Month: August 2016

Trump’s new strategy


by digby

I wrote about it for Salon today:

Donald Trump’s bad couple of weeks has apparently convinced him that the best way to beat Hillary Clinton is to adopt the “I know you are but what am I” projection strategy. The growing realization that he’s unfit, unhinged and uninformed has caused his poll numbers to plummet and hers to rise so he assumes that if he accuses Clinton of the same thing he’ll get the same results.

He road tested his new strategy over the week-end:

“Unstable Hillary, she lacks the judgment, temperament and moral character to lead this country,” Trump said at his rally. “She is a totally unhinged person.” 

“Her greatest achievement is getting out of trouble, it’s true,” Trump said, prompting chants of “lock her up.” 

“She is a horrible, horrible human being,” Trump said. “She’s incompetent, and I don’t think that you can even think of allowing this woman to become the president of the United States.”

He turned the accusation that his behavior wasn’t presidential against Clinton by reviving a vicious sexist twist he’s used in the past:

“Now you tell me she looks presidential, folks. I look presidential.”

It’s undoubtedly true that Clinton does not look like the image of a president to many people.  But then Trump doesn’t exactly look like someone we’ve ever seen on our currency either.

His campaign took the “unstable” charge to a new level with a web ad that appears to have been made by Trump’s 10 year old son as a summer school project. Playing on the “short circuit” phrase Clinton used in her press conference this week, the ad shows Clinton as a “robot” with her head spewing smoke.

At his rally Saturday night Trump said:

“She took a short-circuit in the brain. She’s got problems. Honestly, I don’t think she’s all there.”  

“She is a totally unhinged person. She’s unbalanced. And all you have to do is watch her, see her, read about her,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Windham, New Hampshire, Saturday evening. “She will cause – if she wins, which hopefully she won’t – the destruction of our country from within.” 

“I think the people of this country don’t want somebody that’s going to short-circuit up here,” Trump said, pointing to his head. “Not as your president, not as your president.”

And he went on twitter to declare:

“Crooked Hillary said loudly, and for the world to see, that she “SHORT CIRCUITED” when answering a question about her e-mails. Very dangerous!” 

“Anybody whose mind “SHORT CIRCUITS” is not fit to be our president! Look up the word “BRAINWASHED.

It’s pretty clear that Trump is the one who needs to look up the word brainwashed because he is obviously confused about its meaning.

As Salon’s  Michael Garofalo noted yesterday, Trump’s adviser Roger Stone and his conspiracy theorist pal Alex Jones have been pushing the notion that Clinton has a brain injury for some time and this is just Trump’s puerile way of bringing that ugly rumor into the mainstream.

They aren’t the only ones. Dave Weigel wrote about  a full blown right wing “Hillary has brain damage” conspiracy yesterday in this piece for the Washington Post that is downright byzantine. There are many layers to the story  but the most recent “evidence” concerns an incident in which one of Clinton’s secret service agents rushed to the stage when a protester approached:

To [conspiracy theorist] Cernovich, it was clear that Clinton was “completely frozen” and “lost control of her executive functions/pre-frontal cortex.” She actually riffed on the protesters, telling them to protest Donald Trump’s sons, who are proud hunters. 

But in a follow-up post, Cernovich speculated that Madison was not in fact a Secret Service agent, but a medical professional who must be around her at all times. In his comments on Twitter and at InfoWars, Shkreli speculated that Madison was holding “an Apokyn pen, used to treat Parkinson’s,” in a photo that revealed something in his right hand.

Lest you think this foolishness is confined to the outer reaches of the right wing fever swamps, Sean Hannity  devoted an entire segment to discussing the thoroughly discredited nonsense on his show last night. He even invited the two house doctors to weigh in which they dutifully did, much to their shame.

Trump’s attacks on Clinton’s mental state are obviously yet another case of projection. If there’s anyone who is suspected of having serious issues it’s Donald Trump. The list of articles trying to figure out exactly what makes him tick is very long. In fact, there has never been a presidential candidate so thoroughly analyzed from afar by mental health professionals and amateur analysts alike. (This epic psychoanalysis compares Trump to Andrew Jackson!)

The man is … unusual. His erratic, juvenile behavior and rank dishonesty combined with the overweening arrogance and total lack of preparation for the job naturally leads to a lot of speculation. But the likely reason Trump has just now decided to turn that back on Clinton is because of the polls: 70 percent have anxiety about a Trump presidency and 67 percent think he lacks the personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively. And according to a recent Pew Poll, that’s what people care about in this election. Even he’s not so far gone that he can’t see the problem and it clearly has him flummoxed. Over the week-end he seemed to be thinking out loud on the stump when he said:

“I’ve always had a great temperament. And you know, I win. I have a winning temperament. We’re going to win, we’re going to start winning again. But I’ve won. My whole life has been about winning. I win. She can’t win. She’s not a winner. She can’t win.”

If the stakes weren’t so high you’d have to feel sorry for him. That’s pathetic.

In the trenches
by Tom Sullivan

Image: Library of Congress.

Eugene Robinson writes this morning that, based on Hillary Clinton’s dominance in national polls, “if the election were held today it would be what is technically called a butt-kicking.” Robinson continues:

Meanwhile, the implications of the recent polls are not lost on the GOP leadership. If Clinton defeats Trump soundly, Republicans probably will lose their majority in the Senate. But if she wins in a landslide, the party could lose control of the House as well.

What with more and more Republican notables leaping from the Donald Trump crazy train — Sen. Susan Collins last night — the GOP is in need of cauterizing its wounds before it bleeds out. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin issued a dire warning in a fundraising appeal last week, “If we fail to protect our majority in Congress, we could be handing President Hillary Clinton a blank check.”

But national polls, like campaign signs, don’t vote. Nor do we elect presidents nationally by popular vote. We elect them via the byzantine Electoral College. Not to diminish a popular movement, but swing states matter.

Politico looked at the state of the fall contests in key counties in swing states, that is, down in the trenches:

And the Clinton campaign is methodically working to lock down these pivotal places by leveraging the family’s longtime relationships with local officials and activating a field organization that’s far more extensive than the ad hoc, seat-of-the-pants effort on the GOP side.

Trump’s interest in hyper-local intelligence gathering stands in sharp contrast to his campaign’s public positioning. Publicly, the GOP nominee feuds with his party’s biggest national stars and dismisses the standard strategic and tactical approaches utilized by his top-of-the-ticket predecessors. What organization and outreach he has is provided by the Republican National Committee and state parties.

That concurs with the efforts seen here so far. The Democrats’ field organization has been on the ground for a couple of months, operating under the auspices of the state Democratic party at first, and post-convention under the national campaign. And it is growing. There is much less parachuting in of a headquarters and field team than in the last couple of presidential races. It feels more organic. Plus, more focus on down-ticket races than before.

That could be a boon to Democratic challengers and incumbents this fall. Democracy for America has endorsed Deborah Ross for U.S. Senate against incumbent North Carolina Republican Richard Burr who holds a narrow lead over Ross in polling. There is incentive for Berners to get behind Ross. If Democrats take back the Senate, Bernie Sanders will likely chair the Senate Budget Committee.

Trump, the Democratic GOTV machine

by digby

Last June, for the first time in 48 years Orange Country California — the heart of Reagan country — voted Democratic. And people are still registering as Democrats in droves. Guess why?

A surge in Democratic voter registration has cut Republicans’ advantage in Orange County to less than 6 percentage points and has doubled the number of Democratic cities over the past year.

The Republican margin has been shrinking since 1990, when the GOP edge was 22 points. But in the past six months, the pace of change has been four times as fast as the 26-year average – due in part to the GOP’s controversial presidential nominee. That could hurt the local Republicans in November’s down-ticket races.

“Donald Trump has become our best marketing tool,” said Henry Vandermeir, chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County. “He’s insulted pretty much every constituency in this county, which has helped drive Democratic registration and turnout to new highs.”

And look who might be in trouble:

Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) road to an eighth re-election has become rockier with the rise in support for the Democratic Marine Corps veteran challenging him this year, the Orange County Register reported.

After winning by at least 30 percentage points in the 2012 and 2014 primaries, Issa only beat Doug Applegate by 5.7 points in the June primary this year. Under the state’s open primary system, Applegate’s performance enabled him to move on and challenge Issa for his seat representing the state’s 49th congressional district in the general election this November.

It’s hard to imagine Issa losing but if the Democrats come out to vote for Clinton it could happen.

The Democrats may have to thank Trump when all this is over.

.

Even white people?

by digby

Trump’s margin with white voters has fallen to 3.1 percentage points.

.

8 Whole weeks

by digby

TPM reports:

Ivanka Trump has vocally embraced pro-family corporate policies while stumping for her father on the campaign trail, but the company that designs her own clothing line offers no paid maternity leave.

A fashion designer for the G-III Apparel Group told the Washington Post in a piece published Monday that she received 12 weeks of unpaid leave when she became pregnant in 2015.

“It’s hard enough emotionally to come back to work right after having a baby,” the unnamed designer, who said she is a registered Republican and worked for G-III for four years, told the newspaper. “But to know you’re returning to a company that doesn’t value your choice to be a mother makes it harder.”

Five other past and current employees of G-III confirmed to the Post that the company offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave after one year of employment—the legal minimum for companies with over 50 workers.

G-III did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Ivanka Trump brand, her 12-employee company, told the newspaper that new mothers at that business receive eight weeks of paid leave.

So the company that designs and produces Trump’s clothing line provides no paid leave. And her own company only provides 8 weeks. That must seem generous to a women who has a house full of servants and nannies to take care of her own newborn children. It isn’t. 8 weeks is a ridiculously inadequate policy.

Of course Trump can’t really spare the cash being a struggling entrepreneur and all.

I see we’ve entered the “who’s the Real American” portion of our program

by digby

Fergawdsakes:

He is a lover of diner fare and fast food grub, of overcooked steaks (“It would rock on the plate, it was so well done,” his longtime butler once observed) and the bland nourishment of Americana. He prefers burgers and meatloaf, Caesar salads and spaghetti, See’s Candies and Diet Coke. And he shuns tea, coffee and alcohol.
[…]
“There’s nothing more American and more of-the-people than fast food,” said Russ Schriefer, a Republican strategist and ad maker. “It is the peculiarity of the brand that he’s able to be on his multimillion-dollar jet with the gold and black branding and colors, and at the same time eat KFC — and what makes it perfect is he does it all with a knife and fork, while reading The Wall Street Journal.”

Or, as Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster on the Trump campaign, put it, “It goes with his authenticity.”

“I don’t think Hillary Clinton would be eating Popeye’s biscuits and fried chicken,” she said.

You can be sure that if Clinton ate Popeyes chicken and biscuits she’d be excoriated for being fat. She already is. Meanwhile, Trump wears suits two sizes too big to hide his extra pounds can eat that sort of food and it’s adorable.

I have heard that he prefers to eat fast pre-fab food because he’s a germophobe and believes that such chemically laden fare is more sanitary. But it’s just as likely that he eats that way because his eating habits, like everything else abut him, are immature and haven’t evolved since he was a kid. (The Michael Wolf article in The Hollywood Reporter indicated that Trump also pretty much lives on vanilla ice cream …)

But let’s just be clear — what these candidates eat says absolutely nothing about how they would run the country. The press makes this silly stuff into symbols of salt-of-the-earth regular Joe sensibility and cynical operatives like Conway run with it. It’s stupid. Who cares what they eat?

.

Mr Incorruptible

by digby

Trump’s “economic advisory council” turns out to be a bunch of rich guys making plans to save themselves money. Go figure:

After spending months scolding his rivals for being beholden to their financial backers, Donald Trump unveiled an economic advisory council last week — and filled it with some of his biggest donors.

Of the 13 men — and they are all men — that Trump touted as economic advisers for their “unparalleled experience and success,” five are major donors whose families combined to give Trump’s campaign and his joint fundraising account with the Republican Party more than $2 million. Two more have been pursued for campaign contributions.

His critics are not amused:

Steve Deace, an influential conservative activist in Iowa and anti-Trump radio host, said he was not surprised that Trump was granting his biggest donors titles and insider access. But he was still angry.

“It is complete and total hypocrisy,” Deace said.

“He got a lot of mileage out of taking advantage of a lot of low-information voters who are rightfully frustrated that government left them behind,” Deace said of Trump’s claims during the primary that he was a self-funding billionaire who could not be bought. “They were an easy mark for a P.T. Barnum con man.”

And this too:

Trump’s new economic team leans heavily on Wall Street investors and hedge-fund managers, despite Trump’s railing against them during the early parts of his presidential campaign.

“The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around. And they get lucky,” Trump said last year on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Look, they’re energetic. They’re very smart. But a lot of them, it’s, like, they’re paper pushers. They make a fortune. They pay no tax. It’s ridiculous, OK?”

It would be funny if it weren’t so risky that this boob could actually become president. Today he is giving a speech in Detroit ostensibly to highlight the plight of the working man. But guess what?

Per Bloomberg news, Trump will emphasize a freeze on new rules for banks and a repeal of the inheritance tax on estates larger than $5.45 million. The relief washing over the unemployed, er, bankers, must be palpable.
[…]
It’s also desperate for big-dollar fundraising from the wealthy so his campaign can compete with Clinton’s, which is reflected in his decision to appoint his billionaire backers as economic advisers, his scramble to bring wealthy donors back to the table, and now today’s speech touting the interests of the financial class.

To be sure, Ivanka must have gotten her hands on a draft, because Trump will also propose making all child-care expenses tax deductible. And he is expected to maintain his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which should play well in auto country, where unions and companies alike feel the deal isn’t tough enough on their Asian competitors.

But cancelled trade deals won’t bring back the low-skill jobs that left the US rust belt. And Trump is expected to propose corporate tax reforms, including a 15% corporate tax rate and new protections for intellectual property, that together with his his plan for tax cuts on big earners, would shift even more of the tax burden on to the middle class.

The Trumpet pundits are going to be insufferable today.

.

.

Why GOP college educated women are going to Clinton

by digby

I wrote about the gender gap for Salon this morning:

Back before the Trump circus overwhelmed the GOP primary I wrote a piece about how the Republicans planned to use Hillary Clinton’s gender against her and use women to do it.  After all, the GOP had spent years building up a propaganda line about Democrats being soft on America’s enemies (and perceived enemies) and portraying the party’s presidential candidates as effete and flaccid politicians who could not defend the country. It didn’t take much imagination to assume they would find a way to use this stereotype of liberal leadership against the first woman nominee.

It may have seemed odd to believe that Hillary Clinton would ever be perceived as weak.  She has a reputation for hawkishness and a long history of gritty forbearance in the face of attacks from the both the press and the Republicans. But ironically, the data showed that if Clinton were to have a problem with national security and foreign policy it would likely come as much from women as from men.

I drew heavily from this piece by nationals security expert Heather Hurlburt in The American Prospect who wrote:

The majority of voters express equal confidence in men and women as leaders, but when national security is the issue, confidence in women’s leadership declines. In a Pew poll in January [2015], 37 percent of the respondents said that men do better than women in dealing with national security, while 56 percent said gender makes no difference. That was an improvement from decades past, but sobering when compared to the 73 percent who say gender is irrelevant to leadership on economic issues… 

The terrorist attacks of the past year in Europe and at home could have been expected to grow those numbers:

Gender politics magnify the electoral effects of anxiety in two ways. First, in surveys and other studies, women consistently report higher levels of anxiety. In fact, women poll twice as anxious as men, largely independent of the specific topic. Women are more concerned about security, physical and economic, than men. According to Lake, Gotoff, and Ogren, women “across racial, educational, partisan, and ideological divides” have “heightened concerns” about terrorism. Those concerns make women “more security-conscious in general and more supportive of the military than they were in the past.”

Had the Republicans nominated a standard mainstream Republican they may have been able to take advantage of that opening. But the campaign has turned out to be much more complicated than anyone could have foreseen with the GOP nominating someone who does not fit any of the standard expectations of the conservative party. This year they are running with a populist pitch on trade combined with xenophobic, nativist white nationalism that targets Asians as economic threats, Latinos as criminal threats and Muslims as existential threats. It’s can be defined as a foreign policy but it’s not a foreign policy that anyone in national politics had dealt with in the modern era (if ever.)

Trump’s “anti-PC” positions are popular among a specific sub-group of white, non-college educated Americans but they are have not been part of mainstream political discourse for a long time and they are startling. People who read books like Ann Coulter’s “Adios America” may have been familiar with this notion that America is overrun with Latino rapists and criminals but average Americans just don’t think in those terms. Nobody but far right talk radio cultists were considering deporting millions of undocumented families or banning Muslims from the country until Trump blurted it out on the stump. Casually embracing torture or insisting that the military would follow orders to commit war crimes in a presidential debate is far outside normal political discourse. An American presidential candidate dissing NATO and endorsing nuclear proliferation is simply unprecedented.

Donald Trump has done something completely unexpected. With his combative, contentious convention, he managed to focus all the anxiety people are feeling back on to himself. His erratic bellicosity and his obvious lack of knowledge (or interest in acquiring any) on the most important issues a president faces has actually created more anxiety than existed before.

The new Washington Post-ABC poll shows that Trump and Clinton are roughly even on the issue of terrorism. But Trump has crippling problems in all these other pertinent areas that apply to leadership and temperament:

Seventy-nine percent of Americans say he doesn’t show enough respect for people he disagrees with, 70 percent express anxiety about a Trump presidency, 67 percent think he lacks the personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively, 64 percent doubt his understanding of world affairs, 63 percent see him unfavorably overall, 62 percent say he’s not honest and trustworthy, 61 percent think he’s unqualified for office and 60 percent think he’s biased against women and minorities.

Actually “problems” is quite the understatement. It’s clear that people are finally accepting that his bizarre antics are for real and that the man is not going to reveal that this has all been an act for the base. And he has shown women that he is insensitive and uncomprehending of their issues and concerns with his litany of sexist comments:

Clinton has improved notably since mid-July among college-educated white women, a critical group in this election; she now leads Trump by 19 points among them, 57-38 percent, after roughly an even split last month. Largely because of that shift, Clinton now holds a wide 58-35 percent lead among women overall (her highest support among women to date), while Trump is +10 among men. And, again given college-educated women, she leads Trump by 6 points among college-educated whites overall, a group Democrats never have won in exit polls dating to 1976.

College educated white women represent many of the people Hurlburt was talking about in her article about women and national security anxiety. But Trump has broken the faith of many of them that men would more likely have the experience and disposition to lead the country in a time of increased nervousness about terrorism and national security. Women are flocking to Clinton in great numbers not only because Trump is a sexist and treats women with disdain. They are flocking to Hillary Clinton because she makes them feel safer than a male Republican.

It would be beyond ironic if the bellicose bully Donald Trump were the man to finally convince female Republican voters that a woman can protect the country better than a man. If that’s his legacy he will have ended up doing America a good deed after all.

Honesty and integrity

by digby

For some reason the entire press corps seems to think that Clinton’s repeated mea culpas for her email server equals this level of rank dishonesty and inconsistency. It’s simply inane:

.

Locking down the gullible vote
by Tom Sullivan

On Sunday, CNN’s “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter criticized Donald Trump for declaring the fall elections “rigged,” and the press for letting him do so “without a shred of evidence.” Suggesting an American election is rigged is “third-world, dictatorship stuff,” Stelter said.

Essay: Trump is sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the election. It's dangerous. Press has a duty to challenge him https://t.co/V6CCyZIfdF— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 7, 2016

Professor Rick Hasen (University of California at Irvine) supplemented Stelter’s tweet with his own, noting that where minimal fraud exists, it is in absentee, not in-person voting:

Here's a nice comparison of absentee ballot fraud to impersonation fraud etc https://t.co/ZWWIISBMUS pic.twitter.com/ZuuYwltesT— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) August 7, 2016

The stolen election meme is one of those zombie lies that simply will not die. Reporters are complicit in perpetuating it, Stelter argues, by failing to press those making wild claims to provide evidence. Ari Berman wrote last week that stealing an election for anything above a local race is nigh on impossible:

In North Carolina, for example, the watchdog group Democracy North Carolina documented more than 2,300 cases of voters whose ballots were rejected in 2014 because of the state’s elimination of same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting. That was 1,150 times greater than the two cases of voter impersonation committed in North Carolina from 2002 to 2012, out of 35 million votes cast.

In the end, it’s much easier to lose your rightful vote than to gain an extra one.

Berman cites Lorraine Minnite, a political scientist from Rutgers University at Camden, writing, “Minnite has called the GOP’s fixation with voter fraud ‘a new Southern strategy’ that has energized the Republican base by ‘tarring … Democrats as cheaters.’” On top of that, voter fraud, the bogie man behind passage of photo ID laws, makes no sense.

Fraud hucksters are — and/or they think the rest of us are — gullible enough to believe that, unlike Us, each Election Day hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people (you know, Them) go to the polls, not to do their patriotic and civic duty like “real Americans,” no, but to commit felonies punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense, “plus additional state penalties,” Berman adds. All so they can a single extra vote to their preferred candidate’s total.

The Skeptics Society has a handy aphorism it applies to such claims, as well as to dowsing, pyramid power, conspiracy theories, and to belief in Bigfoot and the lost city of Atlantis: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Ask Trump for evidence and he’ll likely swear he saw Muslims celebrating stolen elections in New Jersey.

And speaking of New Jersey … this is not a new fixation for Republicans. Let’s review a post from March 9, 2012:

During the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial race, the Democratic National Committee and the New Jersey Democratic State Committee filed suit against the Republican National Committee and New Jersey Republican State Committee for alleged intimidation of minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The RNC allegedly created voter caging lists in minority precincts and, allegedly, hired off-duty law enforcement officers to stand outside minority precincts wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands, some bearing firearms. The settlement the RNC signed with the DNC — applicable nationwide — limited the RNC, its agents’ and employees’ ability to engage in voter fraud prevention efforts without prior court approval. There were successful enforcement actions against the RNC in 1987 in Louisiana and in 1990 in North Carolina. Wikipedia has a list of references to alleged RNC voter suppression actions that never made it to court.

In 2008, the RNC sued to have the 1982 Consent Decree voided, only to lose in New Jersey district court and in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Of course, Hans Von Spakovsky was on their legal team. Gotta say, I never expected a court opinion to be this humorous.

First the headlines [original Reuters link has gone dead]:

March 8 (Reuters) – The Republican National Committee on Thursday lost a bid to dissolve a decades-old legal agreement with the Democratic National Committee over the GOP’s use of improper election tactics.

[…]

The party argued that the risk of voter fraud had increased, justifying stronger prevention measures. They argued that the political landscape had shifted, with more minority-voter turnout and African Americans serving as president, attorney general and chair of the Republican National Committee. Moreover, the suit claimed the decree violated the Republican Party’s free speech rights.

Those stronger measures would be to prevent the phantasmal voter fraud the RNC has obsessed over for for 30 years. As to free speech, the appeals court held that the RNC knowingly waived some of its rights when its counsel signed settlement agreements in 1982 and 1987, and “may not now seek to withdraw from performing its obligations and from discharging its burdens …” The African Americans in office argument, said the court, “hardly requires a serious response.”

Now on to highlights from the court opinion written by Judge Joseph Greenaway (emphasis mine):

The RNC argues that the NVRA [Motor Voter Law] renders the Decree antiquated because it has led to significant increases in minority voter registration and turnout. The RNC also asserts that the NVRA creates an increased risk of voter fraud. This argument, that the enactment of a law that expands voter registration opportunities renders inequitable a Decree that aims to prevent voter intimidation and suppression, is unpersuasive. The District Court correctly notes that any increase in minority voter registration or voter turnout caused by the Motor Voter Law is irrelevant to the Decree because “the Consent Decree was not designed to encourage minority voter registration, but rather to prevent voter suppression.”

[…]

The RNC argues that the BCRA’s [Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, McCain–Feingold Act] prohibition on the spending of soft money by state parties for voter registration and get-out-the-vote activity has heightened the risk of voter fraud because it is difficult to track the voter registration efforts of the increased number of groups registering voters. As the District Court mentions, the Decree does not prevent the RNC from collaborating with non-party organizations to register voters and the RNC has not demonstrated that any ineligible voter registered by a non-party organization has ever actually cast a vote.

[…]

The District Court rejected the RNC’s argument that the Decree must be vacated or modified because the risk of voter fraud outweighs the risk of voter suppression and intimidation. As the District Court correctly points out, the Decree only requires preclearance for programs involving the prevention of in-person voter fraud. Furthermore, the District Court has never prevented the RNC from implementing a voter fraud prevention program that the RNC has submitted for preclearance, at least in part, because the RNC has never submitted any voter fraud prevention program for preclearance.

[…]

If the RNC does not hope to engage in conduct that would violate the Decree, it is puzzling that the RNC is pursuing vacatur so vigorously …

The evidence Berman cites above from North Carolina would seem to support the District court’s skepticism about relative risk higher of vote suppression vs. thst of voter fraud. Not that that will keep GOP operatives from flogging the supposed threat to election integrity for all they’re worth. Plus, we know what Republican legislators think of preclearance programs, and just what they do when oversight is removed, now don’t we?

Four years later, federal courts are no more tolerant of false piety and artiface about election integrity.