GOP.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the growing strength of the Democrats.  Here are some excerpts:

 

A political generation ago, the West signaled the nation's rightward swing - from the emergence of Ronald Reagan to the success of tax-limitation ballot measures in California and Colorado. But now the fabled expanse of jagged peaks, arid deserts and emerald coastlines is trending in a different direction.

From Washington state - where voters in November legalized marijuana and upheld the legality of gay marriage - to New Mexico, once a hotly contested swing state that Republicans ceded to Democrats in the presidential campaign, the West has become largely Democratic terrain.  There are, as always, exceptions. Lightly populated Idaho and Wyoming remain strongly Republican, as does Utah. 

"It's just a different world," said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic strategist in Los Angeles who has worked widely in the region. "Nevada became the next California and now Arizona looks like it will become the next Nevada. ... It's just pushing the West further and further from Republicans."

The shift is due to a combination of factors: the fusion of the region's libertarian spirit with both an influx of transplants from more liberal states seeking a better quality of life, and a growing immigrant population alienated by increasingly hardline Republican immigration proposals.

There are prominent Republicans who demonstrate that the party can still win the region. Brian Sandoval in Nevada and Susana Martinez in New Mexico are popular Republican governors, but their relatively moderate stances often put them at odds with the national party. Both, for example, just agreed to the Medicaid expansion under President Barack Obama's health care plan, something that is anathema to many conservative Republicans.

In 2002, Ruy Teixeira, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic strategist, co-wrote "The Emerging Democratic Majority," which predicted that demographic and social trends would turn parts of the country that were deep red, like the interior Mountain West, into Democratic-leaning states.  .  .  .  . 

he argued in an interview that what's happened to the West is not very different from what's taking place across the country. Surveys for his book last year found it only slightly more libertarian on social issues and holding similar views toward government and taxation as other parts of the country. That, he said, is bad news for Republicans - their problem is national, not regional.

"It's not like there's something in the water in state X that's making them harder for Republicans," Teixeira said. "It's just the same series of changes that are working themselves out in all states."  "Look at the migration patterns," said Sig Rogich, a Republican consultant in Las Vegas who worked on Reagan's presidential campaigns. "You're seeing the aftermath of a new generation of young men and women whose parents moved westward."

As I said, I don't see how the GOP can readily change given that its grassroots committees and organizations have been taken over by the inmates of the asylum - individuals who live in some bizarre alternate universe driven by greed, racism and religious extremism.  The GOP leadership is reaping what it cynically sowed.   I for one have no sympathy for them whatsoever.

Can Obama Rebuild His Grass Roots Army?

As a number of media outlets are reporting, including the Virginian Pilot, Barack Obama is endeavoring to rebuild his effective grass roots organization across the USA. To be, the biggest obstacle Obama faces is himself. In 2008, Obama found support from many who were disillusioned and longed for an innovative leader. What we got instead was a man who generally refuses to lead waiting instead for others to make faltering efforts to lead the path to "change." Yes, Obama has ushered in some change, but in my mind, so much more could have been done if we had seen real leadership from the White House. I continue to believe the funk that many Democrats felt in 2009 when little seemed to have been accomplished set the stage for the GOP sweep in Virginia. True, Creigh Deeds was a terrible and uninspiring candidate for the Democrat standard bearer, but the bigger problem was a sense of what does it matter - we handed Obama control of the Congress and the White House and things still failed to happen. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot on this issue:
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[T]he president's backers are trying to take advantage of a head start over the still-forming Republican field and the benefits of incumbency to rebuild a grassroots effort that mobilized millions of voters in 2008. Obama's campaign has pledged to reach out to every voter it was in contact with during his first run . . .
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Without having to focus on a primary opponent, Obama's campaign also is spending much of its time and money trying to build foundations of support early in battleground states like Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Ohio that backed Obama last time but have since elected Republican governors, weakening state Democratic Party operations.
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Republicans question whether Obama's grassroots operation will be as formidable this time. "In 2008 they were able to create an organizational juggernaut because people were inspired by the Obama candidacy. But I think when you look at his record going into 2012, especially with independents, there may be less inspiration, which makes the organizing more difficult," said Republican strategist Jim Dyke, a veteran of presidential politics.
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But Democrats say recent battles over labor unions and state budgets in Ohio and Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker has sought to curtail collective-bargaining rights for public employees, has energized its voters and could help them next year.
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"The Democratic base, which may have been lukewarm about the president ... is now fired up," said Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor. He said several Rust Belt states "have seen this incredible reversal of Republican fortunes in 2011 because of the mistakes and wrongheaded policies." Overtly or not, it's a message Obama backers are sending as they encourage others to join their ranks.
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If a past supporter responded negatively, the caller asked if there was "something holding you back," and noted whether it pertained to issues such as education, the environment, foreign policy, health care or jobs.
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Again, for me, my biggest reservation is Obama's refusal to be a leader and his refusal to use the office of the presidency as a pulpit from which he can take on GOP lies and untruths. If the GOP can manage to nominate a decent candidate - a huge if - Obama could be in trouble. And it will be of his own making.

It's Time for LGBT Leaders to Play Hardball

On the drive up to Charlottesville we listened to OutQ Radio and caught a rebroadcast of the Michelangelo Signorile show with the "town hall meeting" of six LGBT activist/leaders in the context of the need to forceably push for the repeal of DADT and the White House's constant games and efforts to manipulate and use LGBT Americans. The show was informative and certainly reinforced some of my views - including the worthlessness and double speak that seems to be the norm at HRC. I increasingly wonder if some of the so-called leaders of the LGBT movement ever want us to achieve full equality under the civil laws given their preference of kissing the asses of politicians and enjoying "access" to power - not that it does the rest of us any good. As usual, Pam Spaulding did a great job speaking on behalf of those of us who are simply fed up with Obama's broken campaign promises and the willingness of some in LGBT leadership positions to throw the rest of us under the bus rather than ruffle any feathers. In states like Virginia, LGBT citizens are virtually unprotected from religious based anti-ga discrimination. Our only hope is for action at the federal level. Action that is not going to take place if our self-styled leaders continue to sit on their hands or simper over politicians at cocktail parties. On her blog today, Pam talks about the growing disconnect between a number of LGBT organizyations and the grass roots of our community. Here are some highlights:
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The grassroots GetEqual actions and the online citizen activism, like it or not, is changing the game in DC -- and the powers that be don't like it one bit. The accidental activists, 15-minute activists, the first-time activists and the online turned offline activists have had it. All are tired of the promises, tired of the lies, tired of the focus on midterms, tired of WH arrogance, and beyond tired of the complacency/incompetence/cowardice and focus on fighting for dollars from the same pool of donors, while leaving the mission behind.
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I don't even know that there's a word to describe the level of fatigue and outrage watching some of our purported community leaders being jerked around, co-opted, demeaned, diluted and diminished by the largest LGBT organization, HRC, that sucks the air and dollars out of the room without conscience, . . . Maybe words don't matter in the rarefied bubble of power politics, I can tell you that that sh*t won't go unchallenged any more.
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Replacing the leadership in our orgs won't matter if the replacement, elected by the same out-of-touch boards is filled with the same level of contempt for the community it serves, putting the almighty dollar, the expense account and lack of actual ability to place themselves in the shoes of the LGBTs without privilege, and without rights.
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Let's go to part of the reason this administration and our orgs are shaken up (I've heard this countless times since I've been in DC over the last two days, people are tired, tired, tired of the bullsh*t). Many tactics have merit, many tactics have a place. The current ones haven't worked so stirring the pot is not an evil.

Obama and "Hope" Have Been a Bust

Earlier in the week Arianna Huffington wrote a post that - in my view - sums up where progressive Americans and the country now find themselves. Barack Obama's lofty promises of "Hope" and "Change" have proven to have been false and unless the grassroots does something to change the game, the changes desperately needed are never going to happen. Obama has abdicated his role as an outspoken leader of the Democrats and left far too much of the movement for change with Congressional Democrats who, with a few notable exceptions, have shown themselves to be either utterly incompetent or too beholden to special interests (think health insurers, banks and drug manufacturers) and far to eager to sell out average Americans. So what needs to be done? Recreate a ground swell across the country that demands the bullshit politics as usual need to end now, or else there will be adverse repercussions for both political parties, but particularly the Democrats. Here are some highlights from her post:

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On the eve of the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration, it's become painfully obvious that elected officials are not going to save us. The 2008 election was all about "Hope." But Hope is simply not cutting it. . . . our system is too broken to be fixed by politicians, however well intentioned [or not]-- that change is going to have to come from outside Washington.
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This realization is especially resonant as we celebrate Dr. King, whose life and work demonstrate the vital importance of social movements in bringing about change. Indeed, King showed that no real change can be accomplished without a movement demanding it. As Frederick Douglass put it: "Power never concedes anything without a demand; it never has and it never will."
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since the days of FDR and LBJ, the system has only gotten more rigged, and the powers-that-be more entrenched. As Janine Wedel shows in Shadow Elite, the power of special interests to thwart meaningful change -- often by co-opting the rhetoric of change but producing in its name a further consolidation of the status quo -- has never been stronger. The health care bill's path from fundamental reform to fiasco is only the latest example.
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One year later, wracked with conflict and discord, and battered by petty grievances, false promises, and worn out dogmas, we stand on the verge of passing a giant boon to health insurance companies and calling it "reform." The reason we are given? What else: the votes just aren't there for a real reform bill. That's where Hope 2.0 comes in. If the votes aren't there, the people need to create them. Just like King did. They need to build a movement. And to make that happen, we need to adopt another of the great lessons of Dr. King's life: elevating the role empathy must play in our society.
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Watching the [bank] CEOs, I was stunned by the utter lack of even a feigned sense of empathy for those whose lives the banks have destroyed. Only a complete inability to feel empathy could explain the fact that the bankers are not just back to operating at their old bonus levels, but at their old smugness levels as well.
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One year ago, writing about former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain and his now infamous $1.2 million office redecoration in the midst of the economic collapse, I bemoaned the Marie Antoinettes of the Meltdown, and our era of Not Getting It. Little did I realize just how small-scale Thain's outrages would now seem, and how much worse things would get in the ensuing year. Lloyd "Doing God's Work" Blankfein and his fellow "too big to fail" CEOs -- with their utter cluelessness about the public's anger over what they've done and continue to do -- take Not Getting It to a whole other level.
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But the question is, can this righteous -- and entirely justifiable -- rage be productively channeled to produce a real movement for reform, or will it be hijacked by tea party wackos and dangerous demagogues? . . . One year ago, Hope was about crossing our fingers and electing leaders that we thought would enact real change. Hope 2.0 is about using the lessons of Dr. King to create the conditions that give them no other choice.
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Of course, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down restrictions on corporate campaign contributions that will be used to literally buy legislators will not make the task any easier. On the other hand, if corporations are "persons" within the meaning of freedom of speech rights, perhaps the Court's bestowing of such rights on non-living "citizens" can be used to somehow bite the conservatives on the Court in the ass when Perry v. Schwarzenegger makes its way before the court sometime in the future.

December 10th 2008: Day Without a Gay.

Here is some updated information on the "Day Without Gay" scheduled for December 10, 2008. Note, that the effort now has its own web site: http://daywithoutagay.org/ Given the huge organizing success of Join the Impact and the nationwide protests this past Saturday, one has to wonder what the Hell HRC and other alleged gay rights organizations are doing when a few talented individuals can organized a larger turn out and protest that the well funded organizations. Or are those organizations too afraid to be confrontational? I know that HRC did absolutely nothing to help one of my clients who was fired by a state museum for being gay. HRC did not want to "upset" the politicians it had gotten all chumy with. Here's the updated information:

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There was some confusion about the date, but two organizations proposed this great initiative and we combined into one. On December 10th, we ask that the LGBTQ community Call in Gay! Don’t go to work, don’t consume, don’t contribute to this economy at all… instead, contribute to your community through volunteer work, community outreach, and social outreach. We are taking a new spin on boycott. During the busy shopping season where analysts have year over year numbers, we want to watch the graph dip as we take our tax dollars and keep them. Instead, we will give to the organizations that need our time and help. We are taxpaying citizens who contribute to this economy. We deserve legal protections from our government and marriage provides 10,000+ legal protections that are not awarded to our families!

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Oh and for the closet cases afraid of identifying themselves as gay and who typically sit back and let others fight their battles, there's this:

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If you live in one of the 30 states where individuals can still be fired simply for being gay or lesbian, there are still plenty of ways that you can lend a hand and a voice in our fight for gay equality--without missing work. CLICK HERE for actions you can take RIGHT NOW!