Democrats, Donald Trump

Women are leading the Resistance to Trump and focused on generating a Blue Wave in November

In a previous post I suggested that the greatest threat to a Blue Wave this fall was sky high Republican turnout on behalf of a president with historically low approval ratings. Trump’s campaign strategy is to gin up his base by stoking division, including (as Paul Ryan has observed) straight-up trolling his perceived enemies. Thus far, his base is sticking with him as measured by his “own party” approval ratings. He is also able to sway a huge swath of Republican primary voters.

But of course the Trump onslaught can’t help but rile up his opponents as well. What reasons do we have for believing that a Blue Wave will crest on Election Day?

First, a brief aside to consider several views of what a ‘wave election’ is. Nate Cohn tweets:

Amy Walter at the Cook Political Report, looking at the elections Cohn references – 1994, 2006, and 2010, provides a bar graph illustrating the number of seats needed by the out-party in each case plus the number of additional seats they actually won:

(Click for link at Cook Political Report and scroll down to view larger image.)

“By this metric,” she writes, “a gain of 35 seats by the Democrats should be considered a wave.”

Alexi McCammond at Axios points to a report by Ballotpedia, which begins with this definition: “We define wave elections as the 20 percent of elections where the president’s party lost the most seats during the last 100 years (50 election cycles).” Based on this criterion, Democrats would need to win 48 House seats for it to constitute a wave.

The bottom line, of course, isn’t whether the Democratic margin of victory hits a designated historical benchmark – though the political impact will be amplified as the margin of victory increases – it’s whether or not the Democrats win working majority in the House. At this stage, we don’t know, but if it happens, what will drive that victory?

“Reports from journalists and academics describe grassroots organizational activity by left-of-center citizens and groups that is unequalled since Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, and disproportionate political engagement among women that may have been last matched during the push for the Equal Rights Amendment four decades ago,” writes David Hopkins at Honest Graft, who believes this is the underreported story of 2018, receiving only “a small fraction of the media coverage that was directed to the Tea Party movement in advance of the Republican victories of 2010.”

Hopkins argues that because the media loves conflict and – unlike the Tea Party, which aggressively challenged the Republican establishment – the grassroots movement opposing Trump hasn’t fractured the Democratic Party, created anti-Washington fervor, or given rise to ideological purity.

“We are left, instead, with a picture of millions of Americans arrayed from the political left to the center, disproportionately well-educated, suburban, and professional, who are simultaneously captivated and repulsed by the day-to-day behavior of Donald Trump.”

Theda Skocpal, a scholar who studied the Tea Party and has looked more recently at the opposition to Trump, notes that while activists from both groups sound surprisingly similar (“I used to vote. Now I realize my country could be lost, and I have to do more.”), the resistance to Trump is a center-left phenomenon led overwhelmingly by women. Skopal estimates that 70% of Indivisible participants, for instance, and most of its leaders, are women.

“These are middle-class women’s networks, with some men in them. They turned around public opinion on the Affordable Care Act. They were behind Conor Lamb’s victory, along with the unions. They’re everywhere, and they have made a real difference. They’re likely to be the key to congressional victories, if they happen.”

Tea Party activists were clustered on the ideological far right and infused with anti-establishment fervor. The Resistance looks different. She notes that it is not being driven by Bernie Sanders’ followers, nor the left-most stalwarts in the Democratic Party. Instead, they are as likely to occupy the middle of the road as the far left.

“They’re not likely to be highly ideological. They care about good government, health care, education, decency toward immigrants and refugees. A lot of them got involved through church networks…..

A lot of them are progressive, but they’re also pragmatic. They don’t insist on the leftmost candidate. They’ll get behind any reasonable Democrat.”

Will the anti-Trump movement push Democrats to the House majority in 2018? There are powerful obstacles to overcome. The most prominent, as George Packer puts it: “Democrats have a habit of forgetting to vote between Presidential elections.” And the demographic groups that boast the highest level of support for Democrats – such as young people, black and Latino communities, and working class folks – are the most likely to forget.

At this stage, though, the wind is at the Democrats’ backs. A study released at the beginning of this week, revealed a surge of Democratic enthusiasm, as measured by turnout in 2018 primary elections: up 84% compared with 2014. In comparison, Republican turnout is up only 14% relative to 2014.

But the bottom line is that votes cast, not increased turnout, will carry the day on November 6. And in many of the House districts that Democrats need to flip, Republicans outnumber Democrats. Plus, Republicans are simply more reliable voters.

Consider: among the most talked about House seats that Democrats are targeting nationally are a number of California districts, seven of which have been on the Democrats’ Red to Blue wish list for more than a year. They are: CD 10 (Jeff Denham); CD 21 (David Valadao); CD 25 (Steve Knight); CD 39 (Ed Royce – retiring); CD 45 (Mimi Walters); CD 48 (Dana Rohrabacher); and CD 49 (Darrell Issa – Retiring).

In six out of these seven districts, Republicans on the June 2018 primary ballot received more votes than Democratic candidates did. The only exception was CD 49, where 92,837 votes were cast for Democrats and 89,839 votes for Republicans. Representative Issa, alone among the Republican Congressmen from these seven districts, narrowly avoided defeat in 2016. The Cook Political Report rated (as of August 9) CD 49 as ‘Lean Democratic,’ though there is a slight Republican registration edge, with a Cook Partisan Voter Index (PVI) rating of ‘R+1.’

But, while Republicans turnout more reliably, more Democrats get out to vote for general elections than for primaries. With a ballot for California’s Governor and the U.S. Senate in November, Democratic turnout will dwarf what we saw in June. So Democrats can expect to be highly competitive, if not quite favored. Cook rated four of these races ‘Republican Toss Up’: CDs 10, 25, and 39, which all have a PVI rating of ‘Even,’ along with CD 48, which has a PVI of ‘R+4.’ Cook rated CD 45 as ‘Lean Republican’ (PVI: ‘R+3’) and CA 21 as ‘Likely Republican’ (PVI: ‘D+5’).

If Democrats flip the House in November, credit a diverse group of activists throughout the country, but count on middle-class women to drive the change. As Theda Skocpol describes the movement to resist Trump, “This will not look like a far-left reinvention of Tea Partiers or a continuation of Bernie 2016. It will look like retired librarians rolling their eyes at the present state of affairs, and then taking charge.”

Photograph: editor’s photo of January 20, 2018 Women’s March in Los Angeles.

 

Democracy, Donald Trump

National security officials at odds with President regarding ongoing Russian attacks on democracy

“”In Helsinki, I had a great meeting with Putin. We discussed everything. I had a great meeting. I had a great meeting. We got along really well. By the way, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. That’s a really good thing. Now we’re being hindered by the Russian hoax — it’s a hoax, OK?” – Donald Trump (at 1 minute, 20 seconds into the video by CBC).

This dismissal of “the Russian hoax” came only hours after the White House presented a briefing from the administration’s top national security officials underscoring a pervasive, ongoing, 24/7 effort by Russia to weaken American democracy and disrupt the 2018 elections.

“The reality is, it’s going to take all of us working together to hold the field, because this threat is not going away.  As I have said consistently: Russia attempted to interfere with the last election, and continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.

This is a threat we need to take extremely seriously, and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus.”– Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

“The intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of upcoming U.S. elections, both the midterms and the presidential elections of 2020.

In regards to Russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.” – Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence

“Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs.  Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries, who seek, as the DNI just said, to sow discord and undermine our way of life.” – Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security

When reporters asked Mr. Coats about the substance of the Helsinki meeting – 17 days earlier, which the President boasted about in the video above, the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged that he was not privy to what was said: “I’m not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at Helsinki.”

Photo: screen grab from C-SPAN.

2020 Democratic Primary, Democrats

Senator Kamala Harris introduces Rent Relief Act to help 13.3 million working families

California Senator Kamala Harris, who has been talked about as a Democratic candidate for president, has introduced legislation to provide refundable tax credits to benefit 13.3 million rent-burdened families. ‘Refundable’ means they would receive cash, even if they owed no taxes.

In many urban areas – including in Senator Harris’s home state of California and especially in places with booming economies, such as the Silicon Valley – the lack of affordable housing constitutes a crisis. The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines affordability as “the extent to which enough rental housing units of different costs can provide each renter household with a unit it can afford (based on the 30-percent-of-income standard).” The National Low Income Housing Coalition, which accepts this standard, has documented a significant national gap between wages and rents.

“A full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 needs to work approximately 122 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year, or approximately three full-time jobs, to afford a two-bedroom rental home at the national average fair market rent. The same worker needs to work 99 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year, or approximately two and a half full-time jobs, to afford a one-bedroom home at the national average fair market rent.”

The Rent Relief Act would provide tax credits for renters across the country with limited incomes who pay more than 30% of their incomes for rent and utilities. Below $25,000, the subsidy would be 100% of the cost of rent that exceeds 30% of income. In very expensive areas, the income ceiling would be $124,999, which would yield a 25% subsidy of the excess. (That’s not a lot of spending power for a family of four in some cities.)

This proposal certainly represents a bracing expansion of federal policy related to renters (though the tax code is strewn with ample benefits for homeowners). Irony watch: while this is more grist for the mill in talk of the Democratic Party’s move to the left, and chatter about democratic socialism, especially since the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the Rent Relief Act is actually a revision of a proposal introduced by Representative Joe Crowley, the old guard Democrat whom Occasio-Cortez defeated.

It’s easy to find fault with this approach to high rents based on the principle of supply and demand: if there is a shortage of affordable houses and apartments, then the obvious solution is to build more. As the supply goes up, prices will come down. Instead, in cities with the most expensive rental rates, restrictive zoning laws, minimal parking requirements, and opposition by residents to denser housing in their neighborhoods (and in the neighborhoods through which they commute each day), ensure that the supply of affordable housing is severely restricted where it is most needed (including in prosperous cities in blue states, such as California). So local regulations and neighborhood opposition quashes the development of new housing.

The virtue of Harris’s proposal is that it is straightforward in concept: rents are too high for wage earners, so give them money to pay the rent. Whether refunding taxes or providing subsidies, the federal government is capable of dispensing money.

The most successful anti-poverty program in history is Social Security. As complicated as the rules are, it’s simple in concept, and that’s one reason for its success. Folks need not be well-versed in Social Security rules to understand that they (and their employers) support the program with taxes, and when they retire, they draw monthly benefits.

In my view, Living Wage Ordinances (locally) or expanded Earned Income Tax Credits (nationally) would make more sense. Why line the pockets of landlords with rental subsidies? With increased EITC funding, the government could provide additional income – unrestricted – so folks could decide how to spend the money: food, clothes, education, transportation – whatever – not just housing.

Of course conservatives will object to creation of another ‘entitlement.’ Where will the money come from? Kevin Drum has an idea – or rather eleven (each with a footnote) – on places to adjust the budget to come up with the cash.

It’s all a matter of priorities. Do we help low-wage workers struggling to pay the rent, or do we dish out more tax reductions to the rich?

Photo: Senator Harris on Twitter.

Donald Trump, Polls, Tribalism

If it looks like a Blue Wave is coming, Republican voters will double down to suppress it

“Mr. Trump’s job approval rating rose to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the highest mark of his presidency and up 1 percentage point from June….

Underpinning Mr. Trump’s job approval was support from 88% of Republican voters. Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency.”

Donald Trump appears to be defying gravity:

When it comes to polling, Mr. Trump has proved paradoxical.

“Welcome to the latest and most daring of Donald Trump’s high-wire acts, in which the president increases his degree of difficulty and manages yet again to stay on his feet,” said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.

These survey results point to the greatest threat to a Blue Wave election that flips the House from Republican to Democratic control in November. Wave elections are powered by the amped up enthusiasm of voters in one party and the deflated spirits of voters in the other party. Both factors contribute. (Let’s set aside for another time various definitions of ‘wave election.’ For the purposes of this post, just suppose that we’re considering something simpler: Whether or not the Democrats will retake the House in 2018. Of course a host of factors, not just emotional highs and lows, generate election victories. And a host of factors, including events that will take place between now and November 6, will influence the results this fall. Put aside these complicating factors for the purposes of this discussion.)

Donald Trump’s support is ‘paradoxical’ because, on the one hand, surveys show he is highly unpopular (“Mr. Trump’s overall approval rating continued to rank among the lowest of any modern president at this point his first term, and the poll turned up warning signals for him.”) and he persists in acting as president of a factional government: he is focused on his base (not unusual), but (unlike previous post-World War II presidents), he is making few if any moves to attract support from voters not already on board with him. Much of what he says and does appears by design to alienate folks who aren’t part of his base – which “increases his degree of difficulty,” as Yang observed.

On the other hand, focusing virtually exclusively on the base is working for him on at least one level: His support, as measured by polling, shows that he has an extremely high “own party” approval rating. (In polling at the 500-day mark, approval from his own party exceeded every previous president, going back to Truman at the beginning of the polling era, with the single exception of the 43rd president, when Americans rallied ’round the Commander in Chief following 9/11.)

Paradoxical though it may be, Trump’s strategy is to focus on riling up his base – and the way to do that is often to deliberately provoke the opposition. A headline in this morning’s Washington Post featured a quotation from Paul Ryan (on the proposal to revoke security clearances of Trump critiques). Said the Speaker of the House: “I think he’s just trolling people.”

I agree. I believe this is a deliberate strategy. Like the popular campaign chant, “Lock her up!” (which Jeff Sessions heard and repeated this morning while addressing a crowd of conservatives), this is another case of trashing longstanding institutional and governing norms. And that’s the point: Trump vents, critics jump, and his base rallies behind him.

The result – as the Wall St. Journal/NBC News poll suggests – is an extraordinary level of support from the GOP base, at a time of general presidential unpopularity. This is something we haven’t seen before.

Republicans are doggedly sticking with Trump, even as his overall approval numbers are at historic lows.

There have been mixed signals regarding the likelihood that we are heading into a wave election, or even a more modest result that will bring a Democratic majority to Congress.

All kinds of things can – and will – happen between now and election day, but at this stage, the greatest threat to Democrats flipping the House is the possibility of sky high Republican turnout for an unpopular and divisive president.

November 21, 2018 update: Donald Trump succeeded in generating the “sky high Republican turnout” I referenced in this post. But there just weren’t enough of them to hold back the Blue Wave: “Trump’s Base Isn’t Enough.”

Donald Trump

That was the week that was (or wasn’t), but definitely shouldn’t have been

A brief review of an extraordinary week for U.S. diplomacy and the American presidency:

Sunday, Donald J. Trump on Twitter: “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”

Monday, during the Trump-Putin news conference: “My people came to me — Dan Coats came to me and some others — they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.

I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be …”

And moments later: “So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did is an incredible offer; he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer. Okay?”

Tuesday, the walk back: “… I thought I made that clear yesterday, but having just reviewed the transcript of yesterday’s press conference, I realized that there is the need for further clarification. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘WOULD’ instead of ‘WOULDN’T.’ The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia’ — a double negative.

I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.”

But, while his written statement expressed confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies, he stressed that Russian actions had no effect on the 2016 election and suggested that Russia might not be fully culpable: “So I’ll begin by stating that I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies, always have.

I have felt very strongly that while Russia’s actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. It could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.

There was no collusion at all, and people have seen that and they’ve seen that strongly.”

Wednesday, at a press availability before a cabinet meeting:

Q: “Is Russia still targeting the U.S., Mr. President?”

A: “Thank you very much. No.”

Q: “No?! You don’t believe that to be the case?”

A: “No.”

Two hours later, Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered an alternative account of what reporters heard.

When she was questioned about the “incredible offer” made at the summit by Putin – Robert Mueller could travel to Russia to interview with Russian officials the 12 recently indicted GRU (military intelligence agency) spies, if the U.S. would send its former ambassador, Michael McFaul and other Americans to Russia for interrogation by Putin and company – which was widely condemned, she held open the possibility that Trump would agree to Putin’s offer: “The president is gonna meet with his team and we’ll let you know when we have an announcement on that.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert was more dismissive: “I can’t answer on behalf of the White House … but what I can tell you is that the overall assertions that have come out of the Russian government are absolutely absurd – the fact that they want to question 11 American citizens and the assertions that the Russian government is making about those American citizens. We do not stand by those assertions.”

Thursday, another walk back from Ms. Sanders – this time on the incredible offer: “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it. Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.”

Friday, Director of National Security Dan Coats is in the midst of an onstage interview at a security forum in Aspen when Andrea Mitchell advised him of “breaking news” – a tweet from Sarah Sanders announcing that Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall.

“Say that again. Did I hear you?”

Upon hearing confirmation, amid laughter: “Okaaay. That’s going to be special.”

The nation’s top intelligence official had known nothing about another summit.

The interview offered even more unsettling news: Four days after the two hour meeting between Trump and Putin – with no other American present except for an interpreter – neither the Director of National Security, nor any other U.S. diplomatic or intelligence professional, knew the agenda or the substance of that conversation, or any agreements that the two men had made.

In contrast, by this time Putin had briefed Russian diplomats on the one-on-one meeting and lauded a number of “useful agreements” the two men made. Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador, had said that his country was prepared to move forward to implement the “important verbal agreements” concerning arms control, among other issues.

At this stage, on the American side, only Trump was privy to what had been discussed and what agreements had been made.

These events led to this exchange on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams,” July 20, 2018, with Williams and John E. McLaughlin (who had 30 years experience in intelligence and counter-terrorism in the CIA):

Williams: “I have to ask you your reaction to finding out that our D of N I is unaware that an adversary has been invited to Washington, say nothing of others of our allies who have yet to receive their first invitation of this presidency.”

McLaughlin: “Well, Brian, you know, my reaction sitting there in the audience today was, you know, our government has slipped out of gear. It is not functioning normally. And that would not happen – I’ve served seven presidents – that would not happen in any other administration. And it shows that the President was not prepared for the Helsinki summit and is now improvising again.”

Monday, July 23, 2018 update: “Trump has now walked back his walk-back on U.S. intelligence and Russia.”

(Photo: Reuters / Kevin Lamarque; source: The Nation.)

Donald Trump, Polls, Republicans, Tribalism

The President sided with the enemy and his base stuck with him

“To state it baldly: the United States was attacked and the President sided with the enemy in his Helsinki remarks.”

This observation, by John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and its former Acting Director, followed an extraordinary week of U.S. diplomacy and unprecedented conduct by an American president.

McLaughlin served in the CIA under seven presidents, from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush (including Ronald Reagan, pictured above at the Berlin Wall). He spoke in a thoughtful, low-key manner. By all appearances he is hardly prone to making questionable claims or besmirching American presidents.

It’s unlikely that many avid supporters of President Trump heard his remarks, because he made them during an interview on MSNBC (“The 11th Hour with Brian Williams,” July 20, 2018). This circumstance, along with the fact that he was voicing criticism of the President, makes it likely that Trump’s base would discredit the observation – never mind McLaughlin’s 30 years of public service in U.S. intelligence.

An Axios/Survey Monkey poll asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Trump handled his press conference with Putin?”

Although only 40% of respondents expressed approval, among Republicans 79% approved.

A Washington Post-ABC poll taken several days later asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Trump handled his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week?” and recorded these results: 33% approval overall, but 66% among Republicans.

A second question, “Overall do you think Trump went too far in supporting Putin, not far enough, or handled this about right?” While 40% said too far, only 14% of Republicans agreed.

(It’s possible that strong criticism from Congressional Republicans and other GOP leaders – between the two polls – dampened the enthusiasm of grassroots Republicans.)

What’s going on? Ronald Reagan, the perennial icon of Republicanism, is widely credited with winning the Cold War against “the Evil Empire.” Among Republican elites – with only an exception or two, such as California’s Representative Dana Rohrabacher – revanchist Russia, circa 2018, is hardly more trusted than was the U.S.S.R. Have Republican voters had any reason – apart from taking a cue from Trump – to look favorably on the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin?

Of course not. This poll reflects contemporary political tribalism. Trump voters – which include huge majorities in the mainstream Republican Party – are in his corner come what may.

In her book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, Amy Chua writes about the human instinct to bond – and exclude – and about how groups shape who we are and how we act toward others. The group identities that people are most tightly bound to are ethnic, regional, religious, sectarian, and clan based.  Group loyalties lead people to “seek to benefit their group mates even when they personally gain nothing. They will penalize outsiders, seemingly gratuitously. They will sacrifice, and even kill and die, for their groups.”

In successive chapters on U.S. foreign policy failures (in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq), Chua looks at tribal loyalties –the ethnic Chinese vs. the Vietnamese, the Pashtuns vs. numerous other clans in Afghanistan, and Sunnis vs. Shias in Iraq – which dominated the conflicts (even when American leaders were completely oblivious to these divisions) and frustrated U.S. military, political, and economic objectives.

In each of these situations, a “market-dominant minority” – the Chinese, Pashtuns, and Sunnis, respectively – held sway over the poorer majority population, creating anger and resentment. “Market-dominant minorities are one of the most potent catalysts of political tribalism.”

The American blindness to group identities abroad is true as well of social divisions in our own country – at least it has been until recently, as political polarization has come to be a defining feature of our national life. It has become harder to overlook, especially since the election of Donald Trump in November 2016. And, as awareness of tribalism in developing countries has increased, many have seen a similar dynamic in the U.S. with rising economic inequality and a growing gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us. This picture is complicated, as Chua notes, by the existence of not one, but two white tribes in this country – on opposite sides of the cultural issues that divide us.

Much post-election analysis and discussion has focused on competing theories of the Trump vote as it relates to working class white folks (whose strong turnout in a number of states Clinton expected to win instead put Trump over the top). Was it racism or economic hardship that moved these voters?

After watching Trump’s campaign – and hearing from his voters – many have pushed back against the idea of economic distress as an explanation, as Chua observes. She writes:

“But to see the divisiveness in today’s America – and the forces that brought about Trump’s election – as solely about racism, while ignoring the role of inequality, misses too much of the picture. Even putting economics aside, it misses the role played by white-against-white resentment and antagonism.”

For the purposes of this post, we need not resolve this issue – race or economics – to conclude: tribalism, not sweet reason or logical consistency or respect for facts, has kept Trump’s base behind him – even when events have cast doubt on the measure of his loyalty and his devotion to protecting and defending our country.

July 23, 2018 update – Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll:

“Mr. Trump’s job approval rating rose to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the highest mark of his presidency and up 1 percentage point from June….

Underpinning Mr. Trump’s job approval was support from 88% of Republican voters. Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency.”

(Photo: Ronald Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987.)

Donald Trump, Polls, Republicans

Reason to believe, reason to doubt

“Across Poplar Bluff, a struggling town of 17,000 in a remote pocket of southeast Missouri, many residents are reluctant to criticize Trump as they grapple with the prospect that their community could be one of the trade war’s first casualties,” reports Jenny Jarvie for the Los Angeles Times.

The second largest employer in this small Missouri city, Mid Continent Nail Corporation, which employs more than 500 residents, laid off 60 assembly line workers last month – a direct result of a 25% tariff on steel imports from Mexico imposed by the Trump administration.

Residents have been rattled by this turn of events, but not enough to shake their support for Trump.

A machine programmer – and Trump supporter – at the factory says, “I support him 100%. In fact, I’d like to shake his hand. He’s doing a great job.”

A 12-year employee at Mid Continent, who still supports Trump, says, “Most workers are behind Trump, no matter what.”

The president of the local chamber of commerce said, in declining to comment about the president or his trade policies, “You won’t get a lot of people speaking around here.”

While folks fear losing their jobs and perhaps their homes, they continue to credit Trump with looking at “the big picture” and doing the right thing about trade.

At a time when Trump commands the loyalty of 90% of Republicans, this is just another data point. Although his overall approval remains historically low relative to recent presidents, at the 500-day mark, Trump’s “own party” job approval rating trailed only one president – George W. Bush, following 9/11 – in Gallup polling since World War II.

Link (and larger graph): Trump’s 500-day coup of the GOP, Conservatism – Jonathan Swan, Axios

In Butler County in November 2016, Trump received 79.2% of the vote, compared to Clinton’s 17.6%. A key to Trump’s victory were a handful of campaign promises he made that conflicted with conventional conservative views (and the well-established positions of the Republican Party and its donor class). In most instances, he caved once in office – and followed Republican orthodoxy – but he hasn’t done that with free trade and U.S. manufacturing jobs. And voters in Poplar Bluff credit him for that.

Missouri is a red state. In Butler County, more than 92% of residents are white. Fewer than 12% have college degrees. The median household income is $36,302. So, voter preferences are not surprising. But in 2012, Barack Obama received a higher level of support (25.8%) in Butler County against Mitt Romney (72.5%), than did Clinton against Trump. The Democratic ticket lost 1,327 voters in 2016 compared to 4 years earlier.

It’s likely that virtually no Trump voters in Poplar Bluff could list a single Clinton pledge directly related to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs or the economic anxieties felt in small cities and towns across the Midwest. In contrast, they remember that it was Bill Clinton who gave us NAFTA.

And virtually all remember Hillary Clinton’s statement during the campaign that half of Trump supporters were a “basket of deplorables.”

(Photo from Google Maps.)

 

 

 

 

Democracy, Donald Trump

“Is this the most divided you have ever seen the United States?”

Jamie Dupree, a reporter whose career began during the Reagan administration, reports hearing that question frequently.

His response: “My answer is always – no, this is not the most divided that our country has been, even in my lifetime.”

He points to events of 45 to 50 years ago (1968-1973).

I was a freshman in college in 1968, a year the nation experienced two political assassinations – of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; the My Lai massacre; and brutal clashes between protesters and the police at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago, which paved the way for the election of Richard Nixon.

The nation was engulfed in the Vietnam War abroad and protests in the streets at home. In 1970, National Guardsmen fired on protesting students at Kent State University, killing four of them. (Dupree’s post features a soundtrack of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Ohio,” with a photo montage from that year to illustrate the social chaos the country was experiencing.)

We don’t have half a million troops fighting a war in Southeast Asia today with high casualties and a military draft. We don’t have the level of violence in the streets that we had 50 years ago. So Dupree’s conclusion that we are less divided today than we were then is not unreasonable.

Nonetheless, this conclusion leaves something out. Since the late ’60s and early ’70s, our politics has become much more tribal. We are more separate than before in many ways. And in 2016, we elected the first president in my lifetime who, in Jonathan Bernstein’s words, “doesn’t even attempt to be president of the whole nation.” Even Nixon, who kept an enemies list – but kept it private, often spoke to the country as a whole and sought to appeal to – and to represent – both independents and Democrats, not just the Republican base.

Donald Trump began his political ascent as the chief proponent of the birther theory – intending to delegitimize his predecessor in the White House. His political rallies in 2016, and the Republican National Convention that nominated him, featured frenzied chants of “Lock her up!” directed at his Democratic opponent.  So (although for many months following his election, pundits predicted, and often professed to see, a pivot – the turning point where Trump adopted the norms and mores of recent – and distant – presidents) his approach to governing has been of a piece with his campaign. It’s either all-in with Trump; or excluded and excoriated.

The 45th president has, in effect, championed factional government. (Josh Marshall makes this point.) He has done so very deliberately and for all to see.

The phrase, “factional government,” is something we are accustomed to hearing applied to unstable regimes, or where opponents control separate regions – in the Middle East, for instance. When sectarian divisions exist, and there is no shared conception of the national interest, then insular, zero-sum tactics predominate. When one faction gains the upper hand, however precariously, disfavored groups – and a common, overarching public good – suffer.

The concept of factions has a special place in American political thought. James Madison – who feared that democratic society could be ripped apart by factionalism – wrote, in Federalist 10: “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

The stubborn refusal of our president to embrace America whole – all of our citizens; our country’s abiding national interest; what we share in common, not what divides us – sets this era apart from the divisive years that Dupree recalls.

(Post revised July 13, 2018 to introduce Josh Marshall’s reference to factional government.)

(Photo from video montage – CSN&Y’s “Ohio.”)