Category Archives: 2020 General Election

2020 General Election, Democrats, Republicans

Should Joe Biden and the Democrats welcome help from GOP Never Trumpers to defeat the President?

“It is possible for Biden to beat Trump without attracting many conservative votes. But it is not possible for him to win in a giant landslide without winning moderate conservative votes.” — Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes in “The Revenge of the Never Trumpers.”

That’s a Yes.

Moreover, a landslide will help deliver the Senate to Democrats — and the more victories in 2020, the more secure the Democratic majority will be after inevitable defeats in less favorable election cycles in the future.

A number of folks on the left side of the political spectrum have criticized the Lincoln Project and John Kasich’s prime time role at the Democratic convention. The most substantive objection is that, somehow, Republican Never Trumpers might gain undue influence over Joe Biden’s agenda, moving him toward a hawkish foreign policy, and away from health care expansion and increases in the corporate tax rate.

I don’t buy it. If a Biden win brings a new Democratic majority to the Senate, it will be the influence of conservative Democratic senators — not Republicans and former-Republicans who joined Democrats in opposing Trump — that shape the breadth and reach of his policy successes in 2021.

Besides — Biden hasn’t won the election. There are 98 days to go until November 3. A lot can happen — and will. Rejecting disaffected conservatives from a broad Biden coalition is foolish.

(Photograph: Voters in line to cast ballots in California’s March 2020 primary.)

2020 General Election, Democracy, Donald Trump

Donald Trump escalates cultural war to divide Americans as the 2020 election looms

Three big issues confront the country right now: the coronavirus epidemic, which rages out of control in the United States; the stalled economy, with businesses shuttered and millions unemployed, that the epidemic has brought; and protests across the country that have shifted Americans’ attitudes (at least for a time) regarding deeply rooted racial injustices.

Regarding the first and foremost issue, the President made one reference to the virus in his speech – in the fourth paragraph, wedged between thank yous to “the very talented Blue Angels,” and to the two Republican senators and the Republican Congressman from South Dakota. “Let us also send our deepest thanks to our wonderful veterans, law enforcement, first responders, and the doctors, nurses, and scientists working tirelessly to kill the virus.  They’re working hard.”

Apart from the phrase, “working hard,” Trump didn’t reference the economy at all, much less the economic hardship Americans confront right now.

Regarding the reckoning over race, the President stood fast with his base, (mostly white) folks who are culturally anxious about demographic change in America, and rigidly opposed to predominantly young, multiethnic street protesters who welcome change. The President’s remarks validated the separation of Americans into these two camps, and extolled one and vilified the other.

Trump takes the stage at Mount Rushmore: PBS.

THE PRESIDENT: … as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.

Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.  Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing.  They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive.  But no, the American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our country, and all of its values, history, and culture, to be taken from them.  (Applause.)

AUDIENCE:  USA!  USA!  USA!

THE PRESIDENT:   One of their political weapons is “Cancel Culture” — driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.  This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.  (Applause.)  This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly.  We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life.  (Applause.)

In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.  If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished.  It’s not going to happen to us.  (Applause.)

Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.  In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress.

To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.

[White House transcript; emphasis added.]

Confederate battle flag: Wikipedia.

Should there be any doubt that champions of the Confederacy (who, in defense of their right to own slaves, waged war against the United States of America) are to be remembered as part of “our national heritage,” the President has done his best to offer confirmation.

Trump opposes renaming Fort Bragg and other military bases named after Confederate Army officers, and removing Confederate statues and monuments.

He demands that the only prominent Black driver in NASCAR apologize, though he doesn’t say what he should apologize for, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEneny doesn’t know either.

He threatens to undermine a rule designed to end residential segregation.

He tweets a video of a Trump supporter calling out, “White power.”

He asserts that a sign proclaiming, ‘Black Lives Matter’ is “a symbol of hate.”

Trump is waging a cultural war against an internal enemy. It’s us vs. them. Just in case the sides weren’t clear enough, he namechecks the opposition party. “The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats, in every case, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions.”

 While Trump’s address at Mount Rushmore is crafted in a way that appears, in places, as a call for unity, that’s rhetorical gaslighting. The point is to divide: “In the face of lies meant to divide us, demoralize us, and diminish us, we will show that the story of America unites us, inspires us, includes us all, and makes everyone free.” And, as we can see from the broader context (the Trump we see and hear every day, not just on July Fourth when he reads from a teleprompter) – from Trump’s leading role in the birther conspiracy to his tweet celebrating racially offensive names for NFL and MLB teams, the animus toward Black people (past and present), people of color, and their allies, is abundantly clear.

The subtext is racial. And the folks cheering him on in the Black Hills of South Dakota understand perfectly well what he is communicating. (CSA! CSA! CSA!) From Mitch McConnell to Bill Barr to John Roberts – every Republican in Washington understands perfectly well what he is communicating.

Richard Nixon developed the Southern Strategy, but ran as a centrist (wedged between Humphrey and Wallace) in 1968, as someone who could calm the country. Pat Buchanan wrote a memo to Nixon in 1971 that recommended ways to exploit racial tensions among Democrats. They could, he wrote, “cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.”

Donald Trump — determined to split the country in half — has amplified fear, hostility, and racial conflict more openly than any president in my lifetime (post-WWII) has done. In 2020, Joe Biden and his multiracial coalition may well claim “the larger half.”

So I hope.

(Image of the shackles at the feet of the Statue of Liberty: National Park Service. “In 1886, The Statue of Liberty was a symbol of democratic government and Enlightenment ideals as well as a celebration of the Union’s victory in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery.“)

2020 General Election, Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans

The Trump Roadshow pretends there is no raging pandemic and no rising death toll

Donald Trump is on the move. Tulsa. Phoenix. And coming soon to Mount Rushmore, where he will celebrate the 4th.

Meanwhile, the number of new coronavirus infections reported across the U.S. yesterday — 38,115 — was a record high since the start of the pandemic. The number of infections in this country totals more than 2.3 million and the death toll exceeds 119,000. I recommend the interactive feature in this morning’s New York Times, which illustrates in vivid animation the relentless spread of this virus.

“Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count,” June 25, 2020 New York Times.

In March, the President, failing to apprehend the reference to Nero fiddling while Rome burned, retweeted a cartoon image of himself playing the violin.

Ignoring the pandemic; willfully refusing to do anything to tame it (except for persistent wishing); pretending that if we just all go back to work and out to shop, all will be well — this is hardly a promising reelection strategy. But that seems to be Trump’s game plan. And, by all accounts, that — winning reelection, not defeating the coronavirus — is Trump’s fixation.

That’s a remarkable testament to Trump’s intellectual incapacity, moral depravity, and unfitness for the office he holds.

More significant than a stupid, self-defeating strategy is that people continue to die. Tens of thousands who didn’t have to die. This is a national tragedy as a result of a monumental failure of leadership. We can see this clearly in the contrast between the U.S. and the European Union. The EU has begun to tame this virus; we haven’t. It’s getting worse here.

Meet the Press, June 21, 2020.

Trump is incapable — relying on his gut and his small, threadbare bag of tricks — of defeating the coronavirus. So, having failed to wish it away, he ignores it.

Here’s what’s even more significant: The contemporary Republican Party is complicit in this ongoing catastrophe. Republican leaders have made a deal in getting behind Trump, and standing behind him come what may.

The failures of Trump’s tenure in the White House are clearly visible. The consequences can’t be hidden or wished away. And among the national Republican leadership, there are plenty of men and women who see well enough what is going on.

And they’re going along with this. They stick with Trump no matter what the consequences. No matter how many hundreds of thousands of Americans get infected needlessly, and no matter how many tens of thousands of Americans die as a result of Trump’s failures — they stick with him. They have freely entered into a pact that they are unwilling to break.

They made a cold, hard calculation to follow Trump because it kept them in power, gave them tax cuts, shredded regulations, and allowed them to stack the federal courts with right-wing ideologues. And the fact that their bargain has brought pain and suffering and death in numbers that are stomach turning — that, in their minds, doesn’t outweigh the political benefits of the deal.

There is so much that is indecent about this President. There’s so much to be distressed and angry about. Day after day, the cases of coronavirus increase and the death toll mounts. It’s disheartening and infuriating and disturbing to watch senators, members of Congress and the cabinet, advisors in the White House — the whole lot of defenders and apologists for Trump — accept the sickness, the pain and suffering, and the deaths of Americans because, in their minds, what they’ve gained outweighs the devastation that their political bargain has brought to the rest of the country.

(Image: Mount Rushmore in the fog, National Park Service.)

2020 General Election, Democracy

Protesting is powerful, but voting is critical to achieving victory in a democracy

I love this Jonathan Bernstein column (“Voting Is Essential. It Is Also Overrated”), though I disagree with the suggestion, even at a time when street protests have swept the country and appear to have shifted public opinion nationally, that voting is overrated. Beyond the provocative headline:

Is voting the fundamental act of democracy? It’s a fundamental act — but hardly the only one. It’s no more basic than protest marches, campaign rallies, board meetings of organized interest groups, donations to candidates and groups, seminars at think tanks, press reports of city council meetings, lobbying, interactions within a party network, and so on.

Bernstein argues that

voting is only a limited part of how a self-governing republic works. It’s a reminder that anyone who really wants to be in the business of republican governing needs to find ways of getting involved beyond being just a voter, whether it’s through social movements, organized interest groups, political parties, or more than one of these.

It’s the interactions of those groups and elected officials that set the agenda for government action and fill in the details; it’s also those groups, along with the mass media, that create and change public opinion, which in turn changes what elected officials and others in government choose to do. That’s where much of the richness and texture of self-government are really found, not in voting booths.

I thought of this richly textured milieu when reading yesterday’s Los Angeles Times (“Rein in police unions, some labor allies say”):

It was a far cry from “defund the police,” but the response was severe anyway. In 2019, Steve Fletcher, a first-term member of the Minneapolis City Council, decided to oppose a budget proposal to add more officers to the Police Department.

Business owners soon started calling Fletcher, who represents part of downtown, complaining of slow police responses to 911 calls about shoplifting. Store owners told Fletcher the officers who eventually responded had a message: “We’d love to help you with this, but our hands are tied by the council; talk to your council member,” Fletcher said in an interview.

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis declined to comment for the LA Times story; the Minneapolis Police Department denied there had been a deliberate slowdown. But, in fact, slowdowns – ‘work-to-rule’ – are a familiar tactic among public and private-sector unions. And law enforcement unions are among the most powerful labor groups in the country. California’s pension gap – a gargantuan issue for cities and counties, as well as the state – began with an extravagantly generous pension deal for the California Highway Patrol in 1999, during the second term (before he was recalled from office) of Democratic Governor Gray Davis. And candidates in both parties, in nonpartisan races, and at every level (and not just in California) covet the contributions and endorsements of law enforcement, which are touted in campaign fliers, direct mail, and radio, TV, and online advertising.

Police officers, who carry guns and badges (as well as billy clubs, rubber bullets, tasers, and chemical sprays), are more powerful than most individuals. Collectively, they are even stronger. Like the thuggish leadership of the NRA, police unions often seem to overplay their hands. (An example from the Washington Post: ‘the leader of the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation, Bob Kroll, has called the protests convulsing the city a “terrorist movement”; told officers that “the politicians are to blame” for the rioting and the police “are the scapegoats”; and described Floyd as a “violent criminal.” He has also fostered political division in the largely Democratic city; at one point, the union sold “Cops for Trump” T-shirts to raise money for charity.’) Then again (like the NRA), law enforcement unions are so well entrenched that they are accustomed to getting what they want. Niceties such as work-to-rule are overshadowed by episodes of police violence directed against protesters and journalists (and by contrasting instances where “the protesters had to deescalate the police”).

Street protests

For 23 days and counting, following the murder of George Floyd, there have been demonstrations in streets across the country (and abroad) protesting police brutality and, especially, police killings of black men. Young people have led and participated in large numbers in these protests (“These Kids Are Done Waiting for Change”).

In real life, Nya Collins, Jade Fuller, Kennedy Green, Emma Rose Smith, Mikayla Smith and Zee Thomas had never met as a group when they came together on Twitter to organize a youth march against police violence. It was unseasonably hot, even for Middle Tennessee, with rain predicted, and earlier protests here had ended in violence, with the Metro Nashville Courthouse and City Hall in flames. Collectively, these are not the most promising conditions for gathering a big crowd, much less a calm one. But the teenagers were determined to press on, even if hardly anyone showed up.

On June 4, five days later, the founding members of Teens for Equality — as the young women, ages 14 to 16, call their organization — were leading a march of protesters some 10,000 strong, according to police estimates. “I was astonished,” Kennedy Green, 14, told me in a phone interview last week. “I did not know there were that many people in Nashville who actually see a problem with the system. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, there are so many people here who actually care.’”

The sustained demonstrations, day after day, have been regarded as extraordinary expressions of energy and commitment to end violence directed against black Americans by police officers sworn to protect our communities. It has been exhausting, even for young people (“Young Protesters Say Voting Isn’t Enough. Will They Do It Anyway?“).

“I’m tired. I’m literally tired. I’m tired of having to do this,” said Aalayah Eastmond, 19, who survived the 2018 massacre at her high school in Parkland, Fla., became a gun control advocate, saw many legislative efforts stall — and is now organizing protests in Washington over police violence against fellow black Americans.

And political activism can be frustrating:

The deaths of black people at the hands of law enforcement. The relentless creep of climate change. Recurring economic uncertainty — this time amid a pandemic exacerbated by missteps across the federal government.

“In an ideal world, all of these issues would be solved by going out and voting,” said Zoe Demkovitz, 27, who had supported Mr. Sanders’s presidential campaign, as she marched against police violence in Philadelphia. “I tried that. I voted for the right people.”

“And this,” she concluded, adding an expletive, “still happens.”

I thoroughly agree with Bernstein that political activism is “where much of the richness and texture of self-government are really found, not voting booths,” but I don’t accept at all that

voting by itself is … well, it’s not useless, but it’s a blunt instrument that can’t really do much. A vote can’t tell the government to reform the police force, let alone give specific instructions about how to do that or any other complex task. It can’t tell the winning candidate to lower taxes, or negotiate a trade treaty with China, or make abortion illegal or marijuana legal.

All it can really do is either throw the bums out or keep them in office. And that’s not a defect with the way that elections work in the U.S. It’s inherent in the nature of voting in mass electorates. 

It takes a blunt instrument to get the attention of people in power. Throwing the bums out (or not) is powerful. Even Mitch McConnell’s caucus is scurrying for cover. It may not be much, but they’re hoping their reform proposal puts them on the right side of this issue with voters. It’s because McConnell may lose his majority at the polls in November that he has bothered with even the pretext of doing anything about police violence.

Moreover, street protests are a blunt instrument. Staging a sit-in is a blunt instrument. Giving money to – or volunteering for – a candidate or a group pushing for change is a blunt instrument. Showing solidarity with a police union is a blunt instrument. For most political activists, all we have is blunt instruments. And we had better be prepared to exercise our right to vote (and encourage our community allies to do likewise) or wielding the other blunt instruments of self-government won’t amount to much.

I agree with Barack Obama, who has begun to speak out more often as the November elections grow nearer:

I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.

Young protesters and millions of Americans embrace ending police violence against black Americans as a compelling goal. But not everyone is on board. This is a struggle to increase accountability for a powerful group. Labor unions are not in the business of increasing accountability at the expense of job security. So of course police unions stand in opposition to this agenda, but they are hardly the most significant sources of opposition.

Add Donald Trump; Trump’s voting base; the political party that controls the White House, the Supreme Court, the U.S. Senate, and a majority of governorships and state legislatures. And as Democrats press the issue, police reform will inevitably become more partisan, with reflexive opposition from nearly half the country.

Jim Crow came into existence at the end of reconstruction in 1877 and stretched well into the mid-1960s. But, as we have seen with the aggressive voter suppression strategies of the Republican Party, the 1965 Voting Rights Bill was only an ephemeral victory. And as we have seen in recent years, in a flood of videos of the police shooting and strangling black men, racist violence — often with deadly consequences — is alive and well in America.

While recent polling suggests support for Black Lives Matter (such as a Pew survey that found: “67% of Americans say they strongly (38%) or somewhat (29%) support the Black Lives Matter movement, while smaller shares (31%) oppose the movement”), this can’t be regarded as a game changer. Folks had better be prepared to get out and vote if this agenda is going to continue to advance. We must “elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.”

(‘All Black Lives Matter’ painting of Hollywood Boulevard as seen on ABC7 Los Angeles.)

2020 General Election, Democracy, Republicans

GOP will gladly accept an extended contested election — if they think it may help them win it

“No one wants the uncertainty of an extended contested election with complaints like those we heard about the recent Wisconsin primary or the Iowa caucuses in February.”

No one? Suppose Mitch McConnell were offered a choice: a free and fair election (that Democrats likely win) or a contentious argument with weeks or months of turmoil about a result that is finally decided (perhaps by the United States Supreme Court) in Republicans’ favor. Does anyone doubt the choice he makes?

How about Kevin McCarthy? Or Bill Barr? Brian Kemp, Robin Vos, Kris Kobach? What would be the preference of John Roberts, whose career in restricting voting rights stretches back to 1982?

The consensus among Republicans in Washington, and in state houses across the country, would be to make the choice that Mitch McConnell would make. The GOP is committed to winning any way it can. Free and fair be damned.

That stark fact – that Republicans don’t hesitate to cheat to win elections – is why the report (“Fair Elections During a Crisis: Urgent Recommendations in Law, Media, Politics, and Tech to Advance the Legitimacy of, and the Public’s Confidence in, the November 2020 U.S. Elections”) by an ad hoc committee put together by Richard Hasen is going to win favor with good government groups and with Democratic leaders, but not with the leadership of the Republican Party.

Jonathan Bernstein’s commentary (“How to Hold a Fair Election in November”) – in which the quoted sentence appears – provides context, describes the report’s overall strategy (ensuring “a diversity of avenues for voting”), and recommends both the report and Hasen’s recent book (Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy).

I’m on board with the thrust of Bernstein’s post. Richard Hasen has been sounding the alarm regarding the threats to free and fair elections for many years. Voting is under attack and Hasen is well-qualified to offer viable reforms to ensure the integrity of the process and to boost Americans’ faith in elections. The coronavirus pandemic, exacerbated by Donald Trump’s abdication of responsibility, is yet another threat.

However, although the sentiment expressed in the quotation above is virtually de rigueur for an op-ed advocating democratic reform, we can’t count on it. Republicans are convinced – and have been for decades – that restricting voting turnout is good for them. In 1980 Paul Weyrich, during the fall campaign for Ronald Reagan, mocked “the goo-goo syndrome – good government,” arguing that “our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up, as the voting populace goes down.” From the Brooks Brothers riot to Wisconsin’s recent election, we see that this is an enduring calculation.

And that’s not all: Republicans benefit when Americans are bitterly divided and when government is discredited. An extended contested election – win or lose – redounds to the advantage of Republicans.

[Photo of poster by Robbie Conal.]

2020 General Election, Donald Trump

Presidential Priority: Meat on the table. Collateral Damage: Low wage workers, mostly minorities and Democrats

Report (from the Washington Post via the House Education and Labor Committee):

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday evening compelling meat processors to remain open to head off shortages in the nation’s food supply chains, despite mounting reports of plant worker deaths due to covid-19.” . . .

Trump alluded to the plan Tuesday morning during an Oval Office meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “We’re going to sign an executive order today, I believe,” Trump said. “It was a very unique circumstance because of liability.” He did not elaborate. . . .

Tyson Foods video.

Response from John Tyson, Chairman Tyson Foods: “The food supply chain is breaking.”

Tyson Foods photo.

Response from Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds: “The reality is that we cannot stop this virus. It will remain in our communities until a vaccine is available. Instead we must learn to live with coronavirus activity without letting it govern our lives.”

Furthermore:

“If you’re an employer and you offer to bring your employee back to work and they decide not to, that’s a voluntary quit. Reynolds said Friday. “Therefore, they would not be eligible for the unemployment money.”

Smithfield Foods video.

Response from Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, “If these meat plants can’t be held liable, there is no reason for them to take measures to ensure workers are safe. . . . If workers stop showing up, what are they going to do? Enact a draft? This is insane. If these workers are essential, protect them. They are treating workers like fungible widgets instead of human beings.”

Even a casual review of the videos and photographs on the Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods websites reveals that men and women are working in close quarters. During a pandemic, that’s a risky business. But not for Donald Trump (or Mike Pence or Governor Reynolds).

ABC News video.

The President, as Catherine Rampell observed last week (“Trump has almost nothing to lose. That’s why he wants to reopen the economy.”), has relied on a “But the economy” pitch for reelection. That’s gone now. But he’s willing to gamble with other people’s lives on the slim chance that he might get the economy back by November 3.

David Frum sums up this political calculation:

Propublica published a list of seven things that the experts recommended before America can open safely and up in have been done and none of those things will be done any time soon. There’s no contact tracing. And the United States cannot stay locked down indefinitely. That’s the one thing that the resident said is true. I don’t think the President and people like Governor Kemp are consciously planning this, but they’re removing all the alternatives to the only policy that is going to remain this time six weeks from now or eight weeks from now. Which is they’re moving toward the policy of what’s — “let’s take the punch.”

He’ll reopen and see what happens. Let’s accept that there may be hundreds of thousands, or some double hundreds of thousands, of Americans killed. They’re going to be mostly poor and minorities, mostly not going to be Trump voters. Let’s take that punch and push through and try to get to herd immunity as fast as possible.

I don’t think the President quite processes it quite that rationally, but maybe Governor Kemp does. I suspect Governor Desantis probably does. But that’s where with they’re going. When you don’t prepare any alternatives the only plan left available to you is the plan that you have and the plan that they’re working to is take the punch, let people take the casualties casualties. They’re mostly minorities and non-Trump voters.

Does anyone expect to see Vice President Mike Pence walk the assembly line at a meat packing plant — with or without a mask?

[Photo above headline: Smithfield Foods’ “Our COVID-19 Response” video.]

Update: “Nearly 900 employees, 40 percent of the workforce, at a Tyson Foods pork-processing plant in Indiana have tested positive for the coronavirus.”

2020 General Election, Republicans

Vote by mail requirements present many enticing opportunities for voter suppression

Six key swing states — Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — permit voters to cast mail-in ballots for any reason. Nonetheless, Ronald Brownstein notes (“The Most Important 2020 States Already Have Vote by Mail”), there is still much room for partisan disagreement in the coming months, as Democrats push to make voting simpler and easier, while Republicans oppose such efforts (even though in states that permit voting by mail — such as Arizona — Republicans may cast most of the mail-in ballots). Among the stickiest issues:

Partisan conflicts could erupt over how exactly citizens can request absentee ballots (many don’t allow them to do so online); whether the state will pay the postage to return the ballot (Michigan, Florida, and Pennsylvania are among those that don’t); and whether, amid the outbreak, states should still require voters to obtain witness signatures before submitting their ballot (as North Carolina and Wisconsin, among others, do). “Probably … tens of thousands of people will have difficulty getting those witnesses,” Morris said.

The most contentious subject will be the standards used to judge which ballots are rejected, particularly on the grounds that a voter’s signature doesn’t match records on file.

Daniel A. Smith, a University of Florida political scientist, has found that mail ballots in that state from young people and minorities are rejected at higher rates than those from older people and white voters—a dynamic that has obvious benefits for Republicans. In some states, Weiser noted, the election officials determining whether to accept a ballot can see on their screen the age and partisan affiliation of the voter they are assessing. Stewart told me he anticipates “a lot of litigation about the rejection of absentee ballots.” [My emphasis.]

This could be decisive in one or more battleground states. Imagine, hypothetically, a case going before the U.S. Supreme Court. A voter’s mail-in ballot has been disqualified because her signature doesn’t match — according to the county election officer, who happens to be a Republican — the signature on the envelope containing the ballot. The voter, who happens to be African American, has filed an affidavit attesting that the signature is hers, and the ballot that she cast is inside the sealed envelope. Suppose hundreds or thousands of additional voters from Democratic areas have had their ballots disqualified based on their signatures.

Recall that the Republican majority in the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision stopped local officials from counting ballots in Florida in 2000, giving the election to the Republican candidate for president. Suppose in our hypothetical that a ruling in favor of the voters who wish their votes to be counted, would likely tip the state to Joe Biden, while a ruling in favor of the local official would likely tip the state to Donald Trump: how likely is it that the Republican majority on the current Court would decide in favor of voters?

This past week in Wisconsin, mostly Democratic voters did not receive the mail-in ballots soon enough to vote by mail. The Court’s majority found that the right to vote was of lesser importance than a “narrow, technical question” of the law. Suppose such a scenario plays out in November. Suppose, even, that Republican election officials are suspected of either slow-walking the process or simply find themselves unprepared to meet the demand for mail-in ballots? How likely is it that the Republican majority on the Supreme Court would side with voters and against local officials?

Signature requirements – and the possibility of failures by state and local government, including deliberate failures – are huge red flags for anyone who supposes that Republicans are ready and willing to cheat, if necessary, to win an election.

(Image from New York Times‘ Retro Report on Florida in 2000 on YouTube.)

2020 Democratic Primary, 2020 General Election, Democrats

“There’s only one moral imperative … and that is to beat Donald Trump” — James Carville

“There is only one moral imperative in this country right now and that is to beat Donald Trump. That’s the only moral imperative. It’s the only thing I wanna hear.” — James Carville, insisting that Democrats need to stop talking about “stuff that is not relevant,” … “goofy stuff,” … “exotic positions,” and address the pragmatic concerns of American voters, reflecting “the struggles that people go through…”

Then Claire McCaskill prompted these observations:

“We gotta decide what we wanna be. Do we want to be an ideological cult? Or do we want to have a majoritarian instinct to be a majority party?

I know where you stand, Senator, since you had to run in a Red State.”

“Right,” replies McCaskill.

“So, again, you and I know that 18% of the country elects 52 Senators. And the urban core is not gonna get it done.

What we need is power. You understand, that’s what this is about. Without power you have nothing. You just have talking points.”

Carville (convinced that a Bernie Sanders’ nomination, even if he won the White House, would likely result in Mitch McConnell keeping his majority in the Senate, in which case a Democratic president could get nothing done) believes that a candidate with appeal outside the urban areas (where most Democrats, especially those on the left side of the party, are clustered) would be more likely to lead to a big victory — including taking back the Senate. Note, in contrast to many ‘centrist’ critics of Sanders, Carville (a self-described liberal) is a fan of Elizabeth Warren and was rooting for her to get her campaign back on track.

2020 General Election, Donald Trump, Short & Sweet ... Short & Sour

Trump Job Approval at Personal Best 49%. Rising rating due to Republicans and independents – Gallup

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has risen to 49%, his highest in Gallup polling since he took office in 2017.

The new poll finds 50% of Americans disapproving of Trump, leaving just 1% expressing no opinion. The average percentage not having an opinion on Trump has been 5% throughout his presidency.

Trump’s approval rating has risen because of higher ratings among both Republicans and independents. His 94% approval rating among Republicans is up six percentage points from early January and is three points higher than his previous best among his fellow partisans. The 42% approval rating among independents is up five points, and ties three other polls as his best among that group. Democratic approval is 7%, down slightly from 10%.

The 87-point gap between Republican and Democratic approval in the current poll is the largest Gallup has measured in any Gallup poll to date, surpassing the prior record, held by Trump and Barack Obama, by one point. — Gallup, “Trump Job Approval at Personal Best 49%,” February 4, 2020

Never mind impeachment or the Iowa Democratic Party’s debacle or tonight’s State of the Union message. The most significant political news of the day is public opinion as measured by that Gallup survey.

2020 General Election, Democracy, Donald Trump

Five Takeaways following the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings

I. Putin’s authorship of the “Russia hoax.” II. Distinguishing a national security foreign policy channel and a channel dedicated to a domestic political errand. III. Closing statements from Ranking Member Nunes and Chairman Schiff. IV. What pushed Schiff to impeachment. V. Will Hurd can’t justify impeachment, as Justin Amash tries to nudge him in that direction.

I. In her opening statement before the committee, Fiona Hill, former Deputy Assistant to the President Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs, noted with dismay that Republicans on the committee, in denying Russian interference in the 2016 election, were fulfilling Vladimir Putin’s stratagem to weaken our country:

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.

The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined.

U.S. support for Ukraine—which continues to face armed Russian aggression—has been politicized.

The Russian government’s goal is to weaken our country—to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.

I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.

As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016.

These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.

I respect the work that this Congress does in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities, including in this inquiry, and I am here to help you to the best of my ability. If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention. But we must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm.”

II. In response to a question from minority counsel Steve Castor, Dr. Hill responded with a succinct delineation of the two policy channels the Trump administration was pursuing. After acknowledging her anger at Ambassador Sondland, she continued:

“And what I was angry about was that he wasn’t coordinating with us. I now actually realize, having listened to his deposition, that he was absolutely right. That he wasn’t coordinating with us because we weren’t doing the same thing that he was doing.

So I was upset with him that he wasn’t fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. And he said to me: “But I’m briefing the president. I’m briefing Chief of staff Mulvaney. I’m briefing Secretary Pompeo. And I’ve talked to Ambassador Bolton. Who else do I have to deal with?”

And the point is, we have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine. It includes Mr. Holmes. It includes Ambassador Taylor as the chargé in Ukraine. It includes a whole load of other people. But it struck me when—yesterday—when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland’s emails, and who was on these emails and he said, “These the people need to know,” that he was absolutely right. Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand. And we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged. 

So he was correct.

And I had not put my finger on that at the moment, but I was irritated with him and angry with him that he wasn’t fully coordinating. And I did say to him, Ambassador Sondland—Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up. And here we are.

And after I left to my next meeting, our director for the European Union talked to him much further for a full half-hour or more later, trying to ask him about how we could coordinate better or how others could coordinate better after I had left the office. And his feeling was that the National Security Council was always trying to block him.

What we were trying to do was block us from straying into domestic or personal politics. And that was precisely what I was trying to do.

But Ambassador Sondland is not wrong that he had been given a different remit than we had been.

And it was at that moment that I started to realize how those things have diverged. And I realized, in fact, that I wasn’t really being fair to Ambassador Sondland because he was carrying out what he thought he had been instructed to carry out. And we were doing something that we thought was just as or perhaps even more important, but it wasn’t in the same channel.”

III. Mr. Nunes, in his closing statement, offered a timeline that made no reference to any testimony from the public hearings over the past two weeks. Replete with references to the Steele dossier, a coup, “the Russia hoax,” “the so-called whistleblower,” “secret depositions and mid-hearing press conferences,” and “a show trial,” the gentleman from California condemned Democrats, the media, executive branch officials, James Comey, and the FBI, and complained that tyranny of the majority had led to “a process that was grossly unfair.”

Throughout the hearings, as Adam Schiff noted, Republicans attempted to smear and demean witnesses, while failing to raise substantive questions about their testimony. Witness after witness offered accounts without any refutation. In the words of the chairman, “So much of this is really undisputed.”

Mr. Schiff then reviewed and knocked down the various ‘defenses’ Republicans have offered for Trump, and finally lands on the I’m-not-a-crook defense (which comes to the fore because Donald Trump spoke the words, “No quid pro quo”):

“You said it and, I guess, that’s the end of it.

Well, the only thing we can say is that it’s not so much that this situation is different in terms of Nixon’s conduct and Trump’s conduct. What we have seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters. What we’re talking about here is the withholding of recognition in that White House meeting. The withholding of military aid to an ally at war. That is beyond anything that Nixon did.

The difference between then and now is not the difference between Nixon and Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one.

And so, we are asking, where is Howard Baker? Where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who willing to go beyond their party? To look to their duty? I was struck by Colonel Vindman’s testimony because he said that he acted out of duty. What is our duty here? That’s what we need to be asking.”

IV. Mr. Schiff concluded his statement with words about why he could “resist no more” the calls for an impeachment inquiry:

“It came down to the fact that the day after Bob Mueller testified. The day after Bob Mueller testified that Donald Trump invited Russian interference: Hey, Russia, if you’re listening, come get Hillary’s emails. And later that day, they tried to hack her server.

The day after he testified that not only did Trump invite that interference, but that he welcomed the help in the campaign. They made full use of it. They lied about it. They obstructed the investigation into it. And all this is in his testimony and his report.

The day after that Donald Trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another U.S. election.

That says to me, this President believes he is above the law. Beyond accountability. And in my view there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law. And I would just say to people watching here at home and around the world, in the words of my great colleague, ‘We are better than that.’ “

By the time he reaches the last four sentences of his remarks (finally concluding by quoting the late Elijah Cummings), and gavels the hearing to a close, Mr. Schiff is visibly angry.

V. Will Hurd, who is leaving the House without seeking reelection and is the lone Republican on the panel who was regarded as a possible vote to send Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, rejected that course of action on Friday:

“An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear, and unambiguous. And it’s not something to be rushed or taken lightly. I’ve not heard evidence proving the President committed bribery or extortion.”

His colleague Justin Amash, who has left the Republican Party, offered a reply that is highly unlikely to resonate with any current Republican Members of Congress:

“With respect, my friend @HurdOnTheHill applies the wrong standard. House impeachment is an indictment, not a conviction. The question in the House is whether there is probable cause to charge President Trump with an impeachable offense. The answer to that question is clearly yes. “