Month: March 2022

This is very interesting. I have assumed that McConnell and Scott were playing a crude game of good cop, bad cop. But this indicates that it may not actually be a cynical plan after all.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) aggressively countered Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) 11-point plan Tuesday as Democrats continue to hammer the party for its tax proposal. 

“Senator Scott is behind me, and he can address the issue of his particular measure,” McConnell began. 

The comment prompted scattered giggles, as Scott had just seconds before left the conference early, escorted by an aide. The timing may have been incidental; Scott started walking away just before McConnell was asked about his plan, and spoke from the Senate floor shortly after on Ukraine.

His office directed TPM to a tweet from Communications Director McKinley Lewis.

“Sen. Rick Scott had to get to the floor for a UC on Russian sanctions,” he wrote.

While in the chamber, Scott missed some biting criticism from McConnell.

“If we are fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader. I’ll decide in consultation with my members what to put on the floor,” McConnell said. “And let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda: We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half of the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda.”

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), also a member of leadership, was milder in his rebuke after the press conference, though seemed to take a shot at Scott’s known ambitions for higher office. 

“I think Republican senators would hope that Rick Scott would stay focused right now on the job of being the chairman of the Senate election committee,” he told reporters. 

Scott is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), in charge of getting Republican senators elected and reelected. His plan includes plentiful culture war red meat, but has drawn the most Democratic fire over its tax provisions. 

“All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount,” the plan reads. “Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.”

“We’re making sure voters know the facts about Senate Republicans’ agenda: a tax hike on millions of seniors and over half of all Americans,” countered the NRSC’s Democratic counterpart. The DSCC launched an immediate ad campaign centered on the talking point. 

The plan also calls for all federal legislation to sunset in five years, which would continually threaten programs like Social Security and Medicare with potential extinction. 

“If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” the plan reads. 

If the Democrats don’t hang this around every Republicans’ neck and set it on fire they should get out of the business. The COVID nihilism, the pro-Russia/anti-Ukraine rhetoric, and this plus the ongoing Trump boot licking really ought to be enough. They need to remind the people — over and over and over again — what the GOP is really all about.

There’s a ton being written about this right now, but I thought this simple explainer from Tom Malinowski was useful. The Republicans want to bash Biden with the usual lies and propaganda on this subject and it’s important to remember that oil is a world market. So much of this talk, starting with our old friend Emperor Manchin, is just stupid.

Responsible members of Congress are trying to maintain bipartisan consensus on Ukraine.

But those who seek partisan advantage have a clear game plan right now:Tell Biden to stop Russian oil exports, while preparing to blame Biden for the inevitable rise in gas prices.

.@POTUS's sanctions on Russia are weak & inadequate. If we're going to sanction a tyrant like Putin, we must take actions that will knock him down. We spend roughly $50M on Russian oil each day. We must sanction Putin’s oil and gas exports & revive American energy independence.

— Rep. Mike Garcia (@RepMikeGarcia) February 28, 2022

Despite what you may have heard, US oil production is up, by some 5%, since President Biden took office. We are at capacity for LNG exports to Europe (till more LNG terminals are built). We are exporting oil AND importing (including from Russia) – this is how oil markets work.

I think we should stop importing Russian oil now. But if that’s all we do, others will buy it. So if we want Russia to make less money, we’d have to try to shut down their exports to everyone.

Here’s the harsh reality: Russia is the second largest oil producer and exporter in the world. You can’t take that much oil off the market overnight — no matter how much we drill at home — without an even bigger spike in gas prices in the United States.

You can be for the Keystone Pipeline. You can put hundreds of oil rigs off the Jersey shore (though I’l fight you) and lease all our public lands to drillers. But it would take years to ramp up our already record production to begin to make up for shutting down Russia.

If we really want to be serious about denying Putin oil $, count me in.

But Republicans & Democrats had then better be ready to explain to Americans TOGETHER what this will cost us and that the sacrifice is worth it.

Don’t demand an oil embargo & then politicize gas prices.

Meanwhile, Democrats should support doing what we can to increase oil production in the short term. But Republicans should acknowledge: the ONLY way to defeat Russian energy blackmail is to end our dependence on oil and make America the world’s clean energy superpower.

Originally tweeted by Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) on March 1, 2022.

A New Washington Post-ABC News poll:

Most Americans say some restrictions on normal activities should remain in place to try to control the coronavirus, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, which finds that public wariness of the pandemic lingers even as federal health officials and a growing roster of governors have softened mask advice.

The nationwide survey also shows that, two years into a health crisis that has claimed nearly 950,000 lives in the United States, bipartisan majorities think the virus is only “somewhat under control” or “not at all” controlled. Even so, most say they have fully or mostly returned to their normal, pre-coronavirus activities.

Perceptions of the dangers posed by the coronavirus and attitudes toward restrictions reveal substantial partisan differences, according to the poll. Taken together, just over a third ofU.S. adults say the coronavirus pandemic is “mostly” or “completely” under control; but 29 percent of Democrats say they hold that view, compared with 41 percent of Republicans.

The 34 percent overall who say they regard the pandemic as largely controlled is among the highest proportion since surveys began tracking such attitudes early in the pandemic. Yet nearly 6 in 10 U.S. adults think it is more important to control the virus, with some restrictions in daily life, while 4 in 10 prefer no restrictions.

What about the new CDC mask guidance and the Governor’s lifting the mask mandates?

Those government actions may not line up with public attitudes, even though politicians have felt pressure from constituents weary of the pandemic and business owners eager to restore their pre-pandemic levels of commerce. The poll does not explicitly ask about masks as a way to curb the virus’s spread or any other specific public health strategy.

However, other recent surveys have found that more Americans still favor rather than oppose mask requirements, although support for the idea has dipped in the past year. An Economist-YouGov poll released last week found that 52 percent of Americans supported a mask mandate for indoor spaces, while 38 percent opposed the idea. An Associated Press-NORC poll released Monday found that half of Americans support mandates to wear masks when people are around others outside their homes, while fewer than 3 in 10 opposed such requirements.

The Post-ABC News poll finds that most Americans have strong opinions about the wisdom of pandemic-fighting measures in general. Thirty-five percent of U.S. adults say they feel strongly that it is important to maintain some restrictions, while another 30 percent say they strongly believe such restrictions should be removed.

If there has ever been a case of twitter not reflecting the world, this is it. Other than epidemiologists and virologists, the consensus on that platform is that the vase majority in the country is demanding the end of all COVID mitigation strategies, especially mask and vaccine mandates. It isn’t true.

Speaking only for myself and my personal circle, most are still wearing masks indoors in public spaces like grocery stores or malls. And everyone is triple vaxxed. But we’ve been having small gatherings, dinner parties, going out to restaurants, outdoors if at all possible, travelling. In other words, we’ve all just been living our lives, but being careful about it and assessing risks to the best of our ability. That’s just the world for the moment and it doesn’t seem particularly onerous to me. I realize your mileage may vary. But the idea that the whole country is up in arms over this isn’t the case. There is a vocal minority of people who are beside themselves over it but most seem to be taking it in stride.

This is an interesting account of the Biden White House during this crisis. I can’t help but be struck by the difference between this and the reports from within the insane Trump White House chaos:

Biden begins each day with the presidential daily briefing. On most days in recent weeks, the intelligence briefer has been joined by some of Biden’s top national security advisers: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and more.

Carrying over reading habits from his three-plus decades in the Senate, Biden dives into the briefing books and peppers his aides with questions, according to two senior White House aides. But the routine has gotten more time-consuming and frantic in recent weeks as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine turned into a reality. Unlike his last foreign policy crisis — the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan — Biden has been forced to spend his time responding to the actions of a foreign nation rather than shaping U.S. policy there.

In recent days, Biden has attended morning meetings in the Situation Room as well as evening sessions in the Oval Office; he worked in the Treaty Room last Wednesday when aides believed a Russian invasion was imminent. Blinken, above all others, has emerged as the president’s top confidant, used as a sounding board and consigliare on how to shape U.S. policy and rally global pressure against Russia in light of its invasion. Biden has also leaned on those with vast Russian experience, including Bill Burns, the CIA director who once served as the nation’s ambassador to Moscow, and Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of State who was a top liaison to Ukraine under President Barack Obama.

But Biden also prides himself on being something of an expert on Putin himself. And, as with his approach to Afghanistan over the summer, he has stuck closely to his own instincts. There has not been any wavering about involving the U.S. military in the conflict. He has steadily drummed up sanctions rather than ripping off a massive chunk at the onset. And he has not blushed at the idea of being stern with Putin. During their summit in Geneva last summer and during their phone calls, Biden deployed a strategy of deflecting the Russian president’s famed long, winding historical digressions, rather than engaging in a tit-for-tat, aides said.

“Mr. President, I know the history. And I know you know that’s not right,” aides said Biden told Putin during one of their secure calls when the Russian president made a claim about the threat Moscow faced from NATO expansion in the 1990s. And it was in watching Putin deliver a grievance-filled speech in which he warned of “bloodshed” among the Ukrainians that Biden became convinced that an invasion was imminent despite widespread speculation that it was a bluff.

The war in Ukraine has come to dominate this moment of his presidency — an unwelcome addition to the pile of political pressures hampering the administration back home. But the White House has been determined to not let the grim news in Kyiv overwhelm it. Biden still made his Supreme Court pick a priority and kept to his pledge to announce the selection by the end of February—a non-insignificant feat for a president known to bust through deadlines.

Still, his first State of the Union speech has been rewritten repeatedly and remained unfinished the day before it was set to be delivered, according to two White House aides. Biden has squeezed in some rehearsal time but the Russia-focused late revisions have required extensive rewriting. That stands in stark contrast to the original plan, which was to use the speech to offer a domestic reset of the presidency. While Biden will still discuss inflation, falling Covid rates and his pick of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the court, Ukraine will now be a centerpiece.

The flurry of activity the last few days was actually months in the making. U.S. intelligence first noticed signs last fall of Moscow’s troop movements and began quietly alerting allies to the possibility of an invasion. Their warnings were met with widespread skepticism, as some European nations in particular did not believe Putin would go through with it. The United States’ consistent message back was: We hope you’re right but we can’t take the chance that it’s not.

Before long, the White House stopped whispering. In a concerted and highly unusual effort, it began loudly warning about Putin’s aggressive behavior. The strategy to take intelligence public in almost real-time was crafted by Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and quickly endorsed by the president who thought the effort might rattle Putin, a former KGB chief known to safeguard his secrets. It wasn’t seen as a guaranteed deterrent but a possible mechanism to slow down the Russian leader and perhaps make him reconsider.

Slowly and painstakingly, reluctant allies were brought on board. White House officials said that an agreement in principle to halt the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, that would supply Germany and others with Russian natural gas, was made before new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz even arrived in Washington for his meeting last week. While Scholz danced around the topic at a White House news conference, the two governments had already reached a general deal on suspending the pipeline in light of a Russian invasion. And the White House was heartened when Germany went one step further over the weekend and, in a historic step, pledged military assistance to Ukraine.

Critics have blamed the administration for being too slow to react to Putin’s aggressive behavior, or for not slapping sanctions on the Kremlin before his tanks rumbled across the Ukrainian border. But Biden and his aides have since levied historic punishments on Putin and his economy, making Russia a global pariah and reaffirming the Western alliance with a vigor not seen since the Cold War. Whether their resolve can outlast Putin’s is another question entirely.

Administration officials have been encouraged by the slow pace of Russia’s advance and the heroism on display from Ukraine’s people and its president. But they also caution that it is far too soon to celebrate, warning that Putin has forces and airpower yet to deploy and could still dramatically escalate his invasion. Aides think that it will be several more days, and likely a couple of weeks, before the course of the war is fully known.

And with the U.S. and NATO allies now overtly supplying Ukraine weapons that are expressly intended to kill Russians, the threat of a hot war between superpowers is that much greater. The American public remains opposed to getting more involved.

Biden may not be a wartime president — in fact, he campaigned on getting the U.S. out of Afghanistan — but he has also staked his presidency on the fight for democracy against authoritarian forces. The applause he receives at his primetime address, or lack thereof, will be telling.

It appears that many Republicans are refusing to attend because of the COVID test mandate, which is nonsense. They are refusing to attend because they don’t want to have to join that applause. That’s how petty and partisan they are.

There is plenty to criticize America and Europe for in all this. The fatuous self-regard, “exceptionalism”, our own misbegotten invasion of a country that didn’t attack us in the last decade. It’s hard to listen to anyone declare the west’s alleged moral superiority. But, as always, two wrongs don’t make a right. What Vladimir Putin does to his political opponents, the repression in his society, his violent repression of minorities, and his military aggression is grotesque. There is no need to “whatabout” this situation. We certainly have our monsters. But Vladimir Putin is in a whole other tradition of repressive dictators.

Paul Krugman with the quote of the day:

There's an almost pathological resistance among some in the media (and some economists) to any notion that public pessimism about the economy in part reflects narrative overpowering lived experience. But come on, people. https://t.co/qzAuMcvTtc

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 1, 2022

The new Suffolk University poll: 34% of Democrats, 65% of Republicans think we’re in a recession or depression. 34% of Democrats! Those are people who have no reason to want the economy to be terrible. It’s what they’re hearing.

The job growth is phenomenal. Massive numbers of people are quitting their jobs for better ones. But the endless hand-wringing in the media (particularly the right wing media, but all the others as well) is telling people that the entire economy is in shambles.

Krugman is right.

In principle, I agree with Paul Campos:

A “victory” which leaves the victor an economically and culturally crippled pariah state, in military possession of a nation of 45 million people, that is going to be violently unwilling to remain pacified, is the very definition of a pyrrhic triumph.

If this is at all an accurate description of the state of affairs, then it’s critical to find some face-saving rationale that will allow Putin to walk back his fantastic blunder, while also allowing him to save his own miserable skin in at least the short term (obviously the latter condition is a prerequisite for the former outcome, as long as Putin is around)

The problem, which Paul fully understands, is this:

…the longer the rest of the world can remain absolutely opposed to this ongoing first order war crime, the better the chances are of pressuring Putin and the rest of the thugs running the oligarchical kleptocracy that is contemporary Russia into some negotiated settlement that will save their faces just enough to save millions of lives.

I don’t share the (unstated) optimism that we can long remain opposed to Putin. My guess is that assuming the situation doesn’t devolve into direct war with NATO — a big assumption — the US will be among the first to buckle to the reality of Putin’s conquest of Ukraine. (The extreme right will start screaming its head off once gas prices jump, the media will amplify their screaming, and the government will feel compelled to appease). Germany and other European nations, facing an energy shortage of catastrophic proportions — and one more gigantic infusion of refugees — will quickly follow. In short, by this fall at the latest, the West will be well on its way towards somehow accommodating much of what Putin demands.

As for this being a Pyrrhic victory, there is no doubt that Putin’s Russia will face exceedingly dire problems. But Russia is a country with a history that demonstrates it can endure hardships at a level that is impossible for long-pampered Americans even to imagine.

So yes, we have to find a way to immediately stop the killing and avoid the potential slaughter of millions. And agreed, Maximum Belligerence is the worst of a lot of dangerous options: after all, this is not exactly 1939. Putin has nukes and speaking personally, I don’t want to find out if he’s bluffing.

But let’s not kid ourselves. To prevail in any meaningful way, the West, especially this country, will have to summon up vast reservoirs not just of oil but of patience. The former we have, at least in the short term. The latter we’ve never possessed.

Russia’s war on Ukraine will get uglier very, very soon. A large explosion destroyed a government building overnight in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, killing at least 7 and as many as two dozen hurt, including one child. CNN reports a second wave of Russian invaders is on its way and likely to overwhelm defenders. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a Tuesday speech to the European Union said “we are fighting for our life.”

Meanwhile, outgunned Ukraine has managed to win the international messaging war. “Please take note of how dramatically Twitter has changed since the freezing of Russian assets,” Heather Coc Richardson observed this morning. “Suddenly all those anti-Biden ‘American patriots’ have disappeared.” Not all, perhaps, but Facebook and Twitter are working on it:

Facebook removed profiles related to News Front and South Front in 2020, and the company confirmed to NBC News that the new group shared connections to the accounts that were previously banned. Both websites have pushed misleading articles, questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election and the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines. The State Department identified the websites as Russian disinformation outlets in a 2020 report. 

Zelensky’s team includes hackers and, apparently, enough social-media savvy supporters to command in cyberspace what it holds more tenuously on the ground.

Perfect. pic.twitter.com/2SfimQY6D0

— MaryD Mangansis OfThers (@MaryD88117464) March 1, 2022

Peter W. Singer, author and Senior Fellow at New America (not the Australian bioethicist) Tweeted a 10-step short course (Threadreader) Monday on what Ukraine is getting right in outmatching Russia in messaging.

Why has Ukraine been so successful at information warfare/propaganda vs the supposed Russian masters of it?

A thread 🧵 of 10 persuasion messaging themes working for them:

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) February 28, 2022

1) Pre-Bunking
2) Heroism
3) Martyrs
4) Man of the People
5) Civilian Harm
6) Civilian Resistance
7) Bandwagoning
8) Humanizing

And when I wrote cats are "lethal" in information war, I meant it…

(Note: I am deeply dubious of the Panther of Kharkiv" but now I want to adopt it.) pic.twitter.com/AyrO8o6yip

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) February 28, 2022

9) Card Stacking
10) Mockery

Mockery as in the image at the top (adapted from a meme). And this:

It’s hard not to see how Democrats as a party could benefit from messaging like this that is less policy and more eye-catching message.

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For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

Rust Belt states gave the former president his win margin in 2016. won by well under 100,000. Joe Biden won them back in 2020, but not by enough. American Family Voices released a poll days ago that examines Democrats’ strengths and weaknesses in those places.

We know by now that there is plenty of grievance to go around and for Republicans to play to. Some of it is economic. Some is a more generalized sense that America’s middle class is losing ground. Men like Donald Trump find it easier to give the aggrieved someone to blame than to address less tangible economic and political forces behind the slippage.

In my state, a Roy Cooper can still win the governorship on the strength of Democratic turnout in the cities. Then he moves into the governor’s mansion to find himself facing down an inplaccable Republican legislature elected in rural areas Democrats consistently lose. Gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, and other noxious legislation follow. Nationally, it is similar, even accounting for our Rube Goldberg method for electing presidents. Ask Joe Biden about BBB.

American Family Voices examined voting patterns in five key states: Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. They found that Democrats in 2020 increased their margins in big cities, big city suburbs and in college towns. Yes, there’s a but, writes Mike Lux (emphasis mine):

But where Democrats got totally hammered was in the counties where the manufacturing sector was heavier than average. In those midsize manufacturing counties (think Scranton, PA; Youngstown, OH; or Dubuque, IA), where Obama in 2012 had actually won by over total 100,000 votes, our net loss in margin by 2020 was almost 800,000 worse than in 2012. And in the smaller manufacturing counties, our net loss of margin from 2012 to 2020 was almost 1.9 million votes, totally swamping all the gains in big cities, suburbs, and college towns combined.

The way to reclaim those areas is to focus on “the rising cost of living, jobs, and the economy, the rising cost of health care,” all of more concern in these states, the poll found, than Republican culture war issues.

Rising prices are a serious concern Republicans will blame on Joe Biden and Democrats rather than less tangible economic forces. AFV finds that voters it polled “are fiercely anti-Big Business, strongly believe that the rules get rigged to benefit those at the top and are angry at their jobs having been moved overseas.” Voters need to know — need to be told and told and told — the real source of inflation is corporate greed.

Starbucks could give every one of its 383,000 workers a $5,000 bonus & still keep $2.6 billion in profits from last year. Instead they're raising prices while spending $20 billion on stock buybacks & dividends when profits are up 31%. Don't blame inflation. Blame corporate greed.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 28, 2022

“Given those feelings,” Lux writes, “a message about corporate profiteering and price gouging causing rising prices will resonate.”

We should also lean into populist messaging on health care. Nothing has been inflationary for longer than health care costs; nothing has hurt working families more than those price increases. If we lead with stopping the rising cost-of-living discussion with health care, it will make voters feel like we are taking on inflation in general.

It’s not that Republicans are that much more popular in factory towns and rural places. It’s that Republicans are quicker to offer voters someone to blame than solutions to their problems. Just not the real sources of of their pain.

A majority of Factory Town voters say they or a family member has suffered from a chronic health condition, and have had personal experience with job loss, mental health issues, addiction, and disabilities. These folks, many of whom used to have decent jobs, pay, health benefits, and a pension, are having a hard time making it. They blame the politicians of both parties for ignoring their problems and leaving them behind, but mostly they blame Big Business, CEOs, and the top 1%.

The thing they blame the most for their economic hardships are corporations moving jobs overseas, followed among Democratic and Independent voters by the issue of the top 1% rigging the rules to take more wealth from the rest of us (Republicans in these counties also heavily blame high taxes and government spending, enough that it ties the top 1% issue for second in the list of things causing hardship.) Other issues causing hardship mentioned by significant numbers of people include bad trade deals, too much spending on overseas wars, and a lack of support for family farmers and small businesspeople.

The three most unfavorable ratings in the poll are the corporate media (-45), wealthy corporations (-36), and corporate CEOs (-34).

One other point here: the most salient argument against Republicans, and the thing voters are most negative about them on, is the perception that Republicans are too tied to wealthy, the elite, and Big Business. Republicans are also not rated highly on understanding regular people’s lives.

If you are seeing a trend here, you are right: anti-big corporation economic populism is the path to reaching these voters.

Democrats are no longer viewed as caring enough about these issues among voters they’ve lost in these states. Republicans hammering culture war issues reinforce that in a way that pushing back on culture war issues does not remedy. Democrats have to be seen and heard fighting for them, fighting to stop the outsourcing of jobs and fighting for “Made in USA” again, not just playing defense against the GOP’s wedge issue du jour. It makes Democrats look weak, and that’s just how Republicans like it.

Lux concludes:

Democrats have dug themselves a hole in small and midsize Factory Town counties, the constituency that swung the biggest and hardest against the Democrats from 2012 to 2020. The party brand is weak there, with some big negatives. But these voters are not the cautious, small ball changes kind of swing voters that many DC pundits imagine swing voters to be. Their biggest critiques of the Democratic Party are that they are ineffective, weak, and lack the kind of economic plan that will bring major change to these voters’ lives. What Democrats need to do to win Factory Town voters back is to deliver real economic change.

The good news is that this poll shows there is a clear path forward for Democrats. Republicans have big negatives as well, and they revolve around the economic issues people in these counties care the most about right now: Republicans are seen as the party of big corporations and the top 1%, which these voters strongly dislike.

Democrats tend to assume they don’t need to tell voters what they assume voters already know. Um, no. They need to hear Democrats reflect back their views on these issues if voters are to identify and vote with them.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.