It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

stevenkesslar · August 22, 2020

He Predicted Trump's Win In 2016. Now He's Ready To Call 2020.

I couldn't resist commenting on this. I've been waiting for this shoe to drop. And now it has. Allan Lichtman, "the prediction professor", says President Toxic is going to lose. It's locked and loaded, he says, if you watch the nicely produced seven minute video above. The caveats he adds are that Trump will try to change the outcome with voter suppression. And Putin will, too, with Round Two of "fuck up democracy good" election interference. But history is against President Toxic and his hate and racism. Maybe MLK was right after all.

There are people who think that Lichtman is selling snake oil. If you think that, go right ahead. But people like Lee Atwater disagreed. I've watched lots of videos on YouTube of Lichtman addressing conventions of political scientists. He tells a story about how when he first published his theory in the early 80's, and predicted two years in advance that Reagan would win re-election in 1984, Lee Atwater asked him to visit him at The White House. Atwater asked if it would change Lichtman's prediction of a Republican victory if Reagan did not seek re-election in 1984. Lichtman said yes: you lose the power of incumbency, and you lose the charisma of Reagan, which are two of his 13 "keys". Atwater took him seriously in the early 1980's, apparently. Being right about every election since, months or in some cases years in advance, has not diminished Lichtman's stature.

I won't comment on the keys themselves, since Lichtman goes through them all in the video above. I'm a data guy. So what I buy about this, other than the important fact that Lichtman has been right every time so far, is that his keys are almost all objective criteria. As an objective measure, the economy has gone to shit this year. As an objective measure, there is mass social unrest. Blacks in particular, but also most Millennials, have had enough of President Toxic stirring the pot of racism, hate, and division. So history is going to give this major national embarrassment and complete asshole exactly what he deserves. And the prediction itself is based on mostly objective facts. (I added the word asshole myself just to be mean, like President Toxic is.)

What I also particularly like about Lichtman's theory, as a political science theory, is that it is built on respect for the American people. As he says in the video, ignore the polls and the politicking. It's governing that matters to people. Voters are making reasoned judgments on the performance of the party in power - and whether they have earned the privilege of more power, or the need for punishment. So Lichtman is basically saying it's always been the economy, stupid. Or the war, stupid. It makes common sense. John McCain was a profoundly decent man, and a genuine hero. Nothing he said or did in 2008 could have overcome the weight of Iraq War fatigue, and the Great Recession.

So President Toxic can flap his racist and hating lips all he wants, and it won't mean a thing. All Trump is going to prove is that in 2020, it's the racism, stupid, too. But as Lichtman says, Putin trying to fuck with America and democracy again might mean something. So we have to be vigilant. And we have to send money to Democrats.

In 2018 I picked my Democracy Dozen and sent each of them $100 a month all Fall. About half of them were House candidates trying to flip Republican seats, mostly in California. Then there were moderate Democratic Senators like Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill. In 2018 almost all the House Democrats won, and flipped a boatload of Republican seats. Almost all the Senate Democratic incumbents I sent money to lost. (Senator Sinema in Arizona was the exception.) What seemed to determine the outcome was simple and consistent. If your constituency is old, White, and rural, and you are a Democrat, you will lose. That's how it worked out in Indiana, North Dakota, and Missouri. If your constituency is anything else - young, Black, Brown, Gay, urban, suburban - and you are a Democrat, you will win. It seems likely to pretty much work out the same way this time. But, no. There's no racism in America, is there?

My basic theory is that most young people, say under 40, pretty much see the same thing: a country and an economic system that hasn't worked all that well for them. Even when times were supposedly good. So while Black Lives Matter, and young Whites feel the same way as young Blacks, a big chunk of that is that they both know what it feels like to be crippled by debt and left behind in a top-down economy. And we now know for sure they don't like it.

Smart Republican activists have been saying for years a huge tidal wave is going to take out Republicans soon. And it is a tidal wave of youth. Will 2020 be that year? We'll know soon.

My 2020 Democracy Dozen is built on the same principle as 2018: go for the restoration of moderation, decency, fact, and reason. So in 2018 that meant people like Harley Rouda, a former Republican who flipped an Orange County House district. The heart of Reaganism in the 1980's, Orange County, is now solid blue, thanks to people like Rouda. He's favored to win re-election in 2020, but it will be close. So I'm sending him money. More important in 2020 is the Senate. So my priorities are people like Mark Kelly in Arizona, John Hickenlooper in Colorado, Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, Steve Bullock in Montana, Jon Ossoff in Georgia, Sara Gideon in Maine, Cal Cunnigham in North Carolina. All of them are leading or tied in polls. I think all could win in November.

As a progressive who voted for Bernie in the California primary, I don't see one of these men and women I'm prioritizing as a progressive. Rev. Warnock in Georgia is. A Black pastor from MLK's home church winning a Senate seat would be very exciting. But it's not very likely. What matters most to me about the people above is that they want to restore decency, unity, reason, and good governance. Bernie himself (and my personal 2020 favorite, Elizabeth) obviously get why that matters, as they proved this week.

And on the subject of decency, kudos to John Kasich and Jon Meacham for saying exactly what needs to be said repeatedly and relentlessly until Election Day.

One of the breaking points I had with a former client and friend of 20 years who is a moderate Republican was when he trashed John Kasich to me for writing the book, "Two Paths". At the time, in 2017, this Republican friend said the only thing Kasich can do that matters is run for Senate in Ohio in 2018 and try to take Sherrod Brown out. Other than that, Kasich should just shut the fuck up. He has nothing of value to say. That was one of dozens of moments I can now look back on as leading me to the conclusion that something sick and vile was happening in the hearts of Republican friends I actually used to listen to, and respect. Moments like that, which ended friendship and respect, will be my lifelong recollection of the hate and ugliness of the era of President Toxic.

Kasich is a man of principle. He will be heard. Kudos to him for standing for what he deeply believes in. He is, to me, an American hero.

I'll close with this. Jon Meacham is another one who, like Kasich, I think eloquently defined this particular moment. If you believe Lichtman's theory, the beautiful and moving rhetoric of someone like Meacham doesn't really matter. Because it's the economy, stupid. Or it's the war, stupid. Or it's the racism, stupid. That's what will drive President Toxic's loss.

While that may be true, I think Meacham at least helped define how we FEEL about this moment. His call for decency and unity was deeply felt. Just like Brayden Harrington, the kid who stutters and wants the world to feel better in 2021. Even if Lichtman's "keys" will drive the outcome, like they have in every election he correctly predicted, it matters a lot how we FEEL about what happened.

I predict the residual racists will double down on the three things they did right after Obama won in 2008: they will buy guns, buy more guns, and buy even more guns. And this time they'll get a double dose of bullets. So they basically need to sit at home with their guns and bullets and have a very long time out.

The rest of us will hopefully take Meacham's words to heart. In a unifying way, I think he defined the mission and purpose to come.

Latbear4blk · August 22, 2020

10 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

He Predicted Trump's Win In 2016. Now He's Ready To Call 2020.

I

Yes! I had just read the translated article in a conservative Argentine newspaper I check every morning.

Coronavirus. Allan Lichtman: "La respuesta de Trump a la pandemia condenó su reelección"

I agree with Meacham. It is very clear. My political distance from Biden and the Democrats is absolutely irrelevant in front of such a clear, easy option to make. However, I do not have confidence in the outcome of the election. Although polls and social scientists predictions seem to be very encouraging, I am afraid of sentient people becoming over confident and giving another win to the loonies.

Even if Biden wins, I am still concerned. What does it say of America that Donald Trump has the support he has, even after everything he has done? It is not only White Supremacy, but also a core selfish individualism incapable of empathy and socio economic cooperativism.

Let's see. Right now, let's work on expanding the anti-trump coalition. We can discuss our differences once Biden-Harris are on charge.

caeron · August 22, 2020

40% of Americans support our homegrown Mussolini even after all of this.

I can never stop knowing that fact.

TotallyOz · August 23, 2020

1 hour ago, caeron said:

40% of Americans support our homegrown Mussolini even after all of this.

I can never stop knowing that fact.

It blows my mind. But, how many also believe in imaginary people and places? It is easy to convince someone who does not use logic or science as a basis for thinking.

I have friends who are highly educated and post one conspiracy theory after another one. It blows my mind!

Buddy2 · August 23, 2020

Trump's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry told her niece her brother, Donald Trump, is cruel, doesn't read, if he was religious the people at the border would be treaded better, and he has no principles.

Mrs. Barry is 9 years older than Donald

From the Washington Post article and CNN

Latbear4blk · August 23, 2020

56 minutes ago, TotallyOz said:

It blows my mind. But, how many also believe in imaginary people and places? It is easy to convince someone who does not use logic or science as a basis for thinking.

I have friends who are highly educated and post one conspiracy theory after another one. It blows my mind!

I am not sure we are comparing apples to apples here. 40% of Americans support a mysoginist, xenophobic, nationalist, homophobic, scandalously ignorant man.

Perhaps we all believe in imaginary people and places. The places and the people we imagine, though, are radically different.

AdamSmith · August 23, 2020

5 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

He Predicted Trump's Win In 2016. Now He's Ready To Call 2020.

I couldn't resist commenting on this. I've been waiting for this shoe to drop. And now it has. Allan Lichtman, "the prediction professor", says President Toxic is going to lose. It's locked and loaded, he says, if you watch the nicely produced seven minute video above. The caveats he adds are that Trump will try to change the outcome with voter suppression. And Putin will, too, with Round Two of "fuck up democracy good" election interference. But history is against President Toxic and his hate and racism. Maybe MLK was right after all.

There are people who think that Lichtman is selling snake oil. If you think that, go right ahead. But people like Lee Atwater disagreed. I've watched lots of videos on YouTube of Lichtman addressing conventions of political scientists. He tells a story about how when he first published his theory in the early 80's, and predicted two years in advance that Reagan would win re-election in 1984, Lee Atwater asked him to visit him at The White House. Atwater asked if it would change Lichtman's prediction of a Republican victory if Reagan did not seek re-election in 1984. Lichtman said yes: you lose the power of incumbency, and you lose the charisma of Reagan, which are two of his 13 "keys". Atwater took him seriously in the early 1980's, apparently. Being right about every election since, months or in some cases years in advance, has not diminished Lichtman's stature.

I won't comment on the keys themselves, since Lichtman goes through them all in the video above. I'm a data guy. So what I buy about this, other than the important fact that Lichtman has been right every time so far, is that his keys are almost all objective criteria. As an objective measure, the economy has gone to shit this year. As an objective measure, there is mass social unrest. Blacks in particular, but also most Millennials, have had enough of President Toxic stirring the pot of racism, hate, and division. So history is going to give this major national embarrassment and complete asshole exactly what he deserves. And the prediction itself is based on mostly objective facts. (I added the word asshole myself just to be mean, like President Toxic is.)

What I also particularly like about Lichtman's theory, as a political science theory, is that it is built on respect for the American people. As he says in the video, ignore the polls and the politicking. It's governing that matters to people. Voters are making reasoned judgments on the performance of the party in power - and whether they have earned the privilege of more power, or the need for punishment. So Lichtman is basically saying it's always been the economy, stupid. Or the war, stupid. It makes common sense. John McCain was a profoundly decent man, and a genuine hero. Nothing he said or did in 2008 could have overcome the weight of Iraq War fatigue, and the Great Recession.

So President Toxic can flap his racist and hating lips all he wants, and it won't mean a thing. All Trump is going to prove is that in 2020, it's the racism, stupid, too. But as Lichtman says, Putin trying to fuck with America and democracy again might mean something. So we have to be vigilant. And we have to send money to Democrats.

In 2018 I picked my Democracy Dozen and sent each of them $100 a month all Fall. About half of them were House candidates trying to flip Republican seats, mostly in California. Then there were moderate Democratic Senators like Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill. In 2018 almost all the House Democrats won, and flipped a boatload of Republican seats. Almost all the Senate Democratic incumbents I sent money to lost. (Senator Sinema in Arizona was the exception.) What seemed to determine the outcome was simple and consistent. If your constituency is old, White, and rural, and you are a Democrat, you will lose. That's how it worked out in Indiana, North Dakota, and Missouri. If your constituency is anything else - young, Black, Brown, Gay, urban, suburban - and you are a Democrat, you will win. It seems likely to pretty much work out the same way this time. But, no. There's no racism in America, is there?

My basic theory is that most young people, say under 40, pretty much see the same thing: a country and an economic system that hasn't worked all that well for them. Even when times were supposedly good. So while Black Lives Matter, and young Whites feel the same way as young Blacks, a big chunk of that is that they both know what it feels like to be crippled by debt and left behind in a top-down economy. And we now know for sure they don't like it.

Smart Republican activists have been saying for years a huge tidal wave is going to take out Republicans soon. And it is a tidal wave of youth. Will 2020 be that year? We'll know soon.

My 2020 Democracy Dozen is built on the same principle as 2018: go for the restoration of moderation, decency, fact, and reason. So in 2018 that meant people like Harley Rouda, a former Republican who flipped an Orange County House district. The heart of Reaganism in the 1980's, Orange County, is now solid blue, thanks to people like Rouda. He's favored to win re-election in 2020, but it will be close. So I'm sending him money. More important in 2020 is the Senate. So my priorities are people like Mark Kelly in Arizona, John Hickenlooper in Colorado, Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, Steve Bullock in Montana, Jon Ossoff in Georgia, Sara Gideon in Maine, Cal Cunnigham in North Carolina. All of them are leading or tied in polls. I think all could win in November.

As a progressive who voted for Bernie in the California primary, I don't see one of these men and women I'm prioritizing as a progressive. Rev. Warnock in Georgia is. A Black pastor from MLK's home church winning a Senate seat would be very exciting. But it's not very likely. What matters most to me about the people above is that they want to restore decency, unity, reason, and good governance. Bernie himself (and my personal 2020 favorite, Elizabeth) obviously get why that matters, as they proved this week.

And on the subject of decency, kudos to John Kasich and Jon Meacham for saying exactly what needs to be said repeatedly and relentlessly until Election Day.

One of the breaking points I had with a former client and friend of 20 years who is a moderate Republican was when he trashed John Kasich to me for writing the book, "Two Paths". At the time, in 2017, this Republican friend said the only thing Kasich can do that matters is run for Senate in Ohio in 2018 and try to take Sherrod Brown out. Other than that, Kasich should just shut the fuck up. He has nothing of value to say. That was one of dozens of moments I can now look back on as leading me to the conclusion that something sick and vile was happening in the hearts of Republican friends I actually used to listen to, and respect. Moments like that, which ended friendship and respect, will be my lifelong recollection of the hate and ugliness of the era of President Toxic.

Kasich is a man of principle. He will be heard. Kudos to him for standing for what he deeply believes in. He is, to me, an American hero.

I'll close with this. Jon Meacham is another one who, like Kasich, I think eloquently defined this particular moment. If you believe Lichtman's theory, the beautiful and moving rhetoric of someone like Meacham doesn't really matter. Because it's the economy, stupid. Or it's the war, stupid. Or it's the racism, stupid. That's what will drive President Toxic's loss.

While that may be true, I think Meacham at least helped define how we FEEL about this moment. His call for decency and unity was deeply felt. Just like Brayden Harrington, the kid who stutters and wants the world to feel better in 2021. Even if Lichtman's "keys" will drive the outcome, like they have in every election he correctly predicted, it matters a lot how we FEEL about what happened.

I predict the residual racists will double down on the three things they did right after Obama won in 2008: they will buy guns, buy more guns, and buy even more guns. And this time they'll get a double dose of bullets. So they basically need to sit at home with their guns and bullets and have a very long time out.

The rest of us will hopefully take Meacham's words to heart. In a unifying way, I think he defined the mission and purpose to come.

This is a superb post.

Thank you beyond saying.

We need these foundational reminders of what matters and how we operate, right now

stevenkesslar · August 23, 2020

4 hours ago, caeron said:

40% of Americans support our homegrown Mussolini even after all of this.

I can never stop knowing that fact.

Part of what I liked about Biden, Kasich, and Meacham this week was their tone of decency, unity, and sobriety.

So if we're going to be sober, let's face facts. It's not that 40 % of Americans support our "homegrown Mussolini". It's 51 % of Americans that approve of President Toxic. At least according to the latest daily Rasmussen poll, taken a few days into the DNC. That's a fact we should not stop knowing, too. Like I said, be vigilant. And send money to Democrats.

I thought the blip about 51 % was worth stating for several reasons.

First, it suggests it is all about the base. In 2016 Rasmussen nailed the polling. They predicted Clinton would win the popular vote by 2 points, which is exactly what she did. (The RCP polling average in 2016 said Clinton would win by 3 points, which was also very close.) But in 2018 Rasmussen predicted that Congressional House Republicans would beat House Democrats by 1 point. Rasmussen was way off in 2018 - by almost 10 points. In 2018 the final RCP average was that Democrats would win the House popular vote by a 7.3 % margin. In fact, Democrats won the House popular vote by 8.4 %. (Meaning all the votes cast for all US House members.)

So the overall polling, when you look at the averages, was way more right than wrong in both 2016 and 2018. But the huge difference between Rasmussen being dead right in 2016 and dead wrong in 2018 was about the base. In 2016 President Toxic lost the popular vote by millions. But he won a minuscule electoral college victory of less than 100,000 votes because the right parts of his base turned out just enough in just a few of the right places in the Midwest. It's not the most democratic way of winning an election, to be sure. Even so, winning is winning. In 2018 the electorate was just different. Some of the Trump base didn't vote. And some of the 2016 "Trump base" was suburban and working class women who by 2018 were thoroughly disgusted with President Toxic, and voted Democratic.

Rasmussen is again way out on the margin. Their most recent daily poll (August 21) shows President Toxic with a shocking +4 % net approval rating. The RCP average on the same day was closer to what you said, @caeron: 54.2 % disapproval, 43.7 % approval, for a net disapproval rate of - 10.5 %. So Rasmussen is close to 15 points off the RCP polling averages.

Second, I think Lichtman is fundamentally right that daily ticks in any one poll, or even in these broad polling averages, have just about nothing to do with the election outcome. My main reason for posting that video/article is that I think Lichtman is right that people care about fundamentals. And President Toxic will lose in November based on the fundamentals.

I do think all this base politics may help explain what seems like a small and seemingly odd "Trump bump" for President Toxic coming out of the DNC this week - at least according to Rasmussen. My read of the first few nights of the DNC in particular, which is perhaps what these Rasmussen polls captured, was a play to the base of the Democratic Party. There was a lot of talk about Black Lives Matter. Bernie Sanders reached out to his progressive base, which thinks Biden is too moderate. Michelle Obama told us that President Toxic will of course steal the election if he can. If some of the language and tone turned centrists off, that would not surprise me in the least. If and when President Toxic preaches his typical bile next week, the centrists will likely be reminded how much they dislike him.

Democrats were talking to their base this week. We'll know in November whether it worked. We know this week Democrats raised money in droves. They also made the case that you have to get your ballot early and vote early, and make sure your vote is counted. President Toxic went even further down the road of saying any election he does not win is not a legitimate one. This does not suggest Democrats fucked up the DNC in any way. And after you send in your ballot - again, send a check to a Democrat. Or several.

The best criticism I've read about what was missing at the DNC was this one by Ron Brownstein, one of my favorite (and most data-driven) journalists. That whole article of his I hyperlinked is a very thoughtful read. His main point is that Biden and Democrats missed an opportunity to lay out with laser precision an economic plan that would appeal to exactly the White working class voters that bailed on the Obama/Biden legacy in 2016. Instead, Biden himself focused on broader themes like unity and the "soul" of the nation. On CNN Democratic talking heads were bending over backwards to argue that Biden's speech addressed all kinds of policies, at least broadly. But I think Brownstein is basically right.

Brownstein also lays out in the article what is the most logical explanation for why Democrats did what they did. They want this to be a referendum on President Toxic. Not a choice between his economic vision and Biden's. So Biden mostly needs to keep his mask on, and his mouth shut. I also suspect Team Biden is smart enough to know how to play to low expectations. Even Fox News and Karl Rove admitted that the passionate guy delivering his acceptance speech this week was hardly "Sleepy Joe", or senile.

I suspect Biden will also shine in the debates, when he passionately goes after President Toxic's seeming obsession with policies that are unhelpful. Like race baiting. Or giving tax cuts to the 1 %. Or talking about investing in infrastructure but not actually doing it. Or still trying to take away protection for pre-existing conditions, for example. It worked in 2018. I'm guessing it will work again in 2020.

I'm doing an odd thing here. I'm using polling data to argue that Lichtman is right: fundamentals are what matter to voters. Even though Lichtman mostly dismisses polls. But I'll offer the following as an addendum to Lichtman, which to me reinforces the idea that people are not stupid. They understand what is going on. And they make decisions about who is trustworthy based on judgments about competence and character and performance - not campaign slogans or silly red hats.

UPDATE ON THE APPROVAL OF EXECUTIVE PERFORMANCE DURING COVID-19

That's part of a really interesting series of polls that have been going on since Spring about how voters in all 50 states feel their Governor is doing handling COVID-19. Not surprisingly, given how incompetent our national "non-plan" to deal with COVID-19 has been, and the deep consumer-driven recession it has caused, very few Governors got higher approval ratings in late July than they did in late April.

In almost every state, President Toxic's approval rating for handling COVID-19 is far worse than that of the state's Governor, whether Republican or Democrat. There's only one state in which President Toxic just managed to get 50 % approval on his handling of COVID-19: Wyoming. His national approval rating for handling COVID-19 was 32 % in late July. In any state that is not deep red, it is about that bad, or worse. This is very bad news for many Republicans, including Republican Governors. Republican Governors in Florida, Texas, and Georgia are all deep underwater. What seems likely to happen this November may well ripple out into gubernatorial elections in 2021 and 2022.

That said, what I find most interesting and salient to the broad point I'm making about unity and decency and competence is which Governors are doing well. 5 Governors had approval ratings over 70 % for their handling of COVID-19 in late July. In order: Hogan in Maryland (76 %), Scott in Vermont (75 %), Cuomo in New York and Raimondo in Rhode Island (both 71 %), and Baker in Massachusetts (70 %). Note that three of the those five are Republican Governors, and all three of them happen to govern solid blue states.

What explains how voters feel? It's not actual deaths. New York has by far the most COVID-19 deaths in America, as well all know. If you adjust for deaths per 100,000 state residents, New York is # 2, Massachusetts is # 3, Rhode Island is # 6, and Maryland is # 13. In other words, they were deadlier than most states in terms of your chances of dying of COVID-19. Only Vermont at # 47 can brag about being a small "safe" state where a total of only 58 people have died of COVID-19 so far.

Now I'm going off into a subjective guess. But my strong hunch is that everybody knows that New England was the "COVID-19 corridor" this Spring. They got hit hard before anyone (especially President Toxic) really focused on what the virus was capable of doing on US soil. Significantly, Biden was an exception. He staked out a public position in USA Today on January 27th that this was an impending disaster an incompetent President was not preparing the nation for. Geez! How senile is that?

I'm guessing voters are giving Governors that got to work on COVID-19 early and aggressively an "A" for effort. I'd also argue all three of those Republican Governors are "Kasich Republicans". Meaning they work hard to unify voters in their state. They appear competent and concerned, whatever their ideology. All three broke with President Toxic on handling COVID-19 very early. Meanwhile, the Republican Governors who sided with President Toxic on aggressive reopenings are deep underwater. The approval ratings of both President Toxic and the incumbent Republican Governor are so bad in states like Arizona and Georgia that Republicans ought to be seriously worried about public disapproval handing those states to Biden, as well as newly minted Democratic Senators.

Cuomo and Raimondo were not particularly popular in 2019. Raimondo in particular is a Governor I've liked from a distance, because she is a deficit hawk. But that has made her unpopular with unions, who were defending underfunded pension plans. So she went from the # 3 most unpopular Governor in the US in late 2019 to one of the most popular ones today - even though her state was hit harder by COVID-19 than most. Why? I think because she is perceived as having been on top of whacking the virus back effectively, just like Cuomo is.

Again, these are my hunches, not facts. But I went into detail about these polls because they are very broad and consistent. Wherever Governors have sided with President Toxic, even in red or purple states like Georgia and Texas and Florida, they are mostly in deep trouble. Wherever Governors put handling the health crisis first - which is how polls consistently show the vast majority of Americans feel - Governors of either party are doing well.

To tie this back to Lichtman, I would argue that most voters are not stupid. And they are not into home grown Mussolinis. As he argues, they are focused on fundamentals.

To the degree that President Toxic has had something even remotely close to majority support, at least in a few Republican-leaning polls like Rasmussen on a very few days out of over three years, it boils down to this: it's the economy, stupid. He inherited an economy that on the day he was inaugurated ALREADY had the lowest Black and Hispanic poverty in the nation's history. Whatever he did, it amounted to putting a cherry on the cake Obama baked and Biden put the frosting on. And now that has all gone completely to shit.

The polling data also pretty much prove that in every one of all 50 US states, voters are putting dealing with the virus first. This makes sense, because we now know that consumer demand fell off a cliff before any government shut down. Because consumers stopped consuming. Consumers also seem to know that wherever the virus is raging, the economy and jobs can't really recover. This is, of course, what most economists have been saying for most of 2020.

All of this is a long dance around your statement about 40 % of the voters. I certainly believe that some percentage of Americans, which is way less than 50 %, are what I think of as residual racists. They are so deeply emotionally committed to their version of America - the one they grew up in where legal segregation and legal voter suppression and racism (and, of course, legal discrimination against "homosexuals") were norms - that like President Toxic they just can't change. He is actually modeling how his strongest supporters are likely to react, both before and after the election. They will grow increasingly frantic as they move toward defeat. And increasingly bitter after they are defeated. As I said above, gun sales will skyrocket. We'll know just how bad it is once history kicks President Toxic's divisive ass into the political grave.

I'm not that worried about 51 % of Americans telling Rasmussen they approve of Trump on August 21st. Most of the data has been consistent all year: President Toxic is in a downward spiral that now can not be reversed. And Lichtman is right. It's because of fundamentals. Not blips in polls after some viewers in the middle perhaps heard a bit too much about Black Lives Matters or AOC on TV last night.

I was ambivalent about Biden all through 2019. One thing I do appreciate about him more than ever is this: he clearly plays the long game. That is, of course, what Lichtman and Meacham and Kasich are all speaking to. The long game. The fundamentals. The core values. The need for unity and compromise.

So like many Democrats, I will never be truly excited about Biden. But I don't have a hard time accepting that he offers some things that right now the majority of Americans do in fact notice, and feel strongly about. Mostly he offers a reasonable alternative. That is what Lichtman is saying. And that is what really matters.

And I'm glad you won't forget the fact that 35 % or 40 % or 45 % or whatever actually supported the hate and racism and incompetence and dividing. Even though they allowed President Toxic to convince them that this was actually somehow "healing" America. And, of course, making it great again. However many they are, we should not forget. Most of them are just going to get older, and more bitter. And we'll have to deal with them for the rest of their lives.

Edited August 23, 2020 by stevenkesslar

tassojunior · August 23, 2020

20 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

He Predicted Trump's Win In 2016. Now He's Ready To Call 2020.

I don't understand by "Lichtman's model" or any other criteria why an imbecile and failure like Trump can be within 20 points. I find it astounding that without the pandemic, the Lichtman model would have Trump as the runaway favourite to win this November. But the Neo-Lib controlled DNC managed to fuck up 2016 and are giving every sign of trying really hard to be more obnoxious in 2020. Don't underestimate the ability of the brain dead party leaders to split the party and pull defeat out of sure victory. I had lunch today with a fun gay friend, Jon, who "plays for the other team" politically. The only Republican I've ever been friends with; very good-looking young guy who's always at the center of attention telling jokes (like defending the GOP to other gays). He's the one who told me 16 months ago that Kamala already had the Dem ticket, the coming primaries were just show (he deals with AIPAC too). At 22 he was a manager for Scott Walker, then Romney's 2nd lt., then JEB!'s. Political wiz kid. Now he services Kochs for a living. (They're becoming liberal).

Anyway I asked him WTF is going on with the DNC crap. We all know the only way to victory for either party is always to bring in the other side of the party, usually by making the losing candidate VP, sometimes choosing their friend. JFK/LBJ, Reagan/Bush, Clinton/Gore, LBJ/Humphrey, etc etc etc. way back. Goldwater bucked that and told Rockefeller to get lost. Goldwater lost miserably. Hillary told Bernie to get lost and is sitting alone in one of her mansions masterbating to vids of Qadafi's ass being raped by a knife. She'd be president if she'd put Bernie as VP. But no one has ever seen the current death wish of the DNC. A big fuck you to all Bernie supporters, to Tulsi, to AOC, to the "colored girl squad", to Andrew Yang, to Julian Castro and Latinx, to the young voters and the progressive online commentators, and the whole anti-war crowd. From Kyle to Crystal to Brianna to Yang the collective online attitude is "yuck". But a huge welcome to the (fellow) war criminals like Powell and the right wing heroes like Kaisch who stopped abortion in Ohio, passed right-to-work and other union-busting laws, vetoed raising minimum wage, and was always a reliable right-wing economic voice. And then a month after Clinton was shown to have lied about never having been to Jeffery Epstein's pedophile island (logs now show he went 26 times) and 2 days after British papers uncovered photos of him with one of the young girls on the island "massaging" him, Bill Clinton is put on as a key speaker ....what the F'ing F? Adios "MeToo". Hypocrisy much? Sorry Al Franken. The MeToo movement is dead in the party because it's no longer convenient. The stupid winner arrogance is amazing. The DNC thinks Trump is so unpopular they can defy all rules and still win ? I've even heard laughing conspiracy theories the DNC is trying to throw the election. I don't understand that motive but it would explain their conduct. I think they're just following the 2018 strategy which won Congress... but on steroids. Suburban GOP women plus massive over-performance by Blacks more than making up for the young, progressive Democrats escorted out of the party in 2020. I don't see a future in that strategy (even if it works) for 2022 or 2024 when a Republican who personality-wise doesn't make everyone puke comes along. Maybe we'll be coming out of the party system by then. But even this year I think telling half the Democratic voters to "get out" is risky.

My friend smiled and said he thought I understood how this government game works. We have a 2-party system and the leaders of either party have a considerable payoff in many ways, certainly $$$ and power no matter whether they are the government or the "opposition" party". Keeping your party hold is what matters the most. There are many old GOP pissed at not being on the government teat anymore with Trump in. And the biggest fear of the DLC crowd is losing their party, not the election. Their first choice is to own the winning party but their second choice is losing but still owning their party. Their biggest fear is losing their party positions, not the other party winning. Piss on progressive reformers. They are enemy #1 in victory or defeat in either party. Firm up party control and let the election happen however.

Anyway he got some "big Koch" money for the National Vote Compact, which is great to have bi-partisan support when it can. So he's not just pretty and fun but useful in a bi-partisan way. BTW, Kaisch is opposed to it in Ohio next month but Ohio looks decent to pass. If Pennsylvania passes it next and almost any small state it becomes law. (Colorado has a right to rescind by popular vote on the Nov 3 ballot but it won't.)

From a world view , the right-wing populist movements have never been reversed that I can think of by reversion to liberal establishment parties. (I could be missing one and after Brexit Spain did reverse polls for one election and keep them...for a short time). Only left populist parties have ever defeated right-populist parties (afaik), and they usually are not lasting wins. Italy's trying revision to Liberal/left as a weird coalition but it seems a stretch to last. Macron, Merkel and Trudeau are the last liberals standing as the UK slips Boris Johnson super-right. Rejection of the liberal economic establishment seems pretty world-wide, even though there's no love of the populist right. In the US I'm afraid the next "Trump" will be many times more popular, likable (easy) and powerful. I see a Nikki Haley landslide in 2024 and a total government far, far to Trump's right if the Dems win 2020 and lose favor.

Strategy-wise the best news for Dems is that Trump is even stupider. He's going with a traditional "Dems are lefties" campaign the GOP does on every Democrat instead of corruption, which Biden is an easy mark for. Of course it's not like the GOP likes the subject brought up of...ahem....corruption too often anymore than Dems in government do. I've been in the Clearwater/St Pete/Sarasota area half the summer. Pinellis is the flip county in Florida. I've been amazed how strong the Trump support is in what polls as a +6 Biden area. It is not. They just broke a record with a 2000-boat Trump flotilla of supporters' boats with Trump flags and Trump has had an effective 24/7 media barrage of "China Joe, China Joe" even though the Dems are supposed to have much more money. There seems to really be a scary Trump popular consensus with Trump flags everywhere. If they make this a purely anti-China election Dems could be sunk But again,that assumes the GOP is smarter than the Dems and I don't see any evidence of even that super-low bar being passed. .Hopefully Trump stays more detestable than the Dems. Even more than 2016. But don't count out the DLC's ability to be more obnoxious and arrogant. Those DLC war criminals can out-obnoxious anyone when they have to to insure a loss, even in a year where they're flooded with Wall Street and war industry money much more than Republicans.

Pete1111 · August 23, 2020

18 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

It blows my mind. But, how many also believe in imaginary people and places? It is easy to convince someone who does not use logic or science as a basis for thinking.

I have friends who are highly educated and post one conspiracy theory after another one. It blows my mind!

For the 40% that love Trump, yes it is difficult to believe so many, including friends and coworkers, support the man, until I remind myself that these people read Breitbart and worse, and watch Fox news and the newer channels that are even further to the right of Fox.

I also have those types of acquaintances that believe in conspiracy theories.

I even find myself slipping into beliefs of conspiracy, that we are groomed by the media to believe a certain Dem candidate is anointed as having the right stuff, where certain segments of the media are willing to shoot form the hip to vilify anyone that steps out of line. Example below.

But for now, all must do the right things to defeat Trump. Anyone willing to continually trash Biden or Harris is suspect, IMO.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Pete1111
grammar

stevenkesslar · August 23, 2020

5 hours ago, tassojunior said:

I don't understand by "Lichtman's model" or any other criteria why an imbecile and failure like Trump can be within 20 points. I find it astounding that without the pandemic, the Lichtman model would have Trump as the runaway favourite to win this November.

Before the pandemic hit, Lichtman was saying it was going to be a very close race that was too early to call. But it favored Trump. Which I believed, too.

If Trump was going to win, it would have boiled down to one thing. It's the economy, stupid. The logic goes like this: President Toxic "built a rocking economy that worked for everyone." Other than the Toxic part, that is a direct quote from a credible Republican, Scott Jennings. I'm going to label Jennings as a "W. Republican". As opposed to a "Kasich Republican" or a "Toxic Republican". By that I mean Jennings came up through the conservative Republican Establishment ranks. He is credible. He is probably a very decent guy. And like your friend Jon, he's been a sort of boy wonder - and still even looks like one.

Jennings does not embrace toxic thinking, hate, and intentional division. Unlike Kasich, though, he does not break ranks and say bluntly that this is morally repugnant and destructive political behavior. He's basically willing to do what it takes to get and keep power. Any Republican who does that, including President Toxic, he'll shill for. Case in point:

Biden wants a referendum on Trump the person. That's because Trump's agenda is better than his.

That's probably one of the best arguments I've read about why President Toxic deserves a second term, based on the fundamentals. Which is actually to say that they really don't have much of an argument at all. Frankly, maybe it's actually better to just race bait and hate and divide and agitate, like President Toxic does. Jennings is trying to make a rational argument that makes no fucking sense whatsoever, when you think about what he says. At least race baiting and hating gets your base all riled up. We all know that President Toxic knows that. (I was slightly wrong about one thing I said above about gun sales going through the roof after Biden wins. Here's the correction: sales of guns and ammo are ALREADY going through the roof.)

To Scott's credit, he starts by admitting President Toxic drives everyone crazy, regularly makes his own supporters defend the indefensible, and is "corrosive to our national political culture." (Great selling points, huh?) But we still need him ........... because.

The one "because" Scott cites that I agree with is that President Toxic has "delivered on deeply held Republican priorities." That explains two things, perhaps. First, why most Republicans are loyal to their President, despite everything else. Second, why there are now more registered Independents (and Democrats) than registered Republicans, for the first time in US history. Great logic, Scott. But the political math sucks.

The main point I am going to get to is that Jennings is just wrong, wrong, wrong about the fundamentals of the economy. That explains, I think, both why President Toxic barely won in 2016, and why he will lose pretty badly in 2020. But before I get there, let me just tear poor Scott's asshole apart on several of his claims. I think it goes to the heart of what is happening in America. And why President Toxic will lose. Jennings does articulate the greatest hits the Republicans have to work with. And they all just sound tone deaf.

First, there's the "Biden is senile" trope. To quote directly, Jennings says Biden is "confused" and "out of touch" and "past his prime". So here's the part that makes no sense to me. How "out of touch" is it for Joe Biden to get on the phone to Republican or Independent guys he's known and respected for decades, like John Kasich and Jon Meacham, and ask them to say whatever they want about decency and history and unity at his convention? Is that out of touch? Is that senile? Will President Toxic be getting W. or Reagan's kids or George Will - or anyone that isn't a Republican Party hack - to do the same at his convention? (As was stated above by @Buddy2, President Toxic certainly doesn't want his sister or niece to open their mouths and speak honestly.)

I'll get to the substance of Jennings' key argument - that President Toxic built a "rocking economy that worked for everyone" - below. But before we get to the substance, can I just ask. How incredibly fucking out of touch is that statement, on its face? Did you not hear about Bernie Sanders, Scott? Did you not see the endless graphs on income inequality? Warren ranting about wealth taxes? Does anyone really believe that before COVID-19 the "rocking" US economy "worked for everyone"?

To quote Scott, "...come on." You have to be fucking kidding me. If you believe that, you are completely and totally out of touch. And you have made Biden's (and Pelosi's) case that even the "rational" Republicans just don't get how much people are hurting. And have been. For a long time.

Then there is Jennings arguing that Michelle Obama thinks anyone who disagrees with her is "stupid or racist", to quote him verbatim. It's a great argument. Other than that Michelle didn't actually use the words "stupid" or "racist". Or even anything close. What she actually said, as Scott notes, is that she is a Black woman speaking at the DNC. And for that reason many people in a divided nation will not hear what she says. Which was mostly about voting, and democracy, and how President Toxic will try to steal the election.

Again, I think Jennings made Obama's case. He is saying in USA Today, in writing, that he did not actually hear what she said. It is empirically true that she is a Black woman speaking at the DNC. People may disagree with her about President Toxic's malevolent words and scheming. But they are his words. President Toxic votes by mail, and thinks that voting by mail leads to fraud. Except in Florida, where it helps Republicans and is fine. But wherever it helps Democrats, it is fraud. To again quote Scott, " ... come on." Give me a fucking break.

There is something more fundamental here, which is why I lost friendship and respect with several Republican former clients and friends I was very close to after decades of whoring, sex, travel, and fun. President Toxic has made it acceptable to simply dismiss racism as a problem. He's not racist. Republicans are not racist. If the Obamas go off about racism, that's because THEY are racist. In fairness, Scott did not call Michelle Obama a racist. But, sorry, I've heard Republicans I was close to and respected tell me, repeatedly, that they are not racist, but the Obamas are. Again, who is out of touch here? Do they say these things to Black people? Do they talk to Black people? Do they have any idea how most Blacks would feel if they said, "I'm a White conservative, and I think Barack and Michelle Obama are racists." Again, who is out of touch here? Again, to quote Scott, " ... come on."

Meanwhile, Biden just called Kasich and Meacham and asked him to say what they deeply believe. How racist is that? How senile is that?

You may not like Kasich, @tassojunior . I don't know him personally. But he's exactly the type of Republican I have worked with for decades, cut deals with, and deeply respect. As a former lobbyist and organizer, I've worked with and cut deals with Republicans I actually respect a lot less than Kasich. (As well as Democrats I respect less than Kasich.) I would never vote for Kasich, because I'm a lifelong loyal Democrat. Unless, perhaps, Democrats elected a "homegrown Mussolini", which thankfully we have not. I'll repeat what I said above. If there was a blip for President Toxic after the first few days of the DNC, as Rasmussen seems to be saying, I think it was because centrists who don't really like or agree with Bernie or AOC or The Green New Deal got more than a mouthful about that. Time will tell. But as a Warren fanboy who voted for Bernie but is at heart a political whore, it was very clear to me this week that President Toxic was right about one very important thing. He is far worse off running against Biden than either Sanders or Clinton.

To center all this stuff back to Lichtman and fundamentals, I do think it is a key reason why President Toxic will lose. Lichtman calls this key "charisma". I actually think "character" might be a better word. Lichtman's core point, which I think is true, is that once in a generation or so, a war hero like Ike or a Reagan or an Obama are able to command respect and trust that crosses partisan lines, and brings a majority of the nation together. Lichtman literally argued that in 2008 Obama turned the "charisma" key, but in 2012 he didn't. It makes no sense to argue that in 2008 Barack Obama had charisma, but in 2012 he lost it. What Lichtman basically means is that in 2008 Obama was perceived as someone who could rise above and unify. By 2012, he'd been taken down to the level of a Democratic Party hack. I agree with Lichtman on that. My point here is that I think all this racist and nonsensical bullshit that comes out of President Toxic's mouth, and that Republicans like Jennings clean up and try to package as actual rational thought, is one of the fundamental keys that voters have decided on. The majority of Americans simply don't trust or believe Trump anymore - if they ever did. The polls are incredibly clear about that fact.

Now on to the core argument Jennings is making, which is simply not going to fly. Sorry, Scott. Nice try. But before COVID-19, the "rocking" economy did not work for everyone. As Lichtman argues, the short-term and long-term economy are the keys to Trump's impending and now almost inevitable defeat.

All Employees: Manufacturing in Wisconsin

All Employees: Manufacturing in Michigan

All Employees: Manufacturing in Pennsylvania

On this one, a picture (or graph) is worth more than 1000 Kesslar words. And, as a caveat, the United States is bigger than those three states. And most jobs are not factory jobs. But the theory of the case is that President Toxic won in 2016 because of angry Joe Sixpacks in the Rust Belt who lost their factory jobs. So I'm only going to focus on that. That said, I think the trends in these states mostly apply in all 50 states, and for all kinds of jobs.

Long term, as you can see, the picture is unrelentingly bleak. In all three states, factory jobs are a fraction of what they used to be. Bill Clinton could argue in the 1990's that a rising tide did lift all boats. Although even then it was shaky in Pennsylvania. The W. Administration was a disaster for factory workers, even before the Great Recession. That's the case Hillary should have been making in 2016. All these factory job losses happened on a Republican's watch.

One thing that I really like about Lichtman is that, like me, he is a lifelong Democrat. But he is willing to admit that President Toxic won in 2016 because people cast a very close but ultimately fatal judgment on the eight year track record of Obama/Biden. It gets very tricky now. Are Obama and Biden responsible for the massive job losses that occurred in these states from roughly January to June 2009?

As a political question, David Axelrod will tell you that's a no brainer. He says he knew by Spring 2009 that Democrats would have political hell to pay for this in 2010 - even though it wasn't their fault. He was right, of course. If you count from Summer 2009, when The Great Recession ended, Obama/Biden created about 1 million manufacturing jobs on their watch. If you count from the day Obama took office, it was mostly a wash in all three states. Obama/Biden more or less got factory jobs back to where they were when they were elected. So these factory workers and their communities do have a legitimate reason to be pissed, I think. When that led them to vote for President Toxic, I felt I had to give them a pass. Particularly the ones that voted for Obama and Biden in 2008 or 2012 or both elections. It's hard to believe Whites who voted for Obama twice are malevolent racists.

There's another thing that is worth mentioning here, if we could test different outcomes on an alternative Planet Earth. Between November 2008 when President Toxic won, and January 2009 when he was inaugurated, there was a bunch of stories written in lefty journals that worried that Trump would govern as a centrist. That he would cut deals with Democrats (if needed) to invest in infrastructure and create lots of blue collar jobs. Some progressives worried that Trump would be the new Reagan. The fear was he'd move just enough to the center and compromise just enough to create an unshakable political coalition based on undeniable massive job creation.

I was one of those Democrats - like Pelosi, I think - actually HOPING he would do that. For the good of the country, and those broken factory towns. And the families dying "deaths of despair". We now know that President Toxic was too stupid or too mean or too incompetent to do that. He'll say he cut taxes (mostly for the 1 %, in fact) and that created jobs. Look at the data in the charts above. To the degree that factory jobs were created, it mostly happened in 2017 - before the tax cuts. And it was mostly on the same trend line of what has been happening from 2010 to 2016, under Obama and Biden.

On an alternative Planet Earth, it would be fascinating to see what would have happened this November if COVID-19 never happened. If you just look at 2019 in those three states, it actually looks at lot like 2015. Which is to say that factory job growth was flat. If the huge Republican tax cuts to billionaires and "job creators" created lots of factory jobs in the Rust Belt in 2019, the factory workers themselves missed it. In fact, in calendar year 2019, manufacturing employment was actually DOWN by a few thousand jobs in all three states.

If something similar hurt Obama/Biden/Clinton in 2016, would it have hurt President Toxic in 2020? We'll never know. But we do know he certainly didn't make America great again. Not if that means getting factory jobs back to what Bill Clinton managed to do. Was the economy rocking "for everyone" before COVID-19, like Scott says? Come on. Give me a fucking break.

Now the question is different. Lichtman's keys on the economy are essentially like Reagan's question: are you better off than you were four years ago? Today, the answer is overwhelmingly obvious in all three states: NO, NO, and NO. They are all worse off than when President Toxic took power. Pennsylvania is actually worse off in terms of manufacturing jobs than at the bottom of The Great Recession. And President Toxic thinks he can win by talking about how Biden is going to destroy fracking jobs? Give me a fucking break.

Again, the United States is bigger than the Rust Belt. And most jobs are not factory jobs. But no matter what part of the economy you look at, the trend is the same. It was "rocking" for Apple stock owners and employees before COVID-19. And it is rocking for them now. Everybody else? Not so much.

All Employees: Manufacturing in Florida

I'm throwing in Florida just to reinforce my points about fundamentals, the economy, and the political price President Toxic will pay, if Lichtman is right again. We don't think of Florida as a manufacturing state. But it has almost as many factory jobs as the three I listed above. Unlike the other three states, Florida is still better off in terms of manufacturing jobs than the day President Toxic took office. I think most people know that some of those factory jobs that left the Rust Belt actually moved to Florida or Alabama or the South - not China.

Arguably, President Toxic should be doing okay in Florida. But he isn't. He's about 5 points behind Biden. Almost as much as he is in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Is it because of the job losses? Or the COVID-19 deaths? Or just that seniors there think President Toxic is a mean prick?

Who knows? I don't. Ask Scott Jennings. He'll tell you. :frantics:

Edited August 24, 2020 by stevenkesslar

tassojunior · August 23, 2020

lol The Log Cabin Club is out with Trump's first gay ad today. National Director of Intelligence Grenell tells how Trump has been pro-gay longer than Biden and Obama (that's easy) and came to his wedding. It leaves out of course, Trump's pandering to the religious right on their anti-gay campaigns to get votes, In other words Trump himself isn't anti-gay, he just supported anti-gay things to get votes when he became a politician. Whew ! , that makes me feel a lot better . Expect PayPal's Peter Thiel to do an ad also. Grenell is a horrible warmonger who got the unusual distinction during his ambassadorship to Germany of having Germany demand the US send him home (or to hell, ...no real preference). At the 2016 RNC Peter Thiel said maybe democracy was past it's usefulness. Peter Thiel infamously financed someone else's lawsuit which put Gawker out of business he was so mad Gawker had outed him. Thiel was America's 2nd gay billionaire after Dave Geffen. Current worth 2.1B. Grenell is a 5M pauper.

These ads aren't to change any minds but to reinforce already pro-Trump gay conservatives and, more important, to let Trump supporters feel they are "open-minded". Re-enforcement is all that matters.

Grenell proves he's gay by having a fine sarcastic sense of humor if nothing else:

tassojunior · August 24, 2020

1 hour ago, stevenkesslar said:

Who knows? I don't. Ask Scott Jennings. He'll tell you.

Were it so good that in the US politics were basically about economics and not so concerned with often fake social issues used to divide the population for the benefit of the richest. Michelle's got a great smile and it was nice of her to record that Joe speech last month or whenever but she was chauffeured to it in a limousine with security suv's from one of their multiple $50M mansions paid for with "speaking fees" from Pharma and Wall Street banks hubby pandered to. That while black wealth crashed in half because of that administration's easy attitude toward foreclosures. Almost half of black homeowners lost their homes, together with millions of other foreclosures. Blacks not poor enough for Medicaid or rich enough for private insurance die everyday because they can't afford their drugs unless Pharma gives some break to the peasants. They share those two things most with poor whites, poor Latinx, poor anybody, not wealthy Blacks. But identity politics tells them the economics don't matter. It's essential to the rich that the poor be kept divided and at each other's throats. Repeat that hussle with poor whites, poor Latinx . Rich people are slick puppeteers.

But out of this pandemic is coming a rapid transformation to the next industrial revolution (which was coming more slowly anyway). I'm not sure if Lichtman's keys make sense in a world of perpetual too-high unemployment brought on by AI, robots, drones, tele-work, etc where vast wealth is created but we still have no method to apportion it fairly, much less tax the recent unfathomable accumulations of wealth by a handful of people. Younger people, right,left,center, seem fine with the social stuff and are incredulous we still put up with the economic garbage somewhere between oligarchy and feudalism with occasional scraps thrown to the peasants. Eisenhower even complained of it and the war industry economy in the '50's, and it's a whole lot worse now. Trump is way behind on his personal behavior and talk but a thousand times worse is his economics. And unfortunately that very same economics is shared by the new Democratic Neo-Libs. "We will change nothing" indeed. But Trump doesn't even know the bullshit talk to use to placate the older masses. He's not even in the political game of 2020. All he can hope for is like 2016, that the Democrat becomes much more repugnant to more people in more of the swing states. If he can't be a good liar he should have stayed out of politics.

Edited August 24, 2020 by tassojunior

stevenkesslar · August 24, 2020

2 hours ago, tassojunior said:

It leaves out of course, Trump's pandering to the religious right on their anti-gay campaigns to get votes, In other words Trump himself isn't anti-gay, he just supported anti-gay things to get votes when he became a politician. Whew ! , that makes me feel a lot better .

There you go again. Just being negative.

Grenell actually made a bunch of good points, I think. What surprised me is that he hit on all these relatively small ball criticisms. He left out the thing that, as a Gay man, really bugged the shit out of me. Namely, the Obama/Biden White House had the absolute worst decorating impulses ever. Example:

636205350370729983-whitehouse.jpg?width=

Fact Check: Was the White House lit in rainbow colors on Obama's last night in office?

Quote

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT: Whether the White House was lit in rainbow colors on Thursday night.

ANALYSIS: The night before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, President Barack Obama sent out a series of tweets, chronicling his greatest accomplishments while in office. Among them was a photo of the White House lit in the iconic rainbow of the gay pride flag in June 2015, following the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.

But can we just give some credit where credit is due? President Toxic may be out of touch on income inequality, or tax cuts to the rich that don't create factory jobs as promised. But when it comes to identity politics, he's always been way ahead of the curve.

Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't point out that back in 1989 you also would have been better off as a well educated Gay man. Particularly if your husband was a well educated Gay man, too. Had Pete and Chasten run for President and First Man in 1988, they no doubt would have beat Bush I. But that's just me being bitchy, again. Trump was so busy being compassionate and empathetic to Black men that he just must have overlooked the whole Gay thing in 1989.

But on race, at least, he's already been pitch perfect. As in, stick a pitchfork in them. He was way ahead of the curve on why we need to hate Blacks, for example.

Other than just throwing shade, I do have other points I want to make.

First, let's of course state that this is all about how President Toxic runs. If you're an affluent Gay conservative like Grenell or Thiel, and you support Trump, that's all good. If you are a Black drag queen who gets murdered .... well, that's on you. It works the same way if you're a Saudi king or prince who chops up educated dissidents and conducts mass executions of Gays. Why should President Toxic let little things like that get in the way of a friendship?

Second, I've developed some very harsh feelings about lifelong Republicans I've known for decades, and have ended friendships with, because they voted for and have shilled for President Toxic. They appear to be willing to tolerate anything he says and does. But I at least realize this. As Meacham said so eloquently, it's always easy to pretend we're running with the angels, while we're actually letting the darkness out. That's not a partisan thing. There's a good argument that Democrats (think Gloria Steinem) were just as bad with Bill Clinton's predatory nature. You can make distinctions about consensual sex among adults, blah blah blah. But what Meacham said, and Kasich actually demonstrated, is that it takes real courage to stand up against your own team when they go to hate and lies and ignorance and bigotry in order to win. The ends do not justify the means.

Third, I have particular contempt for Gay men who are willing to go along with this, because President Toxic will pay lip service to some members of the LGBTQ community. As long as you're not a Black drag queen. Or someone Gay with pre-existing conditions. Or one of those godawful people who want the government to pay for your sex change. There are some particular rants I am just holding on to until Biden wins. Because only then will the true shame of being a Gay man who threw your own community under the bus really begin to hit and be real, I think. Until President Toxic loses and is gone, the denial and race baiting and rationalizing will all continue and intensify.

Heads and hearts

What victorious gay-marriage campaigners can teach others

I've posted that essay from The Economist a bunch of times. It is one of my favorite pieces of journalism ever. The organizer it quotes, Thalia, is one of my close pals from my organizing days. I don't have an inside view of the Gay mafia that led this fight. But I'm pretty sure Thalia was one of the smart and empathetic people who cracked the code. Which is to say, she helped figure out that it's fine to talk about "basic rights" and fairness and principles. But if we really want to win a war that can't be won, what we needed to do was open our hearts about what it feels like to be Gay and be in love and just want to get married. And if we happen to be the brother or daughter or uncle of the person we're trying to persuade - well, that helps a lot.

It's something Harvey Milk figured out. We have to come out, and make it very personal. And the Gay mafia perfected the technique during the same sex marriage fight.

In my organizing days I organized coalitions and masterminded fights against Enron, GE, the American Bankers Association, God knows how many big banks that redlined, and pretty much every large corporation in Oregon that was enjoying corporate tax breaks while schools suffered. Thalia helped me win that last fight. But the fight I fought that I want on my gravestone was the Gay marriage fight. Thalia was part of the fun. I hadn't seen her for years, until one night in 2008 when I was a volunteer phone banker for same sex marriage in San Francisco and Thalia walked into the EQCA office to train us. So for a year or two I got to be the volunteer who trained door knockers and ran house meetings while she came in as the high powered consultant. I had a fucking blast. And somehow it all added up from the grassroots to the SCOTUS to the Gay Flag on the White House as an incredible victory. in part, thanks to Joe Biden, actually.

I also want a line from Jeb Bush on my gravestone. In 2016 he said something like this about same sex marriage: thousands of years of religion and culture are changing at warp speed. And I just don't get it.

Jeb was right on both counts. The entire human history of dealing with homosexuality has been overturned during my lifetime. And people like Jeb just don't get it. That's why I am incredibly proud of having been one of the millions of ants.

We all know what happens to ants, right? They are crushed. They are fumigated. There is no fucking way all those little fucking annoying ants are ever going to win. Especially when it comes to something very basic and universal. Like marraige is between one man and one woman. It has always been that way. It always will be that way. And if you don't agree, you are an annoying ant. And you are going to be crushed.

So as far as I am concerned, I lived more than a good life already. Not because I led anything, or was a director of this or an organizer of that. Because I was a little fucking useless, powerless ant. And I fucking won. I won something that couldn't be won. Ever. And I won it because I was one of millions of little fucking useless, powerless, annoying ants, saying the same fucking thing all over the planet, about how I felt. So, actually, we won. Some people say the lawyers won the fight. That's true. But Justice Kennedy and others who made the call said that they did it with a mind to the fact that public opinion had changed. And that happened because we organized.

Like I said, this is deeply personal to me.

I have a problem with Republican former friends who have 0 % of the courage John Kasich does. Or the Independents who won't come out and speak the truth like Jon Meacham did. But I have an even bigger problem with a former Gay drag queen saying that "Black Lives Matter is racist".

There's two possible explanations for a White Gay man who is a former drag queen performer to say "Black Lives Matter is racist". One is that he is an overt racist, and he just harbors lots of racist bile. The other is that he's a free ride racist. A free ride racist is a Gay man who thinks that Gay Lives Matter, and Drag Queens' Lives Matter, because I'm Gay and I like to wear dresses. But don't give me that shit about Black Lives Matter, because that's racist.

So Gay men like this want a free ride, whether they are willing to recognize it or not. They want all of society to feel empathy for them - a tiny minority of Gay men who like to wear dresses. But they feel absolutely no obligation to feel any empathy whatsoever for anybody else who has gotten shit on, ever. They feel comfortable rejecting the words "Black Lives Matter" as racist. As well as all the ideas about it. Even though Gay Lives Matter, of course.

I'll say it again. This is personal to me, as a Gay man who fought my heart out for broad and deep societal acceptance, like millions of Gay men and lesbians and drag queens and Straight allies did. If we weren't able to summon up the empathy of Whites and Catholics and Blacks and immigrants and Straight women and soccer Moms and all these different groups of people, who are 97.6 % or so NOT GAY, we never could have won. We would have just been more little fucking annoying ants that were crushed or tortured or hung from crosses, like those guys in Saudia Arabia who President Toxic is pals with still do to Gays IN 2020.

What that article from The Economist, which is hardly a progressive journal, is saying is that Gay men ought to be leaders and allies with Black Lives Matter. While the discrimination is not the same, the LGBTQ community and the Black community have both suffered some of the worst discrimination ever in human history. We have both suffered it for thousands of years. And the LGBTQ community actually figured out how to do something historic and truly transformative about it.

One of the reasons I want the reckoning on this to happen after Biden wins is that it of course more complicated than my feelings, which is what I am intentionally focusing on here. There are very smart Gay men who thought the focus of so much energy on same sex marriage was misplaced. There are Black conservatives who reject most of the ideas of Black Lives Matter. I'm all for freedom of speech, and disagreement and debate. So this all needs to get sorted out. And before we do that, we have to finish pushing President Toxic into the political grave he has been carefully digging for himself through his own cruelty and incompetence.

But this thing about Gay men backing President Toxic when he goes off on his hate and race baiting leaves me feeling deep, deep contempt. Of course they don't know what they are doing. And I'm not God. But I feel like they are just throwing our whole fucking community under the bus. For a little bit of money, or a little bit of power. Our historic victories and continued support and respect depend exactly and entirely on empathy. As Meacham said, on being able to call forth the better angels in people's hearts. Educated Gay men with any power ought to get that. We ought to be able to ally with Blacks who are fighting for the very kinds of acceptance in a truly equal community we fought for, and won.

So Grenell and Gay men like him just suck, as far as I'm concerned. The reckoning can happen after President Toxic loses. But this is an internal fight I think the LGBTQ community has to eventually have with itself.

Edited August 24, 2020 by stevenkesslar

tassojunior · August 24, 2020

and I think Trump is just fine with rich gays (unlike many GOP he panders to) and Blacks. $$ is the key more than anything. I remember essays years ago that economics was also a most important issue for gays because they were lower economically than straights. I think that was when most middle class accumulation of wealth was from owned homes and gays rented. But then recently I heard of some essays and haven't gotten to them contending that gay men now actually accumulate wealth, or at least keep more income, than straight people. I'd love to see those charts because it's counter to how I was politically raised. In advising people I always told them that economics were critical to gays because they made less salary and survived in apartments alone and were less likely to have health insurance or savings. Have we become bougie? No one told me. Should I develop a superior attitude? Is it too late for me to?

You have a lot more faith in politicians than I do. Mine were a long, continuous, string of stunning disappointments starting at 18 until I just couldn't be disappointed anymore. I just expected the worse, I got along much better with politicians I worked with then because "I got it". It's all a scam. DC's dirty little secret people here make a fortune off of as advisors and strategists. And plenty of them are high-paid gay advisors to the most infamous horrible creatures and firms. I think the more horrible the person or firm, the better the pay. Few people realize how many people are in that work here.

But, yeah, I think money cures the gayness.

tassojunior · August 24, 2020

@stevenkesslar

and in spite of all the outrage, another Black man murdered by police (with his children in the car) today in Wisconsin:

Edited August 24, 2020 by tassojunior

JKane · August 24, 2020

tassojunior · August 25, 2020

21 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

There you go again. Just being negative.

I have a feeling things may have changed a lot in the DC political pit since you were last here. The pay is enormously higher even though there are so many more lobbyists, strategists, etc. They're all friends, The only devils to them are the progressive reformers who want to rock the boat. Party-wise the key to 2016 was that the independent, Democratic and Republican anti-war supporters of Bernie stayed home. The official excuse line was they "abandoned the party !". but they were ushered out. Same thing is happening in 2020. Especially the "KHive" part of the entitled NeoLibs is sending out threats and insult trolling to the Bernie/Tulsi/Yang people to get out of "our" party , People from Kyle to Crystal to Nina to Jane Sanders are getting death threats and insults with party knowledge. To those of us who remember how after a primary season the #1 goal was to get the "losing" side back onboard it is totally bizarre. That's why the joke that "they are trying to throw this election" is funny. Because that would explain their actions and not much else simple does. In fact what I think it is , is just going for an "ideological cleansing" of the party. Which ironically is no ideology. No positions. No policy. Anyway it's fierce right now. "It's our party now." "Get out of my party". "Go away".

Of course we know how that worked for Hillary tossing Bernie people out after she got the nomination:

“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton/nobody-likes-him-hillary-clinton-bashes-bernie

(lol....Sanders always polled as the most popular Senator, while Hillary infamously was the most-hated woman in the US. And Sanders single-handily got important bills from Community Health Centers, which make Medicaid possible, to the $600/wk Corvid unemployment additional check.) But she managed to get Bernie voters to stay home ! And history seems to repeating. With Sanders as VP she would have won. Weirdest tactic I've ever seen but seems to be the DLC thing. Policyless purity.

I guess 5% bumps from conventions are a past thing but Biden did get a nice bump in personal approval for a well-presented speech. The 10% drop in the CNN poll last week after selecting Kamala may have been an outlier. But if their nationals didn't rise, it means that her home-state bump may mean the other states diminished. The most concerning were the polls showing them dropping to a tie in Democratic Minnesota and to within the margin of error in Biden's "home" state of Pennsylvania. (They maintained in NH and Maine). I never thought she could herself carry MacComb County, Michigan which may decide the election, much less the other critical county of Pinellas in Florida. If she's increasing the dark blue state vote but costing swing state votes that means Dems will have to do much better than Hillary's 3% win nationally to win. Anyway, it's a long 2 1/2 months (or 1 1/2 until most people will start voting). Like NY we may not know the results for a month or more after. I hope it's not another Gore v. Bush. That was irritating (and dismal). We need easier and safer voting in most of the country It's too hard and many votes get lost.

stevenkesslar · August 25, 2020

18 hours ago, tassojunior said:

Identity politics are a poor substitute for policies.

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.

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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.

tassojunior · August 25, 2020

@stevenkesslar

17 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

I understand you think Lichtman's score is still relevant. I just don't so much.

But speaking of Black poverty you just can't get around the fact that they lost half their wealth after 2009 because of the laxity given to the banks in foreclosures. We gave the banks plenty of money to have policed foreclosures they did better and to have helped homeowners save their homes better. Ditto letting Mnuchin off in California for illegally taking a million homes in foreclosure. Would a Republican have done the same? Most likely but WTF is the good of a "Democrat" who acts likes a Republican.

stevenkesslar · August 25, 2020

15 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

I have a feeling things may have changed a lot in the DC political pit since you were last here.

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.

stevenkesslar · August 25, 2020

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

But speaking of Black poverty you just can't get around the fact that they lost half their wealth after 2009 because of the laxity given to the banks in foreclosures. We gave the banks plenty of money to have policed foreclosures they did better and to have helped homeowners save their homes better.

Wow. Am I psychic?

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

tassojunior · August 25, 2020

15 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

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.

13 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

Wow. Am I psychic?

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

You and I have different views of Clinton. I consider him the start of the DLC and Reagan as the hero of the New Democrats. And Kaisch may be a charmer but he got so popular by practically outlawing abortion in Ohio, passing Right to Work and other union-busting laws, vetoing raising the minimum wage, supporting the Iraq invasion, and scrapping state bank and environmental regulations, but he did sign expanding Medicaid (important). Typical Bush conservative Republican, no better.

There used to be a number of pragmatic politicians and reformers from both parties and both wings. Consensus was a good thing. Now it's showing power through a fuck-you , ram-it-through victory, compromise is showing weakness and consensus is an unheard word. I honestly don't know anymore which party has the more honest people , or that anyone cares. The special interests, especially Wall Street and Silicon Valley are all that matter to please, not the people. I run up on so many of these power strategists who are so much more important than members of Congress and their incomes show it. My friend Jon was a friend of Pete Buttigieg when Buttigieg was a lobbyist here for a year. Hilary Rosen off tv lived down the block for a couple years while she was power boosting for good and evil (no preference) and moved uptown to a mansion she paid $25 million for cash after 2 years. Put all that corruption together with the awful new identity politics and cancel culture and you've got mega-unexcused-thugism. The more evil someone is, the more vicious, the prouder they are. You don't get a good reputation by being liked, you get power by being feared. And they could care less which "side" they work for or who they hurt. The Mafia's got nothing on these folk today except the killing.

It's amazing how critical 2009 was for destroying Black wealth and how it's never spoken of because it doesn't fit the narrative. Narratives are just another type of censorship or historical revisionism. Some day before China marches in, we need to take an objective look at ourselves.

tassojunior · August 25, 2020

omg- Did Grenell or Jr. just throw this on the internet to make controversy? Who is it funny to if not homophobes?

tassojunior · August 25, 2020

and Jr and his gf got #cocaine trending:

Edited August 25, 2020 by tassojunior

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