Category Archives: 2020 General Election

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

“We may very well have crossed the Rubicon here.” — Congressman Adam Schiff

(Click on the hyperlink immediately above for a video of the exchange.)

Congressman Schiff, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has been in sync with Speaker of the House Pelosi in resisting the impeachment of President Trump. (As he says in the video clip, “There is no chance of our persuading the Senate — the Senate Republicans — in an impeachment trial. They have shown their willingness to carry the President’s baggage no matter how soiled its contents.”)

“But if the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit — that is, providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign — then that may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that that conduct represents.”

If Trump (and Giuliani — and others in the Executive Branch) have done what has been alleged (and Trump and his personal attorney have come close to admitting it), then the President has used the powers of his office to undermine the upcoming election. That’s a fundamental assault on our democracy. (“This seems different in kind,” in Schiff’s words.)

I agree with Tom Nichols that “If this isn’t impeachable, nothing is,” though there were ample grounds for impeachment before this came to light. David Leonhardt provides an impressive checklist.

But the fundamental calculus of whether or not to impeach hasn’t changed.

I have resisted arguments for impeachment chiefly because there is no chance of persuading Senate Republicans to put the country and the Constitution above partisanship and the GOP. Impeachment by the House followed by acquittal in the Senate would fail to hold Trump accountable. The man will be booted from the White House, if at all, through defeat in November 2020. (As Adam Schiff has stated previously, “2020 is unquestionably the only way he gets removed from office.”)

November 2020 is critical. Doing whatever we can to defeat Trump is a moral imperative. The primary question is, as it has always been (since Senate Republicans will not do the right thing): Does impeachment make Trump’s defeat more or less likely?

Brian Beutler has written, “The only defensible case against impeaching a president like Trump is a prudential one.” An advocate for impeachment, Beutler is decidedly unconvinced by the prudential case.

But at this stage we have no reason to believe there are enough votes in the House to approve articles of impeachment. A failure in that chamber would spell disaster. If the latest transgressions by Trump, or further off the rails activities going forward, lead to unanimous, or near-unanimous agreement among House Democrats to impeach, that will shift the calculus. And Nancy Pelosi will shift accordingly.

It would still be a risk, since Senate Republicans have shown no signs of shifting, for the House to impeach. But with Democratic unity, it might be a risk worth taking. We’re hardly there yet. The public opposes impeachment. Many House Democrats, hardly unreasonably, are sensitive to the opinions of their constituents.

In the meantime, if Nichols, Leonhardt, Beutler, most of the Democratic candidates for president, and many other Americans are successful in their advocacy, an ample majority of House Democrats will find their way on board.

Whether or not that day comes, November 3, 2020 looms large.

2020 General Election, Democrats

Trump has spooked Democrats, who fear nominating a women for president

Quote of the day:

“Trump has so thoroughly demoralized Democrats that they are exhibiting sexism in their own political judgments in the guise of ‘electability.'” — Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

Kilgore links to Li Zhou’s attempt (in Vox) to knock down fears (based on Trump’s 2016 election) that voters are not ready to elect a woman president.

Women powered the 2018 midterm victories to take back the House. And, as Zhou observes, most of the seats flipped from Red to Blue were won by women.

Zhou also notes that Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand, have never lost an election. In contrast, Joe Biden — Mr. Electability, a safe white male — (when not on a ticket with Barack Obama) suffered two not-even-close defeats in previous bids for the White House.

Zhou notes the added enthusiasm generated by women and people of color; cites the lack of empirical evidence that a woman can’t win in the Midwest (or elsewhere); and rejects electability as a squishy, untrustworthy guide.

Kilgore concludes:

So if you happen to have two women, one “progressive” and one “moderate,” who can credibly promise a greater 2020 payoff than just ejecting Trump from office, why keep preferring men who appear to live in a different era (Biden) or country (Sanders)? Yes, Trump has gotten deeply into the donkey’s head, and has convinced Democrats that his dark misogynistic soul is America’s. That’s some serious damage.

(Image from Wikipedia, which offers this description: A satirical photo from 1901, with the caption “New Woman—Wash Day”. Shown is a woman wearing knickerbockers and knee socks (traditional male attire) and smoking a cigarette, supervising as a man (who appears to be wearing a dress and an apron) does the laundry with a tub and washboard.)

2020 General Election, Democrats, Republicans

Just how many liberals are there in this center-right nation?

“In 2018, for the first time, a majority of Democrats said they considered themselves to be “liberal,” according to Gallup. At 51 percent, the 2018 share is only 1 point greater than the share of Democrats who identified as liberal in 2017, but it’s very different from how Democrats’ political ideologies broke down in the 1990s and early 2000s.” — Janie Velencia, FiveThirtyEight

The same poll revealed that among all Americans, not just Democrats, 26% identified as liberal. (That’s the chart on the left in the image above.) The same poll revealed that 35% of Americans identified as conservative and 35% embraced the moderate label, which is why the U.S. is often referred to as ‘center-right.’

Meanwhile, James Stimson, a political scientist who has been measuring the public policy preferences of Americans since 1952, has found that Americans are more liberal than at any time in the 68 years since he has been doing the survey.  (That’s the chart on the right.) The 2018 result: support among Americans for government action — that is, for liberal public policies — stands at 69%.

That’s quite a difference. Why? Because the first survey asks Americans to self-identify; in other words, to choose the label that best describes their political ideology.

The second survey, on the other hand, doesn’t ask Americans to label themselves; instead it asks their opinions on a range of issues (background checks for gun purchases [which weighs in with 89% support], Medicare for all who want it [70%], government regulation of prescription drug prices [67%], a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. illegally [64%], and so on). The Public Policy Mood survey crunches the numbers to get a result based on actual policy preferences of Americans.

That 69% is just a shade above the previous high, recorded in 1962, in an era when faith in government to right wrongs and to offer protection to Americans (with the passage of Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights and voting rights legislation, and so on).

In other words, as the authors of Asymmetric Politics noted, Americans are ideologically conservative (they think of themselves as conservative) and operationally liberal (they endorse the liberal policies that benefit them and their neighbors). So, Democrats campaign on specific issues: healthcare coverage for preexisting conditions, lowering prescription drug prices, offering a public option …; while Republicans campaign on ideology: linking Democrats with the Democratic Socialists of America and labeling them as “far to the left” and of course as “socialists.”

Yesterday, Gregory Koger highlighted the Public Policy Mood results to explain several strategic choices that Democrats and Republicans have made as we head into the 2020 elections, including the decision by Republicans to hit hard on socialism (“an extreme ideological label”), even though that didn’t work for them in 2018.

(Image composed of two charts: left, from FiveThirtyEight, and right, from Mischiefs of Faction.)

2020 General Election, Republicans

Moscow Mitch once embraced his dark side, but a mean nickname has hurt his feelings

In May, Politico reported that Mitch McConnell reveled in his critics’ view of him as a villain (“because there’s almost no downside unless he somehow finds himself in a competitive general election”). Certainly, the man is a master of tribal warfare, who has never exhibited any shame.

When John Brennan showed the Gang of Eight evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and sought to craft a bipartisan statement for the American people, McConnell turned a blind eye to the evidence and replied, “You’re trying to screw the Republican candidate.”

By all accounts, partisan advantage for McConnell trumps consistency of principle, the preservation of democratic norms, and, yes, even defense of our nation’s security — and up till now, the senior senator from Kentucky seemed fine with his reputation for “unhinged partisanship” (to borrow McConnell’s phrase).

But, when MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough dubbed McConnell “Moscow Mitch” and the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank suggested that the senator was a Russian asset, they struck a nerve.

Could — “somehow” — McConnell “find himself in a competitive general election” in 2020? Is he anxious that his new nickname, and charges of covering for Putin’s Russia, might threaten his safe reelection?

Yes, that’s a long shot. But in the Trump era, it’s hard to take anything for granted. So much could go wrong in the next 16 months.

(Image courtesy of Kentucky Democrats.)

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

“Infested. It sounds like vermin. . . . subhuman.” — Wallace; “It’s fair to have that conversation.” — Mulvaney

“There is a clear pattern here, Mick,” Chris Wallace says and goes on to describe Donald Trump’s dehumanizing language directed always at people who happen not to have white skin. “Infested. It sounds like vermin. It sounds subhuman. And these are all six Members of Congress who are people of color.”

Mick Mulvaney responds: “I think you’re spending way too much time reading between the lines.”

Wallace: “I’m not reading between the lines. I’m reading the lines.”

Mulvaney scrambles to divert attention from the pattern of Trump’s smears by raising the possibility that if Adam Schiff had criticized Trump’s border policies, then Trump could be directing these comments at Schiff.

Wallace interjects: “I don’t think he’d be talking about his crime-infested, rodent-infested district.”

Mulvaney plows ahead, insisting that if Trump were directing these insults at Schiff, this would not be because Schiff is Jewish.

Mulvaney: “This is what the President does. He fights. And he’s not wrong to do so.”

Mulvaney continues talking, still diverting attention from Trump’s vilification of black and brown Members of Congress and minority Congressional districts. Sticking to (the non-existent, but hypothetically possible) criticism of Schiff, Mulvaney castigates California: “The richest state in the nation. The richest state in the nation has abject poverty like that. A state, by the way, dominated for generations by Democrats.”

Mulvaney’s audience of one may have found this defense convincing. Then again, Mulvaney’s comments might be aimed much more broadly (“… Trump’s advisers had concluded after the previous tweets that the overall message sent by such attacks is good for the president among his political base — resonating strongly with the white working-class voters he needs to win reelection in 2020.”).

2020 General Election, Democracy

Is it defensible, as a matter of principle, to discount the risks of Trump’s reelection ?

“While I doubt any impeachment fans feel equanimity toward a Trump reelection, you have to wonder if they are really thinking through what it means to brush off 2020 concerns as “political” and less important than engaging in a quixotic effort to pretend Trump can be removed from office any way other than at the polls.” — Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

Here’s the debate: a number of Trump’s critics have argued that the House of Representatives must impeach Trump as a matter of principle and that declining to act out of concern for political consequences constitutes a moral failure. Elizabeth Warren, the first prominent 2020 candidate to support impeachment, makes this argument. (“There is no political convenience exception to the constitution of the United States of America. You know, there are some things are bigger than politics. And this one is a point of principle.”)

Brian Beutler (in sync with Warren) excoriates the “Pelosi standard” for impeachment: that the House should not move forward with impeachment unless the case against Trump is “compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan.”

Beutler (“The Democrats Great Impeachment Abdication”) objects that the failure to impeach

will establish a new precedent in our country that presidents can make themselves untouchable, to the law and to Congress, if only they’re willing to be as selfish and malevolent as Trump. And it will do so at a moment when one of the country’s two political parties has fully embraced an ethos of corruption, greed, and will to power.

Beutler grants that moving toward impeachment in 2019 would not play out as it did in 1974 (in large part because Fox News and the conservative media bubble would shield Republicans from any good faith effort to hold the president accountable) and doesn’t regard acquittal in the Senate as reason to refrain from impeachment. He wants to see a trial! He wants to require Republican Senators to vote for acquittal.

“If Democrats build a solid case, and pass compelling articles of impeachment, the Senate’s rules obligate it to conduct a trial, with the chief justice of the United States presiding, in a manner that will be very hard for Republicans to cheapen.”

Does Beutler believe that Republicans would in any significant way be constrained from cheapening a Senate trial? That conceit is hard to accept. This doesn’t, however, blunt Beutler’s argument that a Senate trial would place the case for impeachment front and center for voters in 2020 “to render the final verdict.”

There is that. But, as Kilgore has argued in the past: “A 2021 Trump in charge is a progressive hellscape.” The consequences of a Trump reelection are highly significant. So significant that it makes no sense (politically or morally) to insist that the House must impeach without more than a shrug at the possibility that this would aid and abet Trump’s reelection prospects.

Beutler argues that the House must impeach because otherwise Democrats have given Trump and Republican carte blanche to commit any outrages they wish (so long as Fox and company can keep the base onboard).

“Under the Pelosi standard no abuse of power is too severe to tolerate if a third of the country can be convinced to overlook it. Under the Pelosi standard, Republicans enjoy a handicap where they and their propaganda allies can short circuit the Constitution through relentless disinformation and culture war nonsense, and never face a referendum on their underlying conduct or character. Under the Pelosi standard, Republicans can openly embrace any impeachable conduct that actually delights their supporters, which means Trump and future GOP presidents will have a freer hand than they already do to sic the Justice Department on their political enemies.”

“… and never face a referendum on their underlying conduct or character.” To reiterate: Beutler wants to compel Republican Senators to vote against impeachment and then to face the voters regarding their choice.

Without impeachment, Beutler argues, “Republicans can openly embrace any impeachable conduct that actually delights their supporters,” and the result is “Trump and future GOP presidents will have a freer hand than they already do to sic the Justice Department on their political enemies.”

In numerous discussions on the web (such as at Daily Kos), a handful of advocates for impeachment will concede that Trump’s reelection is a price they are willing to pay to see Trump get his comeuppance in the House. Most, however, stick to their guns without critically engaging in consideration of whether or not a House impeachment would make a second Trump term more likely. They reject this out of hand or simply decline to think that far ahead. The principle they embrace — Democrats in the House must take a stand – is too important to sully with discussion of real world political consequences.

Beutler, to his credit, has looked ahead. He insists that not impeaching would make future bad behavior by Republicans more likely and would make future presidents “untouchable.”

But this projection isn’t credible. As Kilgore argues, Senate acquittal with reelection offers an even worse prospect than failure to impeach and Trump’s defeat in November 2020:

“Talk about untouchability! A reelected Trump would be rampant, vengeful, and (of course) unrepentant. The Supreme Court and the entire federal judiciary would likely become a confirmed enemy to progressivism for a generation. With one or two more Trump appointees to SCOTUS, reproductive rights would almost certainly be vaporized. Climate change might well become truly irreversible. Trumpism (or something worse) would complete its conquest of one major political party, and the other would be truly in the wilderness and perhaps fatally embittered and divided.”

Although Beutler nods toward a future in which impeachment has a beneficial effect on the conduct of presidents and senators, that’s not (on my reading) the basis for Beutler’s conviction. As he weighs the question of impeachment, and whether to refrain or move forward, Beutler writes:

“The pro-impeachment proposition is that Democrats should build the case, hold the trial, and let Republicans in Congress decide whether they want to shred our shared standards of accountability—to let their votes be counted—instead of doing it for them as they quietly sidestep the question.
In either case, the voters will render the final verdict, but in an impeachment scenario, the question would be laid before them clearly, and will place the entire Republican Party on the hook directly for the crimes they’ve been passively abetting for over two years now. It would also preserve important norms about what kinds of behavior should be impeachable.”

As I read Beutler, he wants a public accounting. And — though he doesn’t say it outright — he implies: consequences in November 2020 be damned. It’s all about principle. Even the last comment about preserving democratic norms is consistent with my interpretation.

Impeachment and acquittal don’t preserve norms. Rather, impeachment (with or without acquittal) represents for Beutler a stance on what norms “should be” in place.

That, in my view, is pretty weak tea. ‘Should be‘ doesn’t move the needle. The way to preserve democratic norms is to be rid of the man and the party that undermine them. Absent Senate conviction, the opportunity to make that happen will be found at the polls in November 2020.

If I’m wrong about this, if Nancy Pelosi is wrong about this, show me how. I’m open to persuasion. If impeachment now makes it more likely that we boot Trump out of office in 2020, show me how.

But don’t — with so much at stake — simply brush aside that possibility. It won’t do — with so much at stake — to embrace acting out of principle, as though this absolves you of responsibility for the real world consequences of your stance. You must, as a moral agent, as a political actor, as a defender of the Constitution, reckon with the consequences.

2020 General Election, Donald Trump, Off the Rails

Trump continues to insist that Democratic women with brown skin don’t belong here

“What the president is doing is, we are tired — sick and tired — of many people in this country. Forget these four. They represent a dark underbelly of people in this country of people who are not respecting our troops, are not giving them the resources and the respect that they deserve.”—Kellyanne Conway on Fox News (video at link)

As Donald Trump’s undisguised racist attack on the four Democratic Congresswomen known as ‘the squad‘ continued to dominate the news cycle for another day, it has become clear that this represents a central theme in the President’s 2020 campaign.

Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign manager, has been telling people that it is very hard to persuade voters in the current hyperpartisan political landscape.

Mr. Trump’s re-election strategy, instead, is to solidify his base and increase turnout. A major component of that is to portray his opponents as not merely disliking him and his policies, but also disliking America itself.

The strategy is reminiscent of how President Richard M. Nixon and the Republican Party tried to frame their fight with Democrats during the 1972 elections around questions of patriotism and loyalty. Nixon supporters took to using the slogan “America: Love It or Leave It” to cast the Democrats and the growing opposition to the Vietnam War as anti-American — not merely anti-Nixon or anti-Republican.

Pat Buchanan, the populist, conservative former presidential candidate who served as an aide to Nixon, said that by elevating the four, Mr. Trump is trying to set the terms of his re-election fight.

“Rather than let Democrats in the primaries choose his adversary, Trump is seeking to make the selection himself,” Mr. Buchanan said. And if the election is seen as a choice between Democrats like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Omar, Mr. Buchanan added, “Trump wins.”

Two reporters at the Washington Post cataloged Congressional Republicans’ reactions to Trump’s tirades. The results (as of July 16 at 8:12 p.m.):  

  • 18 condemned Trump’s remarks;
  • 42 criticized both Democrats and Trump;
  • 29 supported Trump’s remarks; while
  • 161 did not comment, dodged the question, or made vague statements that couldn’t be characterized as either criticism or support.

Yesterday 4 Republicans (and Independent Justin Amash) joined all 235 Democrats in voting to condemn Trump’s racist remarks. (A handful of Republican Congressmen voted against the resolution, after earlier condemning the President’s remarks.)

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report noted that “Democrats represent 54% of all House districts but 95% (!) of the 100 districts with the highest shares of foreign-born residents,” while “Republicans represent 83% of the 100 districts with the highest shares of native-born residents ….”

“New Poll: The Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in predicting the 2016 Election, has just announced that “Trump” numbers have recently gone up by four points, to 50%. Thank you to the vicious young Socialist Congresswomen. America will never buy your act!“—Donald Trump @realDonaldTrump

Will this be a winning strategy for Trump? It was in 2016. It wasn’t in 2018. Time will tell. According to Pew Research Center, the partisan gap in views of immigration is as wide as at any point in 25 years (chart at link). The question is, who will turn out to vote?

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

GOP and corporate Resistance fades as Trump doubles down on racist comments

Yes, some Republican leaders spoke out to offer mostly muted criticism of Trump after more than 24 hours, often in the next breath (or the first breath) criticizing the Democratic women of color Trump attacked.

“They’re just terrified of crossing swords with Trump, and they stay mute even when the president unleashes racist tirades,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, who has been critical of Trump. “Republican leaders are now culpable for encouraging this kind of rank bigotry. By not speaking out, by staying mum, they are greenlighting hate rhetoric.”—“Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is met with fading resistance from Republican and corporate leaders,” Toluse Olorunnipa, Washington Post,  July 15, 2019

The WaPo article notes the silence of corporate leaders (including those on the South Lawn of the White House celebrating Trump’s economic policies) as Trump continued to defame four women newly elected to Congress as members of his political opposition.

After some brief remarks about American manufacturing, the president launched into an acerbic screed doubling down on his Sunday tweets that encouraged the Democratic congresswomen, who he said “hate our country,” to leave the United States.

“If you’re not happy here, then you can leave,” he added. “That’s what I said in a tweet that I guess some people think is controversial. A lot of people love it, by the way. A lot of people love it.”

He was met with applause.

It seems that for many people Trump being Trump is hardly worthy of comment any more, even as he ratchets up the racism, xenophobia, and hate. Certainly Trump wouldn’t be Trump without the racism:

Trump has trafficked in racist and racially charged politics for decades, working to keep African Americans out of his and his father’s apartment buildings in Cincinnati and New York from his earliest days in the real estate business.
In 1989, he ran newspaper ads calling for the death penalty after five black and Latino teenagers were accused of raping a jogger. Last month, he suggested the Central Park Five might still be guilty even if they were exonerated by DNA evidence and another man’s confession years ago, saying, “You have people on both sides of that.”
Trump raised his profile as a political figure on the right during President Obama’s tenure by fanning false conspiracies questioning whether Obama was born in the United States.
And he drew some of the strongest rebukes of his own presidency in August 2017 when he said there were “very fine people on both sides” in violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va.
James Fields, who drove his car into a crowd and killed a woman during the rally, was sentenced Monday to life in prison plus 419 years on state charges. Fields was previously sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges.— “As Trump doubles down on racist comments, House to vote on condemning them,” Noah Bierman, Jennifer Haberkorn, Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2019

(Image: screen grab from local TV of the four newly elected Democratic Congresswomen, popularly known as ‘the squad,’ responding to President Trump’s attacks yesterday.)

2020 General Election, Donald Trump

“Because he’s one of the best presidents we’ve had for a very long time. Very long time.”

Reporter’s question to Trump supporter: “What’s the main reason you’ll vote for him again?“

Her response:

“The main reason? Because he’s one of the best presidents we’ve had for a very long time. Very long time.
He doesn’t lie. I know y’all say he does. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.  And I’m just going to be honest. I’m not trying to be mean. But the way the media treats him, it’s a disgrace.”

Donald Trump will get her vote. And it won’t matter that Trump hasn’t really delivered on his campaign promises.

It has been clear forever (or at least since my first post on this blog) that Trump has no intention of reaching out beyond his base.

Trump is undoubtedly convinced that whipping up the base worked for him last time. (Well, in the last presidential campaign, not in 2018.) But in 2020, James Comey will be out of sight; there will be no Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Clinton Rich as a template for mainstream media reporting; the Democratic nominee won’t neglect campaigning in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania; and no one will be confident that either staying home or casting a protest vote couldn’t possibly prevent a Democratic victory.

This time around: we’ve experienced a Trump presidency, we’ll be looking out for Putin’s meddling, and Democrats – aware that Trump’s reelection would pose an existential crisis – will pull out all the stops to win.

That’s not a guarantee, but as much fun as Trump’s campaign rallies generate for true believers (“Lock her up! Lock her up!”), and as much bewildered angst as they create for more critical observers (“He doesn’t lie. I know y’all say he does. He doesn’t.”), it’s not clear that Trump is helping himself. As Jonathan Bernstein notes, “… the question is what Trump has accomplished with all of his non-stop electioneering. And the answer to that is pretty simple: Bupkis. Nada. Nothing.”

Democrats should be heartened by this. In Josh Marshall’s words, “… the idea that Trump can be a complete maniac and buffoon but none of it matters because of the electoral college or other magic powers becomes at a certain point enervating and demoralizing for those who see the danger he represents and the necessity of his electoral repudiation. There’s little evidence to back it up.”

There’s no guarantee. But Trump’s foolery may end up mattering.

2020 Democratic Primary, 2020 General Election, Democrats, Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans

Democrats disagree about political strategy: Is Trump the problem or the GOP?

“I feel like the party went through this and the 2016 election showed that Trumpism isn’t just Donald Trump — it’s the entire Republican Congress, too. Until there is someone in the Republican Party who can stand up to Trump, then none of them are better than Trump.” — Rebecca Katz, Democratic strategist

(“Biden Thinks Trump is the Problem, Not All Republicans. Other Democrats Disagree,” Shane Goldmacher, New York Times, May 4, 2019)

Joe Biden is running on the conceit that Donald Trump is an aberration. And that he, Biden, can reach across the aisle to work with a cooperative Republican Party.

The former Vice President is either making a clever (if not quite factual) electoral pitch (which, while it may sound reassuring, is hardly something we can bank on), or he has a very short memory — because Joe Biden was there when Barack Obama was greeted with absolute, across-the-board opposition from the Republican Party.

Let’s recall:

Michael Grunwald, speaking of his book, “The New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era,” recounts a now familiar plot line for Time magazine (when the United States was poised to plunge into a depression):

It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”

Grunwald goes on to relate that Biden was aware of this scorched earth strategy:

Vice President Biden told me that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any bipartisan cooperation on major votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators who said, ‘Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ ” he recalled. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was, ‘For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden said. The Vice President said he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with Biden along those lines.

“So I promise you — and the President agreed with me — I never thought we were going to get Republican support,” Biden said.

Robert Draper’s book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” describes the Republican strategizing at the January 20, 2009 meeting:

“The only way we’ll succeed is if we’re united,” Ryan told the others. “If we tear ourselves apart, we’re finished.” But, he added, he liked what he was hearing now. Everyone at the table sounded like a genuine conservative. It was a place to start.

“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority,” said Kevin McCarthy. “We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”

…

The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward: Go after Geithner. (And indeed Kyl did, the next day: “Would you answer my question rather than dancing around it — please?”)

Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies. (Eight days later, Minority Whip Cantor would hold the House Republicans to a unanimous No against Obama’s economic stimulus plan.)

Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves. (The first National Republican Congressional Committee attack ads would run in less than two months.)

Win the spear point of the House in 2010. Jab Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012.

“You will remember this day,” Newt Gingrich proclaimed to the others as they said goodbye. “You’ll remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown.”

Here is how Mitch McConnell summed up the strategy on everything Obama proposed:

“We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals,” McConnell says. “Because we thought—correctly, I think—that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”

Why?

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Want another example? There was Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi: the Republican never-ending cycle of hearings to politicize the deaths in 2012 of Americans at the Libyan embassy. Why? For political advantage, of course, as Kevin McCarthy (then House Majority Leader; now House Minority Leader) explained in an interview with Sean Hannity:

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy asked. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

“I give you credit for that,” said Hannity. “I’ll give you credit where credit is due.”

The obstructionist strategy played out in the bipartisan negotiations leading to passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act in 2010, Obama’s major legislative accomplishment, without a solitary Republican vote in favor. Democrats made numerous compromises with Republicans (this is why we don’t have a public option*) before Republicans revealed their unanimous, remorseless opposition to ACA:

… [W]ith Obama’s blessing, the Senate …became the fulcrum for a potential grand bargain on health reform. Chairman Max Baucus, in the spring of 2009, signaled his desire to find a bipartisan compromise, working especially closely with Grassley, his dear friend and Republican counterpart, who had been deeply involved in crafting the Republican alternative to Clintoncare. Baucus and Grassley convened an informal group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee, which became known as the “Gang of Six.” They covered the parties’ ideological bases; the other GOPers were conservative Mike Enzi of Wyoming and moderate Olympia Snowe of Maine, and the Democrats were liberal Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and moderate Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Baucus very deliberately started the talks with a template that was the core of the 1993-4 Republican plan, built around an individual mandate and exchanges with private insurers—much to the chagrin of many Democrats and liberals who wanted, if not a single-payer system, at least one with a public insurance option. Through the summer, the Gang of Six engaged in detailed discussions and negotiations to turn a template into a plan. But as the summer wore along, it became clear that something had changed; both Grassley and Enzi began to signal that participation in the talks—and their demands for changes in the evolving plan—would not translate into a bipartisan agreement.

What became clear before September, when the talks fell apart, is that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had warned both Grassley and Enzi that their futures in the Senate would be much dimmer if they moved toward a deal with the Democrats that would produce legislation to be signed by Barack Obama. They both listened to their leader. An early embrace by both of the framework turned to shrill anti-reform rhetoric by Grassley—talking, for example, about death panels that would kill grandma—and statements by Enzi that he was not going to sign on to a deal.

And, let’s not forget the Senate’s refusal to hold hearings for Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell is especially pleased with himself for putting President Obama in his place: “One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, ‘You will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.'”

When I asked McConnell how he felt about his legacy and Trump’s being so closely linked, he rejected the premise. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the most consequential call I made was before President Trump came to office.” I asked what he meant. “The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”

Remember: not a single Republican Senator moved a finger to ensure hearings for Obama’s choice (though there were ineffectual murmurs of complaint — I recall Senator Susan Collins murmuring — just like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker’s mild criticism of Trump, while voting consistently in support of Trump and the Republican leadership).

This, the Garland blockade, McConnell believes, will be his lasting legacy as Senate Majority Leader:

When I asked McConnell how he felt about his legacy and Trump’s being so closely linked, he rejected the premise. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the most consequential call I made was before President Trump came to office.” I asked what he meant. “The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”

Count me in the Democratic camp that thinks that Trump is only a symptom of an off-the-rails Republican Party.

*After posting this, I recalled Joe Lieberman’s threat to kill the public option. I don’t wish to let him off the hook for his misdeeds, but if Republicans hadn’t played Max Baucus for months on end with meaningless negotiations and compromises, the ACA would have passed with Ted Kennedy’s vote.

(Image: McConnell, Ryan, Trump, and Pence celebrating the Republican tax bill.)