stevenkesslar

Yeah yeah yeah. But seriously? You're going to give us your take-away, and not comment on the fashion combination of lime green dress and red shoes? Personally, I'm grateful to Melania for giving me something to like. Since almost everything else either bored me, or annoyed the shit out of me.

Here's Ron Brownstein hitting the ball out of the park again. The Flight 93 Convention This is an excellent companion piece to Stuart Stevens' "It Was All A Lie." Brownstein reinforces much of what Stevens is saying. But he's coming at it from a completely different angle. Stevens speaks from his perspective. I think he believes that the Republican Party could be noble and good perhaps, if it were led by someone like a President Mitt Romney. This article looks at it from the perspective of the Republicans that Stevens views as the dark side of his party. And who at this point likely view Stevens and Romney and Kasich and that whole ilk as RINOs they won't miss. As a caveat, Ivanka's speech tonight gave a hint of what a Trump Presidency could have looked like on Alternative Earth, if you assume that the priorities would have been very different: Like if it was about child care, not The Wall. And if the tone was like the one she used, rather than her Dad. But President Toxic himself did a great job of putting the cherry on the icing on the cake they'd been baking all week. About how nobody will be safe in Joe Biden's America. So this is definitely going to be a Flight 93 Campaign, The Sequel. There was endless debate after 2016 about how much of President Toxic's victory was more recent economic pain felt by people in factory towns, and how much of it was racism or "cultural anxiety" felt by White people for a very long time. My answer was always "both/and". It seems like that's a good answer based on 2018 and 2020, so far. We know some of the 2016 Trump voters voted Democratic in 2018, and handed the Democrats a House majority. That also played out at the state level all over America. And in 2020 primaries in places like Michigan I'm pretty sure Biden did well because he got the votes of some of the people that voted from Obama/Biden in 2008 and 2012 but flipped to President Toxic in 2020. Stevens himself, and all the Lincoln Party crowd, are proving that they are not wedded to the concept of a Republican White Supremacist Party. The idea instead repels them. Then there is this other group, which Rush Limbaugh certainly speaks to. They are overwhelmingly but not exclusively White. And they do clearly view this as a Flight 93 moral and cultural crusade. Implied in that is that Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Blacks in general - or at least Black Lives Matter, Muslims - or at least Rep. Omar - are all as bad as ISIS. Oh, and let's not forget that Marxist socialist Black woman who - can you believe it? - actually got elected to Congress? We certainly heard these themes loud and clear from President Toxic tonight. No one will be safe in Joe Biden's America. So I think we are heading into The Flight 93 Campaign, Take Two. Or, as I'll explain below, it might best be called The Flight 93 Campaign, Fear Edition. It's hard for me to believe that President Toxic scored points with anyone that wasn't voting for him already tonight. In fact, the goal now may simply be to get the base motivated to vote, even if it turns off everyone else. That sounds so 2018. Michael Steele, the former RNC head, said something like that on MSNBC tonight. It was a good show, but it's unlikely to add to the base. He thinks Republicans are looking at losing 4 to 7 Senate seats unless things change substantially. There were two specific things that stuck with me. The first was when President Toxic said that by calling out "racial, social, and economic injustice" at the DNC, Democrats disqualified themselves from power. Because they are tearing down America. Right after that line the camera happened to pan to the Cabinet members in the crowd, who were almost all old and very rich White men - guys like Mnuchin and Ross. I remember the days when Democrats were called un-American because they burned flags. So I just found it interesting that calling out economic and racial injustice in 2020 would be labeled as tearing America down. And that the label would be placed on us by very rich old White men. That does say something to me about how these Republicans on the plane view their predicament. The other thing that was weird, which just about everybody on mainstream media labeled as this alternative world President Toxic wants us to believe is real, is all the fear mongering about how unsafe we will be if the Biden Armageddon is allowed to happen. Throwing all that into the metaphor of the Flight 93 Campaign makes it even more of a mind fuck. Because in the real world which Trump didn't talk about, we really do have 10 % unemployment. There really is a virus that is expected to kill 250,000 or more Americans by Election Day. We have plenty of real scary things to make us want to run under the covers and hide. So you could imagine that the virus is what's taking down the plane. Or the loss of jobs and income is what's taking down the plane. What's difficult for me to imagine, as a Democrat or liberal, is that somehow this whole Biden/Harris/Black thing is so scary and so horrible that that's what's worth bringing down the plane over. The virus and 10 % unemployment and the recession? We don't need to talk about that. All of this would help explain why what Stevens sees as the dark side of his party does view this as life or death. And as cited in the quotation above, if that is the end, unethical means are really not a problem. It was all there painted in a beautiful picture on TV. Even with fireworks. So I get how the people on the plane don't look at the Trump family and see corruption or nepotism. And if having it at The White House is a violation of the Hatch Act, who cares? This is a life or death fight. I'm not sure most Americans would agree with me about what I said above about racial or economic injustice. Those do sound like progressive buzzwords. But my guess is that people at the center who are less political or more moderate or both are going to see safety my way, not President Toxic's way. They'll be more concerned about the virus and their jobs and income than about the suburbs being abolished by Blacks - who do of course live in suburbs already. I'll be very curious to see whether this has any impact on Independents, who are tilted to Biden. Maybe I'm kidding myself. But if this is really a Flight 93 campaign again, that's only playing to a shrinking base. I think it sets President Toxic up to lose, and maybe lose badly. The rhetoric of Biden being a "job destroyer" is another gift. That might be catnip to rich White Republican millionaires, or the gun-waving McCloskeys. But it makes it very easy for Biden to win the argument at the debates, given that for 7.5 years of the Obama/Biden Administration there was steady job creation. Even if you count the 6 months of job shredding from January to June 2009 against Biden, he still was a Job Creator Vice President. President Toxic is now a Job Destroyer President. He can blame it on COVID-19. But the losses of jobs and income are being felt deeply all over America. Like most of his arguments, he just doesn't think it through. "Sleepy Joe" made it easy for Biden to outperform. President Toxic has done it again, and defined this in a way that makes it easy for Biden to win the jobs debate. What Tillery says there matches up with what Stevens is saying. Stevens says in the future the real debate will be between Berniecrats and Biden Democrats. The post-Trump Toxic Republican base will become smaller, and more bitter. It's consistent with the idea that a substantial part of the Trump base is racist to the core, and won't be able to reconcile themselves to a different America. Which is to say, America TODAY is too different for them. These are the people who are presumably willing to bring the whole plane down. While Trump didn't use the same metaphor, it's all consistent with the idea that Biden's America is a destination that is so horrible that a plane crash would almost be a better alternative. All this also reinforces what I've felt for a year or two, as I've been shredding relationships with former Republican friends. This is not politics as usual. Politics as usual is basically about Democrats and Republicans somehow working together to ensure the plane gets to its destination, and everyone on board is safe. Now we're in a situation where the Democrats, especially some or all of the Black passengers on the plane, are actually terrorists. So the job of the Toxic Trump Republicans, worst case, is to bring the whole thing down. That's a scary idea. It's not politics. It's a moral crusade. And it doesn't leave much room for compromise or unity. Another scary idea is that this actually worked in 2016. As I said above, we'd have to think of it as The Flight 93 Campaign, Fear Edition. There are three things that I think are very different than the 2016 version of the Flight 93 campaign. And each of them was palpable watching the speech tonight. First, President Toxic in now the incumbent. So the splendor of The White House and the fireworks may have helped him create the picture he wanted. Be it also means he is responsible for what is going on in President Toxic's America, as both Biden and Harris pointed out today. Second, what's going on in President Toxic's America is not very good. Pick any metric - like jobs or income or poverty or violence - by which Trump attacked the Obama/Biden record in 2016. It's now a lot worse. And then there's the racism. Steele, the Black former RNC head, is saying the problem with President Toxic's approach to Black Lives Matter is that most Americans feel that it just inflames the situation. That's a Republican talking. Third, while Trump hammered themes about law and order and how Blacks were living in hell in 2016, the core of his campaign in 2016 was hope: "Make America Great Again". He was the business genius from reality TV who would win so much that people would beg him to stop, because we were winning too much. There is no evidence that most Americans feel like winners today. There is lots of evidence that Blacks feel like they are living in Hell - in large part because of President Toxic's failures and racism. The theme of tonight was: "No one will be safe in Biden's America." That's not hope. That's raw fear. Which is why I say we're looking at The Flight 93 Campaign, Fear Edition. On CNN's analysis tonight, Chris Cuomo cautioned that fear works. He thinks this could be how President Toxic wins his second term. He added that what's happening in Kenosha right now will help Trump in Wisconsin, not hurt him. No one disagreed. I agree with Cuomo about Kenosha. Don Lemon, like Biden and Harris, is being increasingly emphatic about how peaceful protest about racial injustice is good, but rioting and looting are unacceptable and bad. I'm pretty confident Biden/Harris will be able to sell a nuanced and positive vision of the future of race in America. Unless Biden and Harris really screw up the message on race and peaceful protest, I actually disagree with Cuomo that fear works. Here's why, quoting again from Brownstein's great article: "Make America Great Again" is a message of hope. President Toxic basically stole it from Ronald Reagan. What he didn't steal so much was the deeper optimistic vision of America Reagan was a master at consistently painting. The "shining city on the hill" usually involved immigrants coming to our shores to escape oppression or find opportunity. That's the open borders and free trade vision of America Stuart Stevens believed in, which he thinks his party completely abandoned with Trump. Toward the end of his Presidency, Reagan proudly noted in a speech that he always tried to win based on playing to people's highest hopes, rather than their worst fears. As a Democrat and critic, I think that's more true than not. H.W. had his thousand points of light. W. had his compassionate conservatism. If there's a Republican winner in my adult lifetime that was a fear monger, it's President Toxic. But I'd still say 2016 was The Flight 93 Campaign, Hope Edition. I think the people that gave him the benefit of the doubt on Election Day really were hoping that "Make America Great Again" meant their lives would get better. One consistent theme of stories I kept reading about Trump supporters in 2017 and 2018 and 2019 is that even if the high paying factory jobs or coal jobs were not back, and the opioid addictions were still a big problem, Trump's supporters said at least now we have "hope". I kept reading the word "hope" again and again and again. It was clear that it gave people a way to support President Toxic, even if in many cases they couldn't point to clear results in their community. And it's not like President Toxic completely abandoned the rhetoric of hope tonight. He did say, if re-elected, America will be greater. I have a strong feeling that President Toxic is backing his campaign into a corner that is built around fear, anger, racism, and also a lack of reason. If Corbyn lost in the UK because Labor became "the nasty party", in the words of a Labor PM, I think President Toxic faces the same danger. We'll learn soon from polls. But most of what I heard tonight felt out of touch and over the top in COVID-19 Recession America. To me, it felt like instead of offering America hope, President Toxic offered us denial. And fear. Lots and lots and lots of fear. I've been thinking for a few months that it's possible that 2020 could be like 1980, with President Toxic playing the role of Carter. If you just go by the economy, stupid, we're worse off than when Reagan won. Hearing Michael Steele say Democrats could win 4 to 7 Senate seats didn't make me feel like I'm being foolish. There's one other thing that reminded me of Reagan and 1980 tonight. Joe Biden is no Ronald Reagan. But when I say that I refer to the mythical Reagan we remember now. Not the crazy conservative who many people thought was unelectable in 1980. My point is that tonight President Toxic pulled a Jimmy Carter. In fact, it was Carter on steroids. However bad Reagan was during the 1980 campaign, Biden is going to destroy jobs, abolish the suburbs, cancel people, and make America unrecognizable. All in one year, Sean Hannity says. Meanwhile, Biden didn't cite Trump by name last week. And his humility and branded decency is his version of Reagan's "aw shucks" armor. President Toxic's fear mongering may work out as well for him as Carter's worked out with Reagan. At least I hope!

I didn't know that. So I Googled and there is this Randy Rainbow ‘Deeply’ Apologizes for ‘Racist and Awful’ Old Tweets: ‘They Make Me Sick to My Stomach’ Given your prior posts, I'm assuming we agree this is not grounds for cancelling Randy, right? So I posted my long rant from a year ago saying the Hunter issue is a real problem - even if it is more a problem of perception than reality. Meaning Hunter himself broke no laws, even if you assume what he did was sleazy and wrong. And Joe certainly broke no laws because Hunter played off Joe's position. I'll say again, this is one of the reasons I would have gone with Elizabeth. That said, Hunter at least quasi-apologized. And Hunter's sins don't seem to be sticking to Joe, despite the best efforts of the asshole who did effectively brand Hillary as "Crooked Hillary". Beyond that, perhaps just because I have no choice, I'm seeing more of Joe's strengths than I did a year ago. On balance, I think he's playing this whole campaign well. My expectations of him as a candidate were low. So it's easy from him to beat my expectations. And he is definitely beating my expectations. So what are you actually suggesting I do, if I don't want to fall for the "cookie, what cookie?" routine" Vote for President Toxic? Not vote at all?

First, thanks. You just taught me I'm psychic. This is the second time I was typing a response to a post you made before you posted it. See my post on China above. Second: Say It Ain't So, Joe That's a link to the thread I started a year ago. So I hardly dismiss the issue. In context, that post above was basically an argument for Warren. Since I'm psychic (or, if you prefer to believe, psycho) I'll tell you how Warren would have played out, if nominated. First, she would have pivoted. She's just the former Republican from Oklahoma, who wants to help Main Street. Not some socialist. And this is an election about corruption, which is what President Toxic stands for. She kept signaling again and again she intended to make 2020 a referendum on corruption. Of course, all that was before COVID-19. Warren could make a great argument about any of the "c" words: President Toxic's lack of competence dealing with COVID-19, his corruption, or his lack of character. We agree that the corruption/nepotism argument is a difficult to impossible one for Biden to make. Which is why it's better to let President Toxic make it, so everyone can say, "Really? Really? Give me a fucking break!" I honestly believe that Lichtman is right and Biden, Warren, or Sanders would all have won in 2020, if nominated. The difference might have been victory margin, electoral votes, and - most importantly - Senate seat pick ups. Sanders would have the wind blowing in his face in Florida (communism, socialism, Jews - even though Bernie is one) whereas Biden has it blowing at his back and pushing him ahead. Lichtman said in 2016 it should be a close call, and Trump should win. But Hillary might win because Trump is just so awful. One way you can read that is that even President Toxic could not fuck up where the fundamentals were driving the election. If you buy that, it's even more true today. Team Toxic won't be able to fuck up their own defeat, which is what the fundamentals are calling for. In fact, they'll help defeat along. To reinforce my point, here's Steven Bannon and Billionaire China Dude: Can I just say it? They make an adorable couple. Now, you can take this one of two ways. One, Steve Bannon is actually in bed with China's richest dudes. He's a hypocrite. I don't think that will fly. The image of Bannon in bed with anyone is gonna be a bridge too far even for a whore like me, who is open-minded about who I'm in bed with. Two, Steve Bannon and Billionaire China Dude are plotting to overthrow Communist China from a yacht off the East Coast. When you think about it, that's better than China Joe handing us to Xi on a silver platter. Right? The more you think about it, the more this makes sense. First, it worked super well when we tried it in Iraq. So why not try it again? Second, it worked even better when we tried it in Venezuela. So why not try it again? Third, Xi is a wimp compared to Saddam or that second rate Chavez wannabe. One or two nuclear bombs will take him out quick. Now, if any of what I'm saying makes sense to you, you belong on TV at the Republican National Convention. You can sit right next to the McCloskeys while you explain this to America. Although they did the whole gun thing super well. So I might suggest bringing a nuclear bomb to wave. For pretty much everybody other than the devoted base, I just don't see how they prosecute the China Joe argument given the criminal shit show they've created. There's a good argument that corruption/nepotism will fuck up a Biden Presidency. Either because Hunter or somebody does something new. Or because the Sacred Toxic Remnant that Trump leaves behind decides to impeach Biden over it. They'd need a House majority. Good luck with that. We'll deal with that when we get to it. But I don't think it's likely. I'm not even sure why, but all the toxic is sticking to Trump. Joe really is turning out to be Teflon Joe, at least so far. Since I invoked her name, I'm more concerned about whether Elizabeth Warren - or one her proteges - will be Treasury Secretary. If Biden gives it to someone like Geithner or Summers, that's a good time for progressives to break the glass and yell, "Corrupt hack!" And this video isn't precisely about corruption or nepotism, but those things are sandwiched in. I missed this particular Randy Rainbow parody when it first came out. Speaking of being best, I think this is one of Randy's best. When I watched it, my reaction was like when I hear the Trumps go off on corruption or nepotism. I was just laughing my ass off. I assume you've all seen Randy's videos already. But while we're on the subject, let's just go for the Biden And The Beast double header. This is also one of his best. All the stuff about hypocrisy, corruption, nepotism, and even blowing up Iran is in this one.

As part of my daily intellectual masturbation, I thought it would be interesting to follow up on some things about Nick Sandmann. And just to be clear, Nick is a man now, not a child. And I mean intellectual masturbation about legal and political issues, not real masturbation. Frankly, Nick is just not my kind of guy. Nor are his pals, as you can see below. And please, Nick. Don't take that as being cancelled. Mostly my feeling about this is all's well that ends well. Nick made an important point about leaping to conclusions, got a bunch of money, a college scholarship, and he's pals with Donald Trump. Jr. Hell, 3 out of 4 ain't bad. This has pretty much nothing to do with this thread. But I can connect it to what's above this way. Reading this stuff about Northern Kentucky just reinforces my feelings about Orange County and the suburbs. If Democrats, and progressives, are going to grow, we have to grow somewhere. I get that small town and rural Michigan is not the same as small town and rural Kentucky. But nothing I read about Nick, his beliefs, his lawyer, or his part of the USA suggests that Democrats should be thinking much about Kentucky as the center of a new national Democratic majority. I know, of course, that they did just elect a Democratic Governor. That actually is what I hope Democrats do in the South, for now: build a bench of people like Gov. Andy Beshear and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. I think we should smile or smirk, send Nick on his way, and wish him luck - but not too much - in his passionate crusade to cancel women's right to choose. And, of course, to call out the mainstream media's anti-Catholic bias. Most Catholic priests I know are Gay. So I suppose you could say in a weird way Nick is actually speaking up for few Gay people who are still forced to hide in the closet. Speaking of the media and their anti-Catholic, anti-conservative, and anti-Trump bias, according to Nick, this all was a bit of a surprise to me: Federal judge reinstates libel lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic teen against Washington Post That's an article from last Fall. As most of you probably know, WaPo and CNN settled. I knew that, so I assumed they must have thought there was a case here that they could lose. Or at least one that could publicly embarrass them were it to go to trial. If they called Nick something like a "little Mussolini" or said he should "off himself", like the guy who went after Chick Fil A ineptly said social media trolls were telling him to do, that would sound really bad. So the facts I didn't know is that there were 33 specific statements WaPo made that were potentially defamatory, according to Nick's lawyer. The judge first threw all 33 out as protected opinion. Then he said he'd allow 3 of the 33 to go forward at least to discovery, to clarify what the statements meant. None of the statements were about "little Mussolinis" or how Catholics or conservative kids suck, or anything like that. They were about what was stated about Nick's motion in the moment relative to Nathan Phillips. Like whether Sandmann "blocked" Phillips. Nick of course won that argument in the battle of public opinion, based on clear facts. The true assholes spouting anti-Gay, anti-Semitic, and anti-Trump slurs were the Black Hebrew Bozos. I think it's fair to say that Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandmann now both qualify to be labelled professional protesters. But they both have every right to do that. WaPo already also won their argument in a court of law. When the 33 claims of defamation were thrown out, it negated the idea that the Post was cancelling Nick because they have an anti-Catholic or anti-conservative agenda. So this wasn't about somebody saying something like "the little Mussolini should off himself", which is in the ballpark of the worst real life examples of what's wrong with cancel culture. The judge was willing to talk more about whether Sandmann "blocked" Phillips. This is partly why I say Democrats should stay a million miles away from this legal cul de sac. Maybe this is an editorial issue for WaPo to deal with. Like when a reporter says 3 people were killed in the explosion and it was actually 4. But whoever reported on this wasn't there when it happened, and was going off the same video everyone was. This sounds like the kind of stupid "but is that really a dot over the i?" nonsense that a lot of US law ends up revolving around. At least in the eyes of a non-lawyer like me. The Post was smart to settle this after they made their point, stated in the article above, that they don't have a bias and they did not defame Nick. Nick said this incident changed his life in his talk this week. He didn't say if it was changed for better or worse. Nick having a college scholarship, a big trust fund, a national platform to pursue his desire to cancel women's right to choose, and a budding friendship with Don, Jr. doesn't make me feel like he was cancelled. He's also now eligible to vote. I'm guessing he'll be voting for Mitch McConnell, not Amy McGrath. If that works really well, Nick can get the conservative judges he needs to cancel women's rights over their own body. How cool would that be? Forgive me for being a cynical bitch, but I also decided to seek information on this because I figured I'd probably learn that the lawyer involved had some political agenda. Honestly, I expected to find out that the law firm behind this was a politically well-connected conservative law firm close to McConnell or other Republicans. Todd McMurtry: The local lawyer, father and grill enthusiast who wants Rep. Thomas Massie's job That's an article about Todd McMurty, Nick's lawyer. Turns out he had a political agenda: running against the incumbent US Rep in the Republican primary. I get the sense that all of us are conservatives who despise the mainstream Marxist media and get a chub when we read about Republican heroes who take these Marxists on. So I'm sure you'll all be very saddened to learn that Rep. Massie clobbered McMurty by like a 4-1 margin in Kentucky's Republican primary. I'm not sure about this. But from the very few articles I read it sounds like part of it may have been that Massie is actually more conservative than McMurty. For example, as the article above points out, Massie was against the Coronavirus relief bills. Then again, McMurty went off about how “some cartel-looking dude is playing a video of some wild Mexican birthday party at full volume in an airport". That's part of his argument about limiting migration more. I guess that's better than using the incident as an argument for waving guns at Mexicans in airports. All this suggests to me that Democrats in this part of Kentucky will lose every argument they make the second their lips start moving. Why bother? I was a big Amy McGrath fan in 2018, when she ran for and narrowly lost a nearby Kentucky House seat. I'd love to see her take out Mitch McConnell. The odds are very much stacked against her, just like they are for Sen. Doug Jones. They both reek of a desire for moderation, bipartisanship, and compromise to get things done. Stuart Stevens actually gave me a new reason to feel like this is a lost cause. To paraphrase him, if Republicans keep rejecting Democrats (and RINO Republicans like Kasich) who are into moderation, bipartisanship, and compromise, you have to conclude at some point that's because Republicans are against moderation, bipartisanship, and compromise. I'm there. Why bother? Yeah, they finally dumped White Supremacist Steve King. Only to be replaced somewhere else by the Q Anon whack job. Frying pan, meet fire. None of this makes a very rational argument for focusing on Orange County and the suburbs of Dallas or Houston or Phoenix or Atlanta or Chicago. But we actually are winning there. And part of the reason why is people like Lucy McBath and Lauren Underwood are actually winning there. And they are winning based on what I would call "progressive" values, like gun control and affordable health care. I'd rather focus on helping suburban women like Lucy and Lauren win. Let's just let Nick go about his business of cancelling women's right to choose. And wish him luck. But not too much. And, Nick, if I may. A word of advice. I'd cancel your friendship with Don, Jr. Like his Dad, he's a fair-weather friend. He'll throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it becomes politically expedient.

Now I'll return the kindness. Did you just write that? John Bolton? Are you maybe confusing John Bolton and John Kasich? One spoke at the Democratic convention. The other was nowhere in sight at either convention. But if Bolton's messages have been popping up, it's on the Republican side. Like Grenell. Gays should love President Toxic like I do. Because he still wants to blow the shit out of Iran, where there are an unusually high number of well hung Gay men. I'll put Tulsi to the side. But Bernie and Berniecrats were more than welcome at the DNC last week, as far as I can tell. And it's telling that the RNC is making zero effort to lure in the progressive crowd who care about things like climate change and gun control. Unless that whole McCloskey thing was a play for progressives who want to create a climate where it is righteous to point guns at Black people. I don't think we'll know about Millennials and Blacks until Election Day. And we should be focused like hawks on these legal and administrative issues of how they actually cast their ballots. But I don't worry that we don't have a slogan like "Get Clean For Gene" about Biden. Because I think what excites (or disgusts) the progressive crowd is that they want to be one of the millions of nails in the coffin of Toxic Trump America. I sure do. Now let's talk about China. I agree with you that the best attack on Biden would be to go after him as China Joe. But as I said already, President Toxic can't do that. He will do it, of course. But it won't work. Again, roll the tape of the kisses and hugs and compliments President Toxic gave Xi and Kuddly Kim. Upload the picture of Steve Bannon hanging out on the yacht with Billionaire China Dude right before he got arrested. And then give me a fucking break. China Joe? Give me a fucking break. I think one of President Toxic's many fatal flaws is that he really meant it when he said he's not responsible. He doesn't seem to understand that, especially as President Toxic, he is responsible for what he says and does. So in 2016 he could throw bombs at Hillary about shit he never had to actually deal with, and couldn't be held accountable for. He actually does not seem to get that this is not an option in 2020. When he ignores reality and lies about what we all know he said or did, he just loses votes. In 2016 Hillary did better at the debates than Trump. But one of her worst moments was NAFTA. Trump crucified her, and made her the poster child of NAFTA. She said something about how she wrote about that in her book. Nail, meet chalkboard. The sound could be heard all across factory towns in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Even though we missed it. We were all focused on what a Bozo Trump was. Again, he could get away with it because all he did in the 80's and 90's is talk about how it's okay for Whites to hate Blacks. For people like Axelrod and Brownstein who want more economic policy meat from Biden, this will be a key moment at the debate. Biden will need to show empathy for all those communities that are struggling, now worse than ever before. However he communicates it, here's the facts. We gained 1 million factory jobs under Clinton. We lost 5 million factory jobs under W., many of which went to China. Once the free fall stopped by Summer 2009, Biden was in charge of the recovery efforts, which brought 1 million factory jobs back. Now we have fewer factory jobs than when President Toxic was elected. In some states, like Pennsylvania, we now have fewer factory jobs than during the darkest days of The Great Recession. Does everyone see the pattern? I want you to know I understand your pain, and I have a plan to focus like a laser beam on these struggling communities again. I actually did that. We created 1 million factory jobs, which I know wasn't enough. But President Toxic has completely failed to do it. All he did is gave tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires like him. We raised taxes on the rich so that people could have more affordable health care, and not have to worry about pre-existing conditions. Give me a chance to improve on that and I will. Not destroy it, like Trump wants to. Something like that is what I hope Biden says. If you want to talk warmongers, Iran is not the issue. Biden has already said he wants back in on the nuclear deal, and the Paris deal on climate change. President Toxic will attack him for being a radical peacenik and Marxist climate freak. Maybe we'll actually get to "Jihad Joe" by the time this gets stupider, meaner, and more bigoted. If we're talking about warmongering for the next war, we should start seriously talking about China. There's a version of Lichtman - historical determinism - that applies to this question. It's called the Thucydides Trap. History tells us it's more likely than not we'll go to war with China. Then again, history told us it was more likely than not that we'd go to war with the Soviet Union. We dodged that nuclear bomb, even though it might have been a close call. I actually think that's one of the few silver linings in the cloud of COVID-19. Everybody knows it came from China. Everybody knows China covered it up at first. Giving hugs to Italians and poorly manufactured ventilators to the world didn't exactly make up for that. The polls show that people all over the world trust China less because of all this. We can't do a thing about that right now, though. Because they don't trust President Toxic, either. I think the magic word is "containment". A very smart group of people probably would not agree what containment with the Soviet Union was. Even though they'd agree it worked. So we'll have to figure this out as we go, just like we did before. Like you, I don't want warmongers leading that discussion. I want someone clever, with a backbone. I checked, and Indiana Jones isn't available. I think in the Obama/Biden White House we now know that Biden was one of the ones who tended to say behind closed doors that we should just get the hell out. We can't win. So he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy into fighting wars he knows he can't win. I know, I know, I know. Iraq. I feel the same way. All that is part of why I wanted Warren, and voted for Bernie. But containment means never having to say you're dreaming in some alternative reality. So somehow we're going to have to figure it out with Joe. I'll close with one more anecdote trashing a former Republican friend. Believe it or not, I do edit myself. Reading Stuart Stevens brought up lots and lots of conversations I've had over decades with Republicans. So I picked a few in the post above. Here's another one that is relevant to how warmongers like Bolton (or Cheney and Rumsfeld) actually get what they want. The best explanation I ever heard of why W. was re-elected in 2004 came from a former Republican friend who I was having lunch with maybe about 2010. And when I say "Republican friend" I should qualify that he voted for Obama in 2008 and as I recall was calling himself a Democrat back then. That lasted until about Fall 2010, I think. I guess old denials are hard to break, as Stevens might say. I said at this lunch that I could easily get how he voted for W. as a compassionate conservative in 2000. But why did you vote to re-elect him in 2004, by which time it should have been incredibly clear that Iraq was a disastrous mistake? I'll never forget his answer: "I think I just really wanted to believe that what W. was saying about the war was true." I didn't have the vocabulary "permission structure" in my lexicon at that point. But what he was saying is that W. said just enough to give him permission to vote for W. Which is what he really wanted to do. That's exactly what is happening this week at the RNC. At the time this actually occurred, my attitude was kind of, "We're friends. Let bygones be bygones." This is the same guy who in Spring 2017 complained to me about all this noise about Trump, who he'd voted for. He wasn't supporting or defending President Toxic at that point. He just was sick of the noise about him. As I posted already, at the time I was polite, and the only question I asked was, "What did you expect when you voted for him?" One of my escort buddies came up with a good nickname for this guy, or his behavior. Mr. McGoo. Because it's like he doesn't see or connect his steps, and the consequences of his own actions. Or, as Stuart Stevens might say, he doesn't really want to think too hard about the likely consequences of his own voting decisions. Stevens himself didn't really want to think about the consequences of re-electing Bush by Gay-baiting. Shucks. We were at least trying to be our better angels. If we're talking warmonger, that's the real danger I see today. I'm sure many who supported Hitler didn't really intend that whole thing about concentration camps. Leni Reifenstahl, Director of the Nazi propaganda film Triumph Of The Will, always defended her movie against claims that it paved the way for genocide with the willfully ignorant explanation that the movie never even explicitly mentioned or attacked Jews. I think President Toxic is already paving the rhetorical groundwork for war with China. As in, "China virus". One of the reasons the Hitler analogy is a stretch is that Hitler was very clear that he actually wanted Mein Kampf. This is more like Mein Herr McGoo. Like with COVID-19, President Toxic won't have a plan. He won't think much about what he decided to do today, which will be very different than what he decides to do tomorrow. General Kelly or Mattis, hardly peaceniks, would of course try to prevent the worst consequences of President Toxic's behavior. But we all know what happened to them. And it just makes sense. President Toxic is way smarter than them, anyway. And he's smarter than Bolton, too! The final thing it takes to arrive at nuclear holocaust is willing Mr. McGoos in your base, who really want to believe what President Toxic is telling them is true. About the China virus. About how China Joe will hand the US to Xi on a silver platter. About how China and secret Chinese labs did this to us on purpose, as Fox News reported and everybody who isn't lied to by the fake news knows. I'm not predicting this will happen if President Toxic wins. But I think it's far more likely that President Toxic would go this route than President Biden. Biden will get to work on containment, I think. I understand that "containment" with the Soviet Union in real terms meant things like the Vietnam War, and all kinds of proxy wars and assassinations, among other bad things. So we have a huge number of challenges ahead of us. And this could end very badly. I agree with you that we should be very sober. And vigilant for warmongers.

Why Stuart Stevens Wants to Defeat Donald Trump I'm adding this interview here to play off the OP's thread title. At least Stuart Stevens is shocked and morally indignant about the amazing toxic waste Trump Presidency. Stevens does not use the word "shocked". But it is close enough to describe how he feels, alongside the whole Lincoln Project gang. As well as God knows how many other Republican consultants, Republican politicians, Republican ex-Presidential candidates, and Republican ex-Presidents. This is not a good omen for the Republican Party under President Toxic. There's three different levels of shock that are worth noting. The first level of shock is Stevens' own shock at what his beloved Republican Party has become. I know part of why I am binge reading everything I can find about Stevens' epiphany is that I feel like I have been having these intense conversations with him for many years. Which is to say I actually have been having these intense discussions for years. But with Republican friends and clients I decided I no longer respect, and don't want to have any more conversations with. This is helping me process my very mixed feelings about that. I feel a little bit better about what I did. And a little bit worse about what Republicans I was close to believed. Stevens is saying it was all a lie, it was racist and rotten to the core, and it really just needs to be burned to the ground. This is the Republican who worked for W. and Romney, among many others. If he feels that way, he's way further out there than I am. Whole chunks of what he writes are conversations, almost verbatim, I already had with a number of Republicans. I remember the conversations about Trump hijacking the party. Sometimes with the unstated implication that I should feel sorry for these Republicans, who were almost the victims of aggression. It never quite made sense. How do you hijack a major political party in the United States? Why is Trump saying inflammatory things I've heard coming out of your mouth, with increasing intensity, for years? And, after he was elected, why do you seem to be falling in line, rather than fighting him? So I agree with Stevens. President Toxic allowed the Republican Party, and these individuals I knew, to show their true face. As President Toxic himself said to an opponent, it's not a pretty face. There is also an element of willful denial, or willful ignorance, which Stevens talks a lot about. Again, all of this is a trip down memory lane for me. And not a fun one. Stevens' biggest claim to fame is Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. He still believes Mitt would have been a great President. One who would have tried to be one of the better angels of the party. And who was the kind of guy who might have balanced the federal budget. Maybe. I had a horrible conversation with a guy who I can describe as a Romney Republican in Fall 2012. I kept arguing that in theory, cutting taxes without also cutting spending - like Romney/Ryan proposed - will just blow up the deficit again. Which is of course what Republicans always bitch about. And in reality, when Reagan and W. cut taxes, it blew up the deficit. But when H.W. and Clinton raised taxes, it reduced the deficit. I kept asking him to explain how the math worked different than in theory, or in reality under every President since I was born. And the clearest answer I could get, which wasn't clear at all, is that either I wasn't very good at math, or he wasn't very good at explaining math. I ended up deciding this is going nowhere. And that Bill Clinton had the best one word answer for how he balanced the budget: "arithmetic". Sure as shit, when Ryan finally got to pass his tax cut law thanks to President Toxic, we were back to a $1 trillion annual deficit well before COVID-19 hit. Stevens still seems to believe that Romney would have figured out the math differently. So at least part of the economic agenda was not a complete lie to him. Maybe Rush Limbaugh is just more honest with himself. He said that all that Republican carping about the deficit "has been bogus for as long as it's been around." The second level of shock involved in reading what Stevens and other Lincoln Project leaders have to say is that I'm shocked they are shocked. Which is to say, we all know they weren't really shocked at all. At least with some of their lies and racism and bigotry. They knew exactly what they were doing. There's many ways to take what Mehlman said and did. But as a Gay man who helped fight for same sex marriage, I think it's fair to take it the cynical way. Mehlman was perhaps saying this to Blacks: "We're sorry that we race-baited you for a generation to elect conservatives who thwarted your interests. We're going to stop doing it. Because it's less effective than it used to be. It's now more effective to Gay-bait." Those are not his words, of course. But I think it's fair to say Stevens and Mehlman knew exactly what they were doing. I think the third level of shock is the most important one for what happens in November. Everything Stevens and the Lincoln Project are saying is going to come as a shock to almost all of the people who still approve of President Toxic, and see him as the rightful leader of their Republican Party. And shocked isn't a strong enough word. They'll be shocked and indignant. How could these people like Stevens say these things? They are the liars. And they are obviously part of The Deep State. Or maybe even Q Anon. Reading Stevens helps me understand what's happening right now at the RNC. Denial is a powerful thing. I think the Republicans are working very hard right now to deny. All conventions exaggerate, and try to make their party's leaders and policies look better than they are. The over-the-top alternate reality of this RNC mostly feels desperate, to the point of being counterproductive. The best explanation of what's going on I heard was from a Morning Joe talking head this week, who like Scarborough is a lifelong Republican and now Never Trumper. His key phrase is "permission structure". Which is to say that the people actually paying attention to this show are pretty much the Republican base. And the effort is designed to give the big chunks of the base that are fraying a permission structure to vote for President Toxic, anyway. Even though they see all the things Stevens and The Lincoln Project is talking about and it troubles them. This guy said that as a conservative, I have to tell you that they are doing it well. They are getting my juices going. That makes perfect sense to me. I think the election is going to get uglier, stupider, and more racist. It's not good news for President Toxic that both Kasich at the DNC and the crazy rich White gun pointing couple at the RNC are trying to persuade the same group of Republicans. Even as the Democrats consolidate and Independents keep saying they lean heavily to Biden. If 2020 is like 2018 - start from the base and subtract - President Toxic will in fact lose in a landslide. There's going to have to be a massive amount of denial and permission structures between now and November to keep this alternative reality of a perfectly perfect President afloat. Red meat (including lots more racist meat about Black Marxists abolishing your suburb and cancelling you, I'm guessing) will be tossed out everywhere. I thought of this yesterday when an escort buddy told me about his most recent email from his sibling. I mentioned in a different post that this friend has hit a wall with a sibling who he has always been close to, but who supports President Toxic. His biggest gripe is how Trump is throwing LGBTQ folks under the bus. So she sent him an email today, responding to his email. His sibling basically invited him to look into the Log Cabin Republicans, with a hyperlink, who have some interesting things to say. Which is of course Grenell saying President Toxic is the most pro-LGBTQ President ever. My friend's reaction was this is complete bullshit. Of course, if my buddy's sibling wanted to learn about what "LGBTQ issues" means, which I'm pretty sure they know very little about, it would take 30 seconds or so to Google HRC's list of "unprecedented steps" Trump has taken to attack the LGBTQ community. It would have taken 10 minutes to read. To be fair-minded. the sibling could have emailed both the Log Cabin tweet from Grenell and the HRC list to my buddy and said, "One says Trump is doing really good. But the one from HRC says he's attacking your community. What do you make of this?" That would be what a sibling might do if they wanted information, or understanding. Or just to show empathy. I think what the sibling really wants is a permission structure to feel like it's perfectly okay to vote for President Toxic. After all, he's the most pro-LGBTQ President ever! I think between now and November we're going to have a lot of shock and indignation on the part of ardent Trumpists. They'll be shocked and indignant that Gay men like me and my buddy don't see that President Toxic is the most pro-LGBTQ President ever! They'll be shocked that the Lincoln Project is so mean and dishonest. They'll be shocked that President Toxic doesn't get more thanks for his remarkable leadership on COVID-19. They'll be shocked that the mainstream media wants to cancel them, even as they speak on national TV about how the mainstream media sucks, and go to rallies in support of cancelling a woman's right to choose. They'll be shocked and indignant about many things. The thing that will be most shocking, of course, is when President Toxic loses on election night. And I think they will be shocked. Stevens knows his former party way better than I do. If he's saying that they are all heavily invested in believing and defending the lies, I believe him.

I understand your question was directed to @tassojunior. I'd like to see his reply. Here's a different reply, which he may not like so much. From a Vox article called "Why Bernie Lost". That quote doesn't deal directly with the warmonger wing of either party. I'd argue it does, indirectly. I find it hard to believe that moderate or conservative Democrats could perceive Bernie as preferable to Hillary. But if I make a few assumptions - these are some of the people that also viewed President Toxic as a lesser evil than Hillary, and they are basically not very interested in information - I can get there. This idea is consistent with what @tassojunior keeps saying about how Bernie appeals to Republicans and Independents. In this instance, that would presumably mean Obama/Obama/Trump Democrats (or are they Republicans?) who could not stomach Hillary but could stomach Bernie. And, seemingly based on 2020 primary results, can stomach Biden even better. It might also be a fair enough assumption that conservative White working class Democrats (Republicans?) who are just a little more racist and a little bit more opposed to Obamacare might be a little bit more warmongerish, too. My point is this. One of the conclusions I reached is that The Bernie Show was not ready for prime time. I've also worried (less after last week) that The Biden Show was past prime time, and had been around so long it just needed to be cancelled. I was hoping last year The Warren Show would hit the sweet spot. And she came close in the previews. I think it actually matters to this point that her fatal flaw was that she embraced Medicare For All and could not sell an explanation of why. You can interpret that failure in many ways. But at least one way is that any version of The Progressive Show (or, if you prefer, The Democratic Socialist Show) just didn't get the ratings some were hoping for. Because it just didn't quite make sense to enough people. Relating to that quote above, if it is accurate, what happened in 2016 could have been a marriage from hell. The young progressives who voted for Bernie knew what he stood for. If a big chunk of the older White working class voters who played footsie with him did so because he's an old White guy who is NOT HILLARY, that's not a good thing for the party or for winning. It's also not a good thing for having a stable governing coalition. So if @tassojunioris saying we don't want W. warmongers who want to start a war with Iran, I agree. But that's not what Biden is saying. And Grinell of course just said that Gays should love President Toxic, because he wants to blow the shit out of Iran, where they kill Gays for being Gay. (Have to mention. They kills Gays for being Gay in Saudi Arabia, too. Plus, they will peel you and slice you and dice you at no extra charge. It might be part of that whole Q Anon thing. How cool is that?) But some of these 2016 "Bernie people" who maybe could not stomach Hillary (because she's a woman? who is for Obamacare? and talks about implicit racism?) but liked Bernie (because he's old and White and pro-union?) but voted for President Toxic are not exactly gifts to the Democratic Party, either. My main point is that I decided that 2020 was previews of something yet to come. Maybe it actually won't come until the 2030's. If I had to bet, the Millennials and Gen Z will be like the New Deal Generation. The Great Recession and Iraq and this unnamed shit show under President Toxic have formed their political identity for life. So at some point they will take over. And their formative experience of a top-down economy that left many if not most of them behind will likely push the US to be more like Canada or Europe. That's my guess. And by the time this gets sorted out, to be blunt about it, those older White working class voters will be dead voters. I can live with all this. Under President Biden, I'm hoping that some of the Millennial/Gen Z cohort that don't sound like they know the difference between "politics" and "The Revolution" will get a clearer picture of what it actually takes to govern in a way that gets shit done. If they learned that all you do is disagree and throw shade (under Obama) and rant (under Trump), who can blame them? Whoever "The Progressive One" is, it won't be Bernie. So a different candidate with an older and larger and somewhat more mature cohort of progressives could actually crack the code that Bernie and Elizabeth failed to crack in 2020. As a progressive wannabe, I'm at least hoping that this is what happens down the line. For now, I don't think we have the progressive thing figured out. @tassojunior himself has a fear of the suburbs, which other people say is exactly where we should go to find these latent progressives. The honest answer is I just don't think we know. And in the mean time, I think we can conclude that we don't need to become the Toxic Party. Again, I think President Toxic is symptom, not cause. It started when The Tea Party folks had a great year in 2010. They fired Pelosi. What's not to like? What could possibly go wrong? Well, now we know. As does Stuart Stevens and Morning Joe and any Republican still dealing with reality. I felt really good last week about the DNC. I agree with Axelrod and Brownstein who I keep mentioning. Maybe Biden should have presented a more pointed economic program that would sound good to those White working class folks, as well as the rest of the base. But if he erred on the side of "progressive" messages like racial justice or gun control or climate change, I'm very good with that. It implies an awareness of where the Democratic Party is going. I think it's clear that in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Biden himself is less nails on the chalkboard to some people than Hillary. Mostly, I'm increasingly convinced that while we need to offer more on policies and platform - and that will happen during the debates - what we most need to offer is as much rope as we can possibly find to give to the Republicans. They are doing an amazing job of finding creative ways to hang themselves. That policy works for me. And if the Democrats are going to become the Toxic Party, Leftwing Edition, I don't think the real danger is the warmongers. I think it's the progressives. @tassojunior himself started to paint the picture in his comments about cancel culture. Add the picture of the shit show in the UK under Corbyn, where one of his own labor PM's said they lost because they'd acted like "the nasty party". The claims of anti-Semitism were part of it. But it was this broader picture of the mob, armed with their Twitter and venom and elitism, who employed purity standards no one could meet. I'm not sure that was a fair characterization. But it was used to blow Labor off the map. And I'm not that worried that this will happen anytime soon. We don't even have power yet. But every revolution goes too far, as what started as The Reagan Revolution now has. When the progressive revolution happens, which I think it will, that will be one of part of it that may eventually help kill it. It's a problem for another day, I think.

You really did not understand my point, which was about Clinton, not LBJ. What I said probably wasn't clear enough. This is the virtue of listening to historians like Lichtman, and looking at models with objective facts. Lichtman is of course making subjective calls, as we all do. But it helps to have objective guard rails about what happened before, what consequences it had, what may determine whether voters throw President Toxic out, and what may determine whether Biden/Harris will be thrown out in 2024, too. We know for a fact they will start with a very bumpy ride, like Biden did in 2009. Like I said, it's Groundhog Day for him. My reference to LBJ was that his Presidency was when the long slide in public trust started. So it wasn't a compliment. I think the JFK assassination was the actual kick off. I've seen polls that at every point since 1963 a majority of Americans have believed there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. If true, that might undercut trust in government. MLK was despised as much or more as being admired when he was alive. So I am not necessarily surprised that the Civil Rights/Great Society part of LBJ's Presidency didn't stop the slide. And I agree with you that the Vietnam War of course contributed to the slide. The impact of Clinton on trust in government is unambiguous. When he was elected it was as low as it had been - which is perhaps partly why he was elected. Other than Reagan, no other President in my lifetime has left government where it was far more trusted than when he came in. That's ironic, too. Reagan was the one who demonized Big Government. Clinton didn't. But he did say the Era Of Big Government is over. Yet both proved when government listens to people and delivers what they want, people trust it. What a shocker! Note that Obama did not do that, despite some of the optimism (at least among Democrats) in 2008. "Trust in government" is not one of Lichtman's keys. But I'd argue this is another measure that objectively says much the same thing. After 8 years of Obama/Biden that did not leave people feeling much better about government, it's no great shocker that people took a crazy bet on President Toxic. His message was kind of, "Since it ain't working for you, anyway, let me go in and flip the table. Whatayagottalose?" At least President Toxic has answered the question of what we could lose after four years of his incompetent leadership. I have not checked for an update. But I doubt people have any more trust in government in Toxic America 2020. I thought this was worth posting because it also speaks to the monumental challenges President Biden will face. COVID-19 and the recession (or depression) we'll endure before the plague finally ends are the obvious thing. I think in order to be effective it is essential that Biden has a Congress he can get laws through dealing with the multiple crises we are in. The potential good news is that it's reasonable to think that, like LBJ, Biden could be one of the most effective Presidents in dealing with Congress. That said, LBJ's ability to get things done didn't help LBJ if you look at the chart above. How much the downward spiral in trust was about Vietnam and how much was other stuff, you all can decide for yourself. I suspect that some of that slide was negative reaction to LBJ's legislative wins - particularly dealing with race - by a big chunk of Americans. I also don't think there's any reason to hope that the post-Trump base that is left will be much different than they were in their Tea Party and Toxic Trump's America phases. They will just be more bitter, probably. If you think they will have an epiphany and learn to compromise or seek unity like Kasich, dream on. So while Biden at least speaks the language of unity, it will very hard to achieve unity, I think. Reagan and then Clinton both did, somehow. So I at least have hope for Biden. His impulses about compromise and coalitions and focusing on what the center needs to go along are similar to what worked for both Reagan and Clinton. I'm posting this interview of Stuart Stevens both here and in the "Are We Shocked?" thread, where I've commented on him already. I've binge read lots of interviews with him in the last few days. This interview is the best of the bunch, I think. It is a must read. ESPECIALLY if you are one of those people who still supports President Toxic. In the other thread, I'll focus on some of Stevens' points that absolutely trash his former party. His comments have a lot of nuance and authenticity to me. So here I want to mention a few of his more positive and "woulda coulda shoulda" comments. They make his arguments all sound real. And help explain why his soul is obviously feeling tortured. Since the point @tassojunior reacted to was about Clinton's competent leadership of government, here's what Stevens says about the deficit and the law he personally helped punish Democrats for in 1993 and 1994. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, several moderate Democrats were tossed out in the 94 midterms for voting for a bill that had a huge positive impact, as Stevens now describes accurately. Clinton can only blame himself for fucking up the prospects of an Al Gore Presidency with his impeachment , despite a really good economic track record, . What's interesting to me is Stevens comments about W: One of the things that is fascinating about Stevens is that he confirms, as a leading Republican guru, things I've believed about the Republican Party for a long time. Including their ability to believe their own bullshit. Which of course we all do. A related thing that is fascinating is that Stevens speaks as a man who was in deep denial, and who has now stopped denying the reality of racism and ignorance and bigotry he played to to elect Republicans. Yet some of what he says leaves me feeling like he is still in denial. I mention W. and this period because while it's not clear completely from that chart above, the last peak in trust in government was not quite under Bill Clinton. It actually happened right after 9/11, when the country rallied around W. Since 2001 as you can see it was a downward slide for the rest of the W. Presidency to lower than ever before. Which is basically where we still are. In one interview, Stevens wistfully said that had W. not been forced by events to be a war President, he might have been very successful at proving "compassionate conservatism" works. This is why I feel he still hasn't quite comes to terms with the ugliness or incompetence of the W. years. He's half right about war President. Doing something in Afghanistan was a necessity. And Americans overwhelmingly supported W. on that. Iraq was a choice. And as we all know, it was wildly divisive - before, during, and after it was supposedly over. It's also not clear how being a war President stopped W. from being a compassionate conservative, fiscally or otherwise. In reality, 9/11 was what made him popular - not his competence at running a compassionate conservative government. And whatever the woulda shoulda coulda Stevens was hoping for was, as he now admits is was one of the great disasters of US history. I would argue that the trifecta of the Iraq War, The Great Recession, and the loss of 5 million manufacturing jobs during W.'s eight years are the only three things you really need to know to explain why Republicans who don't think like Stevens rolled the dice on Donald Trump in 2016. And so it's clear, I include the 5 million lost factory jobs because I think the rage and despair built up over time. Including at the inability of Obama/Biden to really reverse the loss and devastation. It all had a lot to do with the rise of President Toxic. In the Rust Belt states, the recent loss of factory jobs leaves them in as bad or worse position as they were at the bottom of The Great Recession. So President Toxic didn't fix the problem either. Except, of course, in his alternative reality TV show where he is the best President in the whole galaxy! Ever! One way to think about 2016 is that Hillary had to carry all the baggage of Bill and Barack. And she won the popular vote by millions of votes, and almost won The Presidency. Jeb! had to carry all the baggage of his Dad and brother. And he couldn't come close to winning a primary in his home state. Maybe this is a stretch, but that's hardly an endorsement by Republicans of the recent leadership of the Republican Party. And now Stevens says the whole thing is racist and rotten to the core, and it should be burned down. Mostly this is just meant to be a rambling reflection on stuff going on in Stuart Stevens' head and heart. But it does underline, as I already said, the magnitude of the crisis President Biden will face. It's not good news that as part of Obama/Biden he was not able to restore those factory jobs, or trust in government, before. And it's not good news that just like in 2009, 40 % of America or so will not approve of whatever Biden does. Because Biden is the one doing it. (Same in that chart above. Democrats trusted government more under Obama, but Republicans trusted it less. So it was a wash. We've just been scraping along the bottom of a government most people don't trust for a long time.) My comments were not meant to endorse LBJ. Whatever he did with Congress, it did not have a positive impact on Americans' trust in the government he ran. That said, even if it was on the way down, trust in government under LBJ was still over 50 %. Since LBJ, we've only seen that at the end of Clinton and the beginning of W. So I am hoping that Biden looks to what LBJ and Clinton did as models. In different ways, they both were able to build majorities that got important things done. I'm assuming Biden's only chance of success is if he can get important things done that make people feel government hears them and is working for them. And that will take a Democratic Senate. Because at least out of the gate, past performance suggests that he can't count on one Republican to work with him - even if they do actually think (as Lindsey Graham said in that Lincoln Project ad) that he's one of the nicest guys around.

I think we agree. And 13 out of 16 sounds right. Sirota is actually using the same CNN exit polls I cited. But I'll say again that "Independent" can mean a lot of things. It can mean a Black woman who voted for Bernie and would never vote Republican. Or, it can mean Stuart Stevens, who ran the campaigns of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney and is now a Never Trumper. When it comes to Republicans or crossover Republicans or Never Trump Republicans or now, thanks to Rahm, "Biden Republicans", I'm very skeptical of the idea that nominating Bernie would have been a better way to get Republicans who have distaste for Trump to vote Democratic. The polls Sirota and I both cite seem to say that Republicans who voted in the Democratic primaries tended to heavily favor Biden. And you can't have it both ways, either. You want to slam Rahm for promoting the idea of "Biden Republicans". But you've been promoting the idea of Bernie Republicans for a long time. So do we want disaffected Republicans in the Democratic tent, or not? I think we mostly agree. If there is something we mostly disagree about, it may be the suburbs. You seem to view them more like the place Democrats go to die. Or at least sell out or abandon their principles to rich suburban women. I look at Lauren Underwood and think suburbs is where Democrats go to grow, and take power. Neither of us are completely right or wrong. The lesson of President Toxic and poor Stuart Stevens and the Never Trumpers is that, ultimately, we have to have sex with whoever we get in bed with. I can say for a fact that that's as true in politics as it is in escorting. Stuart is dismayed about having to have sex (politically speaking) with some of the people he mobilized to elect W. and almost elect Mitt. He finds it so distasteful that now he wants to jump into bed with us. So one thing I take away from your warnings is that we ought to be aware of who these people are we're getting in bed with, and what they really believe in. Again, I'll keep repeating. Lots of liberal journals and polls are saying that if you want progressive values and voters, suburbs are a good place to find them. That's a theory which I think has yet to proven in the decade to come.

I'm not sure what the "no, no, no, no, no" is about. I mostly agree with your statement below all the no's. But he last part is questionable, about how cancel culture is usually used against political minorities. In the video you posted, most of the examples of cancel culture warriors given were minorities using the internet to fight back against what they perceived as racism, or homophobia, or some other form of intolerance. The irony, as the anecdotes you just posted prove, is that the protesters or cancel culture crowd ends up looking just as intolerant, or worse. I'll repeat. Blacks and Gays have been among the biggest victims of cancel culture for thousands of years. Blacks were cancelled into slavery. Gays were cancelled on a noose or a cross. Hitler decided to cancel all of Jewish culture. That Straight guy that went after Chick Fil A by harassing a seemingly innocent employee, and lost his job over it, is a perfect example. Was he being mean? Yes. But I've done similar things. While I could make distinctions about how he did it, I think it is fair to call anyone who works for a company to account for the horrible values or practices of that company. And as a Gay man, I'm not going to be too upset about some Straight guy who thinks that Chick Fil A's anti-Gay messaging is horrible. In terms of the shit he got for what he did, I understand why people felt he should be called out for just being mean. Obviously, it is more mean to call his employer and make bomb threats. Or to tell him on social media to "off himself" (which he says he actually considered doing) because he went after some Chick Fil A employee for homophobic company PR. The guy mentions that some of the supportive comments he got were from Gays and lesbians who thanked him for speaking out about Chick Fil A. I think all the problems with cancel culture are a subset of all the problems with internet culture. The internet is the weapon of choice in every example given in that video. As one of the Black women in the video stated, she thinks it's basically good that these days Blacks can use Twitter or other social media to go after White bosses that could not be held to account before - at least not as easily. To your point, the problem is that President Toxic uses Twitter, too. And the way he uses it is very destructive, I think. The harm he's done far outweighs whatever good came from the Black woman getting a White boss fired. People being ignorant or hateful or stupid is not new. New technologies - newspapers, radio, TV - were all subject to this before. Long before Breitbart there were news rags that were just awful racist or anti-Semitic or anti-[fill in the blank] screeds. On the flip side, FDR used fireside chats to organize people around The New Deal. So while Twitter is new, the idea that President Toxic could use it to build a mostly White nationalist party isn't. I think Democrats should keep reminding themselves that all this new technology mostly helped Obama in 2008 or 2012. There's a line I read about 2012 I keep citing: "Obama won the election because young people in Florida who Romney didn't even know existed turned out and voted for him." That was a victory engineered in part through Facebook and Twitter. So back then we thought it was cute, and good. Then Team Toxic figured out how to use it, and Democrats feel it has turned into a gremlin. I am so antiquated on this issue that I have, in effect, cancelled myself. I write posts today the way I wrote Congressional testimony in my 20's. Do I go on and on? Yes. Are there facts that support an argument? Yes. Are there zingers? Yes. I'll always be proud that a Republican House Banking Committee staffer came up to me after I testified one time and said something like, "Your testimony is great because there's a zinger on every page." Can I figure out how to write a line that the AP will pick up and get into papers all over the country? Yes, I can and did. Now that I've congratulated myself, I'll spell out that I know I write boring walls of text. And it's so much easier to just post stuff on Twitter. Even though it often makes no sense whatsoever, can spread lies, and can mostly just be bile and hate. 3+ years of President Toxic and his Twitter tirades have confirmed everything I felt about Facebook and Twitter before his election. So, for example, if we are going to win the suburbs, I'm very skeptical of the idea that Twitter is the best way to do it. For me, the old fashioned way works better, after COVID-19. Turn off the phone and go knock on people's doors and talk to them. Or, if we're going to use our phones, let's use it call people and talk to them.

If you have data that neatly slices and dices who supported Bernie, please post it. I have read lots of postmortems on his campaign. And the data is kind of a confused mess, I think. It's not clear to me that anyone knows exactly what worked, and didn't. Bernie certainly was not able to build the kind of class-based/working class majoritarian party he talked about. In deference to the OP, I'm going to tilt my comments to talking about the suburbs. So I'll say again. No one like AOC or Bernie has demonstrated they can actually win House seats in places like Orange County. As it relates to the suburbs, I think Rahm Emanuel is right about one big important thing. And President Toxic is wrong about one big important thing. And I think this is clearly working to the advantage of the Democratic Party. Emanuel is saying Democrats should focus on building metropolitan alliances of cities and suburbs as a path to sustainable majoritarian power. I think he is exactly right. If we have this idea that the suburbs are all rich White women with guns like Patricia McCloskey, we need to cancel that idea in our minds. The McCloskeys are Toxic Trumpists, not Democrats. Their performance is going to rev up the shrinking toxic base but also drive more suburban women out of their diminishing party, I suspect. MSNBC and The Daily Show, to name two, have struck the appropriate tone about this, I think. The right word is this: incredulity. This is about some alternative reality that maybe was what the suburbs were when I was a kid, a long time ago. One of the MSNBC hosts joked to Eugene Robinson of WaPo, "Welcome to the 21st century." That was a good line. The Republican Party seems completely out of touch with what the suburbs are today, and the values they have today. There's just no question that when President Toxic opens his mouth, Democrats win suburban votes. I'll give an example that's near and dear to my heart, as a Chicago boy. Chicago used to be where you could maybe elect a Black Mayor, which was a historic first. Now they have a Black lesbian Mayor and that's not such a big deal. Meanwhile, the Chicago suburbs used to be where the White Republicans lived. And a lot of them were racists, I thought - having grown up there and heard as a kid what racist jokes get told at parties. (My Dad would have been cancelled in a heartbeat for the jokes he told. He was not unique.) These days Rep. Lauren Underwood gets elected in the Chicago suburbs. And the crowds at her victory party are mostly White people, who I'm guessing feel a lot like I do. So something has changed. Democrats like Lauren Underwood are taking power there. If you want to put a face on the suburbs that explains why they are worth fighting for, I'd suggest you put Lauren's face in your mind. She won in Denny Hastert's old district, which is 85 % White. She's only the second Democrat to win that seat since World War 2. But the first was after Hastert was forced out. So it is a suburban seat trending blue. Back to Bernie, I'll summarize what I think I know from the postmortems I've read. The thing that obviously worked best for him was Millennials. And that cuts across race, and perhaps class. So what happened in his campaign may be a preview of the future we'll get to in ................ I don't know. 10 years? 20 years? At some point the Berniecrats will come to power. Will someone like AOC be their chosen leader? Or Kamala? Who knows. Bernie did well among Independents. But that itself is more than a little confusing. There are the Independents who are progressives and would never vote for President Toxic. Many of them don't even feel Elizabeth Warren passes their purity test. Then there are the Independents who are former Republicans like Stuart Stevens, who says maybe he could hold his nose and vote for Elizabeth Warren. I've posted it before but here's a state by state set of CNN exit polls from all the 2020 Democratic primaries that is very informative. In most states, the vast majority of primary voters identified as Democrats - no surprise - and favored Biden. A minority of Independents tended to favor Bernie. But that's not true in every state. Where enough self-identified Republicans voted in a primary to even accurately poll them, they seem to have heavily favored Biden. Virginia is a good example of that. My strong impression is that Biden won in part because Republicans in states like Virginia crossed over and voted for him as an acceptable alternative to President Toxic. I'm not 100 % sure of that. But the conclusion that I reached is that if Republicans who hate Trump can live with and vote for Biden, probably I should be able to live with him, too. There's no evidence I saw this Spring that if we'd nominated either Sanders or Warren they would have had more appeal to Never Trump Republicans. And to be clear, I'm not arguing that winning Never Trump Republicans over is the goal. I don't think it is. I perceived the DNC last week as clearly tilted to messages that appealed to the Democratic base: racial justice, gun control, climate change, etc. Kasich spoke. But last week was not the John Kasich show. In the postmortems I have read there is one big important thing that seems to have been a dead end for Bernie - the White working class - and two things that maybe have potential to focus on in the future - the suburbs, and Latinos - if the goal is to build a progressive majoritarian coalition. I think the theory of the case for Bernie 2020 was that he could build on his surprise win in the 2016 Michigan primary and go in and win the Rust Belt with a heavily class-based message about economic justice and income inequality. It just didn't work. Biden won every county in Michigan. To oversimplify my takeaway, a lot of White working class voters cast an anti-Hillary primary vote in Spring 2016 that should have been taken as a warning sign of her weaknesses. In some cases, I'm pretty sure that voting for Bernie rather than Hillary was a statement that Bernie was less threatening, not more progressive. But when it came to Bernie or Biden in 2020, Bernie's progressive message obviously did not win the day. Much of what I've read is that to the degree that we are talking about White, and working class, and rural or small town, they are culturally conservative people. And we're just not going to be able to organize enough of them to win. My best guess is that they increasingly identify as the heart and soul of the Trumpist Party. But to the degree that they were Obama/Biden voters in 2008 and 2012 and they shifted to Trump in 2016, everything I've read suggests that Biden, not Bernie, was the Democrat that drew them back in. If you have data that says something else - particularly from states like Michigan or Wisconsin - please post it. My main takeaway is that if we want to win Michigan, and Biden wins every county in Michigan in the primary, he's the best candidate to take Michigan back. This Vox article called "Why Bernie Lost" has a lot of good analysis about what happened this year. A key takeaway I agree with is that in America 2020 identity politics trumps class politics. Period. Black Lives Matter is of course a perfect example. If we want to win, we have to understand that people identify as Black. Or Gay. Or a woman. Or a Mexican immigrant. So many White working class people identify as White more than working class. And they identify with the red hat that says "Make America Great Again". While Axelrod and Brownstein are arguing that maybe the DNC played a little more than it should have to all this identity stuff, as opposed to bread and butter economics, I think it was a good call that reflected an accurate understanding of what moves the electorate. And especially what moves the base, which is what conventions are about. President Toxic is doing the same. It's red meat to a base that can be accurately called White nationalist, I think. You can perhaps even call it an increasingly White supremacist base. Rich white women pointing guns at Black women and bitching and moaning about how those Black Marxists are getting elected to Congress is just not a very good look. As Stuart Stevens said, maybe the true self of the Republican Toxic Party is coming out. That Vox article and lots of other postmortems I read strongly suggest that in the future it may make sense for Democrats to put more focus on the suburbs, not less. They argue that polling suggests that suburban voters in 2020 are more open to "progressive" values than many of those small town White working class folks. An example that's used is support for a wealth tax. The polls this Spring showed that a wealth tax - if targeted to the "ultra-rich" like Jeff Bezos - is wildly popular. Even a majority of Republicans support they idea. I can't find polling that breaks down views on a wealth tax by urban/suburban/rural. So I don't know that we know. But my theory of the case moving forward is that a tax on people like Jeff Bezos that pays for things like universal health care or universal child care might be very popular with suburban women. I don't think we know. But the polls say that if we want a progressive majority, the suburbs are a place to go to to build it. Lauren Underwood didn't push single payer. But she did push the idea that affordable health care for all is a priority. She's a Black woman and nurse who won in a Republican-leaning district that is 85 % White. So I think that says some things about the blend of identity politics and progressive values and policies that can work in the real world in the suburbs. It also explains how President Toxic has serious problems if he thinks celebrating the rich White McCloskeys pointing guns at Blacks is how you win in 2020. The other thing Bernie did that is very promising is Latinos. Again, I think we don't know more than we know. At the 30,000 foot level, a lot of people concluded that Bernie just underperformed. And that his coalition of people who don't vote just never emerged and actually voted. But in Nevada, they did vote enough for him to win. I looked at the Texas numbers a lot. Biden benefited from what I suspect was a huge organic wave of both Democrats and Never Trump Republicans that are fed up with President Toxic. That said, while Bernie lost Texas, he did substantially top his 2016 primary vote total there. He went from 476,547 votes in the 2016 Texas primary to 626,339 votes in the 2020 Texas primary. And I think a lot of the "new voters" Bernie brought in were Latinos, through his organizing and messages. The fact that more was actually less, and Bernie lost, was bad news for Bernie. But the fact that so many people turned out to vote Democratic in Texas this Spring is potentially very good news for Democrats. Again, a lot of those voters live in the suburbs of Dallas or Houston. I bring up Latinos in the context of Texas for this reason: EVERY VOTE COUNTS. At least in Texas. If we are ever going to win the electoral votes, or the Senate seats, it's not an either/or choice. It's both/and. So if Bernie somehow managed to find 150,000 more voters in Texas than he did in 2016, that's a big deal. It could be some future Democrat's margin of victory. I think it is a huge mistake to dismiss Bernie or the work he did. It is very good news that Bernie and Biden have the rapport and and the ability to think about building coalitions that they seem to have. So I'm hoping that all the work that Bernie and Berniecrats did in places like Nevada and Texas, especially with Latinos, becomes a priority of the Democratic Party moving forward. On Latinos, I'll go back to cite Stuart Stevens in an interview I just read. On the negative side, he said one of his biggest regrets as someone who ran campaigns for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney was the Gay-baiting (my word, not his) they used to mobilize conservative voters. That is actually about the suburbs, too. I've had some interesting conversations with Gay men who live in Orange County. Orange County is increasingly Gay. So what may have helped George W. Bush win, at the margin, a generation ago just doesn't work in places like Orange County anymore. The thing that Stevens said that was a positive is he still thinks W. is a good and very authentic guy. He believes W. really did want to reach out to and elevate Latinos - both as Texas Governor and President. We know, and Stevens cited, that W. did get a higher percentage of the Latino vote than any other Republican Presidential candidate has. That was key to his victories in both 2000 and 2004. So my point is that when W. and Bernie or anyone go out and make a point to say to Latinos that I'm listening to you and I want your vote, it seems to work pretty well. It was clear to me from stories I read about Nevada in particular that a lot of Latinos felt nobody did that before Bernie. Which is why they turned out and handed him his victory there. To hammer the point again, a lot of those Latinos live in suburbs, not cities. So if we're talking about Latina women who live in the suburbs or Dallas or Houston, I for one very much want them at the heart and soul of the future Democratic majority.

That's a great video. Thanks for posting it. Like a lot of things with the internet, it's a blessing and a curse. Two words stuck out for me: "conversation" and "power". As in, this should be about having a conversation. Instead, it's sometimes about a mob exercising their power, sometimes seemingly irrationally. It's very easy to find examples where it just seems like a mob ranting. Nick's case was different. WaPo isn't exactly the poster child of a ranting mob. But it is a very good example of people jumping to conclusions with almost no information to back those conclusions up. Without the internet, nobody would know who Nick Sandmann is. Even for Nick, I suspect that's a blessing and a curse. He certainly wasn't forced to speak to the nation at the RNC. It's actually kind of cool that he's using all this to elevate a message he clearly feels passionately about, whether I agree with him or not. This is a democracy. We're having a conversation. I'll reinforce my main point. He still wants to cancel women's right to choose. And his Catholic community still did cancel a valedictorian from speaking because he was Gay. That kind of shit has been going on for a long time. Many of those incidents in the video you posted had to do with race and homophobia. So maybe this does goes too far. But as stated in the video it also gives Blacks and Gays, to name two groups that have been victims of lots of discrimination for a very long time, a way to fight back. We've of course had Selma and Stonewall and the ability to protest all along. Although sometimes that involved getting your head bashed in. But when you think about Jim Crow, or the idea that LGBTQ folks essentially were cancelled as a culture or as individuals and had to hide in closets, how we got to where we are makes some sense to me. The part of this that's good, even if it sometimes seems like thought policing, is that there's a whole bunch of racist or homophobic or anti-Semitic garbage that's just much harder to get away with now. To bring this back to what the OP started with, the internet and Twitter has enabled President Toxic and some of his followers to spew what I see as racist rants about Blacks coming into the suburbs and "abolishing" them all over the country to millions of people. Same shit, different technology. But it's also given people a way to fight back. While it is definitely crude, it amounts to a sort of conversation. In the end, the gun-toting rich White folks aren't really going to help President Toxic. This line from Never Trumper Stuart Stevens from a Vox interview kind of fits in here, I think: Historians will debate forever whether Nixon or Reagan were racists using racist dog whistles. Stevens himself has now weighed in that the racism in his former party goes back to Nixon and the Southern strategy, and now has revealed itself more openly, sans dog whistles, with Trump's racist tweets (which even a former Black RNC head calls out) and the crazy rich White people with guns pointed at Black protesters. So the discussion about how cancel culture goes too far - it does, in my opinion - has to include the idea that it is often a reaction against vile racist or homophobic filth that's targeted some minority that was easy to pick on for a very long time.

As I just ranted about, it seems like the Republicans are simply being ridiculous this. This talk made me feel differet. When I watch that video of the McCloskeys, it's easy to feel shocked and indignant as a Democrat. It feels like a parody. Even though I know it's dead serious. Patricia McCloskey may really believe the suburbs will be "abolished". Even though she is obviously reading from a script. Who knows? I do know she exudes a feeling of moral superiority over the Black woman who she presumably pointed her gun at and who - can you believe it? - is a Marxist who actually got elected to the US Congress! When I listen to Nick I feel exactly the opposite. Meaning, if I want to understand how it is that Republicans could feel deeply shocked and indignant, this does it. Whoever produced this piece did a superb job. And Nick did a superb job. It feels like he deeply believes every word he said. Almost certainly, because he does. I won't comment on what some in the media said about him, or later corrected. Or the substance of the lawsuit. But part of the power of this is that I think everyone now knows that the only wrong thing Nick did, in the context of big big media moment, was to stand at The Lincoln Memorial wearing a MAGA hat. Which is to say, he did nothing wrong. So right out of the gate he has legitimate grounds for moral indignation that are very different than a rich White woman who lives in a mansion waving her gun at a Black woman who was once homeless for a few months. I think this is the real rub of the 2020 election. Speaking as a Democrat, I'd rather believe that this is about cranks and fat cats like the McCloskeys, who reek of privilege and guns and arrogance. They are certainly a part of President Toxic's base. They likely donate to him generously. But, in reality, Nick is probably a far better spokesperson for all the grassroots forces and interests behind President Toxic, and what's driving them. His speech has the tenor or a fervent moral crusade. It's not unlike the tone John Lewis or John Meacham would use to advocate for very different policies and politicians. It's only Day Two. But I'd guess this will be the RNC's equivalent of the DNC's Brayden Harrington moment. Brayden's compelling message was that he wanted us to know that Joe Biden is a guy who empathizes with and helps kids that stutter like him. Nick wants us to know that Donald Trump is the kind of leader that supports kids like him, who the forces of intolerance and untruth in America - like the media - actually want to cancel. He doesn't use the image of light and darkness. He does uses metaphors of war, and moral crusade. To quote: "The full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode." He says the media is anti-Catholic, anti-conservative, anti-Trump, doesn't care about the truth, and could certainly care less if they destroy some kid from Covington, Kentucky. Like I said, if I want to understand the deep emotional power of The Tea Party, or what it has morphed into - Trumpism - this is where to go. If I want to understand why President Toxic will win Kentucky and could win re-election, and why Mitch McConnell will probably thrash Amy McGrath, this is where to go. If I want to know how Trump supporters could feel shocked and indignant and righteous, this is where to go. If "abolishing" the suburbs is bad, then cancelling people and cultures is worse. Nick makes a compelling case. Now for the flip side. Other people might say that Nick is not being cancelled when a politically connected law firm helps him win a lawsuit against the media outlets that are President Toxic's whipping boys. Or that Nick is being cancelled by being invited to speak to the nation at the Republican National Convention. If you followed the story, you already know that maybe this is a story about a kid from Covington, and a culture, being cancelled. But the kid is not Nick, as this article lays out: I haven't bothered to check whether Nick was ever asked about what happened to Christian, who was a student at a different local Catholic high school. Or whether he feels Christian was "cancelled". You can argue this is unfair to bring up, since it has nothing directly to do with what happened to Nick. But Nick himself explains his actions by saying he didn't want to do anything to "embarrass my family, my school, or my community." And the emotional punch of his talk is that people like him should not be "cancelled" for who they are, or what they believe. So it's fair to ask: was Christian cancelled because he was Gay? And is that an embarrassment to Nick's school and church and community? The only way to make this argument is "where there's smoke, there's fire." Nick is not saying anything about Catholics (my religion) and their long culture war against Gays. Richard Grenell says Donald Trump is the most pro-LGBTQ President ever. But HRC has a long list of how President Toxic is trying to push back the advance of LGBTQ rights. Nick comes from a Catholic community that "cancelled" a Gay valedictorian. If I were to have a chat with Nick, I'd ask about that. And about how Gay culture has perhaps been "cancelled" more than any other culture in history. Other than the Nazis, most oppressors at least allowed Jews to convert. Blacks could live as long as they accepted their slavery. Gays simply were not allowed to live, period. Certainly not as a culture. And often not as individuals. Is that the kind of cancellation of people and culture you are fighting, Nick? Whether bringing up the LGBTQ culture war is fair with a young man who has never spoken out about it, bringing up the abortion culture war definitely is. That is why Nick was in Washington. That is why he bought the red hat, Nick says in his talk. To support Donald Trump for defending the unborn, in his words. Of course, many women would say that men don't have the right to cancel women's right to choose. Many women would say men also don't have the right to cancel their control over their own body. Nick is both more appealing and more frightening than the McCloskeys. The McCloskeys feel like freaks. If I were a Democrat in Congress, I could see at least two ways of dealing with them, or the politicians who speak for them. One is to ignore them. In effect: "We have the votes. You will have higher taxes, and gun control. Deal with it." Or, depending on the circumstances and who those politicians are, there might be reason for a different approach. "We have the votes for higher taxes and gun control. Would you prefer to negotiate with us, or just oppose us?" I know nothing about Nick. But he strikes me as a budding member of the Tea Party. Or what is now the Trump Toxic Party. Or whatever it ends up calling itself after President Toxic loses. I will simply draw conclusions from the tone of moral crusade he uses in his speech. About the "war machine" out to attack and "cancel" people and their way of life. That's Tea Party talk. And for the most part, if it's Tea Party, there is no compromise. Compromise is the problem. For some of those folks, it is actually evil. You don't unify or negotiate with people who live in the swamp and want to kill the unborn. Or who want to cancel who we are or what we stand for. I've watched enough talks of Never Trump Republicans like Rick Wilson and Stuart Stevens to know they were fully aware all along the way that the base they were persuading and mobilizing to vote Republican harbored some deeply racist and homophobic views. And they were more than willing to play at the edges of those sentiments. Willie Horton and the 2004 Ohio campaign to prohibit same sex marriage (and win Ohio for W. in a close race) are two great examples. So now they see things like the fat cat McCloskeys pointing a gun at Blacks marching by their home, and they feel a sense of regret. Stevens titled his book: "It Was All A Lie." That's honest. The McCloskeys are a meme all over America today. If all goes well, they can just sit in their nice mansion with their guns for a few years - or maybe a decade - and feel bitter about how America changed on them. I get the sense that Wilson and Stevens and the Never Trump political hacks are perfectly fine with the McCloskeys of America being thrown under the bus. The never Trumpers will perhaps work with the Biden Democrats on what kind of marginal tax hikes on the rich or what kind of gun control or what kind of universal health care funded by some kind of wealth tax might be acceptable. I have no idea whether this will happen or not. But it is one path I can see out of the deep polarization, or sort of civil war, we are in. I have no idea what to do with Nick. Like with Brayden Harrington, my first impulse is that my heart goes out to him. He wants to be seen as a victim. And to some degree he is. I get that many if not most in his family, school, and community are genuinely shocked about what happened to him. But behind all that is a young man in a MAGA hat who seems to have all the deep convictions of the Tea Party. He's fine with cancelling a woman's right to choose, it seems. His school and community were fine with cancelling a Gay valedictorian. And whatever pain it caused to be a kid thrust into a national media circus, he seemed to be just fine with throwing himself in front of the national media circus tonight. No Indian dude. No drums. No smirk. Just a deep set of conservative convictions. If Stuart Stevens is right - that the post-Trump Republican Party will just slowly become more irrelevant - Nick will likely be a proud member of that irrelevant minority. But like after the Civil War, my guess is they'll be more than irrelevant. They'll resist, thwart, and continue to feel that this is a threat by people who want to "cancel" who they are. Watching the McCloskeys makes me laugh, because they feel like caricatures. Watching Nick makes me feel very sad. He has a compelling message. A whole hell of a lot of people who vote for President Toxic will feel just as passionately about many of the things he says. But I don't see how we get to unity and healing after it's over. If there's anything we actually agree on, it may simply be that this is like a civil war. One side is going to win, and the other side is going to lose. And it will just continue to be painful, and ugly.

We're never going to agree on this. But when you go off I feel like I have say, "Uh, not really." That makes us like bitchy old suburban housewives, right? So: First, you're part right. The danger to me is that we do to the Democratic Party what President Toxic did to the Republicans. Which is let people in that will eventually destroy our ability to work as a party and lead the nation. And that's not quite fair to President Toxic. Because these people (The Tea Party, to label them) came in to the GOP of their own accord, back when Donald Trump was donating to Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. Arguably, the GOP didn't have a choice. They were not going to say, "Fuck you and your vote." But they are now paying the price for what happened in the last decade. After that, the comparison pretty much stops. In the GOP, the "cancer" that invaded drew a party already moving right further right. In the Democratic Party, the impact of the new suburban or Never Trump Republican "cancer" was to take a primary that maybe could have gone to Sanders, and tip it to Biden. In other words, toward the center. Most Democrats would not call that "cancer". Most Blacks would not call it cancer, since they tipped it to Biden more than the suburbs did. Bernie is not calling Biden "cancer". (My word, not your's, but the idea among some progressives is that these people are like an invading organism.) These rich suburban Republican women are not Republican, of course, if they are now the new backbone of the Democratic Party. I won't bother with the data, but they are also increasingly not rich. You didn't bring up race, but suburban women are also increasingly not White. When was the last time a suburban woman who is not White was elected President? So speaking man to man, if the problem is that suburban women are using the Democratic Party to take power, what is the problem? I agree with what David Axelrod just wrote, who agrees with Ron Brownstein in an article I already cited in my long opus to Alan Lichtman. Here's the guts of what Axelrod said that is relevant to your point: Axelrod and Brownstein both think the DNC could have been clearer about an economic message for both those mythical Joe Sixpacks in Michigan who voted for President Toxic in 2016, and the hordes of rich suburban women you keep bringing up. It was more subtext than text, but I think they both feel that Democrats perhaps focused TOO MUCH on messages that appeal to the progressive base - like climate change, Black Lives Matter, gun control. A little bit goes a long way with some of these folks. So just me typing the words "Black Lives Matter" and "gun control" already makes me a radical. Obviously I think all Republicans are racist and we should confiscate their guns and send them to socialist re-education camps. One of these two, or maybe somebody else, just argued that Democrats could repeat the same mistake as 2016, and pander so much to the ascendant part of the party that we lose the old working class part, and the election, like we did in 2016. I doubt most Blacks or progressives would agree that Hillary or Tim Kaine pandered to them in 2016. I agree with what Axelrod wrote. I was slightly surprised, and not at all unhappy, that Biden's convention implicitly did seem to put a slightly higher priority on progressive messages - gun control, racial justice, racism, climate change - than on a neo-liberal "I won't raise your taxes, folks" message that worked for Bill Clinton in the 1990's. Black Lives Matter people said last week was all just lip service. That's absolutely true. Because until Democrats take power, it will of course be lips moving, not laws. I'm not sure. But I'm growing increasingly optimistic that everybody who isn't in love with Biden - like young people and BLM activists - get that, and will simply vote out of a burning desire to be a nail in President Toxic's coffin. It's a small thing, and a subjective guess, but Rasmussen's daily tracking of Trump's approval blipped up for President Toxic during the DNC. He went from - 4 % net approval right before the DNC started to + 4 % approval end of last week and yesterday and he's now back to dead even today. Rasmussen is always way more favorable to Trump than other polls. But my read is that when center and center/right people, like your rich suburban women, turn on the TV and see Bernie Sanders and AOC and Warren and hear Green New Deal, maybe 4 % of them or so all of a sudden like President Toxic a little more. In other words, enough voters to swing an election. When they turned on the TV last night, they now say they like President Toxic just a little less today. It's increasingly clear that mostly Biden needs to keep his mask on and his mouth shut until he wins. I didn't watch the RNC last night, because I figured they'd do a competent job. Why ruin the good buzz I have coming off the DNC last week? And because my favorite voodoo guy who is always right is now saying Biden is going to win? When I watched pieces of the RNC today, I really just couldn't stop laughing. And on this one, again, a picture is worth 1000 Kesslar words. But the idea is that these people are just "normal" suburban people. And they are simply and humbly speaking to what everybody in suburbia who lives on a "quiet" street feels. Okay. So show me, Patricia and Mark. Okay, Patricia and Mark. I get it. You are just normal suburban people. Just like most people who live in humble homes on most suburban streets. And like most normal and humble suburbanites, you just feel that when anarchy strikes the obvious solution is to wave a gun at a Black woman who is so radical and socialist that she just got elected to be a member of the US House of Representatives. I'm assuming this is the "radical" Patricia talked about. She's Black, so I'm assuming she isn't like your normal suburban woman who lives on a normal quiet suburban street. And if soon-to-be U.S. Rep Cori Bush is out being all radicaly and socialisty about her safety, and her community's safety, the obvious thing a normal suburban woman like Patricia should do is grab your gun and point it at her. I thought it was a very sweet touch that just like movies tell us that love means never having to say you're sorry, and the DNC told us that love means having the courage to stand up like John Lewis did for racial justice and healing, the reality show RNC told us that being a good Republican means giving free advice on how to use your firearms. I guess when you are waving your gun at radical and socialist Black women who got elected to Congress like Cori Bush, free advice on using your gun is a plus. Hell, thousands of Republicans will help you with that, Patricia said. How sweet. How suburban. How normal. I grew up in an all-white suburban of Chicago. And every day White neighbors were helpfully instructing me or my Mom and Dad in how to use guns. I guess that's just what makes America, and the suburbs, great. Joe, just keep your mask on and your mouth shut. We just need to give people like Patricia and Mark a bullhorn and a gun and let them go on and on. Oh, wait. They have the guns already. Just a bullhorn will do, I guess. Final note to you, @tassojunior. If Patricia is speaking for other rich Republican women who live in nice houses (or mansions) in suburbs or gated urban enclaves, we thankfully don't have to worry about her infecting the Democratic Party anytime soon. I can live with that.

Sorry to be so long-winded. But when I read your cogent analysis, Adam, it reminded me of one other thing that would be different if we had President Kasich instead of President Toxic. I think Steven Kesslar would be terser. Because he would have less to bitch and moan about. Then again, maybe not. That could just be wishful thinking on my part.

No. Maybe the Pretty Boy who sits next to her does. We're all grown women here. So can we have a very frank discussion about sloppiness? I kind of like the way The Pretty Boy looks with his mouth open. And when it comes to things like that, I can be all for sloppiness. Yeah, his teeth can be a problem. But I can deal with teeth when a Pretty Boy starts sucking. And maybe he's one of those sloppy kissers. I don't care. Hell, he could even be one of those guys who isn't very good at anal cleansing. That's cool, too. I can deal with sloppy bottoms. Call me a prude, but I draw the line at sloppy journalism. Which is why I never allowed Pretty Boys like Saagar to take courses at the Steven Kesslar School Of Writing And Sexual Finishing. I know. I'm an asshole. But here's the thing: For the first time, there are fewer registered Republicans than independents So, yeah. By definition, the crumbling edifice (or is it orifice?) of the Toxic Party is more pro-Trump than ever before. That is, of course, why they are registered Trump Republicans. As John Kasich, or George Will, or Stuart Stevens, or Rick Wilson will tell you, there's a word for lifelong Republicans who abhor President Toxic. The word is "Independent". I'd be impressed if Krystal or The Pretty Boy had an in-depth analysis of who voted for Biden in the primaries in Virginia and Massachusetts and Minnesota. No one has ever explained how Biden not only stopped Sanders in places like Texas, but won states that he didn't have offices in, run ads in, organize in, or pretty much spend a penny in. I think the answer is that there was a grassroots tidal wave, which we've seen building all over the US for years - notably including the 2018 midterms. So all these moderate Democrats or moderate Republicans or Independents or whatever they should be called came out of the woodwork and voted for Biden. And he won. Meanwhile, all those White working class men - and women - in Michigan and Wisconsin who voted for Bernie in 2016 because they like socialism? Well they voted for Joe Biden this time. Is it because White men like other old White men more than socialism? Is it that White women can't stomach white female leaders like Hillary, but they like Joe because he reminds them of their ex? I don't know. But I do know for some reason they all voted for Biden. I had a minor epiphany this Spring. Or maybe I should say I just didn't see the logic in swimming into a tidal wave. I'm still really not sure what to think. But reading this stuff from Lichtman and Abamowitz does influence my thinking about what is really happening here. I am growing increasingly convinced the tidal wave is near. So if Krystal or The Pretty Boy can explain that to me, I'll listen. But telling me that former Republicans are abandoning the Toxic Party in droves is not news, or deep analysis. So, yeah, the remaining Republicans who are willing to stay in President Toxic's stinky edifice (orifice?) are willing to lick any kind of shit his ass can spew out. I think that is a reasonable enough explanation of what happened last night. And talk about sloppy. That President Toxic shit is sloppier and stinkier than any shit I've ever seen. So as far as I'm concerned, the Republicans can have 100 % of it all to themselves. That's said, I can't fault these Republicans for being sloppy shit lickers. Or Krystal or The Pretty Boy for being sloppy journalists. My party is made up of cannibals who secretly feed on the blood of children. Most reasonable people would say that's even worse.

All true. Again, I'm a Democrat. I am not a Kasich Republican. So I'm not endorsing his ideology in any way. I am endorsing his style of politics. Particularly his willingness to compromise, and end battles in the interest of unity. Perhaps to some degree I'm endorsing his values (but not on abortion, for sure). If people like Sanders or Warren or AOC ran in Orange County or Missouri or Indiana and won, maybe Kasich just wouldn't matter. A Warren protege from the CFPB did run against DeWine for Ohio Gov, and lost. I think DeWine has the warm glow of Kasich Republicanism to thank for that. You, in a way, seem to agree. Warren, the former Republican from Oklahoma, would have been an interesting case, had she been nominated for POTUS. In the end I think Lichtman is right. Any Democrat would beat President Toxic. But Sanders would have made it easiest for him to argue this is a choice between America as we know it, and socialism. Meanwhile, I'm not going to be like my former Republican friend and say Kasich should just shut the fuck up and fall in line behind President Toxic. I'd rather have him on our side. I'd argue that Bill Clinton, aka Slick Willie, did the same thing Kasich did in Ohio. But Clinton did it in the US in the 1990's. He moved everything to the left. Here's proof from Pew: The shift in the American public’s political values Political Polarization, 1994-2017 There's a great "picture is worth 1000 words" animation in there. First click on 1994 and see where the median Democrat and median Republican was. Then click on 1999. You should see that both median Democrat and median Republican moved to the left a bit. Thank Clinton for that, I think. Then click on 2017. You should see the median Democrat move way to the left. And the median Republican move way to the right. Now I'll break ranks. Thank Obama for that, I think. If there is a virtue to centrism, this is it. Clinton intentionally played to the center left. And in so doing, he actually did move the center a little more left. And it also meant there was a big center, and he could get a lot of shit done. When he left office trust in government was higher than at any point since LBJ. I'll revisit one thing I said earlier in this thread when I trashed Republican Scott Jennings. If Scott had just said, "the Obamas can be awfully arrogant", he would have had me. At the very least, I'd agree that many Republicans were not crazy to see Barack, and to some degree Michelle, that way. Scott lost me when he went further and said that the Obamas felt that either you agreed with them, or you were "stupid or racist", to quote Jennings verbatim. Neither Obama ever said that. It's a Republican distortion - maybe honest, maybe intentionally polarizing. And if we're being honest, they should admit that on Election Night 2008 McConnell and Gingrich were already telling the troops we are going to obstruct everything Obama does. Everything. That's now a matter of historical record, I believe. All that said, I think Bill Clinton had an even worse asshole than Mitch to deal with, named New Gingrich. So Clinton just made offers that he knew the Republican Party could not refuse. Gingrich still refused them. But Dole and Kasich and others couldn't. How much of that was their principles, and how much was politics - who knows? But Clinton did know that what he stood for and drew the battle lines over were popular policies with the majority of Americans. Historians have already decided, so far, that both Clinton and Obama were better than average Presidents. They give Obama particularly good grades for integrity and ethics, which is what drags Clinton down. Conversely, they give Clinton much better grades for dealing with Congress than Obama gets. I agree with the historians. Biden is more like Bill Clinton than Barack Obama in regards to dealing with Congress. (Hopefully he is not like Bill on personal ethics. I think Tara Reade was thoroughly discredited.). I don't have a problem with Biden chumming up with Congress in a way Obama didn't, really. Especially in the context of the mess we're in. It will be defining that Biden has to deal with a Democratic Party whose center is probably to his left. But he will also have a Republican party way to his right. He of course knows this way better than I do. It's hard to imagine things can actually become more polarized. So under a President Biden, my best guess now is we'll have a median Democrat who is always disappointed that their President is selling out - just like what Clinton and pretty much Obama had to deal with. The really interesting question is whether the Republicans will move back toward the center. I agree with Stuart Stevens. If the Republican Party post-President Toxic ossifies into a sort of White nationalist "Racism 'S Us" Party, they will stay far to the right. Or maybe even move further. This is where you'd say Satan, or at least Nikki Haley, will take over that type of Republican Party and lead it to victory in 2024. Maybe. I'd first check with Stuart Stevens and John Kasich and Rick Wilson about that. They are Republicans, or former Republicans. And they seem to have a different plan in mind. Again, I think this is why it's critical that we have 50 Democratic Senators, and trash the filibuster. That way we can pass laws that dig us out of the hole we're in and end the misery and death. If some Republicans want to join the party and have their own ideas, we're going to have to listen. I think even Bernie and Elizabeth know that. Since I'm back to Clinton and the 1990's, this is a good point to make another tangential point regarding Lichtman I've been wanting to make. Which, if you buy it, again suggests that there is a God, and she has a gallows sense of humor. Back when I was still willing to have open-minded conversations with Republican friends or clients who supported President Toxic, I had multiple discussions about how Trump was no worse than Bill Clinton. Republicans argued that unless you can show me the letter you wrote calling for Clinton's impeachment and resignation, just shut the fuck up. It's a fair enough point. My response was this. First, just on ethics and integrity, President Toxic is actually far worse. Second, Trump has none of the offsetting positives Clinton did. Toward the end of his second term, about 2 in 3 Americans approved of the job he was doing. After eight years of Clinton, half of Americans said they trust government. That was the highest that public trust had been since LBJ. I don't think history will say that President Toxic was widely approved of, ever. Or that he restored trust in government. If you want a case for why Bill Clinton should have been forced to resign, Alan Lichtman makes the best case I've ever heard. He says had Clinton resigned, Al Gore would have been President in 2001. There would never have been an Iraq War. I agree with him. Lichtman's theory as published in 1981 was about popular vote winner. And in 2000 he did say Gore would win the popular vote, narrowly, because Democrats had only 5 of his 13 keys turned against him, and it takes six. So you can say Lichtman is voodoo. Or you can say he predicted it would be close, and it was. Gore did win the popular vote. My point is this. One of the five keys turned against Democrats was incumbency. So if Al Gore was the relatively new incumbent President, he would have been more likely to win. It would not have eliminated Democrats having Lichtman's "scandal" key turned against him. But it might have mitigated against it. Lichtman points to exit polls in 2000 that show that a substantial minority of voters were particularly concerned about issues like personal integrity and ethics. And those voters heavily tilted toward Bush. Lichtman has been absolutely apoplectic about this for the last few years, in regards to impeaching President Toxic. He even wrote a book about it. The people who disagree with him, like on Morning Joe, tend to be lifelong Democrats who argue, correctly, that Bill Clinton got impeached and Newt Gingrich lost his job over it. Lichtman's rebuttal, which I buy, is the Republicans lost the battle over impeachment, but won the war in 2000. Based on the fundamentals, Al Gore should have won. He actually did win the popular vote. So I buy the idea that had Clinton kept his hands and his cigar in his pocket, or had he resigned and let Al Gore run as an incumbent because he couldn't, there would have been no W. and no Iraq War. Maybe, maybe not. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. There's one other point about your arguments, @tassojunior, that I'll plant here. I agree with you that the most likely effective attack on Biden would have to center on his ethics and integrity. I think Burisma itself is a weak argument, if you go with the facts. The fact is that Biden did brag - but about getting the BAD guy fired. Even if you think Hunter is a jerk, Hunter is not Joe. That said, the image that indicted Joe Biden the worst, I think, was him and Hunter stepping off Air Force Two in China. At the very least, Biden should have known better. It looks like endorsement. I said that on this forum last year. One of my best arguments for Warren is that she could go to town on a "he's corrupt to the bone" argument in a way Biden just can't. They will of course try to say Biden is corrupt to the bone. That said, I think the issue is pretty much off the table. This is partly why I watch Morning Joe. Joe rants more than I do. So he had a great rant this past week about this. What is Team Toxic gonna say, really? China? Really? China? Can we play the tape about all the cuddly things President Toxic said about how well Xi was handling the virus? And how, meanwhile, how Kuddly Kim and him were falling in love? How sweet. Kuddly Kim and Xi and The Donald. So in love. So sweet. And, yeah, sure. I know that Beau Biden just got arrested palling around with some Chinese billionaire on his yacht. Oh, wait. That's right. That was Steve Bannon. Who I guess will be advising President Toxic from jail about how to kick Biden's ass on China. And, yeah. I know. It's not that Bannon is chums with pro-Xi Chinese billionaires. It's that they were planning how to create an alternative China while palling around on a yacht off the East Coast. I think I'll go with Alan Lichtman and my alternative election without COVID-19, thank you. Because this alternative reality about kicking Biden's ass before he hands us over to China on a silver platter is pretty much a joke. Good news is that when the history of this miserable Presidency is written, it will be a comedy instead of a tragedy. At least we'll get some laughs out of all the lies and suffering and death. And call me a super bitch, but I have to say this. I'm disappointed I don't see Don Jr.'s USA Gay purse on the table next to him. I thought Grenell was serious last night. And Don Jr. had a Gay purse just to show he was cool with everything LGBTQ. They weren't lying about that, too??? Were they?

Wrong. He was incredibly clear about that after 2000. Again, I've watched him on YouTube a lot. His point about this resonates with me. Before Gore/Bush, no one was really thinking much about the electoral college. Because in our lifetimes, the guy who won the popular vote was elected President. It was that simple. It is, of course, how almost every other democracy in the world works. But 2000 changed that. Lichtman's explanation of this is that in the 21st century version of US politics, so far, you have millions of votes in two states - California and New York - padded into the vote totals. And they are absolutely irrelevant to who actually becomes President. As a Californian, I agree. In effect, 10 humans in California count less than a cow in North Dakota. The cow doesn't vote, of course. But because people in North Dakota want open land and cows, somehow that counts for more than the millions of votes Hillary actually won by in 2016. In any other country, Hillary Clinton would have been President. That's a fight for the future, though. So after the reality of Gore and 2000, Lichtman said he was going to forget about popular vote and focus on who will actually be President. In 2016 he did not say President Toxic would win the popular vote. If you can find anywhere he said that, please post it and educate me. I think what he said is that the winner of the election is likely to be Trump, based on his keys. Lichtman is an interesting guy who is quite aggressive in saying his system is right. That said, he admits it involves subjective judgments. And he says he gets "butterflies in my stomach" every time he makes one of these calls. Because this time he may be wrong. While Lichtman's model is not explicitly mathematical, I actually take it that way. Which is to say that if Reagan had 9 or 10 of the keys working in his favor in 1984, he was a shoo in. He did, in fact, win in a landslide. Meanwhile, Lichtman said Gore had 5 keys turned against him. He said Clinton had 6 turned against her. The model is based on every actual election since 1860, when the Republican/Democrat duel actually started. And he said in every election it took exactly six keys for the incumbent party to be thrown out. So whether you think this is voodoo or not, my point is that inherent in his model is that when it is 5 or 6 keys, that right there suggests this is going to be a close call. Which it actually was, in both 2000 and 2016. Meanwhile, his keys system predicted that Mondale in 1984 and McCain in 2008 didn't even have a chance, since so many fundamentals ("keys") were working against him. He was right. Lichtman is saying this one will be close. He's also saying voter suppression and Russian interference are two good reasons it could be close. But if he's talking 7 keys, that actually suggests that Biden should win by a healthy margin. Here's another model I've been paying attention to, which I think reinforces the validity of all of Lichtman's main points. You can call this one "Lichtman Lite". Or you can call it the "it's only the economy, stupid" model. A Coronavirus Recession Could Doom Trump’s Reelection Chances The headline speaks for itself. Note it was published on March 19, 2020, just as the plague was hitting US shores - or at least, just as we were all learning the plague was silently infecting many people who would soon die. The article above was a follow up to this paper written in April 2019 that spelled out the model. So when this guy published his theory last year, I think it's fair to say that Biden looked like a has been. And President Toxic looked like he had a 50/50 shot, or better. Many of the assumptions are the same as Lichtman. As an American and a small-d democrat, they are assumptions I actually wish to believe. First, that elections are driven by serious judgments on fundamentals by voters, not dishonest ads or slogans or silly red hats. Second, the primary judgment is an up or down referendum on the party in power in The White House. Although how your party did in the last midterms builds in whether you're winning or losing Congressional races as well. Third, both models assume that what is being judged by voters can be quantified objectively. Lichtman's "charisma" is a hard one to quantify, and he admits it. So this alternative model is superior in that sense. The author says it accurately predicted who won every Presidential election since World War 2 in which an incumbent was running. And it predicted both the winner of every election, and the electoral vote total (within about 25 electoral votes, on average) . It did this based on only two variables: GDP in the 2nd quarter of the election year, and the incumbent's approval rating in June of the election year. That chart, from the March 2020 article above, gives you the guts of it. To quote the guy's conclusion verbatim: Again, you can call this the "it's only the economy, stupid" model. Lichtman factors in things like foreign policy and scandal (impeachment). That said, right now if you go to RCP you can find President Toxic has an upside down -11.2 % approval rating. But if you click on the tabs he has + 1 % approval on the economy, - 12 % on foreign policy, and - 18 % on Coronavirus. You can make a good argument that that overall -11.2 % approval rating is measuring how voters judge all these things. It's much like stock market technical analysts who say that you can read a lot about the fundamentals of Apple stock. Or you can look at the price chart and see how the price keeps going up, and that will tell you pretty much everything the market knows about the value of Apple. Lichtman and this theory end up in the same place. President Toxic is going to lose. It's going to be mostly because of the economy, stupid. And this other theory quantifies that maybe President Toxic will lose in a landslide. Again, this was a theory published in 2019 and updated this Spring for COVID-19. So the chart above was based on knowing Trump was running, and knowing the economy was likely to dive. The actual initial decline in GDP in Q2 2020 is - 9.5 %. President Toxic's average approval rating was between -10 % and - 15 % depending on which day in June you pick. So this is off the charts. There is no precedent, at least since World War 2. So you can say this is voodoo, and none of this matters. But if it does matter, it suggests that Trump might be lucky to get 131 or 144 electoral votes, which is what would be predicted if the GDP figure for Q2 2020 was - 5 %, not - 9.5 % Under either of these models, President Toxic loses, because history (the fundamentals) says he deserves to. What may actually matter more is the US Senate. Right now, today, the "no toss up" map on RCP says that if the election were held today, and the polls are right, Biden would win 337 electoral votes, and President Toxic would win 201 electoral votes. While that's a big loss for Trump, it's not clear what it means for the US Senate. In 2016, every state that voted for Hillary elected a Democratic US Senator. Every state that voted for President Toxic elected a Republican Senator. In 2018, it was very close to that. President Toxic was not on the ballot, of course. And Democrats Manchin and Tester held on in states that Trump won handily in 2016. But my point is that it's a pretty reasonable guess to say that in the states President Toxic will win, so will the Republican Senator. Period. I sent money to Amy McGrath in 2018, when she was running for a Kentucky House seat, because I like her and her message about unity and bipartisanship and compromise so much. I won't do the same in 2020, and this is why. I'd love to see McConnell gone. I'd love to see Amy elected. But given "the fundamentals" and history and what these political scientists point to, it seems unlikely. Sorry, Amy. Congratulations, Mitch. You asshole. Here's my point. If you view this very rigidly, the map today says Trump will get 200 electoral votes, and Republicans will just barely hold on to Senate seats in Iowa and North Carolina. So if you go by today's no toss up map, and view it simple-mindedly, it means a 51-49 Republican Senate majority. Now let's just assume for a minute that the fundamentals of every election since 1948 tells us that with a - 10 % or worse approval rating, and negative GDP of -9.5 % that is worse than any past President running for re-election, President Toxic will be lucky to get over 100 electoral votes. Look at the map and the polls for each state that you can see by clicking on the state. Which states are most likely to fall that would move Trump from 200 electoral votes to 100? There are three states I count where President Toxic is currently ahead by one or two points, at best. North Carolina. Georgia. Iowa. As it turns out, there are 4 Senate seats in play in those four states. So, again, let's just be simple-minded and assume that 2020 will play out just like 2016 and 2018. If President Toxic wins the state, he'll bring a Republican Senator back to DC with him. If history is a guide and we know that President Toxic won't get his 200 electoral votes, the states most likely to fall are the ones I just cited. And that means Democrats could pick up four more Senate seats, if this plays out like in 2018 and 2020. Again, Manchin and Tester won in Trump states in 2018. If there is an exception to the rule in 2020, I'd nominate Bullock as most likely to succeed. Like Tester and Manchin, he is not seen as a Sandernista, or a puppet for the Warren Wing of the Democratic party. People know him and like him. I could see him winning, even as President Toxic picks up his state. I obviously don't see these theories as voodoo. It's not certain, of course. But I think both Lichtman and Abramowitz are right. History - or what MLK or John Lewis or Jon Meacham would call the arc of the moral universe - are all bending in 2020, I think. If they are right, I don't have to to do anything, since history will do the job for me. But I'm sending $100 a month to the Democrats in Montana, and Georgia, and North Carolina, and Iowa, and Maine, and Arizona, and Colorado. Because all this tells me, I think, that if we see the arc of the moral universe actually bend on Election Night, those are the places it is most likely going to bend. If I take Lichtam's insights as wisdom rather than voodoo, this part about the Senate matters for another reason. Whether Democrats can pass legislation in 2021 - on poverty, or job creation, or health care, or infrastructure, or climate change, or racial justice - matters a lot in terms of whether they can keep power in 2024. Mitch knows that, which is why he will obstruct everything - just like he did in 2009. So this is like Groundhog Day for Joe Biden. Same shit, different decade. Bottom line: kill the fucking filibuster dead for this period of US history, since it depends on the idea of compromise and unity. That's not how President Toxic or Mitch play. We need at least 50 Senate Democrats, who can agree on important things. If we have that, some other Republicans might go along. It works out that means people like Kelly, or Hickenlooper, or Gideon have to win - to name the three most likely. All of whom probably are just as comfortable working with Republicans like Stuart Stevens or John Kasich as they are with Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. In terms of the challenges at hand, and the idea that it will take years to dig our way out of the huge hole we are in, that all works out fine with me. Poor Joe Biden. Really. This is going to be like Groundhog Day for him. It's like 2009, only worse.

Thanks for the clarification. I think we're both right. I did misunderstand you at first. I thought you were agreeing with O'Donnell's point about Democrats and deficits. I just watched the clip you posted. The context about what Mayor Pete said that O'Donnell was pissed about was not clear to me. So I won't comment on whatever that was between O'Donnell and Mayor Pete. But I think the point O'Donnell made about Democrats and deficits was important, and true. I also think it's probably relevant to why Biden will win, and what happens after he wins. When Carter was President I was a kid. My Dad, a lifelong Republican who'd occasionally split tickets and voted for moderate Democrats, used to have a rant about "the god damn Democrats and their deficit spending". I'm a Clinton/Kasich deficit hawk. And in that sense, I am very much my father's son. So in a very brief history of what happened since Carter, there is Dick Cheney, who famously said that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. There is that 1993 vote, that at the time Republicans argued would raise the deficit and destroy millions of jobs. Bill Clinton still jokes that the Republicans were wrong by like 10 million jobs. Many Republicans still argue that we has a budget surplus despite, rather than because of, Clinton. Except for Republicans like Kasich, or Dole, who I think based on what I've read are actually among the Republicans who cut the deals with Clinton that got us where we were at the turn of the century. Obama inherited a trillion dollar + annual deficit, and cut it by about half. After a few year's of President Toxic's "best economy ever", we were back to $1 trillion + deficits. Which in the awful era of COVID-19 now looks modest, of course. I watch MSNBC a lot. The progressive part of me gets that true Berniecrats think MSNBC has become the mouthpiece for former Republicans like Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt - who arguably created the problems that led to President Toxic. That's a very long discussion I'll mostly jump over. Other than to mention that the words "deficit" and "conservative" keep coming up. So this week you have Morning Joe, a former GOP House member, going off repeatedly about how "conservative" used to mean you were for small government and surpluses and NATO. Former GOP guru Stuart Stevens was on the Daily Show last night. This is a very interesting conversation that tangents on all these points about Lichtman and Kasich and Meacham. STUART STEVENS - THE LINCOLN PROJECT AND "IT WAS ALL A LIE" I don't recall Stevens getting into the deficit specifically. But he has one of the bleakest views I've heard so far of any Lincoln Project type about the future of the Republican Party. His guess is that we'll have three parties in the future: the Sanders Democrats (which maybe should be called progressives or progressive Independents), the Biden Democrats, and the Republicans. increasingly, many Republicans like Stevens and Scarborough call themselves Independents. As a political proposition for 2020, these are just more very big nails and very big hammers in the coffin of President Toxic. As a Democrat, I can't say I'm depressed about this. It will have big implications for what happens after 2020 with President Biden, or maybe someday President Harris. Part of the reason I posted this is that Stevens says that in the future the important decisions will be made by Biden Democrats and Sanders Democrats. The Republicans will gradually become less and less relevant. I suspect part of the deal that is being cut, in effect, is that Kasich and Stevens want a place at the table when those deals are cut. Stevens notes that eventually, the US will have universal health insurance of some form, like every other Western capitalist nation. Kasich may be a Cabinet member on Team Biden come January. We'll be paying for this plague for decades to come. But if the Kasichs of the world want to be at the table, and they plan to do what they did in the 90's and argue for getting to surpluses again, I welcome them to speak up and be at the table. Like I said, I am my father's son. I can't tell for sure, but sometimes it at least sounds like Sanders and AOC (but not Warren, also a former Republican) believe that deficits don't matter. In that regard, if I'm correct, they agree with Dick Cheney. How weird is that? None of this - deficits, universal health care, Republicans like Stevens bailing on his former party - are directly measured by Lichtman's keys. But I think they all come in through the back door - via his keys involving how people feel about the candidates, or whether they got important policy done, and how that all impacted the overall economy. Like Lichtman, I sense it's all more nails and hammers in President Toxic's coffin.

I guess I'm just slow. I actually thought they had that part figured out already.

I mostly agree with you about Kasich. Everything you said is why I would never vote for him. I'm a Democrat. In the context of 2020, I'd call myself a Warren Democrat. That said, I'd make the same caveat I did already. If the Democrats had elected, or ever elect, a "homegrown Mussolini", I hope I'd have the courage to do what Kasich is doing right now. If you are right, and he is as conservative as you think he is, speaking up for "Socialist Radical Wannabe/But Senile Now" Joe Biden has to be painful. Not to mention "Even Crazier Radical We're Conservative And White And We Say She's An Extremist And Not Really Black" Kamala Harris. Ugh! Poor Kasich. (By the way, just how racist can White conservatives get? Is there no bottom? Do they not realize that Whites were supposed to be out of the business of telling Blacks who they think is Black a very long time ago? Really? White conservatives are saying let's forget slavery ever happened, because it just doesn't matter in 2020. Except for that part about Whites deciding who is Black. Because that part was really cool, for Whites at least! So we've decided Kamala is not Black. Really? Really?) I've started kind of a voodoo thread here. It's about predictions and "keys" which can easily be dismissed as bullshit. And I've elevated the voodoo element of it by speculating about what this election might be like on an alternative Earth with no COVID-19. So while I was watering my plants another question popped into my mind which I think is worth thinking about. At least to me, it helps me think about what's moving the dial in 2020. So if you want to play, here's your homework question. Think about this: What would America be like right now if John Kasich was nominated by the Republicans in 2016 and won? What if he was now President Kasich, and running for re-election? And would he win, based on Lichtman's keys? I'll tell you some things I thing would be very different relating to both the recent past and near future. And in all of this I'm just going to assume that all Lichtman's key are correct. I'm also going to intentionally mention some things that are small picture and personal and anecdotal, and some that are big picture and totally political. My point in doing so is that this national shit show is affecting everybody in different ways. On a personal level, it is tearing many families and friendships apart. First, Kasich would have won in 2016. When Lichtman, a Democrat, called it for President Toxic in September 2016, he got a lot of shit from other Democrats. He actually built in a caveat. He said that his system predicts the incumbent party will lose, in a close race, based on fundamentals. So any Republican is likely to win, he said. But he also said Trump could thwart his keys. Because he is so unprecedented, and so divisive, that Clinton might win even though history is kind of stacked against her. Kasich would likely have just made the predicted Republican victory a bit easier, I think. I'm going to go with you, @tassojunior, and assume that that what Kasich did in Ohio after winning is a good model for what he would have done with a Republican House and Senate. Which is to say, he would have taken some key "conservative" pieces - like he did with Right To Work in Ohio - and run with them. So one thing for sure: similarly conservative judges. The interesting question is: which "conservative" legislative pieces? I put the word "conservative" in quotations because it's not clear to me that running up a $1 trillion annual deficit in good times is "conservative". I'm not sure whether @pete1111 was supporting Laurence O'Donnell or scolding him for going after Mayor Pete for being wrong about Democrats and deficits. But what O'Donnell said in a clip posted above is 100 % true. He was there. In 1993 the Democrats unilaterally passed a bill that set the course for a budget surplus in the late 90's. And as O'Donnell said, several Congressional Democrats lost their jobs over that vote. In my alternative Earth, it would be interesting to see whether President Kasich would have showed courage when wealthy Republican donors asked for their payback in the form of huge tax cuts that once again ran up a $1 trillion deficit - in what was supposedly "the best economy ever". You mentioned Medicaid, @tassojunior. So I'll go with that on my alternative history, as well. Which is to say, President Kasich would not have gone to court to kill Obamacare and inflame things even more, so that nothing actually happened in the end. He very likely would have tried to cut a deal from the center. Whether that's because he's more Christian than President Toxic, or he has different political radar, who knows? But if Kasich did the same thing as President that he did in Ohio, he would have pushed his party to compromise with Democrats and the voters on a very popular health care program. What President Biden ends up doing if he has a Senate majority won't actually be all that different. It will move the dial significantly, like Kasich did in Ohio. But not nearly as much as Bernie or AOC want. On a personal level, I would probably have more Republican friends. I recall a very fun dinner in Spring 2016 with two Republicans I was quite close to. They said, not at all surprisingly, they wish their party would nominate Kasich - which was clearly not going to happen by that point. I said that if you told me Hillary was going to lose, but I could pick which Republican she lost to, I'd pick Kasich in a heartbeat. A year later we had a very similar fun get-together on the day that happened to be Gorsuch's confirmation hearing. Both my former friends were surprised how mild and civil my reaction was. And I was surprised they were surprised. Like after 15 years, you don't think I know you are Republicans? You don't think I know this is a Holy Grail for Republicans? You don't think I know that Donald Trump is no Dwight Eisenhower, so he won't be appointing a William Brennan? The real nails in the coffin had nothing to with Bernie Sanders, or AOC, or Elizabeth Warren. I get that Republicans tend to despise those types. Nor did it have to do with my inability to tolerative conservatism, or principled conservatives like Gorsuch. The nails for me were when Republican friends started telling that "RINOs" like John McCain and Jeff Flake and John Kasich and Susan Collins (on Obamacare) had to shut the fuck up and fall in line, or get out of the way. Right or wrong, I became convinced - based on the exact words coming out of these people's mouths - that they decided Trump was right, winning mattered at all costs, winning was certainly more important than compromise or unity, and the ends justified almost any means. It didn't help that one of these awful "RINO" attacks happened right after McCain and Collins and Murkowski "saved" Obamacare. Obamacare (Covered California) is my health care plan. And it has had a huge positive impact on poverty and health care affordability for millions. The idea that the ends justify the means is even more distasteful when the end itself seems just plain cruel. Which is pretty much who President Toxic is. Just plain cruel, I think. These are the things that gradually moved the dial from respect to contempt. So if there were a President Kasich, none of this would have happened - if we use what he did in Ohio as our guide. Like I said, he likely would have cut some deal with the Democrats that put the health care issue to bed, at least for a while. Like in the real world in Ohio, it would have been something very popular with voters. That is exactly the kind of major policy that helps win elections, according to Lichtman. Which is, of course, part of what Kasich might have had in mind. On a personal level, I never would have had nails being pounded into the coffin of my friendships with Republicans. Because Kasich, based on performance, is not a "win at all costs, because the ends justify the means" kind of guy. You can of course argue that someone who is pro-abortion like Kasich is isn't exactly "unifying". But you are dead wrong about this part of what you said above: Actually, Kasich lost on right to work because the voters overturned the law he signed. So it hardly made him "so popular". Here's what Wikipedia says: At the very end of his second term, he also said this: First, let me make the most cynical interpretation. Kasich conceded on principle after he got his ass kicked. But he didn't change, really. That may actually be true. He is a conservative. But he at least knew when when to stop the bleeding - including the political bleeding that could destroy him. President Toxic doesn't play it that way. I think you can make a fair apples to apples with Kasich on Right To Work and President Toxic on The Wall. And specifically the shutdown with Pelosi. She absolutely kicked his ass. It was very easy to guess she would win. Because The Wall was wildly unpopular by early 2019. And the programs affected by the shutdown were wildly popular, and badly needed by millions of people. Pelosi actually got President Toxic to say, on camera, that fighting for The Wall was worth shutting down all those programs. That it was his idea. So imagine Donald Trump saying this, to paraphrase Kasich, after he lost on the shutdown and The Wall: "It's clear the people need these programs operating. I heard their voices. I understand the pain this has caused. And frankly, I read the polls and respect what the people have to say about this." A President Kasich would never have divided America over The Wall to start with. But I can imagine him saying something like that as President, since he did say it as Governor. President Toxic? Give me a fucking break. The final substantive comparison I'll make is the most important one, in terms of speculating about whether an imaginary President Kasich could avoid the fate of President Toxic and actually be on path to win re-election - at least based on Lichtman's keys. Part of why I think there is a God, and she has a sense of gallows humor, and justice, is that President Toxic did this to himself. China reports that their GDP grew by 3.2 % in the second quarter of 2020. Even if they are lying, independent data from outside China seems to confirm economic growth there, not contraction. Germany is having a rebound of COVID-19. But their unemployment rate went from 5.1 % in March to 6.2 % in June. In the US unemployment went from 4.4 % in March to 10.2 % in June, hitting a peak of 14.7 % along the way. I don't think it's reasonable to think the US could have been just like China, or Germany. But I also don't think it had to play out this badly in the US, either. Anything more I say about how Kasich might have handled COVID-19, and the economic impact, would be wild ass speculation. But my strong guess is that Kasich would have been much more like Maryland's Larry Hogan, than like President Toxic. As I said above, Republican Hogan still has 75 % approval on his handling of COVID-19 in Maryland. President Toxic has 32 % approval in the US. Kasich's protege, Mike DeWine, fell from 81 % approval on COVID-19 in late March - the best rating of any Governor - to 58 % in late July. Even so, President Toxic would kill to have approval ratings like that. On anything. Which he has never had. And never will. Would Kasich have been able to keep the economy out of recession, and stop the turning of these two economic keys that Lichtman says are the final nails in the Republican coffin? Who knows. But I do feel I know for sure that Republicans would be in a much better political position today under a President Kasich than under a President Toxic. Even with COVID-19. Lichtman would also point out that after impeachment, President Toxic needed to lose two more keys, for a total of six. He has lost three more. Kasich would never have been impeached. So even if there were a minor recession, if he was perceived as being as competent as someone like Hogan, you can make a good case that Kasich might have been able to limit the pain of recession and the number of deaths, and survive politically. He would have had more much more political wiggle room than President Toxic, I think. And on the subject of impeachment and ethics, I'll end my diatribe with one other example of the likely difference between President Toxic and President Kasich. This one goes back to something very personal and anecdotal. I've been having some pretty surprising heart to hearts with one of my escort buddies. It's surprising because he's about 90 % less political than me, at least most of the time. So the way it has worked for years is I'll go off and rant. And he'll be kind enough to listen to my rant. But now he's doing a lot of the ranting. He's having a very difficult time with a sibling who he has been very close to, and who strongly supports Trump. His sibling has always been more conservative than him, and voted for President Toxic in 2016. So none of this is new. But like with me, he's experienced this as a slow and painful downward spiral. And, sorry, Richard Grenell. What particularly agitates this escort buddy, who is actually pay for Gay (as opposed to Gay for pay) is his strong feeling that President Toxic gives LGBTQ folks lip service, and then stabs us in the back regularly. His sibling and him have always been close. And being Gay and also an escort has always been okay. But this is causing a serious and deepening rift between them. The first line of a draft email he wrote his sibling that he read to me started with this line: "I have lost all respect for you." Happily, before he read me the draft email or sent a final version he already decided to edit that line out. Most of the email was a very thoughtful explanation of why he thinks President Toxic sucks. Most of the reply was a thoughtful explanation of why his sibling thinks Trump is a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of undeserved shit just because he really wants to make America great again. I spent pretty much all of 2017 and 2018 avoiding saying to Republican friends, "I have lost all respect for you." So I certainly get why my friend felt like saying that. What struck both of us about the response was the complete absence of any awareness that President Toxic is .............. well, toxic. Or divisive. Or unethical. Or mean. Or that he was impeached. Or that most of the people he's been closest to, who guided or greased his rise to power - Bannon, Manafort, Stone, Cohen - have been convicted of federal crimes (or in Bannon's case is accused of committing them). This email argued that President Toxic is just a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of shit he doesn't deserve. Meanwhile, my friend feels strongly that Trump is throwing Gays like him - who aren't rich and aren't conservative - right under the bus. So this is far worse than watching a political shit show between President Toxic and Biden and Pelosi. It's ending friendships and tearing families apart - or threatening to - in ways I've never seen or experienced in my adult lifetime. I'm someone who has spent my whole adult life working closely with Republicans - including getting them to front bipartisan amendments, or jumping in bed with them as an escort. This really hasn't happened to me before President Toxic. I'm even more surprised with people like my buddy, who has never been particularly political. My interpretation of reality is this: when you elect a President who only knows how to win by dividing, you should expect that there is going to be unprecedented division. One of my former friends actually fell into a rant about how he doesn't like having to hear all this loud noise about Trump back in Spring 2017, when we were going out to dinner one night. Since we were going out to dinner, I really didn't want to point out that he voted for President Toxic, so he can just blame himself for the mess. But I did ask him one question, which was something like this: "When you voted for him, what did you actually expect?" I think the answer was something like. "Not this." I let it pass, and we had a nice dinner. But that is a question for the historians. What did the base that elected President Toxic expect? What do they expect now? I really can't imagine what I just described happening with my friend and his sibling playing out the same way under a President Kasich. I would argue that, like Joe Biden, Kaich has been just slightly ahead of his party on most LGBTQ issues. Which is not saying much, for either Kasich or Biden. Here's an old (I think 2016) HRC fact sheet on Kasich if anyone wants the details. Like with Biden, if you judge what they said or did in the 1990's based on the standards of what we've won, and what we are fighting for in 2020, it all sounds very bad. I'd argue that Kasich on LGBTQ issues is very much like Kasich on Right To Work. He knows when he has lost. And he deals with it by trying to find a way to move on. Hopefully, in a somewhat unifying manner. The word "unify" is basic to his vocabulary. President Toxic, of course, does not know how to do that. Or maybe he can't do it, because his base won't tolerate it. The key point I try to always remember is he is symptom, not cause. If President Toxic wasn't constantly playing to his base, would they vote for him, or give him money? So on LGBTQ matters here is a June 2020 comprehensive list from HRC on all the ways President Toxic is throwing our community under the bus. I doubt there will be a similar list in 2021 when Joe Biden is President. Sorry, Richard Grenell. Take your purse from your skit with Don, Jr. and shove it up your ass. If we had a President Kasich rather than a President Toxic, I think a lot of the worst parts of the last 3+ years might never have happened. I don't think we'd be in worse shape with COVID-19. Or with the economy. I think there is very good reason to think we'd be in better shape on both counts. I definitely think the nation would be less divided. There would be much less tearing apart of friendships and families. And for all these reasons, my guess is that Lichtman would be at least somewhat less likely to have already concluded that the incumbent Republican administration is headed toward defeat in November.

Wow. Am I psychic? While you were typing your comment, I was already typing my response. See the above.

Oh God, yes! The politician who I worked with most was Senator Proxmire and his staff (on banks and redlining). So one significant change is that he never took a penny to get elected. He could, and did, sit the most powerful bankers in America down and rip their assholes open, if he had reasonable cause to. It was marvelous. Democratic Senator Chris Dodd should be in jail, in my mind. He chaired the Banking Committee, like Prox. But he took all the money in the world. He was a Friend Of Angelo. (CEO of Counrywide Mortgage.) If he didn't actually break any law, that explains why the laws need to be changed. If you want me to say something bad about Biden, it's that he put Dodd on his VP committee. When Dodd trashed Harris (who is not my favorite Black female politico) it just reinforced why I don't respect Dodd. I've read stories about how him and Kennedy would rent private rooms in tony DC restaurants and at least a few times by the end of the night they were both drunk and fucking women on tables, to the dismay of the waitresses. Maybe it's true, or maybe it's urban legend. Maybe I'm being a judgmental bitch. But I think Dodd was part of the problem. Barney Frank deserves mentioning. I did know him, early in his House career, and I like him. And I think he got blame he didn't deserve for subprime. I always have to point out that all that shit happened in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006. In other words, while Republicans ran the White House, the House and Senate Banking Committees, and all the regulatory agencies. (Republican Richard Shelby chaired the Senate Banking Committee those years, when most of the worst subprime loans were originated. I still believe Chris Dodd, the Ranking Democrat, went along for the ride.) What I blame Frank for is his wishful thinking about lobbying. There was a great article in TIME about the banking reform bill that passed under Obama, which for example empowered Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Frank and others made a point I strongly agree with. That bill was as good as it was in part because, unlike most bills, there was a massive degree of public scrutiny while it was being passed. That made it harder for the lobbyists to work behind closed doors. (Of course, the lobbyists struck back later when it came to writing the regs). Frank made another point I absolutely disagree with. He said lobbyists don't really corrupt things. He said he is like the judge. And having lobbyists is good because they are like having lawyers on both sides making the very best arguments pro and con about any given law. That is how he genuinely feels, I suspect. And I think he's a good guy. So it probably is how he actually acted as Banking Chair. But he didn't mention that in practice many of those lawyers are handing out lots of money, along with their ideas. And the money can either get you re-elected, or crush you. There are rich liberal lobbyists, of course. But having personally been in the game as a low-income/grassroots lobbyist with no money to give away, it can very easily tilt the scales. Had Proxmire had to raise millions from bank lobbyists to win election, who knows whether he would have been a fair-minded leader. Or whether he would have even wanted the job. The other key difference back than was that compromise mattered more and obstructionism mattered less. Being a Democrat, I'll never be a fan of Ronald Reagan. On some issues - poverty and AIDS in particular - he absolutely sucked. But it is true that if he ran today, the Republican Party of President Toxic would have nothing to do with him. He was far too interested in compromise. And in competent government. (He was, of course, once a Governor.) At that time Democrats had run the House forever, and control of the Senate went back and forth. So in practice it meant that both parties always had to compromise, more or less. I actually feel like, in the scope of my life so far, I missed both the best of times and the worst of times in DC. The worst times are, of course, today. Robert Costa of WAPO said on Morning Joe today that he dates the beginning of Trumpism to 2013. That's when McCain and The Gang Of Six voted out immigration reform from the Senate by a bipartisan 68-32 margin, with Obama's consent. And the House Freedom Caucus killed it. Costa says Republican insiders (he didn't say who, but I'd guess people like Boehner) were beginning to learn at that time they could no longer control their base. Or the Tea Party members that base elected, who viewed compromise - and to some extent government itself - as evil. I think that's a key point. President Toxic is the symptom, not the cause. This did not start in 2016. In my mind, the best times were the 1990's. To quote TIME's Joe Klein, under Clinton conservative means were used to accomplish liberal ends. It is one of the reasons I deeply respect John Kasich. He was present at the creation. Yes, I'm 100 % against where he stands on abortion. But on the budget surplus and CHIP and EITC and a lot of other issues that moved the dial on health care and poverty and basic US financial stability, he was on my side. Which was the side of compromise to get important and meaningful shit done. This actually shows up in elections. Kasich barely won his Guv race in 2010, the Tea Party year. He won re-election in 2014 by a 2 to 1 margin. That has a lot to do with how he governed, I think. Clinton proved that governing matters, and that good governing actually works. That is why I say I missed the best of times. I have my own birds eye take on it, based on what I did in the 80s' and 90's. In the 1990's Clinton took all these piecemeal affordable home ownership programs and redlining fights from the 1980's I played a co-starring role in. And he turned them into a national strategy to create wealth from the bottom up. And to fight racism. Black average net worth has never come close to Whites. But helping Blacks (and Hispanics and working class Whites) buy homes in the 1990's and gradually build net worth has probably been, objectively speaking, one of the most significant ways to build Black net worth in all US history. All that went to shit a decade later. And since I went here, I have to mention that conservatives and Sean Hannity will say that's because the whole idea sucked. Which is very much like saying that AIDS proved that Gay sex is a bad thing. In fact, what AIDS proved is that you have to take precautions. Clinton did. It is Fox News bat shit crazy to blame Bill Clinton, who was President from 1993 to 2001, for foreclosures in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 on loans that were't even originated until 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006. The loans originated under Clinton did just fine - unless the people who got them were duped into doing a predatory loan refi a decade later, after they had home equity built up. This leads me to the future, President Biden, and Elizabeth Warren. Every Democratic candidate running for President in 2019 and 2020 talked about redlining. Warren was the only one who talked about what the predators did to Blacks and Hispanics and working class Whites in a way that made you think she was actually in the room when the schemes were being developed. And that's because, at the time, she was a consumer advocate who was watching it like a hawk. And she was warning anyone who would listen. I don't get the sense that Republican President George W. Bush, Republican House Banking Chair Mike Oxley, Republican Senate Banking Chair Richard Shelby, or even Democrat Chris Dodd for that matter really wanted to hear much of what Elizabeth Warren had to say. Joe Biden, for whatever reason, has a far better record of actually listening to what Elizabeth Warren has to say. She may be his Treasury Secretary. My own personal and political plan to recover from President Toxic and the Toxic America he helped create and now rules is incredibly clear. America actually would be greater if we could bring back the 1990's. We need more people like Bill Clinton (at least a non-predatory version) and John Kasich. People who actually do want good government. And who agree that usually means compromise. This is exactly why, even though I intentionally sounded like an inflammatory Bernie nut to Republican former friends who thankfully no longer want to hear anything I say, I send my money to Democrats like Harley Rouda and Claire McCaskill and Mark Kelly and Kristen Sinema. Many progressives would argue they are almost as bad as "Kasich Republicans". If we are going to get shit done, I think right now California is an effective model. It's going to take a room full of Democrats, some of whom speak for the people in the center and center-right. Harley Rouda, Democrat, got elected in Orange County because he is very different than Bernie or AOC. Bernie and AOC have yet to prove they can get elected in places like Orange County. My experience in the DC of the 1980's is kind of relevant to this point, in a sideways way. House Republicans had not actually run the US House in my lifetime, at that point. So they basically had two choices. First, you can have it your way. Which means you can sit there and shut the fuck up and get nothing done, since you're the minority. Or we can talk, and compromise. Democrats of course had to do that, anyway, since Reagan had to sign whatever bill was passed. Same thing when Gingrich ran the House, but Clinton had to sign the bill. My best guess, or at least my best hope, is that decapitating the snake this November, and letting Toxic Republicans wallow in their minority status with their guns and ammo for a few years, may be enough to put the John Kasichs of the world back in power. I will keep repeating this. The Governors of Maryland, Vermont, and Massachusetts are all Republicans. They are among the most popular Governors in America today. So this should not take a miracle. The right people are in the room. In fact, many of the right people are in power. Putting people like Biden and Warren in power will help, I obviously think. And if I am right, everybody who voted for President Toxic in 2016 or 2020 is going to get to enjoy a long time out. It may be lonely. But as I will keep saying, they will at least have their beloved guns and lots of bullets to keep them company. Meanwhile, hopefully, leaders like Biden and Warren will actually get shit done. It is not rocket science. Which is, of course, why politicians can do it. There's one other demographic factor that weighs in fairly heavily and fairly quickly. I was watching a book club talk on YouTube of former Republican Rick Wilson, of Lincoln Project and "Everything Trump Touches Dies" fame. He was speaking to a room full of mostly seniors. So he very tactfully pointed out that many of President Toxic's most ardent supporters are, to quote him, "at the extreme end of the age spectrum". Being blunt like I am, I'll say it. By 2024, a lot of President Toxic's biggest fans will have met their maker. In some cases thanks to COVID-19, actually. (God bless Herman Cain.) For their sake, I certainly hope that means they'll be with God. And not the other place, where President Toxic will no doubt be.

I'm going to keep pivoting my comments back to Lichtman, whose ideas I obviously have a hard on for. One of the frequent criticism of his ideas is that they don't account for new things. So identity politics, for example, is not on his radar. At least overtly. Nor are poverty or racism, at least directly. They do show up through the back door. I'm sure Lichtman would include LBJ's legislative wins on civil rights and the War On Poverty as turning Key 7, since they were major policy changes. And I bring that example up for a specific reason. In part, Lichtman's Keys are just a fun intellectual parlor game to play. But most of what he says I take as wisdom relating to how a President leads and governs so they get re-elected. Or, if they are in a second term like Obama, so that their party stays in power. Lichtman would argue that it mattered that Obama won a major policy change in his first term (Obamacare), but not in his second. (Thanks in large part, of course, to Mitch's obstructionism.) If you buy that theory, that single factor was enough to turn one of the keys in Trump's favor, and put him over the top in a very close race in 2016. I think this is instructive for Biden. If Democrats don't win the Senate, it's almost certain to be more gridlock under Mitch. So to avoid your nightmare of some quasi-fascist Republican regime coming to power in 2014 that is actually much worse than President Toxic (Is Satan available? That would do the trick better than Haley, I think.) Biden is going to have to win important stuff in Congress. On issues like poverty, health care, racism, and hopefully real job creation. As a Warren fanboy (as in, possibly, Treasury Secretary Warren), I'm not too disappointed that it's Joe rather than Elizabeth. I am 100 % certain I agree with Warren's ideas more. But if the critical task at hand is getting laws passed that move the needle on poverty and racism and people living or dying, Joe Biden is actually particularly good at getting laws passed. Lichtman's theory suggests that will matter a lot in 2024, whether he is on the ballot or not then. Like I said in my first post, I've been waiting for Lichtman's prediction all year. I Googled his name several times a month just to see what he was saying. So his evolution has been interesting. He was mentioning the Black Lives Matter protests when they started as something that could potentially rise to the level of major social unrest, and turn one of his keys. Obviously, at some point recently he decided they rose to that level. In that sense, like I said, "identity politics" enters his theory through the back door. Since the social unrest is basically the result of both racism, and income inequality, I think. I'd bet money that one big reason young Black and Brown and White adults are mostly on one page is that they all feel they got the shit end of the stick in a very unequal economy. One that is tilted to the very rich, as well as a small minority of meritocratic/technocratic winners. Everybody else gets to struggle to pay the rent. And maybe buy a house they can barely afford. So I think the issues you raised above - identity politics, income inequality, minimum wage - are all actually embedded in what's happening on the streets. And they are embedded in why the earthquake coming will take Trump out. If you watched that NYT video in my first post, you'll know Lichtman developed this theory with (at the time) one of the world's leading experts on predicting earthquakes. The whole idea was to try to come up with objective criteria that reliably measure stability on the one hand, or volatility on the other - just like with earthquakes. So as it relates to politics, poverty and racism are not new things. They are not unique issues in 2020. I think Lichtman is right about how this plays out. When it rises to the level where you have massive social unrest in the streets on racism and income inequality, that may be an indicator that an earthquake is coming soon to a ballot box near you. I'm going to go back to my "alternative Planet Earth" idea to talk about wages and incomes and poverty and what might happen in November. President Toxic was very good at making sure we all knew that, until recently, Black and Brown poverty were at an all time low. For some strange reason, he always forgot to mention that was ALREADY the case the day Obama and Biden left office in January 2017. So if there were no COVID-19, I can't imagine that all-time low poverty would have hurt President Toxic with Blacks and Hispanics. Even if something like 80 or 90 % of the reduction in poverty from The Great Recession to Spring 2020 happened on the watch of Obama and Biden. There was a lot of talk by Republicans and Fox News in 2018 and 2019 about how President Toxic's policies were finally helping the people at the bottom. I kept hearing they were enjoying some of the biggest bumps in income of anyone. It's actually hard to find data that nails that down, which I've tried to do. But I suspect the claim in mostly accurate. Partly because that is, as any economist would say, what happens at the end of every economic cycle. Demand for labor is high. So the people at the bottom who had a hard time getting a job or pay raise are likelier to get both. It's not exactly good news for low-income Blacks and Browns that you are the last in line to get hired, or get a raise. And now, of course, it already has worked out you were the first to lose your job when the plague and recession hit. Regardless, on my alternative Planet Earth where there is no COVID-19 I have to imagine all these economic factors would have helped President Toxic at the margin. Which is obviously what he was hoping for. And maybe still is. Since you pointed out that the federal minimum wage has been flat for over a decade, this is worth adding, too. One day this Spring, as part of my daily intellectual masturbation routine, I actually tried to figure out whether the increases in low-end incomes or pay President Toxic wanted credit for might have something to do with minimum wage laws that Democrats passed, and most Republicans oppose. That's really hard to nail down, too. But as that chart shows, the bluer the state, the more likely they are to have a minimum wage significantly above the federal level. On my alternative Planet Earth, I suspect President Toxic would be slightly more likely to win because some Blacks and Browns and low-income Whites made a little more money - because of a law Democrats passed and Republicans opposed. Sometimes life is just unfair. Speaking about life being fair, it is of course wildly unfair that none of this is going to happen, because of COVID-19. It is wildly unfair that despite President Toxic's heroic efforts to rally the nation in January to the danger, and get us all to wear masks, and the way he told his "Liberate The Virus in Michigan!" supporters to shut up and go home, he is still going to pay a very big political price for his unprecedented competence in governing. (Remember, I'm on an alternative Planet Earth. So I can make up any delusions I want, just like President Toxic does every day.) In fact, the other thing that is interesting and touchy to talk about is this: White poverty is perhaps more stubborn than Black poverty. It's good news that while there is a huge gap between Black and White net worth, income, and poverty - as there always has been - the gap in poverty rates has very gradually been closing over a period of decades. At least until now. If I had to pick one word to explain why, it would be this: education. More Blacks are going to college than ever before, and more Blacks are graduating than ever before. (Hispanics, too.) I think that's one of the biggest drivers. It's also a touchy subject. The rate of White poverty looks pretty much flat going back to Reagan. The rate of poverty for Blacks dropped by about 10 points over several decades. But at every point you're still much less likely to be poor if you are White - as opposed to Black, or Hispanic, or Asian. Meanwhile, there's no evidence that life is a whole hell of a lot better for those "poorly educated" White folks in Scranton that President Toxic loves. With all this stuff, it's very hard to find data for 2018 or 2019 that really nails anything down. But there's certainly no evidence that millions of factory jobs were created. Or that struggling Whites got better jobs or pay raises. Or that poor Whites were a lot less poor - or had cheaper health insurance. There's no evidence the opioid addictions and "deaths of despair" have run their course. I actually found it sad and sick that some people were arguing that government shut downs are bad, because they were supposedly causing more opioid deaths. It was a very confused argument. You mean having more people get sick, be hospitalized, or die from COVID-19 causes fewer opioid deaths? Or dying from COVID-19 is better than dying from alcoholism or a drug overdose? The best solution is obviously to contain COVID-19. And substantially reduce poverty, like what happened under LBJ, Clinton, and Obama/Biden. None of these factors - COVID-19, deaths of despair, minimum wages, poverty, racism - are explicitly mentioned in Lichtman's 13 keys. But I think all of them are implicit in them. They are measured as social unrest and bad news for the Toxic Party on both short-term and long-term economic trends. I think they are all stress factors that are building the earthquake likely coming soon to a ballot box near you. To make this a truly classic Kesslar post, I'll close my rant with a final chart. I think this reinforces what I said above, about Biden and legislation and 2024 and trying to prevent Satan (or Nikki Haley and fascism) from winning. It's the Times' prediction published after COVID-19 hit about where poverty rates may be headed, by race. If that chart proves to be right, it actually means WHITE poverty will be higher than at any point since the Reagan Recession in the early 80's. And I'd guess those poorly educated folks in Scranton and other places that lean heavily toward President Toxic will get hit harder than tony urban areas. So this will potentially just increase the polarization. Because President Toxic-loving Whites will just be angrier, and hurting more. (Hopefully all those extra guns and ammo will provide at least a little consolation.) And the people who vote for Biden, including some 2016 Trump voters, will very much be expecting him to get laws passed and policies changed, that provide them with relief. Like I said above, part of why it is worthwhile to me to follow Lichtman is not just the prediction parlor game. I think his ideas are helpful in drawing a map to the future.