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Month: September 2019

My Hopes Dashed by tristero

Published by tristero on September 12, 2019

My Hopes Dashed 

by tristero

Dang! It sounded so perfect.

Fresh water, a clean atmosphere, an incredible view. And the best part? A nice little house on this distant planet would be a whopping110 light years away from Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

Unfortunately:

Humans would not fare well on the planet. If it has a hard surface, it would be impossible to stand. With gravity eight times stronger than on Earth, the average human would weigh half a tonne. Added to that are intense UV rays that would drive cancer-causing mutations. 

Dang!

Ben Sasse pulls a Lindsey

Published by digby on September 11, 2019

Ben Sasse pulls a Lindsey

by digby

He learned his lesson. You do NOT resist Dear Leader. And if you submit Trump will call you a very good boy:

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) voted to uphold President Trump’s declaration of a “national emergency” to divert money from the military for a border wall that Congress refused to fund. Doing so ran counter to many of the principles he espoused not long ago as a self-identified “constitutional conservative,” specifically his outspoken calls for checking the power of the executive branch. Now, it’s paying political dividends.

Sasse refused to vote for Trump in the 2016 general election, comparing him to white supremacist David Duke and announcing that he’d write Mike Pence’s name in on his ballot. Now he says he’ll support the Republican ticket in 2020 and effusively praises the president’s judicial nominations. Last night at 9:23 p.m. Eastern, Trump returned the favor, tweeting that “Ben has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

“Ben Sasse has done a wonderful job representing the people of Nebraska,” the president wrote. “He is great with our Vets, the Military, and your very important Second Amendment. Strong on Crime and the Border…”

For Sasse, the past several months have represented something akin to surrender in the war for the soul of modern conservatism. More significant than his voting record is the evolution in Sasse’s tone about Trump and his increasingly long periods of silence. He’s gone to apparent pains not to be perceived as a Never Trumper or to become a face of the Republican resistance, mostly by flying below the radar and not speaking out against the president on Fox News. His once prolific personal Twitter account has been dark since May. He rarely engages with reporters seeking comment on the story of the day in the corridors of the Capitol.

During the first year of the Trump presidency, Sasse was often snarky about Trump’s apostasies. His office has released fewer such statements to the press over time, increasingly avoiding the president by name unless it’s a compliment. Last year, Sasse blasted Trump’s tariffs as “dumb.” Back home during the August recess, he was quoted by small-town papers speaking in a more cautious and measured way about the trade war. Sasse also didn’t speak out after Trump tried to bring the Taliban to Camp David on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary, for example, nor as the president fired fellow hawk John Bolton.

Instead of critiquing Trump, Sasse has trained his ire on Nancy Pelosi. She’s become a regular object of derision in his news releases about issues like trade. When he voted against the budget deal in July that Trump negotiated with the House speaker, Sasse only singled out Pelosi for criticism. “Unless Republicans get serious, Speaker Pelosi is going to take us to the cleaners,” he said a release.

Backing up Trump on the emergency declaration was a turning point, possibly even the defining vote, of his political career. But it also made Sasse significantly more likely to win a second term by undercutting any primary challenge. Unlike his friends Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, who retired in 2018 rather than risk primary defeats from pro-Trump challengers, Sasse seems likely to secure six more years in power. That would keep the 47-year-old in office beyond the Trump era, even if the president is reelected. Will the compromises have been worth it if he gets to chart the GOP’s post-Trump future in 2025?

Trump carried Nebraska in 2016 by 25 points, and the president is overwhelmingly popular among Republican primary voters. Limited public polling shows Sasse’s approval rating rising, driven by Republicans, over the past few quarters.

Pro-Trump activist Matt Innis, a former county-level GOP chairman, has been waging a primary challenge against Sasse that emphasizes his lack of fealty to the president. “You can’t find anything he’s really accomplished other than bashing the president,” Innis told the Omaha World-Herald. Last night, he told the paper that Trump’s tweet “doesn’t change anything.” Innis said he’ll emphasize other issues more going forward. But there’s no doubt the Trump endorsement takes the wind out of his sails.

Compare Sasse to Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, another Trump critic who chose not to capitulate. Last September, Sasse told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he thought about leaving the GOP to become an independent every morning when he woke up. During that interview, he praised Trump for nominating Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court but lamented the chaos in the White House. Then he scaled back national television interviews.

Amash called for Trump’s impeachment and quit the Republican Party on July Fourth after the president made clear he’d support a primary challenger. Now independent, Amash is mulling a bid for the presidency next year as the Libertarian Party’s nominee. “Sasse’s campaign team placed him in the endorsement protection program a couple years ago,” he tweeted last night.

The left has been even harsher. “Sasse finally gets his thirty pieces of silver,” tweeted Matthew Miller, an Obama Justice Department spokesman. “Sasse’s political career has been a production of The Music Man directed by Roger Corman,” writes Esquire’s Charles Pierce.
[…]
All of this is a reminder of the extent to which Trump has remade the GOP. Focused on his own reelection, the president has his own incentives to smooth things over with past critics in the party to keep the GOP as unified as possible against the motivated and angry left. To ensure Trump gets as much of a coronation as possible, state-level Republican parties have been canceling primaries and caucuses around the country that were planned for next year. The ongoing revolt against Boris Johnson among members of his own Conservative party in the U.K. Parliament has felt surprising partly because of how relatively pliant Republicans have become in the U.S. Congress.

No kidding.

Sasse is a snake with pretentions of being above it all. This shows exactly how much he can be trusted to lead.

They’re all cowards.

Polling, polling everywhere

Published by digby on September 11, 2019

Polling, polling everywhere

by digby


NPR-Marist has similar results. They characterize their findings this way:

Elizabeth Warren is on the rise among Democratic voters, but she and other Democrats are less popular with the overall electorate, raising concerns about a bruising primary that could go on for the better part of the next year, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.

The survey also finds President Trump continuing to struggle, with economic concerns seemingly starting to affect his standing, leaving a cloudy picture about the 2020 presidential election.

Here are some key findings from the poll and how the results indicate what’s ahead in 2020:

Warren on the rise

Warren finds herself in a strong position with Democratic voters ahead of Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate.

Seventy-five percent of Democratic voters now say they have a favorable impression of Warren — that’s up from 53% in January, a 22-point jump from the last time the poll asked the favorability of candidates or potential candidates.

What’s more, the percent of those saying they have a negative impression has gone down from 17% to 11%.

“Elizabeth Warren seems to be on the verge of starting to make significant and serious inroads into this contest,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducts the poll. He added, “Heading into the debate, she’s very well-positioned.”

Biden holding up

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads in most national polls of the Democratic contest, is also well-liked, but he has seen a decline since January — 71% of Democrats say they have a positive impression of Biden, a 5-point drop, and 22% don’t, an 10-point increase in his negative rating.

“One of the initial senses of what Joe Biden presented was that he seemed to be less of a risk,” Miringoff said, “but his performance so far has not been gaffe-proof, and as a result, people are not as comfortable and that opened up the door for others, and particularly Warren.”

Biden has been taking most of the slings and arrows of his Democratic opponents, given his lead in the race, and his campaign would argue that he has held up well considering.

The broader electorate isn’t quite sold on either Biden or Warren. Biden has the higher name recognition, and voters overall give him just a 45% favorable, 46% unfavorable rating. Voters are similarly split on Warren, who gets a 41% favorable and 42% unfavorable rating.

Sanders popular with the base but not the general electorate

Bernie Sanders, who has retained his loyal following, has seen an increase in his favorability rating among Democrats since officially declaring his candidacy. The Vermont senator has gone from 57% positive in January to 66% now. But it’s a different story with the broader electorate: 55% of voters say they have an unfavorable impression of Sanders, while just 38% have a positive one.

“Bernie Sanders having over 50% negative has to be concerning to Democrats looking for electability,” Miringoff noted.

Harris is now better known but also unpopular with general electorate

California Sen. Kamala Harris was also tested, but the difference of views of her between the primary and general election electorate are most striking. Harris has gone up 20 points with Democrats, as she has increased her name recognition, going from 36% favorable in January to 56% now. Back then, more than half of Democrats were either unsure or never heard of her. That’s down to just a quarter of Democrats now.

So, she’s worn well with Democrats, but not with a general electorate so far. Among registered voters, she has a 31% favorable, 42% unfavorable rating. (The poll did not test the favorability of the candidates with a general-election electorate back in January.)

“When you look at the national electorate,” Miringoff said, “there’s still a lot of work to be done on the part of Democrats to start attracting a positive reaction.”

Democrats want to beat Trump

How the candidates fare with a general-election audience could be critical, as Democrats are increasingly saying beating Trump is more important than whether a candidate shares their position on most issues. In this poll, 58% said that, an increase from 54% in July and 46% in June.

The broader electorate continues to be split on whether the ideas they’ve heard from Democrats are going to take the country in the right direction (46%) or the wrong one (43%). That’s a slight improvement from July when it was the mirror opposite. Still, more independents say their ideas move the country in the wrong direction (49%) than right one (42%).

Meanwhile:

The president’s numbers

President Trump doesn’t fare much better than his potential Democratic opponents. His overall approval rating is low (41%), a near-record number of people “strongly disapprove” of the job he’s doing (45%), a record number disapprove of his handling of foreign policy (56%) and a majority say they will “definitely” vote against him in 2020 (52%).

You’d think that a president who has hovered around 40% in a relentless atmosphere of scandal and chaos would lead a majority of people to assume they need to vote him out regardless. But one of the consequences of a black swan event like Trump is that people no longer assume that it can’t get any worse. Democrats need to assure the American people that they are going to make it better and that means they need to do more than just talk about kitchen table issues. They need to assure the people that they will work to reform the political system as well.

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Bolton’s departure is good news for the planet. One less nut to worry about.

Published by digby on September 11, 2019
Bolton’s departure is good news for the planet. One less nut to worry about.
by digby

My Salon column this morning:

When John Bolton was named as Donald Trump’s national security adviser I was as stunned as anyone. After all, he’s well known as a man who wants to blow up the world while Trump is a man who thinks he can bring world peace by offering condo development deals to dictators and terrorists. They didn’t seem like a good match. I did, however, think they might find a meeting of the minds under certain circumstances. After all, if a war were to happen, they share a similar philosophy about how it should be fought:

Trump’s words, both in public and private, describe a view that wars should be brutal and swift, waged with overwhelming firepower and, in some cases, with little regard for civilian casualties. Victory over America’s enemies for the president is often a matter of bombing “the s— out of them,” as he said on the campaign trail.

Neither Trump or Bolton have any use for nation-building and both are contemptuous of America’s allies as well. But other than a shared love for brutality they really didn’t have anything in common. If Trump didn’t hire people just because they’re on Fox News, he would have known that an egomaniacal super-hawk with a taste for fierce bureaucratic infighting wouldn’t mesh with his own belief that he can con anyone into doing his bidding by the sheer force of his personality.

Yesterday, Trump tweeted that he’d fired Bolton, and Bolton immediately fired back that he’d offered his resignation. Since Trump is the more notorious liar, I’m going to assume Bolton is telling the truth. From the sound of it, Bolton’s going to make a whole lot of money on a book, probably set to come out right before the election. Trump may regret not keeping him in the fold.

This has been a long time coming, with Bolton clashing with everyone else in the administration and being publicly humiliated at every turn. But the precipitating event seems to have been last weekend’s Camp David debacle in which Bolton adamantly opposed Trump’s plan to bring Taliban leaders to the U.S. a few days before the 9/11 anniversary. He wasn’t the only one, of course. It was a daft idea. But he seems to have been the one who spoke up and became the fall guy for that embarrassment.

Bolton never accepted that Trump doesn’t have a geopolitical view or a foreign policy philosophy. He just wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, he’s convinced he can do it simply by holding a photo op.

Never Trumper David Frum described the dynamic on MSNBC:

This is a story about fantasy and envy. The president’s fantasy about being a great deal-maker and his envy of President Obama’s peace prize. Zalmay Khalilzad, our former ambassador to Afghanistan, was running a process of negotiation with the Taliban to see if an agreement could be reached. About the first of September, he seems to have reached some kind of interim deal. What should have happened at that point [is] it goes into the government and different agencies look at it and say, “Do we like it, can we look at it, do we go forward, do we stop?” Trump got the smell of this and thought, “This is a done deal, Zalmay is going to get the credit, he’s going to get the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Frum added that Trump “wanted to be Jimmy Carter without the work.”

Everything about that had to make Bolton crazy. Nothing could be more antithetical to his hawkish views than making peace in the first place, let alone doing so out of shallow self-interest. One assumes he didn’t hold back his dismay. So his time was up.

Bolton had been working at cross purposes with Trump and the rest of the administration from the beginning. His legacy will be a bunch of failed initiatives and bad judgment. Most impressive of those failures was on Venezuela, the one policy he managed to persuade Trump to undertake. He was the main mover behind the campaign to push out President Nicolás Maduro and back opposition leader Juan Guaidó by imposing sanctions on the country under the assumption that Maduro would go quickly. That didn’t happen and Trump lost interest, seeing yet another opportunity to be a hero go down the drain.

As a long-time North Korea hawk who had been instrumental in George W. Bush’s failed policy and who had openly advocated bombing the country for years, Bolton had been pushing the administration to get tough with Kim Jong-un. Trump, of course, believes that his supposed friendship with the North Korean leader will persuade the dictator to give up his nuclear weapons. North Korea is a problem from hell, but any day that Kim hasn’t launched one of his nukes is a good day. So Trump’s delusions are at least buying time until someone who knows what he or she is doing can take over.

And then there’s Iran, Bolton’s great white whale. He has been agitating for war with Iran for decades now, and every time he seems to get close it slides out of his grasp. During the Bush years the plans were at the ready but even that administration, burned badly in Iraq, didn’t pull the trigger. Watching from the wilderness during the Obama administration, Bolton no doubt felt deeply frustrated by the nuclear deal and undoubtedly felt that if nothing else, as national security adviser he would be able to get Trump to make his longed-for regime change happen. Trump was an Iran hawk too, after all.

Once again, Bolton misunderstood what Trump was after. The president knows nothing about Iran or the Middle East. He withdrew from the nuclear deal not because he wanted to go to war but because he wanted to make his own deal and have a big ceremony announcing that he can make better deals than Obama.

The results of all this have been disastrous. American foreign policy is failing everywhere in the world. From Trump’s reckless trade war with China to North Korea (which tested more missiles this week) to Iran, Afghanistan and everywhere else it’s a mess. But John Bolton was the one person in Trump’s orbit who has consistently tried to get him to go to war.

Trump wants to economically dominate other countries, backed up by military force. He wants to be hailed as a great hero and dealmaker who solved intractable problems with his personal acumen and charm. He is incapable of doing any of that, of course. But at least with Bolton gone, we don’t have to fear that one day the president will wake up and realize he’s failed on all those counts with the nation’s most aggressive über-hawk whispering in his ear that he can get what he wants by using overwhelming military force. In the Trump era, that’s about the best we can hope for.

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NC nein by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 11, 2019

NC nein
by Tom Sullivan

Democrats’ hopes of retaking NC-9 — and Dan McCready’s — faltered Tuesday night, as the moderate Democrat fell two points short of victory (roughly 4,000 votes) against Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop of “bathroom bill” fame. An R+8 district Donald Trump won by 12 points in 2016, NC-9 remains in GOP hands as it has since the 1960s. Turnout was just over 25 percent, with the early vote (Absentee/One-Stop) favoring McCready.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in McCready’s loss was the closeness of the race in Robeson County, touched by the GOP election fraud operation that prompted the decision to re-run the election after state Board of Elections hearings in February. Home to a large Lumbee tribe population, voter registration in Robeson favors Democrats (60% D, 13% R, 27% Unaffiliated/other). Obama won the county in 2012. The county flipped to Trump in 2016, but McCready took it last fall by 15 points.

That advantage evaporated Tuesday night. Lumbee precincts flipped heavily Republican, notes analyst Miles Coleman:

Cook Political report’s Dave Wasserman tweeted, “If Democrats want to understand how they lost to Trump despite gaining tons of ground in places like Charlotte & the Triangle, they need to visit Robeson County, NC right away.”

Visits to the district by President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence appear to have helped Election Day turnout for Bishop. Trump told a Monday rally in Fayetteville, “Tomorrow is your chance to send a clear message to the America-hating left.”

MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki tweeted an October 2018 Washington Post article on the Lumbees’ complicated politics:

“A lot of Lumbees voted for Trump because of the jobs situation,” says Freda Porter, 60, a tribe official. “I don’t know what we make anymore. It has been difficult for us. I grew up on the tobacco fields with my family, now we aren’t together anymore. People die from opioids every week. We need a period of healing.”

She said the tribe’s deep evangelical Christian roots added to Trump’s appeal. “A lot of people saw Obama and thought, ‘That’s too liberal for me.’ We are a very traditional Christian community, some people thought the Republicans better reflected that.’”

Wasserman adds that McCready’s improved performance in the Charlotte suburbs (Bishop’s district) should have signaled a win but for his dismal showing “among rural Trump Dems (yes, they’re a real constituency).” While base turnout is important for Democrats, this is why targeting anyone with a “D” beside their name for turnout (as Clinton did in 2016) is hazardous in rural America if not in all of it. Knowing who is and is not your base is a prerequisite.

Analyst Rachel Bitecofer suggests McCready’s moderate-Democrat pitch failed to energize the Democratic urban/suburban base where he most needed it. Another 2-3% rise in turnout in Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) where registration favors Democrats by 2:1 (perhaps more reliably than in Robeson) might have turned the district blue. Turnout in Mecklenburg typically lags other large NC counties by at least two points. At 22 percent on Tuesday, turnout in Mecklenburg lagged the average in the rest of the district by 12 points.**

Party registration is complicated and a poor indicator of leanings in rural America. Here on the western edge of North Carolina, a Facebook friend reported a conversation with an “ardent Democrat” visiting the Democrats’ booth Tuesday at the Mountain State Fair. The voter, she wrote, is “anti-union (FDR should have made corps pay decent wages); thinks Roe v. Wade was made up (no pictures exist, ergo, it must not be real); loves Obama; wouldn’t commit to gun control or universal checks but NRA is too big; will vote Democratic no matter what.”

Remember, whatever early vote totals suggest, Republicans bat last:

Update: ** Mecklenburg percent may be better than reported. Total registered reported includes voters in city races not actually residing in NC-9.

Trump declares war on California cities

Published by digby on September 11, 2019

Trump declares war on California cities

by digby

There was a time when Republicans would have had a fit at the idea of the president sending in federal authorities to deal with something that is clearly a local and state issue. “Local control” and “states’ rights” were their watchwords. But no longer:

President Trump has ordered White House officials to launch a sweeping effort to address homelessness in California, citing the state’s growing crisis, according to four government officials aware of the effort.

The planning has intensified in recent weeks. Administration officials have discussed using the federal government to get homeless people off the streets of Los Angeles and other cities and into new government-backed facilities, according to two officials briefed on the planning.

But it is unclear how they could accomplish this and what legal authority they would use. It is also unclear whether the state’s Democratic politicians would cooperate with Trump, who has sought to embarrass them over the homelessness crisis with repeated attacks on their competency.

Trump’s directive is part of his broader effort in recent months to shine a light on problems in California and a number of major U.S. cities, including Baltimore and Chicago. He has complained about what he says are years of failed Democratic leadership that have led to sustained poverty and crime.

Top officials representing the White House and the Department of Housing and Urban Development arrived in California this week for a round of meetings. A particular focus has been the “Skid Row” section of Los Angeles, officials said. The president is directly involved with the initiative, officials said, and has asked for updates.

Officials representing the Justice Department were also part of the tour, according to two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details they were not authorized to discuss.

Among the ideas under consideration are razing existing tent camps for the homeless, creating new temporary facilities and refurbishing existing government facilities, two officials said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning hasn’t been publicly revealed. The changes would attempt to give the federal government a larger role in supervising housing and health care for residents.

I predicted this a couple months back when I saw this:

Tucker Carlson had been granted an interview with Trump in Tokyo which produced this very strange exchange:

No one is sure what Trump meant by asserting that the homeless “phenomena” started two years ago. Homelessness has been an issue in America for many decades and in fact the numbers are lower than they were 10 years ago, although they have increased slightly over the past two years. Nor has anyone been able to pin down what Trump has supposedly done about the situation in Washington to make it more palatable for visiting dignitaries.

Nonetheless, it is true that there has been a sharp increase in homelessness in some cities, resulting in contentious political debates about the root causes and what can be done about it. In Los Angeles County, for instance, an estimated 60,000 people are homeless, a 12% increase from the year before. The consensus, if one can call it that, is that the rising cost of housing and lack of new construction, along with ongoing mental health and drug crises have converged into a situation where many more people are living in the streets as well as cars, RVs and temporary shelters. The city and state have appropriated money to create new shelters and try to get a handle on the other problems — but that takes time and is probably an inadequate solution in any case.

On a local level, this is a major topic of conversation. There are homeless encampments in numerous public spaces, and a serious public health problem is developing. But you can be sure that whatever Trump might do to “intercede” will not help. His administration has drastically cut funding for health care programs and Housing and Urban Development projects. His “solutions” are almost always punitive measures that make things worse.

The extent of Trump’s knowledge about all this comes from Fox News — and mostly from Tucker Carlson himself. You’ll note that Carlson didn’t use the term “homeless” when he asked Trump that question. He asked him why American cities “have a major problem with filth.” Trump understood exactly what he was getting at, because he watches his show. Carlson is all over this story day after day.

Media Matters has been following the evolution of this theme on Fox News for a while, finding that over the last couple of months “the network has painted a grim picture of American cities as ‘almost Third World in their decay,’ facing ‘a complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization,’ and filled with ‘drugged-out zombies chasing barefooted babies.'” These segments concentrate on West Coast cities like L.A. and San Francisco, characterizing their Democratic leaders as favoring their “rich friends” and pushing “socialist solutions.” Fox folks would prefer something a little bit harsher, shall we say.

Clearly, Carlson and the other Fox pundits have made an impression on Trump. When the president was asked at his Tokyo press conference whether he agreed with Vladimir Putin that Western liberal democracy is obsolete, it was obvious he had no idea what Putin was referring to. Trump is such a profoundly ignorant person he understood “Western” to mean the American West Coast, and “liberal democracy” to mean the Democratic liberals responsible for the “filth” in California’s big cities. It’s obviously on his mind.

I would guess this particular Fox News meme going to become an issue in Trump’s re-election campaign. It’s clear he thinks it could be a winner. As he told Carlson in the interview, “This is the liberal establishment. This is what I’m fighting, It’s a terrible thing that’s taking place.”

It’s highly unlikely that he will convert any Democratic voters in the big cities by denigrating their local leaders. But that isn’t really the point. As the Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein tweeted in response to Trump’s comments in the interview:

I doubt that Trump is crunching any numbers. He doesn’t do that. But his instincts tell him that his vaunted base hates the big blue cities — because the big blue cities hate him. And Tucker Carlson is handing him the talking points about “filth” and “third world decay” that he can use to demonize the homeless in the same way he dehumanizes immigrants. (You’ll notice that he conflates “sanctuary cities” with this issue in his answer to Carlson)

And he may have some inkling that this issue is divisive among Democrats as well. Homelessness is most urgently a problem for the people who can’t afford shelter, but it also has many local residents and businesses up in arms. He’s undoubtedly unaware of what the Republicans used to call “wedge issues,” but if he can drive a wedge between liberals, over pretty much anything, he’s had himself a good day.

Don’t be surprised if the president comes up with something truly draconian to “solve” the problem. One of Trump’s other informal advisers, Fox News’ Jesse Watters, suggested that there is only one final solution to the homeless problem: “Bulldoze the 50-block radius, and you institutionalize everybody and detoxify them, and then you let them out.”

I’d like to think that was just right-wing hyperbole. But this is a president who is presiding over the brutal incarceration of hundreds of child refugees as we speak. Is it really so hard to believe he wouldn’t propose something like that in the heat of the upcoming campaign? And isn’t it disturbingly easy to imagine that his followers would start chanting, “Lock them up”?

He has no legal authority to do this. Bus he’s a fascist at heart so he might just do it anyway. To own the libs.

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How low can they grovel?

Published by digby on September 10, 2019

How low can they grovel?

by digby

They will say anything:

Let’s not hear any more from these people EVER about “the appearance of conflict of interest.” Not. one. fucking. word.

Jerry Falwell Jr’s antics are par for the course

Published by digby on September 10, 2019

Jerry Falwell Jr’s antics are par for the course

by digby



Salon’s Amanda Marcotte gets to the heart of what’s going on with the conservative evangelicals and Donald Trump in this piece about the latest brouhaha with Jerry Falwell Jr:

On Monday morning, Politico published a major exposé on Jerry Falwell Jr., the religious right’s most influential supporter of Donald Trump and the president of Liberty University, an evangelical institution formed by his father, Southern Baptist minister Jerry Falwell. Writer Brandon Ambrosino paints a damning picture of the younger Falwell as a man unrestrained by his own religion’s teachings on sexual morality or any other kind of Christian ethics.

The laundry list of malfeasance and inappropriate behavior is impressive, “from partying at nightclubs, to graphically discussing his sex life with employees, to electioneering” and “directing university resources into projects and real estate deals in which his friends and family have stood to make personal financial gains.”

The most titillating story, previously reported by the Miami Herald, concerns the fact that Falwell and his wife, Becki, seem to have have an interesting sex life involving sharing naked photos with other men — men who, likely not coincidentally, enjoy healthy levels of financial assistance from the Falwells and Liberty University. For instance, Politico reports that Falwell sent pictures of his wife in “a French maid costume” to their personal trainer, Ben Crosswhite. They also used Liberty funds to set Crosswhite up as the owner of a lucrative gym.

There’s a lot more of this sort of thing, making it quite clear that Falwell is a first-rate hypocrite who poorly hides a love of power, luxury and sexual freedom behind a facade of Christian piety.

It’s quite a story. If you haven’t heard about it’s only because of the avalanche of stories over the pastcouple of days. In a normal news cycle it would be discussed on all the cable shows.

Marcotte rightly points out that regardless, none of it will matter to Falwell’s standing:

But it’s foolish to imagine that any of this will affect Falwell’s political power or standing with the larger white evangelical community. The pretense that the religious right was motivated by faith and morality was dropped — or should have been — when white evangelicals flocked to vote for Trump in greater numbers than they did for George W. Bush, who if he was convincing about little else, was convincingly a man of faith.
[…]
The biggest flaw in Ambrosino’s otherwise excellent reporting is that his sources repeatedly describe Falwell Jr.’s behavior as a departure from the traditional Christian ethics that his father supposedly stood for. The elder Falwell, who died in 2007, is praised by anonymous Liberty University employees as “a respectable, honest, decent, hardworking man” and as a man who was motivated by “a higher calling.”

As anyone who really understands the history of the Christian right will agree, this is complete nonsense. The elder Jerry Falwell was a bigot through and through, and his version of Christianity was primarily, if not solely, about rationalizing a white supremacist, misogynistic and homophobic worldview.

She goes on to lay out the facts of that case which are unambiguous, concluding with this:

Despite the repeated, strenuous efforts of liberals to point out the hypocrisy, Trump’s support on the Christian right never seems to weaken. That’s because it was never, ever — not for one moment, even at the height of the George W. Bush era of big-time Bible-thumping — about sincere religious conviction. It was always about white supremacy and patriarchy. To call this “hypocrisy” misses the point, in a sense, because to be hypocrites Christian conservatives would have had to believe in something larger than their own bigotries to begin with.

So why shouldn’t Falwell do whatever kinky sex thing he and his wife are into with their fitness trainers and pool boys, all while using his power and university funding to make himself and his buddies richer? The jig is up, and no one really believes in the moralistic posturing anymore. If Christian right leaders once believed that keeping that power meant putting effort into maintaining the illusion of temperance and restraint, that time is long past.

White evangelicals don’t care what their leaders get up to in the bed, the bars or the bank account. Nothing really matters except enforcing a social hierarchy that keeps the “right” people in power, and others under their boots.

There are liberal evangelicals, even some white ones, who don’t agree with all of that. They seem to have read the parts of the Bible featuring a guy named Jesus who thought that people should be compassionate toward those more vulnerable than themselves. But conservative evangelicals? I think she nails it. It is a very strange form of Christianity.

This article about the relationship of conservative evangelicals to greedy capitalism is also interesting.