Month: May 2019

The economy isn’t helping Trump

by digby

Greg Sargent takes a look a the numbers on the economy in the new Q poll. And despite the vast majority of Americans thinking the economy is good, Trump isn’t getting credit for it beyond his base (as he shouldn’t.)

The poll finds shockingly good numbers on the economy. A total of 71 percent of voters said the economy is either “excellent” (22 percent), or “good” (49 percent). A majority of respondents — 52 percent — said they are better off financially today than they were in 2016.

But Trump’s approval rating is only 38 percent, while 57 percent disapprove.

A chorus of pundits will point out that this reflects disapproval of Trump on things that are unrelated to the economy, such as his racism, authoritarianism, and temperamental unfitness for the presidency, and surely there’s a lot to that.

But the poll also raises the possibility that Trump’s economic record may also be part of the problem. It finds that on his signature issues of trade and China, he’s also underwater:

1. Only 39 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of trade, versus 53 percent who disapprove.
2. Only 40 percent approve of the way Trump is handling the nation’s policy towards China, versus 50 percent who disapprove.
3. Only 40 percent say Trump’s trade policies are good for the U.S. economy, versus 48 percent who say they’re bad.
4. This might help explain why voters are so closely divided on whether they approve of Trump’s overall handling of the economy (48 percent approve, 45 percent disapprove), even as they like the economy itself so much.

As it is, Trump might end up benefiting from the good economy to a lesser degree than he expects, even though the rule is supposed to be that good economies help incumbents. As CNN’s Harry Enten recently explained, at nopoint during his presidency has Trump clearly benefited from the economy: Though we’ve had low unemployment and solid economic growth throughout, his approval rating has generally hovered around 42 percent.

But in addition to this, it’s also worth asking whether public assessments of Trump’s economic policies may have come decoupled from public assessments of the economy’s overall health and voters’ sense of their own economic prospects.

After all, Trump’s economic agenda involves a fusion of conventional Republican policies with his “America First” trade agenda, which is supposed to represent a species of economic populism that broke with GOP orthodoxy. Under Trump, neither of these has been popular. Many recent polls have found that Trump’s tax cut, which overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy, is underwater.

But, in a bit of a surprise, the Trump economic policies that most prominently broke with GOP orthodoxy — that is, on trade — have alsoproven unpopular, as the new Quinnipiac poll demonstrates. We’ve seen Trump’s trade wars have all kinds of negative effects, hitting parts of his own base particularly hard, even as a deal with China has proven more elusive than he expected.

It also seems plausible that public impressions of Trump’s trade and China policies have become entangled with impressions of his “America First” nationalism. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and his disastrous immigration policies have also proved deeply unpopular.

Now, it is true that Trump mainly needs these policies to deliver him back the non-college-educated whites that powered his victory in 2016. The Quinnipiac poll does find that majorities of those voters do approve of Trump on trade and China, though they are surprisingly bare majorities, of 54 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

But it turns out these policies are unpopular among the broader electorates in the industrial Midwest. Quinnipiac sent me the numbers on these policies in just that region — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Iowa — and the results are:
In these five states, only 41 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of trade, versus 56 percent who disapprove.
In these five states, only 39 percent approve of the way Trump is handling the nation’s policies towards China, versus 53 percent who disapprove.
In these five states, only 39 percent say Trump’s trade policies are good for the U.S. economy, versus 47 percent who say they’re bad.

This mirrors a Post poll from July 2018, which found that only 39 percent of voters in that same region thought the tariff wars with China would be good for U.S. jobs, versus 59 percent who did not.

Remember: this poll shows that 71% of the public thinks the economy is good or excellent. And his job approval sits at 38%.

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QOTD: Adam Schiff

by digby

Talk about a backhanded compliment:

“I think Bill Barr has all the duplicity of Rudy Giuliani without all the good looks and general likability of Rudy Guliani.”

Yikes.

He went on to say, “the most dangerous thing, I think, that Bill Barr has done is basically say that a president under investigation can make the investigation go away if he thinks its unfair which, by the way, means the other 14 investigations firmed up through other offices he can also make go away.”

That’s the Unitary Executive theory which Barr believes he can ram through with this miscreant in charge who is willing to test every limit and has no clue about what it all means.  Republican officials have shown that they think they can just say “I know you are but what am ” in the future and will suffer no repercussions under Democratic majorities and administrations.

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What is this “compartmentalization” you speak of?

by digby

When President Clinton was impeached he continued with the job of president and worked with a House and Senate majority which had been relentlessly investigating him for everything under the sun for more than six years. It was often said that he was a master at “compartmentalization.”

Here he is explaining that in 1998. (C-Span embed doesn’t work … here’s the link.)

Dan Rather: When you talk to members of Congress about impeachment, what do you tell them?

Clinton: First of all I have received a large number of calls from House members and I have tried to return those calls. I haven’t been able to return them all because we have other things to do. But I’ll try to return the rest of them today.

But I think the vote should be a vote of principle. It’s up to others to decide what happens to me. And ultimately it’s going to be up to the American people to make a clear statement there.

What I am more concerned about today by far is that they cast some votes necessary to advance the cause of our people. The most important votes they have to cast are on the funding of the International Monetary Fund so we can continue our economic prosperity. On the budget, so we don’t raid social security, on the surplus until we fix social security. They still have a chance to do something for education. This Congress has killed campaign finance reform, the minimum wage and tobacco legislation, even killed the patient’s bill of rights. But they can still do something on education, they can still help save social security, they can still help keep our economy going, they can still stop the war on the environment that’s hidden in so many of these bills.

That’s got to be my focus in these closing days. What happens to me I think ultimately will be for the American people to decide. I owe them my best efforts to work for them, and that’s what I’m going to do.

And then there’s Trump:

Trump, who seemed to be having difficulties with his mouth, just had a public temper tantrum that doubled as a news conference of sorts pic.twitter.com/Eo6UxfGwY2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 22, 2019

Trump’s stunt walking away from the infrastructure talks today was premeditated. He thinks he’ll win by holding his breath until he turns blue. And I suppose his people will think it makes him look strong. But I’d guess at least a few swing voters will find this juvenile behavior less than appealing. At best it looks like crude blackmail. At worst, it makes the charge of cover-up all the more obvious.

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Improving lives and shaving margins
by Tom Sullivan

Arthur, Nebraska

The last time Democrats flipped a congressional seat in this largely rural district, they lost the reddest large county by just over 3,000 votes. “Losing” in that heavily Republican county by only ten percent was itself a huge victory. Sometimes winning is just about shaving the margins.

A friend (a former Republican) asked for messaging advice at a fundraiser over the weekend. When canvassing in such places, not for particular candidates but for voter engagement, what should volunteers say when asked what Democrats stand for?

A poll last fall by National Public Radio (NPR) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found 55 percent of rural Americans rated their local economy only fair or poor. A follow-up poll just released examined economic insecurity and health:

Several findings stand out: A substantial number (40%) of rural Americans struggle with routine medical bills, food and housing. And about half (49%) say they could not afford to pay an unexpected $1,000 expense of any type.

One-quarter of respondents (26%) said they have not been able to get health care when they needed it at some point in recent years. That’s despite the fact that nearly 9 in 10 (87%) have health insurance of some sort — a level of coverage that is higher now than a decade ago, in large part owing to the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid in many states.

The Affordable Care Act when combined with the Medicare expansion brought health care access to many who previously had none. But it is still not enough:

Of those not able to get health care when they needed it, the poll found that 45% could not afford it, 23% said the health care location was too far or difficult to get to, and 22% could not get an appointment during the hours needed.

Dee Davis, president and founder of the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Ky., says poverty and ill health are endemic where he lives. “People in this congressional district have the shortest life span in the United States; we also are the poorest,” Davis says. “We’re poor and we’re sicker.”

What’s more, a second NPR report finds that of respondents who reported they could not get needed health care, one quarter said their communities were too remote from the nearest clinic:

Rural hospitals are in decline. Over 100 have closed since 2010 and hundreds more are vulnerable. As of December 2018, there were more than 7,000 areas in the U.S. with health professional shortages, nearly 60 percent of which were in rural areas.

Dave Mosely writes that 21 percent of the nation’s rural hospitals risk closure, and nearly half of rural hospitals in Alabama, Mississippi, and Alaska. The study by Navigant finds this amounts to “about 430 hospitals in 43 states that collectively provide care for millions of Americans and employ more than 150,000 people.” Lack of access and/or time and long distances involved to reach them can prove deadly.

The Tennessean inadvertently identifies why this is happening across the country (emphasis mine):

The closure of a local hospital is a very real possibility for the people of Greeneville, a hardscrabble Appalachian community of 15,000 about an hour east of Knoxville. The facilities here, Laughlin Memorial Hospital and Takoma Regional Hospital, have been half-empty and losing money at least four years in a row. New owners recently fused Laughlin and Takoma in a desperate effort to become profitable, and officials admit that both hospitals were likely to close in a few years without intervention.

For-profit health care is why. The United States operates hundreds of overseas military bases and thousands of installations on every continent except Antarctica. Getting accurate counts and costs is problematic. Like rural hospitals, most of them are out of sight and mind. All of them exist to protect American lives and interests. None of them are expected to operate at a profit. Yet somehow, they manage.

NPR reports the U.S. has approximately 1,860 rural hospitals.

What do Democrats stand for? Health care as available and no-deductible as our military, for one. Hospitals not required to operate at a profit need not close. Costs need not spiral out of control. This country’s archaic system of for-profit health care drives both. Obamacare was step one in remedying that. Step two must be some variety of universal care with no out-of-pocket cost and care accessible to rural as well as to urban communities.

The NPR polling also finds financial insecurity impacts many in rural America. Unexpected expenses of $1,000 or more for health care or a car repair send many families into a tailspin:

Overall, nearly half (49%) said they wouldn’t be able to afford that. And more than 6 in 10 rural black and Latinx Americans said they would have a problem paying that off (blacks, 68%; Latinx, 62%), compared with 45% of rural whites.

Lack of economic opportunity coexists with lack of health care availability:

In areas where higher-speed Internet access is available, people are turning to telehealth instead of going to a doctor or clinic. But broadband access is a perennial issue in many parts of rural America, with 1 in 5 (21%) saying that accessing high-speed Internet is a problem for their family. Among those who do use the Internet, a majority say they do so to obtain health information (68%).

What do Democrats stand for? Broadband expansion on the scale of rural electrification as an engine of economic development in rural America. Plus, as a support for thinly available health care, at least until they can deliver health care as universal as telephone and electrical service.

One of the NC state representatives at last weekend’s fundraiser was introduced as Representative Broadband. He gets it.

But the broader problem of financial stability involves addressing the wage gap and economic inequality.

Electing candidates focused on addressing that systemic problem rather than on finding ways to assign blame to voters for it might help.

When knocking those doors, I recommended listening first and talking later. Ask about people’s financial and health care concerns and insecurities. It is not stepping on any candidate’s message to suggest Democrats want, first, to perfect Obamacare or truly replace the current system with something available and accessible to everyone everywhere, and second, to work toward shrinking the wage/wealth gap that has left them feeling as though they serve the economy instead of the other way around.

Trump continues to screw his base and they love every minute of it

by digby

The farmers are facing devastation:

Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas raised dire concerns over the Trump administration’s intensifying tariff war with China, warning Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Monday that the impact on American farmers could prove devastating.

In a letter to Perdue, the lawmaker contended that the back-and-forth levying of tariffs threatens “to cause long term damage to U.S. agriculture.”

“Kansas farmers and ranchers understand the need to hold China accountable for bad behavior on trade,” he wrote. “Yet, net farm income has fallen by 50% since 2013 and the trade war has pushed commodity prices down even further. Many farmers and ranchers are on the verge of financial collapse.”

Earlier this month, trade negotiations between the U.S. and China collapsed, prompting tensions to escalate further following more than a year of tit-for-tat tariffs.

Less than two weeks ago, the U.S. hit $200 billion worth of Chinese goods with tariffs ranging from 25% to 10%. China retaliated days later with plans to slap new tariffs of between 25% to 5% on about $60 billion of U.S. products.

Though President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the tariffs he’s imposed are being paid by the Chinese themselves, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow acknowledged last week that American consumers and businesses will have to foot the bill.

On Wednesday, Purdue announced that an estimated $20 billion in trade assistance would be given to farmers to help ease their strain, similar to last year’s $12 billion in relief. But Moran argued that isn’t a sustainable solution, noting that producers have been told not to expect further payouts.

“This inherent unpredictability of ad hoc disaster assistance underlies the strong preference of farmers and ranchers for markets to sell their livestock and crops instead of government payments,” he said.

They are losing their markets every single day this continues. Other countries will find other suppliers and they will just stick with them long after Trump’s mindless tariff obsession is done. Anyone who has ever sold things understands that losing customers for a period of time is a very bad thing. They may very well not come back.

Nonetheless, polls are showing that these rural farmers still love Trump and think he’s a genius who knows best. This is a cult-like level of loyalty.

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He’s already as unpopular as Nixon was 6 months into the Watergate hearings

by digby

It’s driving me nuts that we have to keep making this point, but we do. Here’s historian Kevin Kruse doing it succinctly on twitter:

House Democrats are worried about possible political blowback from an impeachment inquiry into a president whose crimes have already been laid out in detail by others and who currently has a pathetic 38% approval.

For comparison, Nixon had just been re-elected in a landslide and stood at 65% approval when Democrats launched the Senate Watergate inquiry in February 1973.

The full airing of evidence and testimony against Nixon quickly eroded his support, bringing it to 39% in July 1973.

It’s idiotic to think that Trump is currently too strong to launch formal impeachment proceedings or, short of that, a committee to air the evidence and testimony against him.

It’s even more idiotic to assume that once that process begins, it’ll somehow drive his numbers *up*

This fear that Trump is some kind of wizard who will be able to parlay impeachment into a big victory is irrational. Yes, Clinton was popular when he was impeached. But he started out with a nearly 60% approval rating!!! And the impeachment charges were over a consensual, if inappropriate, sexual affair!!! 


This president’s crimes are real and they are serious. They involve him breaking the law to cover up for his campaign’s welcome acceptance of Russian sabotage of his rival’s campaign. The only reason that welcoming acceptance isn’t explicitly illegal is because nobody in their right mind ever thought a candidate for president of the United States would ever do such a thing.

The details in the report are shocking and they need to be seen coming from the mouths of the Trump intimates who testified about them in order for the country to understand just how outrageous his behavior really was. 

If Democrats believe what’s in the report they shouldn’t be afraid of impeachment hearings. The Starr report and the Clinton impeachment served to show the American people that the Republicans were a bunch of obsessives who’d been investigating for 6 years and came up with zilch until Monica Lewinsky.

The Mueller Report is not the Starr Report. It’s serious and the president’s actions are blatantly criminal. The Dems should have nothing to fear about making that clear to the American people … unless, of course, they believe Americans are so self-centered that they literally don’t care about their country or its future. It sometimes sounds as if that’s what they think. And I think it’s wrong.

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The new Q poll has Trump at 38%

by digby

And his disapproval is at 57%. Two weeks ago it was at 41%. Only 31% say they will definitely vote for him to 54% who say they would definitely not vote for him.

I’m not surprised that 54% say they definitely won’t vote for him. That tracks with his disapproval rate almost from the beginning. It’s that 31% that I find interesting. I would have thought that would track with his approval rating over time too which is usually somewhere around 40%.

This was interesting too and important to keep in mind.

Only Biden has a positive approval rating at the moment. But as Josh Marshal says, “for most of these Democrats it’s that most haven’t heard enough to make a judgement either way. So what you’re seeing here is to a significant extent confirmed GOP partisans knowing to hate them just on the basis of their party with others not having a clear opinion.”

Nonetheless, it’s important to remember that presidential elections come down to a choice between two people (or voting 3rd party as a protest vote.) We’re a long way from knowing what that choice is going to be and how the American people will receive it.

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QOTD: Susan Collins

by digby

She’s very confused about all this:

“Abortion remains a very contentious issue in the country, and people have heartfelt views on both sides of the issue.

I’m not sure exactly why we’re seeing this happen, but most of the laws are not as extreme as Alabama’s.

Alabama seems to have gone further than any other state.”

I don’t suppose it’s because they got their right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is it Susan? That, unlike you, everyone in the country understood that Brett Kavanaugh was lying to your face about “observing precedent” and would strike down Roe the firstchance he got?

And, by the way, moving the goal posts by saying that not all the laws being passed in the states are quite as bad as Alabama’s isn’t going to work. All the laws they’re passing are an affront to women’s status as free and equal human beings. And Collins can thank herself for all of it. She stood on the floor of the Senate and gave her big important speech for Kavanaugh — and everyone in the nation could see was a green light to outlaw Roe.

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Uh oh. Is Mueller going to be Trump’s savior?

by digby

I hope this is a strategic move by the Mueller team in order to assure the public that they are reluctant participants in the partisan wars in order to preserve their credibility. If not, and they really don’t think this president should be impeached and fail to see how important it is that Mueller himself be the one to testify publicly in front of the whole country — well then we are well and truly fucked:

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has expressed reluctance to him testifying publicly in front of the House Judiciary Committee, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The special counsel’s team has expressed the notion that Mueller does not want to appear political after staying behind the scenes for two years and not speaking as he conducted his investigation into President Donald Trump. One option is to have him testify behind closed doors, but sources caution numerous options are being considered in the negotiations between the committee and the special counsel’s team.
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Justice officials are generally supportive of how the special counsel’s team is proceeding with negotiations. As Attorney General Bill Barr told The Wall Street Journal last week: “It’s Bob’s call whether he wants to testify.”

Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr and the Justice Department declined to comment on the current status of negotiations.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, has repeatedly said that Mueller must appear publicly, and he will subpoena Mueller if necessary.

“Eventually we will hear from Mueller because … we will subpoena him if we have to,” Nadler told CNN earlier this month. “I certainly hope it doesn’t come to the, to our necessity to subpoena him,” he added.

Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, suggested at Tuesday’s hearing, a meeting where former White House counsel Don McGahn did not appear after being subpoenaed, that Democrats appeared to have a lack of urgency scheduling Mueller’s testimony.

“We’ve subpoenaed the documents, we’ve subpoenaed the underlying documents, we’ve subpoenaed stuff that we can’t get, but the one thing that we seem to avoid is Mr. Mueller himself, the one who wrote it,” Collins said. “We’ve asked since April about Mr. Mueller coming. But every time we seem to get close to Mueller, Mueller just gets pushed on a little bit. Haven’t seen a subpoena here, and this is what’s really amazing — we’ll get back to subpoenas in a moment — but just think about that. You wanted the work of the author, but you don’t want to talk to the author.”

After the hearing, Collins would not say whether he’d support a subpoena for Mueller’s testimony.

Separately, Nadler told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday he doesn’t know what’s keeping Mueller as an employee of the Justice Department, suggesting he was “more subject to their discipline” than he would be as a private citizen. “The report is finished. I don’t know why he is still there,” Nadler said.

Mueller has been seen arriving for work almost every morning since the report was released in April.

Again, this may or may not be true. And if it is, it may be a strategy.

But its also true that Barr and Mueller grew out of the same political petrie dish. Maybe when push comes to shove, Mueller just can’t separate himself from his homies.

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