Trump Supporters and Brexiters: the Same Ugly Mindset

As noted numerous times on this blog, in my view the mindset of Trump supporters and those in the United Kingdom who continue to support Brexit - a form of national economic suicide - remains very much alike.  Both groups long for a past that was never as ideal as they now fantasize and, rather than embrace change and work for a better future, they are willing to destroy everything out of anger and bitterness, and especially, their hatred of racial minorities.  If Britain does end up leaving the European Union, the economic consequences will be catastrophic - a fact the Brexiters refuse to face as they long for lost empire.  Here in the USA, Trump supporters cheer the destruction of America's leadership in the world, tariffs and economic policies that are not saving jobs as promised, and which are poisoning the environment and shredding the social safety net.  All that matters is that they feel good lashing out and patting themselves on the back for their "patriotism," although one has to question how patriotic it is to harm ones country and seek to demonize millions of one's fellow citizens.  An op-ed in the New York Times looks at the disaster that is the Brexit movement in the UK and the mindset that accompanies it.  The parallels with America are profound (not to mention that both groups were manipulated by Russian cyber attacks aimed at fomenting political chaos).  Here are excerpts:

It’s not just our political life that feels suffused with the toxicity of Brexit, but also our cultural and even personal lives, too. At dinner with friends and family, on our couches in front of the television, even in our attempts at cinematic escape, there is only one subject of conversation: our departure from the European Union, the need to either oppose it or enact it. As we walk the supermarket aisles, speculating as to the continuing availability of our favorite foods, as we sit with our European loved ones and try to convince ourselves of the security of their stay, as we lay out the day’s medicines and fret about the continuing viability of their procurement, Brexit is inescapable.

Brexit is not just an event, it is a feeling — suffocating and dispiriting and freighted with gloom. With no refuge from that feeling, we seek solace in another: national pride.

We’re the world’s fifth-largest economy and likely to sink to seventh this year. Industry and finance are falling over themselves to flee. Nor am I convinced that anyone should be “rightly proud” of a country in which, according to the homelessness charity Crisis, the number of people sleeping on the streets has risen 140 percent since 2010; in which over a million emergency food packages were given to those struggling financially in the 2017-18 financial year; in which over 4 million children are living in poverty; and in which local councils in England face an £8 billion financial black hole by 2025, endangering not only their upkeep of communal spaces, but also their ability to provide adequate care for children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

So here we are, facing more delays and uncertainty. The Defense Ministry reportedly is hunkering down in a nuclear bunker, preparing for “no deal,” a crash headlong into a future from which we mistakenly thought our past would protect us. We are pathologically unable to say what needs to be said: that nostalgia, exceptionalism and a xenophobic failure of the collective imagination have undone us. This is not a time of national pride, it is a moment of deep and lasting national shame. We are unable to lead yet determined never to follow. We have nothing of note to say and yet still refuse to listen. The very forces that have shored up our self-regard and poisoned our place in history are about to erode us from within, and unless we find in ourselves the humility we’ve always abhorred, we face a brutal and potentially permanent humbling.

Cups of tea will neither turn back time nor show us, in their cold and increasingly bitter leaves, the future we’ve failed to imagine: a future in which what limited achievements we might have been proud of — our system of social care, our commitment to protecting the people least able to protect themselves — lie in ruins, and all we can do is sit in the dark, paying our favorite celebrities to chant to us, over and over again, our tattered mantra of virtue.
 

The Self-inflicted Collapse of Virginia's Democratic Party

Democrat Circular Firing Squad.

Virginia continues to be in a state of political chaos and unflattering national scrutiny as all three of its top elected officials - Governor Northam, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring - find themselves embroiled in controversy.  A piece in CNN looks at the chaos but, in my view, fails to place blame where it lies, which is not on Governor Ralph Northam or the other targets of a far right Republican operatives.  Here's what CNN says as far as it goes:

    In the last six days, the following things have happened:

·         Gov. Ralph Northam said he was in a picture in his medical school yearbook of two people -- one in blackface, the other in KKK robes. He then recanted and said he wasn't in that picture. But he added that he *had* darkened his face to look more like Michael Jackson for a dance contest in 1984.

·         A woman named Vanessa Tyson accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of assaulting her during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax angrily denied the allegations. Then on Wednesday Tyson released a statement, in which she said in part "what began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault."

·         State Attorney General Mark Herring, in a statement released Wednesday morning, acknowledged that he, too, had appeared in blackface at a party. "In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song," Herring said.

What the CNN piece fails to do is (i) link these disclosures back to a far right, Trump supporting "news" outlet, and (ii) focus on how the Democrats have stupidly engaged in a circular firing squad  -just as the GOP anticipated they would do - and blown the situation all out of proportion. In short, in my view, the ultimate blame lies on Democrat office holders (the Legislative Black Caucus in particular), including a number of out of state would be presidential candidates who improperly and ignorantly injected themselves into Virginia politics (think Julián Castro, Elizabeth Warren - who has her own new crisis - and Kamala Harris).   Indeed, I would summarize the series of events since last Friday as follows:

Watching how the GOP operatives at Big League Politics set this in motion and how the Democrats took the bait hook, line and sinker and set themselves up to potentially put a racist homophobe (in the form of House of Delegates Speaker Cox) has been horrifying to watch.  Everyone, starting with the Legislative Black Caucus, rushed to judge, looked for every possible slight and never took a deep breath or stopped to consider the bigger picture and the strange coincidence of the timing of the political hit jobs.  Once Northam and Fairfax were targeted, I knew something would be dug up on Herring.  Since Herring announced his own "sin" first today, I believe he must have known the GOP operative were about to expose him.

As regular readers I know both Northam and Herring - Northam is a personal friend - and neither of these men is a racist.  Stupid perhaps in their youth, but not racists. Cox is a whole different story.  Three years of Speaker Cox as governor would be a disaster for LGBT Virginians and black Virginians - and most other Virginia.

In the last few days I've been attacked as a racist "gray old man" wanting to protect "white privilege" by some.  But having been in the political game longer than many of these young upstarts who have attacked me have been alive, I know just how dirty and foul the GOP plays.  I left the GOP almost 20 years ago, but in my days as a city committee member for the GOP for eight years, I saw up close just how dirty the far right was willing to play. I wanted no part of the politics of personal destruction, deliberate lies and, in my view, moral bankruptcy, so I left the GOP.   But I did not forget what I had observed. Sadly, no one in the Democrat Party wanted to listen to my analysis and warnings.

Vladimir Putin Could Not be Happier as Turmoil Grips US and UK

In the wake of yesterday's vote in Parliament which rejected Theresa May's hideous Brexit plan, the United Kingdom is in the worse political crisis since the end of WWII and Britain faces an economic nightmare of its own creation.  Estimates are that at least $1 trillion has fled the British financial system and things may get far worse if the UK leaves the European Union.

Meanwhile, political chaos reigns in the USA as Trump refuses to strike a deal to reopen the federal government. 800,000 federal employees are going without pay and airports are slowly edging towards shutdowns as TSA workers and air traffic controllers prepare to seek new employment in order to save themselves and their families financially. 

Though separated by the Atlantic Ocean, the two crises share two common threads.  One is that the cause of the instability traces to rural white voters who hate urban and suburban populations and, in the final analysis are racists who long for a return of the "good old days."  The other common thread is that Russian cyber attacks and social media ploys helped drive what is in my view described as a "populist" movement. In both the USA and the UK the voters supporting Trump and Brexit are in reality most motivated by hatred of others and fear of modernity (and perhaps even thinking for themselves).  A piece at CNN looks at the phenomenon and the man smiling through it all, Russia's Vladimir Putin.  Here are highlights:

The news just keeps on getting better for Vladimir Putin.

On either side of the Atlantic, the United States and Britain, the two great English-speaking democracies that orchestrated Moscow's defeat in the Cold War, are undergoing simultaneous political breakdowns.  And the Russian leader may have had a hand in triggering the turmoil. In London, Theresa May on Tuesday suffered the worst defeat in the modern parliamentary era by a prime minister, as lawmakers shot down her Brexit deal with the European Union by a staggering 432 votes to 202. The United States, meanwhile, remains locked in its longest-ever government shutdown, which is now entering its 26th day, is nowhere near ending and is the culmination of two years of whirling political chaos sparked by President Donald Trump. It's hard to believe that two such robust democracies, long seen by the rest of the world as beacons of stability, have dissolved into such bitter civic dysfunction and seem unmoored from their previous governing realities. The political self-recrimination is a far cry from the days when President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher bonded to face down totalitarian threats to Western, liberal democracy. Now the threat to the political solidity of the West is coming partly from the inside, from a fractured political consensus that makes it impossible to address vital questions like Britain's relations with Europe and immigration in the US. Supporters of Trump in the US and Brexit in Britain see their revolts as uprisings against distant or unaccountable leaders who no longer represent them or share their values. . . . . The meltdown in Britain has some foreign investors wanting to know if Britain has "lost its mind," said Tina Fordham, chief global political analyst for Citigroup.
 [S]ome common factors combined to lay siege to what have long been two of the world's most resilient democracies. The allies are experiencing the reverberations of populist revolts that erupted in 2016 -- in the Brexit vote and the election of Trump -- and are now slamming into legislatures and breeding division and stasis. The result is that Britain and the United States are all but ungovernable on the most important questions that confront both nations. That's music to Putin's ears.
 The Russian leader has made disrupting liberal democracies a core principle of his near two-decade rule, as he seeks to avenge the fall of the Soviet empire, which he experienced as a heartbroken KGB agent in East Germany. In the last two years, Putin has had a witting, or unwitting, ally in Trump, whose attacks on NATO and US allies and decision to pull US troops out of Syria played into Russia's goals.

Whether the political distemper in the West was sown by a Russian intelligence operation masterminded by Putin may not matter because he is making a belated effort at winning the peace after the end of the Cold War. His success is adding urgency to the question that special counsel Robert Mueller has spent nearly two years investigating -- whether Trump's campaign cooperated with Moscow to influence the election in 2016. In another win for Putin, America is tying itself in knots in a surreal national debate over whether Trump -- who incidentally is a vocal supporter of Brexit -- is working on behalf of Russia, following a bombshell New York Times report. Trump's enlistment of rural, conservative voters against metropolitan elites echoes the arguments of leaders orchestrating Britain's exit from Europe. Now, in both nations, the unwillingness of rebels to dilute the purity of their goals is causing gridlock and resistance in Congress and in Parliament. Britain, meanwhile, is mired in the worst political crisis since World War II. While a slim majority voted to leave the EU, there is no consensus on how to do it, and about half the country still wants to stay in the bloc. Trump has been saying the same thing for days -- that Democrats are soft on the border and need to capitulate. But he's failed to rally a coalition of Americans behind his border wall. Effectively he's led the Republican Party into a political dead end. May repeatedly insists that her rejected deal is the only way to honor the 2016 referendum, right up until its massive defeat.  But she has failed to build public support for her approach. If anything, she's more locked into a failed political position than Trump is on the shutdown. And the deeper the trans-Atlantic dysfunction gets, the better it is for Putin.

Is Trump Unwittingly Undermining Putin and Helping Stop Brexit?

In 2016 Both the United States and the United Kingdom experienced election interference - cyber attacks, if you will - directed by Russia.  Both had similar long term goals: the destroy the western alliance that had held the Soviet Union/Russia at bay for 70 years and to induce self-destructive national behavior. In the case of the UK, the goal was to tilt the country to leave the European Union through the BREXIT vote, thereby weakening both the EU and the UK economically and perhaps breeding discord within NATO as well.  In the case of America, the goal was to see Donald Trump, Putin's the great destroyer, elected so that the western alliance could be further weakened, if not destroyed.  In both countries, the prime targets were more rural areas and less educated voters bearing hostility towards non-whites and "foreigners," where dreams of past glories blinded voters to the reality of a forever changed world. In the UK, Russia appealed to those with dreams of "Rule Britannia" and the era when the "sun never set on the British Empire." In America, the targeted population was white nationalists, xenophobes clinging to a false myth of American exceptionalism, and a past of unrivaled US dominance that will never be re-achieved.  In both nations, voters fell for the bait and Vladimir Putin/Russia was victorious.  Since then, the UK has been tearing itself apart and Trump has faithfully implemented the division and destruction so desired by his Russian handler/puppet master.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the irony of Trump - who is basically hated in the UK - perhaps setting in motion forces in the UK than may unwind Putin's Brexit victory.  Here are excerpts:

Can Brexit still be stopped? I gave up on that possibility a long time ago, but politics is fickle, and contemporary politics is full of shocks. And I’d say that the odds of pulling back from the brink, still low, measurably improved this past week. I know that sounds unlikely given the political chaos in London, and Donald Trump’s explosive intervention in the Sun tabloid last night, but bear with me. It’s precisely the chaos and [Trump] the president that might offer hope.

In fact, last week was the first time I began, perhaps foolishly, to suspect some method in Theresa May’s blithering badness. To see why, it’s worth remembering that May was always a centrist Tory, devoid of ideas or inspiration, but diligent, earnest, competent and, ahem, persistent. She’s not an ideologue. She had a reputation for steeliness and a mastery of her brief in her long stint at the Home Office, which oversees immigration, policing, counterterrorism, and other domestic policy. And she was long pragmatically in favor of remaining in the European Union, indeed voted to remain, even if she kept relatively quiet about it. . . . she became prime minister by default to execute a policy she didn’t believe in.

The potential shift, if sudden and severe, could devastate Britain’s economy, at least in the short term, and arguably for much longer, as well as effectively end Britain’s status as a global power. Her own party had only a small majority in the Parliament, narrowing her space to maneuver even farther, and was itself deeply split over the form Brexit should take. And so she thought her best bet last year would be to throw the dice, call an election, and try to get a hefty mandate and a much bigger parliamentary majority that would give her the flexibility she needed at home, and the leverage she wanted with the E.U. This wasn’t a crazy idea. She was 20 points ahead in the polls, at the time.

But it wasn’t to be. As we all discovered, she was a crap campaigner and in the end, the Tories lost their majority altogether. It seems to me that a hard Brexit effectively died that day. May didn’t have the popular mandate or the parliamentary votes to get what the right of her party demanded.

With only nine months now to go until Article 50 kicks Britain out of the E.U., with the country still deeply divided, big business still terrified, and without any actual final negotiation with the E.U. at all, she finally pushed and shoved her cabinet into backing a very soft Brexit at Chequers, the prime minister’s country estate, last weekend.

They all signed up for it, including Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary. The “Chequers Deal” meant pursuing Brexit but effectively also remaining in the customs union, and in much of the single market. Brexit In Name Only — yes, it’s BRINO! — was suddenly the official government position. Britain would still abide by most E.U. regulations and laws, it would even be subject to the European Court in some respects, but, being outside the E.U. proper, would have no say in any of it.

The Tories’ momentary unity on the subject, painfully achieved only two years since Brexit, lasted two days. The hard Brexit faction in the House began making insurrectionary noises; Westminster went febrile; the chance of a Tory Party coup against May was on everyone’s mind; further resignations were expected. The Tory press went apeshit. The Telegraph asked: “Is Theresa May Guilty of Treason?” It seemed like another nadir for the unfortunate prime minister.

Within days, it was quite clear the hard-Brexiteers were far too divided to launch a putsch, and no one had the support or the guts to bring her down. Johnson’s reputation even among the Tories is far from what it was; Davis didn’t go in for the kill; and the other leading Brexiteer, Michael Gove, firmly backed May. Advantage Theresa.

The Brexiteers’ next gambit was nihilistically lashing out, by using Trump to piss all over May’s compromise, which he duly did, the day after behaving like someone on PCP at the NATO summit. . . . It was a brutal and unprecedented attack on a sitting prime minister as she was actually hosting the American president for a visit. It was a knee-capping.

It was also, in my immediate view, a serious Brexiteer blunder. Trump is despised in Britain, as he is across Europe. His endorsement of the Brexiteers at this critical moment is humiliating for May but potentially a boon for her as well. If Donald Trump is now the face of Brexit in Britain, Brexit is in trouble. And Brits will not take kindly to their own prime minister being dictated to and humiliated by an American president, as he lands on British soil.

And so the real endgame comes into sight. Britain faces the prospect of the worst of all worlds Brexit — a staggering, chaotic, and catastrophic departure from the E.U. with massive collateral damage, an outcome now endorsed by a loathed American president.

Am I exaggerating? Among the immediate doomsday possibilities the government itself is worried about in a crash exit are the effective, immediate collapse of the port of Dover — grinding trade to a halt — and the dispatch of thousands of electricity generators on barges in the Irish Sea to keep Northern Ireland’s lights on, because the province’s ability to share a single electricity market with the whole island of Ireland would end with an E.U. exit. Northern Ireland itself could explode in sectarian violence again if a hard border is erected between north and south, as it would have to be. Scotland would move toward independence. Critical shortages of food, fuel, and medicine would open up within two weeks, by the government’s own estimation. The military would have to be deployed to ensure transportation of essentials. Stocks and the pound would plummet. A steep recession at home, and maybe also abroad, could follow. It would be one of the most harmful things a democratic country ever did to itself, or to its neighbors.

[W]ith parliament deadlocked and the E.U. implacable, a simple solution could present itself as the only way out for a Tory Party desperate to keep Labour out of power: The transition period could be extended, and a second referendum called. On the ballot this time would be the two actual, non-fantasy options: a brutal exit, or remaining in the E.U.

This wouldn’t be a referendum to undo the first one; it would be to clarify it, after the actual, tangible, non-fantasy options are available. People voted for Brexit with no one actually knowing what kind of Brexit, or any clear idea of what it would entail, and many voters were confused about the intricacies. Two years later, and the confusion is even deeper, and the divide greater.

I don’t know what the result of such a second referendum would be, but I know that it is the only way not to permanently divide and embitter the country, and to end the debate for good. I suspect that a doomsday Brexit would concentrate the mind; and that sticking with the status quo, after the last two chaotic years, might seem a little more enticing that it once did. In that scenario, Brexit may — just may — be reversed by the people. That’s my hope anyway. Some small part of me wonders whether it isn’t Theresa May’s hope as well.

One has to wonder if Trump will get his ass chewed out by Putin for perhaps setting the stage to undo Putin's Brexit victory.  No wonder Trump doesn't want any other American present when he faces his handler/puppet master.

Justice Must Be Won at the Ballot Box

With the United States Supreme Court poised to become a reactionary, anti-civil rights, anti-minority, anti-non-Christian force in America, average Americans' last resort for justice will be the ballot box.  Judicial redress of wrongs will like  be greatly curtailed as a soon to be solid majority of reactionaries will dominate the Court and inflict the Republican Party's extremist agenda on all Americans.  Two different columns, one in the New York Times and one in the Washington Post, look at the ominous future and suggest that efforts must be made to defeat Republicans at the ballot box - just as former Republican George Will recently argued. America is now poised where it either goes down the road of fascism like Germany of the 1930's, or citizens get off their asses and act before it is too late.  First, highlights from the Times piece:

If the last few days hadn’t been dispiriting enough for those who believed the Supreme Court could still stand for reproductive freedom, equal rights for all Americans, a check on presidential power, a more humane criminal justice system and so much more, Wednesday afternoon brought the coup de grâce.

Everyone knew it was coming sooner than later, but Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, which he announced in a letter released hours after the court had issued its final rulings of the term, is still crushing. It sends a stark message to the tens of millions of Americans who have long turned to the court for the vindication of many of their most cherished rights and protections: Look somewhere else.

That place is the ballot box. So show up and vote. In the absence of a Supreme Court majority that will reliably protect human dignity, universal equality and women’s right to control their own bodies, it is up to Americans who cherish these values to elect politicians at every level of government who share them. . . . With Justice Kennedy’s departure, the court is very likely to lock in an unmoderated, hard-right majority for the rest of most of our lives.

It is a dark moment in the history of the court and the nation, and it’s about to get a lot darker. Once President Trump names his second pick and the Senate confirms that person, you can forget about new or enhanced protections for gays and lesbians, or saving the last shreds of affirmative action at public universities. Longstanding precedents are now at extreme risk.

[C]ount on more rulings that, like Monday’s decision upholding racial gerrymandering in Texas, give states the green light to cut back on voting rights, promote the rights of corporations over individuals, further erode the wall between church and state and look the other way when states cut corners and evade constitutional requirements in order to execute their citizens.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who put up that blockade [to Obama’s nominee] despite the damage it inflicted on two branches of government, is celebrating now. He knows he has an open road to confirming whomever he and the Federalist Society want on the bench. . . . any remaining sense that the court can exist apart from partisan politics is gone.

For those who face the future in fear after Wednesday, there are no easy answers — but there is a clear duty. Do not for a moment underestimate the importance of getting out and voting in November. Four years ago, only 36 percent of Americans cast ballots in the midterm elections. Had more people showed up, the Senate may well have remained in Democratic control, Mitch McConnell would not be the majority leader and Judge Merrick Garland would now be Justice Garland. In the days and months ahead, remember this.

The column in the Post makes a similar case.  Here are excerpts:

Our constitutional system of “checks and balances” works only if those in a position to operate the levers of checking and balancing do their job. It is clear that a Republican Congress and Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have no taste for such work. For the moment, President Trump is mostly unchecked and unbalanced.

[N]ow things stand to get even worse because of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement. He was, at least on some occasions, a moderating force. His replacement by another conservative hard-liner in the mold of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch would give right-wing interpretations of the law free rein.

This court’s direction was troubling enough with Kennedy there.  . . . When it comes to access to the ballot, they are pushing the nation back to the jurisprudence of the pre-civil rights era. The majority’s shameless ratification of a racial gerrymander by Texas’s Republican legislature, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissent, demonstrated its refusal to enforce the “right of equal opportunity.”

And on Wednesday, in what might be seen as a companion to the Citizens United decision that enhanced the influence of corporations on our political life, the majority voted to undercut organized labor’s ability to fight back. 

A profound mistrust of the court will only be aggravated by the contrast between its approach to the travel ban and its method in an earlier 7-to-2 ruling in favor of a baker who did not want to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.

The cake decision uses statements by a Colorado regulator critical of religion to decry “religious hostility on the part of the State itself.” The five-justice majority then turns around in the travel-ban case, as Sotomayor noted, and “completely sets aside the President’s charged statements about Muslims as irrelevant.” In the first, involving Christians, the court went out of its way to protect religious liberty. In the second, involving Muslims, it went out of its way to insist that religious-liberty concerns did not apply.

All the recent talk about civility should not stop opponents of a right-wing court from doing everything in their power to keep the judiciary from being packed with ideologues who behave as partisans.

There is nothing civil about rushing a nominee to replace Kennedy before the midterm elections. And no rule of civility demands the confirmation of justices who would leave an abusive president unchecked and use raw judicial power to roll back a century’s worth of social progress.

Get registered to vote if you are not currently registered and get to the polls and vote against Republicans at all levels.  Act as if your rights - and lives - depend on it because they just might.  Apathy and laziness have brought the nation to this nightmare crossroads. The 2018 midterm elections just might be among the most important in America's history. 

Why the White Working Class Votes Against Itself

One on the continued ironies in American politics is the way that so many white working class individuals vote Republican and in the process vote against their own economic interests.  Seemingly, this phenomenon exploded during the past election cycle when GOP appeals to hatred and bigotry towards others, especially racial minorities and immigrants.  Now, of course, we are seeing daily stories about people who Voted for Trump and other Republicans in states such as Kentucky who are now terrified that they will lose their health care coverage if the Affordable Health Care Act is repealed.  Indeed, in Virginia, many rural hospital systems in Southwest Virginia - which voted heavily for Donald Trump - could face bankruptcy.  Not only would the cretins who fell for Trump's appeals to their racism lose a healthcare resource, but their region's largest employer could cease to exist.  The GOP claims to be the party of "Christian values," but as a piece in the Washington Post underscores, much of the GOP base are motivated by racism, jealousy and resentment of others - even as they attend church each week and feign piety and allegiance to the Gospel message.  The hypocrisy and stupidity is mind numbing..  Here are column highlights: 

Why did all those Economically Anxious™ Trump voters reject policies that would have helped relieve their economic anxiety?

Maybe they believed any Big Government expansions would disproportionately go to the “wrong” kinds of people — that is, people unlike themselves.

But there seems to be universal agreement, at least among the Democratic politicians and strategists I’ve interviewed, that the party’s actual ideas are the right ones.

Democrats, they note, pushed for expansion of health-insurance subsidies for low- and middle-income Americans; investments in education and retraining; middle-class tax cuts; and a higher minimum wage. These are core, standard-of-living improving policies.

They would do far more to help the economically precarious — including and especially white working-class voters — than Donald Trump’s top-heavy tax cuts and trade wars ever could.

But the white working class doesn’t seem to buy that they’re the ones who’d really benefit.

Across rural America, the Rust Belt, Coal Country and other hotbeds of Trumpism, voters have repeatedly expressed frustration that the lazy and less deserving are getting a bigger chunk of government cheese.

Participants in this focus group, held by the Institute for Family Studies, were also skeptical of efforts to raise the minimum wage.

Opponents argued either that higher pay wasn’t justified for lower-skilled, less intense work or that raising the minimum wage would unfairly narrow the pay gap between diligent folks such as themselves and people who’d made worse life choices.

“That son of a b---- is making $10 an hour! I’m making $13.13. I feel like s--- because he’s making almost as much as I am, and I have never been in trouble with the law and I have a clean record, I can pass a drug test,” said one participant.

In Wisconsin, rural whites are similarly eager to “stop the flow of resources to people who are undeserving,” says Katherine J. Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of “The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.”

The people Cramer interviewed for her book often named a (white) welfare-receiving neighbor or relative as someone who belonged in that basket of undeservings — but also immigrants, minorities and inner-city elites who were allegedly siphoning off more government funds than they contributed.

More broadly, a recent YouGov/Huffington Post survey found that Trump voters are five times more likely to believe that “average Americans” have gotten less than they deserve in recent years than to believe that “blacks” have gotten less than they deserve. (African Americans don’t count as “average Americans,” apparently.)

Americans (A) generally associate government spending with undeserving, nonworking, nonwhite people; and (B) are really bad at recognizing when they personally benefit from government programs.

Hence those oblivious demands to “keep your government hands off my Medicare,” and the tea partyers who get farm subsidies, and the widespread opposition to expanded transfer payments in word if not in deed. Rhetoric this election cycle caricaturing our government as “rigged,” and anyone who pays into it as a chump, has only reinforced these misperceptions about who benefits from government programs and how much. . . . it’s no wonder that Trump’s promises — to re-create millions of (technologically displaced) jobs and to punish all those non-self-sufficient moochers — seem much more enticing.

Of course, these cretins are too stupid to realize that is they, rural white America that receives the lion's share of welfare and social safety net spending.  Perhaps if they turned the station from Fox News, they might get in touch with reality.  As I have said before, while I feel compassion for young children and youth who will be impacted, these voters truly deserve the worse possible misfortune because they have brought it upon themselves.  Embracing lies and ignorance is a choice.  They need to pay a horrific price. 

A Nightmare Super Tuesday for GOP Establishment

Talking with a friend who is a political junkie like me, we both concluded that the GOP establishment is finally reaping the seeds of its own destruction that have been planted over the last several decades, commencing with the welcoming of the Christofascists into the party.  Using racism as embodied in Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and rampant homophobia as demonstrated by George W. Bush's use of anti-gay constitutional amendment ballots in 2004,  the GOP establishment courted and welcomed in  the forces now rallying to Donald trump's standard.  Almost as bad for the establishment is the fact that the universally hated Ted Cruz fared second best after trump in the Super Tuesday primary sweepstakes   A piece in the Washington Post looks at the sad state of affairs.  Here are highlights:

The window for stopping Donald Trump closed almost completely Tuesday night, leaving the demoralized anti-Trump forces with two weeks and no agreed-upon strategy for denying the New York billionaire the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump pulled out victories in seven of the 11 contests that made up the biggest single primary-caucus night of the nominating season. His remaining rivals — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Gov. John Kasich — and their allies were left to cling to the flimsiest of hopes that a reversal of his fortunes still lies on the near horizon.

For Rubio, the hope of many in the establishment, Super Tuesday turned into a super disappointment. He made a run at Trump in Virginia but fell short. Late Tuesday, he was declared the winner in the Minnesota caucuses. Still, that left his win-loss record this year at 1-14. Meanwhile, he was running third in at least half the states, and in some of those states his percentage of the vote was low enough that he was in danger of winning few or no delegates.

Despite five days of relentless attacks on Trump, which started at last week’s GOP debate in Houston and carried through a raucous weekend of campaigning, Rubio was not able to deliver significant results. He scored well among late-deciding voters; in Virginia they favored him over Trump by about 20 points. But there were not enough of them to overcome the hold Trump has on anti-establishment Republicans who remain in control of the nominating battle. 

Cruz did more than enough to argue that he should become the main challenger to Trump, carrying his home state of Texas, as he had long predicted, as well as Alaska and Oklahoma. Along with his victory in the Iowa caucuses at the beginning of last month, he remained through much of Tuesday night the only Republican who could say he had defeated the party’s front-runner anywhere.

Months ago, Cruz envisioned that Super Tuesday, with its Southern flavor, would be the day he took command of the GOP nominating contest. Instead, it was the day he managed to preserve his candidacy, although he remains at a distinct disadvantage against Trump, particularly with Rubio and Kasich still in the race.
For the GOP establishment, Super Tuesday had nightmarish qualities. Not only did Trump tighten his grip on the nomination, but the only candidate who has been able to beat him more than once so far is Cruz, the nemesis of Republican congressional leaders and what the Texas senator likes to call the “Washington cartel.” In a choice between Trump and Cruz, many who could be counted as part of that establishment would be hard-pressed to declare a preference.

What is remarkable is that the anti-Trump forces only recently awoke to the reality that Trump was on track to take the nomination. Instead, Trump has awakened a voting bloc that has soured on the party leadership. As he has continued to win, his support has continued to grow.
Trump predicted Tuesday night that establishment money will come pouring in against him over the next two weeks as he seeks knockout blows against Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio. Up to now, that opposition has been scattered and inconsistent. They are loading up now for what could be one last effort to prevent something unimaginable to them when this campaign began.

Meanwhile, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin recommends that Republicans get used to the idea of Hillary Clinton in the White House in a Post column.  Here are excerpts:

As the Republican Party’s future seemed to evaporate before its eyes, Republicans might, tonight, have been more interested than usual in what Hillary Clinton, who swept six states, had to say on Super Tuesday. Chances are, barring a miraculous turnaround in one of the races or an FBI indictment, we will be seeing quite a lot of her over the next few years. Republicans should come away with a few insights:

1. Her speech-making abilities are still not on a par with many politicians, but she has improved. Her voice is more modulated, and her message is more coherent than it has ever been.

2. Her message has been handed to her on a silver (Trump-engraved platter): “It’s clear that the stakes in this election have never been higher. And the rhetoric we’re hearing on the other side has never been lower,” she said. She continued, “If we resist the forces trying to drive us apart, we can come together to make this country work for everyone.” Just a few months ago this would seem cynical, disingenuous coming from such a polarizing figure who too often demonizes her opponents. Now, who can disagree with her call for more “kindness” and her rebuke that America never stopped being great?

3. She will have the advantage, as she did tonight in pivoting to a broad-based message that will appeal to independents and liberal Republicans while satisfying her own liberal base. “Instead of building walls, we’re going to break down barriers and build ladders of opportunity and empowerment so every American can live up to his or her potential,” she said. That rather vague but feel-good message will win over plenty of voters.

4. As Republicans battle tooth and nail for the nomination and for the future of the party, Clinton will be the beneficiary. With Republican anger (properly) directed at Trump and frustration building over which of the GOP candidates should get out, she can begin to repair her own reputation. She will likely have some success — unless the FBI rains on her parade.

5. With Trump in his victory speech still prattling on about the wall, Clinton sets up a contrast that politicians can only dream of enjoying: Sanity vs. lunacy, reason vs. irrationality and decency vs. mendacity.

6. Clinton is no longer the candidate most likely to abuse power or threaten her adversaries. Most voters, Republicans especially, shiver when Trump observes, as he did Tuesday night of the speaker of the House: “I’m sure I’m going to get along with him, and if I don’t, he’s going to pay a big price.” No wonder Trump swoons over Vladimir Putin.

7. As Trump — the most divisive figure in American politics in my lifetime — declares, “I am a unifier. I would love to see the Republican Party and everybody get together and unify,” one can almost hear Clinton laughing — not the phony laugh that grates, but a deep and sincere belly laugh. Yes, she’s in all likelihood going to have the last laugh in this campaign.

The GOP establishment brought all of this nightmare on itself.  I cannot summon up a shred of sympathy for the plight they now face.  The goal is to see the GOP routed in defeat in November.

Marco Rubio Self-Destructs

If Republicans come to their senses - admittedly a very big if - they ought to latch onto John Kasich, the lone truly semi-sane occupant of the GOP clown car.  Perhaps with his second place showing in New Hampshire and the hopeful demise of some of the lower placing GOP candidates Kasich can gather strength and move to challenge the know nothing lunacy of Donald Trump whose victory speech was little more than a string of sound bites bordering on gibberish.  The best news out of New Hampshire is the hopefully permanent self-destruction of Marco Rubio and less than top showing by the very scary Ted Cruz.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Rubio's welcomed collapse.  Here are excerpts:

Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Marco Rubio knows what he’s doing.

A week ago, the youthful senator from Florida was in great shape. His surprisingly strong finish in the Iowa caucuses left him with a clear chance to consolidate mainstream Republican support — and a path to the GOP presidential nomination.

But in just a few minutes Saturday night, Rubio undid everything he had worked for during the past year — really, the past five years. His singularly disastrous debate performance, in which he repeated irrelevant, canned phrases, caused would-be supporters to flee for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and other more stable candidates.

Typically, Iowa and New Hampshire serve as proving grounds for the candidates. Voters there scrutinize the contenders, who rise and fall in the polls as various candidates gain and lose the status of front-runner. But Trump’s celebrity short-circuited the process. With Trump dominating the coverage and the polls, Iowa and New Hampshire failed to fulfill their traditional vetting roles. 

Rubio was one who never got the scrutiny. And when he emerged, blinking, into the spotlight after Iowa, voters found an empty suit. Watching him campaign last week, I wrote: “Rubio’s strong Iowa finish has brought new attention — and overcapacity crowds — in New Hampshire. But the would-be supporters are greeted by a robot.”

He had seemed to be a good debater — but with 10 or more candidates crowding the stage in early debates, he didn’t have to go far beyond canned lines. On Saturday, exposed to withering attacks from rival Chris Christie, a former prosecutor, Rubio suffered what was perhaps the most memorable lapse at the presidential level since Edmund Muskie appeared to weep in the New Hampshire snow in 1972.

The reviews were savage, and then, on Monday night, RubioBot malfunctioned again.

Exit polls left little doubt that Rubio’s glitches ruined his prospects in New Hampshire. Two-thirds said the debates were important, and of the nearly half of GOP voters who made choices in the last few days, Kasich did far better than Rubio.

The results also left Republicans, once again, without a consensus alternative to Trump — and with dwindling hope of finding one. Had Rubio received scrutiny earlier, voters might have been able to find a candidate who didn’t wilt in the spotlight. But Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t serve their functions this time. Trump got in the way.

"Marcobot" Struggles to Find His Footing

Things seemingly have been going to Hell in a hand basket for Marco Rubio over the last week.  Rubio started out the past week cocky after a 3rd place finish in Iowa. Perhaps it was a case of pride going before fall.  For icing on the cake, Northern Virginia lunatic and gad fly Eugene Delgaudio is (pictured above) now assailing Rubio accusing him of being part of the "Homosexual Lobby" in light of Rubio's  support from pro-gay billionaire Paul Singer.  A piece in Politico looks at Rubio's possibly tettering campaign.  Here are excerpts:

He was supposed to be giving Donald Trump a run for his money. Instead, Marco Rubio could be on the verge of blowing it.

With just hours before New Hampshire begins voting, Rubio looked dead on his feet, delivering the “low-energy” performance Trump has so effectively attached to Jeb Bush. 

We face a critical moment,” Rubio told a group of more than two-dozen BAE employees. “I tell anyone who will listen, 2016 will be a turning point for America.”

New Hampshire could be a turning point in his candidacy, as well.

Rubio was expected to finish second here, propelled by a strong third-place showing in Iowa. His biggest goal — trounce Jeb Bush and force some of the establishment lane candidates to drop out in order to consolidate support and poach donors from other camps.

But after a week of getting repeatedly beaten up — first by his Republican opponents for giving a canned stump speech and not engaging with the press, and then for his dismal debate performance Saturday — it’s unclear he’ll be able to best Sen. Ted Cruz or the cadre of governors like John Kasich, who have spent significant time campaigning here.

And the donors who had been looking favorably at Rubio's camp have become less enthusiastic after his debate performance Saturday, when he froze up and awkwardly repeated one of his talking points on President Barack Obama's agenda to change the country.

Excuse me if I refrain from getting out a tiny violin for Marco.