Month: September 2022

Trotting out the Roe playbook

I am convinced that same sex marriage is on the agenda. If people are fooling themselves into believing that a Supreme Court decision that’s only 8 years old and opposed by the religious right isn’t in danger of being overturned by this new majority I think they need to wake up.

It may take them a while. And that works well for the GOP. They can do things like this, secure in the knowledge that the law will stand for now and they can use it to pander to their far right without having to face the consequences. That was, after all, the Roe playbook for decades.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s vote on a bill to codify same-sex marriage has been in question since the Wisconsin Republican initially said he saw “no reason to oppose” the legislation.

Johnson in recent weeks has noted he “never said” he would support the bill and indicated he has reservations over how the legislation could impact religious protections.

But speaking at a public meeting in Hartford last week, the Oshkosh Republican was definitive — saying he would not support the Respect for Marriage Act in its current form and indicating he believes the Supreme Court case giving same-sex couples the right to marry was “wrongly decided.”

Ted Cruz:

Ted Cruz says he’ll vote against bill protecting same-sex marriage. Cruz said in a Tuesday episode of his podcast The Verdict that the bill would threaten religious liberties if passed. The U.S. senator recently said he would support repealing a Texas state law from the 1970’s criminalizing gay sex.

Johnson is desperately trying to shore up his base because he’s losing. Cruz has his finger in the wind. They are both signaling where this is going for the far right. Keep in mind that it’s the far right that runs the GOP. And even more importantly, keep in mind that the majority on the Supreme Court today is composed of the most hardcore conservative Catholics in the country.

Every time Trump gets away with it, his people love him more

When the FBI’s search warrant was served on Donald Trump’s beach club in early August, I don’t think anyone could have guessed that there would be such a mountain of classified material among the boxes of government documents he stole from the government when he flounced out of town, pouting like a 4-year-old, on Inauguration Day 2021. But the hair on the back of the neck stood up when we later learned that they were looking for nuclear intelligence documents.

Trump pooh-poohed the report, of course, posting on his social media site, “nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved.” Of course, this was hardly reassuring since none of those were hoaxes. But not much more was said about the issue — until Tuesday night when the Washington Post reported that the FBI had, in fact, found “a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.” This would be one of the nation’s most tightly kept secrets.

As of this writing, Trump has not responded to that story. Instead, he’s posted yet another rant about the stolen election and a former FBI agent he blames for failing to indict Hunter Biden. He signed off with “they spy on my campaign, Rigged & Stole the Election, and go after me for doing nothing wrong. Only in America!!!”

As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte wrote here, the case has become extremely complicated with Trump’s hand-picked judge, Aileen Cannon, creating a legal mess that will likely take some time to sort out. One of Cannon’s rationale for appointing a Special Master to look through all the documents to make sure Trump’s “privileges” were preserved (some of which he is not entitled to) was to allegedly insure the appearance of impartiality, even going so far as to say that Trump’s position is so special that it’s even more important that he not be tainted by the unseemly existence of an investigation. (I’m sure there are tens of thousands of Americans who would love to have that privilege.) But it is nothing more than a political tactic and it’s one the right is well-practiced at deploying. I have always called it the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” gambit. (It is often a corollary to the patented “hissy fit.”) The right spreads a conspiracy theory, either defensively or offensively, which has only the slimmest relationship to reality. But their non-stop shrieking about it inevitably leads some people to believe that there must be something to it. The media can’t resist this so they then pump the “controversy” which gives right-wing authorities the excuse they need to let a Republican off the hook.

Steve Doocy: "That doesn’t seem like something you should have in your post-presidential drawer."

Marco Rubio: "All this information is coming from one side and one place… well, who are the sources with knowledge of the investigation? The FBI and Justice Department!" pic.twitter.com/k6P9cXJjLq

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 7, 2022

You see, there’s just so much (fake) controversy circling in the ether that these authorities, whether law enforcement or the courts, have no choice but to bend over backward to ensure there is no “perception of unfairness” when, in fact, the whole manufactured dispute is blatantly biased. This can also work in reverse as well. The controversy can also lead authorities to go harder on Democrats so as not to appear biased in the face of the right’s accusations. It’s a win-win for the GOP.

Judge Cannon was particularly crude in her invocation of this ploy and it will be remembered as one of the most brazenly partisan acts ever handed down from the federal bench. Caring not at all about maintaining even a shred of judicial objectivity, she went the extra mile to ensure that Trump will at least have the delay he desperately needs to worm his way out of this one. Considering what we already know about the stolen documents, and the actual simplicity of the elements of the crimes he’s clearly committed, however, that’s going to be more difficult than most of Trump’s corrupt conduct. So, he is working overtime to make sure his MAGA supporters see this as the ultimate act of persecution.

As you can see from the post quoted below, Trump has a string of persecutions that he relentlessly recounts for his fervent followers. This is one from just hours ago:

The Fake News Mainstream Media, Democrats, and RINOs are obsessed with pushing the latest Witch Hunt against me. All American Patriots know that I always do everything “by the book” and that this Hoax will fail miserably just like the Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax # 1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and all other attempts, perpetrated by the same people, to weaponize Law Enforcement against the 45th President, me. We have to rescue our great Country.

His followers no doubt relate to all of this. They too are angry at all the unfairness they believe is being meted out by people who are out to get them. He speaks to their grievance like no one else and in their view he is being mistreated for doing so.

It’s tempting to think that Trump makes a mistake in relating the full litany of alleged “hoaxes.” After all, you’d think that at some point, some of his followers would start to wonder about any person who gets into so many messes. After all, “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” right? But Trump’s survival instinct is well-honed and he knows his people. They don'[t see it that way at all.

The saying, “if you come at the king, you’d best not miss” is usually interpreted to mean that he will seek revenge against you and you will pay. Certainly, in Trump’s case, that’s true. He lives for vengeance and all you have to do is look at the way he’s targeted anyone who crossed him to know how he’ll respond. But Trump understands something else about that and I think it comes from his knowledge of mob bosses and how they work. The fact that he constantly eludes accountability even as the government throws everything at him, from the DOJ to Congress to state courts and local law enforcement, has led to the belief among his followers that he is invulnerable.

What we see as whining they see as strength and when he says “this will fail miserably, like all the rest” they believe him — he’s a superhero. It’s rather important that the government gets the job done this time. If he gets away with stealing top secret nuclear documents, relying on the laughably absurd rationales he and his hand-picked judge have been throwing out, they will believe he is nothing short of a god. 

Salon

I’m a big fan of the TV show Leverage, when the team is going after a bad guy they study them first and anticipate how they will respond. They then USE how he respond as part of the process to take him down. They also plan for contingencies. “If the mark does X then we do Y. After we do Y he will likely do Z, but he might do “C” so prepare for that too. “

We, as the viewer, are brought along in the process to a certain degree, but we don’t always see the whole story. At the end of the show, when the bad guy is caught and the victim gets some kind of justice, they show the prep they did that was off camera.

The show involves former Con men & women, thieves, hackers and muscle working with an insider, someone who understands “The system” either the corporate system or the legal & justice system. The insider’s job is to say, “Here’s how the mark got away with it before by using the system. This is how we can USE that system against them if they try it again. ”

In the latest season, Leverage: Redemption they added in the additional complexities of our modern media ecosystem.

• Here is how this story will be played out on Social Media. Here is how we can respond.

• Their clever computer security team will see us coming. This is our response.

• Their violent physical security teams will attack us for making the Mark look bad. Our response will be X.

• Their clever communications team will flip the script so the Evil Mark looks like the victim to the public & the people he ripped off are the real terrorists.

Watching the DOJ respond to Trump’s statements and his McLawyers’ legal briefs, written for the court of MAGA opinion, is like watching a long episode of Leverage. The DOJ has studied Trump. They have anticipated how he, his people and the RW media will respond to any action that they take. Then they USE that action AGAINST him.

The most recent example was today, Tuesday September 6, 2022 when the Washington Post broke the story that Trump did have information about other countries’ nuclear capabilities in an unsecure box in Mar-a-lago. He said he didn’t, now they are rubbing his face in his lie. It’s GREAT to see.

One of Steve Bannon’s most successful tactics, that fits in with Trump’s narcissism, was “Flooding the zone with s***.” The media was constantly in reaction mode. Just when they covered one criminal act, another one popped up.

During Trump’s reign the congressional committees tried to figured out how to deal with his co-conspirators delay tactics. Now they have been using the strategy of getting the people around him to testify which then puts pressure on the key figures. (That and charging people for contempt for not responding to the subpoena!)

The J6 committee has shown how Democrats can be prepared for the typical responses from TFG, RW media & his MAGA social base. Right now the DOJ is making the moves that dig Trump in deeper legally. Now is another opportunity for the Democrats to use Trump’s moves to dig in Trump deeper to a specific target, The Main Stream Media who still want to believe there are good Republicans who will stand up to Trump.

The MSM always pushes Democrats to “Move toward the center!” They focus on the 3% independants that will leave Trump. That’s what the consultants say to Democrats to get more voters. “Kitchen table issues!” But pissed Democrats ask, ‘WHY AIN’T THIS DUDE IN JAIL!” at the kitchen table.

Yep. @ElieNYC said what's gotten missed is these 15 boxes that we're focused on are what they ALREADY found on the man.
"President Sticky Fingers already stole classified documents, top secret documents. Dude had the NOC List from Mission Impossible sitting in his basement." pic.twitter.com/pvfbcS9MO0

— Spocko (@spockosbrain) August 30, 2022

However, the MSM can be counted on to cover more and more horrific crimes of Trump as they are revealed. They could talk about how gas prices are coming down, but the MSM will run with Trump’s lies about nuclear documents. They will lead with audio of Trump calling up a witness and threatening to kill them if they talk. That’s what they do.

Hey, what about Tony Ornato & the deleted texts?

While we are waiting for the DOJ we can start looking into OTHER crimes of TFG and his co-conspirators.

What’s the deal with Tony Ornato & the Secret Service? Is that DHS inspector general gone yet? (BTW, I still want Ornato exposed and prosecuted for his role in covering up COVID infections at Tulsa, which was a deadly superspreader event.)

We know of “outrage fatigue.” Now it’s ‘where is the prosecution?” fatigue. To help I suggest we look at some SUCCESSFUL prosecution of “Boots” while we wait for prosecution of “Suits.” Hey, that J6 insurrectionist cop got 10 years in the slammer!

The area that I want to see some successful prosecution in next are people making death threats to election workers, public health officials and democratic congress members.
Any arrests there? Can the coordinated campaigns of harassment led to criminal charges of groups as well as individuals? Will the FBI start investigating threats to FBI from the MAGA crowd via social media platforms like T****h Social? (The Cincinnati shooter threatened via TS. Trump makes threats to people on TS. Anyone working on banning him?)

I LIKE the way the DOJ has planned ahead for TFG’s reactions. I liked the way the J6 committee planned ahead. I’m pointing this out because it’s a good thing. But you know me, I’m always thinking “How can I help? What I can do to amplify what CAN be done? “

HOW TO GET TRUMP TO INCRIMINATE HIMSELF

I’ve recognized, as does the show Leverage, that the rich and powerful do what they want, they use the systems to protect them. The rich use money, Trump uses blackmail and threats to avoid consequences. The legal and intelligence community KNOWS what crimes he has committed, but they don’t want to expose their knowledge or involvement (UNLESS the person went against The System like Bernie Madoff ripping off rich people.)

The DOJ actions are working to pierce each of Trump’s barriers to a legal prosecution, but they are also giving us an opportunity to weaken his political support. Everytime he blows through an excuses that requires a Republican to condemn him is a good thing. Like Bill Barr destroying his pet judge’s ruling.

I want to talk about what we want in the future. Like a possible recording of Trump calling one of his insiders he think leaked the Mar-a-lago info. That recording, like the Georgia one, would show Trump admitting what he had and demonstrating his intent to obstruct justice.

Glenn Kurschner says the DOJ has a process for that witness tampering called “Recorded call back”

I understand some of the reasons that TFG wasn't prosecuted while he was President, but we need to keep hammering on the DOJ to do it now.
We know his pattern on witness tampering. Why hasn't the DOJ used their standard method & set up a recorded call back? #IndictTrumpNow pic.twitter.com/zbHkn14q7Y

— Spocko (@spockosbrain) July 15, 2022

I don’t want to WAIT until it’s announced. I want to ASK NOW, “Did you record Trump tampering with witnesses? When can we hear it?” Of course the DOJ won’t say if it exists. But the MAGA sphere knows that he does this. They are just hoping that Trump is too clever not to get recorded doing it. HA! Imagine, one of his own people betraying him and getting him to incriminate himself. I look forward to the trial.

Ruh-roh

“The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls” of the far-right Oath Keepers, reports the Associated Press:

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.

It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.

The data raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military who are tasked with enforcing laws and protecting the U.S. It’s especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions.

Oath Keepers have been convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. More than two dozen have been charged. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members still face trial for seditious conspiracy.

The ADL explains:

Traditionally, militias have largely eschewed engaging with civic institutions on an organizational level. However, in some ways, the Oath Keepers’ tactics presaged a shift across the far right. The group places a focus on seeking institutional power by specifically targeting current and former law enforcement, military, and emergency services personnel with their messaging and recruitment in the hopes that they will be able to utilize these unique skillsets to advance their cause and that the presence of group members in these institutions will obstruct any order, law, or action that the organization deems unconstitutional.

The ADL acknowledges:

It’s important to acknowledge that some individuals in the Oath Keepers database may have initially joined because they were sold a watered-down version of the group, and some may have disavowed the group since signing up. That said, the range of individuals represented in the Oath Keepers leak shows the extent to which this extremist ideology has gained acceptance. Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up.

Comments the AP collected from some on the leaked membership list:

Benjamin Boeke, police chief in Oskaloosa, Iowa, recalled getting emails from the group years ago and said he believes a friend may have signed him up. But he said he never paid to become a member and doesn’t know anything about the group.

Eric Williams, police chief in Idalou, Texas, also said in an email that he hasn’t been a member or had any interaction with the Oath Keepers in over 10 years. He called the storming of the Capitol “terrible in every way.”

“I pray this country finds its way back to civility and peace in discourse with one another,” he said.

Be careful what you sign up for.

Texas had the most Oath Keeper members overall. Virginia has the most from the military; New York the most from law enforcement; Illinois the most from first responders.

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Trump requires an extraordinary amount of legal help

Politico this morning purports to catalog the lawyers Donald Trump keeps around for throwing at his endless string of legal problems. “Now they’re representing a former president caught in a mixture of criminal matters related to the 2020 election, his retention of documents marked highly classified, alongside a wide range of civil lawsuits.”

Politico lists five attorneys just on Trump’s stolen documents investigation. Two more are defending Trump in the New York attorney general’s investigation of Trump tax fraud.

Three others are assigned to defending Trump in the Fulton County, Georgia district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s attempt to strongarm state election officials into overturning the 2020 election results.

Three more (plus one from the first batch) are defending Trump in the investigation into Trump’s Jan. 6 fake electors scheme.

Yet another three lawyers are fighting the House Ways and Means Committee’s attempts to obtain Trump’s tax returns in the investigation into Trump’s finances.

Still four more are involved in Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton over “a collection of his long-held grievances against Democrats and federal investigators.”

Finally, Trump faces “a barrage of lawsuits — from Capitol Police officers and members of Congress — seeking damages.” And he is pushing back against a letter by “former U.S. intelligence and national security officials” who assessed that the emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop bear “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Team Trump considers the Steele dossier a Russian fake because it makes Trump look bad. But Team Trump argues that the Hunter Biden emails are authentic because they make Joe Biden look bad. Chalk up two more attorneys, one for each of those matters.

That’s a lot of lawyers.

Readers of this blog might recall at least one more attorney Trump keeps around for harrassing people who call into question The Donald’s liquidity. There are surely more.

Don’t be so gullible, McFly!

It is a time-tested tactic on the right. Practiced and perfected. Gin up fake controversy over anything and everything. From tan suits to sloppy salutes. From Benghazi to emails. Pimp it like hell until the press can’t stop itself from reporting the controversy. Rush Limbaugh built a career on serving up a daily dose of outrage to his listeners until they would go into withdrawal if it stopped. I’ve described the decades-long, Republican phony effort to convince the public there is massive voter fraud as them lobbing smoke bombs into newsrooms. By the time the smoke clears and we discover, yet again, there was never a fire, all the public remembers is they saw smoke and heard someone yelling, “Fire!” Lather, rinse, repeat.

Digby calls it the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” gambit.

The press continues to fall for it. Willingly now. There are 24 hours of news to fill. The audience for it is over 50, as CNN has lately discovered. The right has worked the refs so hard that the press shies from being accused of left-wing bias if it ignores the right-wing bullshit. So the press settles on “We report the smoke. You decide if there’s fire.” Normal people default to fire. Republicans know and use this.

Except MAGA Republicans. Perpetual victims, they are, and their political patron saint.

With all those lawyers circling around Trump, normal people would decide that where Trump is there too is illegal activity. The kind that would make someone unfit to lead a great nation, even a “great again” nation. Only the gullible would dismiss all those legal filings and civil and criminal cases Trump attracts, and the judgments against him, as bullshit witch hunts.

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Where we stand in this final stretch

It would be very very good if Democrats could pull out a win this time and pull the rug out from under the GOP in 2024. Ron Brownstein with the analysis:

This November, the states that decided the last presidential race may send a powerful signal about the next one.

President Joe Biden assembled his winning Electoral College majority in 2020 by flipping five states that had supported Donald Trump four years earlier: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin across the Rust Belt and Georgia and Arizona in the Sun Belt.

In November, voters in all five of those states will render verdicts on candidates virtually hand-selected by Trump in Republican primaries — including the GOP Senate nominees in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona and gubernatorial nominees in all five states, except Georgia (where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is up for reelection, has feuded with the former President).

Across these tipping-point states, the success or failure of Republican candidates who are cast so firmly in the Trump mold may offer important insights about the viability of the former President himself in 2024. If most of these nominees running on Trump-style messages lose this fall, even in an environment that favors Republicans overall, it would raise serious questions about Trump’s ability to recapture these critical states in 2024.

If the Trump candidates can’t win in these states “in a midterm that should be a good year for you, when normally the out party can be expected to perform better than it did in the previous presidential election,” asks Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz, “why would you expect better results in the presidential year” for Trump himself?

Even so, many operatives on both sides believe Trump’s hold on the GOP is so stifling that the party is unlikely to engage in a serious debate about his influence, even if the November results from these critical states send a clear warning sign about voter resistance to his direction.

“If that were possible, we would have that conversation after losing two Georgia Senate seats,” says Jason Roe, a Michigan-based Republican consultant and former executive director of the state Republican Party. “The reality is he doesn’t seem to be held accountable for his role in our losses, but only seems to be celebrated for his wins.”

These big five states, of course, are not the only places where Trump-endorsed candidates will face voters in November. But their results may be especially revealing because the states are highly likely to serve again as tipping points in the 2024 presidential race. In 2020, four of them were achingly close: Biden won Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point, and Pennsylvania by only a little more; only in Michigan did he have any breathing room with a nearly 3-percentage-point margin. Operatives in both parties expect all five to be extremely close again in 2024.

Trump has left his fingerprints all over key races in all five states this fall. His endorsements helped power the nominations of GOP Senate candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia and Blake Masters in Arizona. His embrace also lifted GOP gubernatorial nominees Tudor Dixon in Michigan, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Tim Michels in Wisconsin and Kari Lake in Arizona.

The only Republican nominees in the key statewide races across the big five with more separation from Trump are two incumbents, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Georgia Gov. Kemp. And even Johnson has repeatedly embraced Trump-like conspiracy theories on both the coronavirus and the 2020 election. Kemp, who defended the integrity of Georgia’s 2020 election result and then defeated a Trump-backed primary challenger this year, has indicated he would welcome the former President’s endorsement and would support him if he was the GOP nominee again in 2024.

The Trump-endorsed candidates, meanwhile, have run very much in his style, echoing his lies about (or at the least refusing to acknowledge) the 2020 election result, pressing an aggressively conservative social agenda (all want to ban or restrict abortion), and regularly issuing slashing attacks on the media, “elites” and the Republican establishment. Since the primaries, some of the Trump-endorsed candidates have tried to reposition themselves slightly closer to the center (Masters most overtly), but all are still stressing arguments that would likely feature heavily in any 2024 campaign from him. And as Trump demonstrated at his Pennsylvania rally over the weekend for Mastriano and Oz, he is likely to insert himself directly into many of these races before November.

For Republicans, Trump’s increased visibility this year is, at best, a mixed blessing. All GOP campaigns hope to benefit from his unique capacity to mobilize his most ardent supporters — particularly White voters without a college education whose turnout often lags, especially in midterm elections. Yet, Democratic strategists say, Trump’s prominent role in selecting and promoting these nominees has eroded the earlier tendency among many centrist and swing voters to separate their feelings about other Republicans from their views about him because they considered Trump such a unique figure. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says that in her focus groups many more voters now express frustration that Trump has taken over the Republican Party. “They are really surprised that insurrectionists and people who supported the attacks on the country on January 6 are running for office,” she says. “His faction is seen as having taken over and there are a lot of voters who don’t understand why Republicans have allowed this to happen but also feel like you have to stop them now.”

Both Biden and Trump enter the campaign’s final stretch in relatively weak positions across the big five states. In an array of public polls conducted earlier this summer across these states, Biden’s job approval rating has rarely peeked much above 40%. In most of those polls, Trump’s personal favorability rating was slightly higher, but in each state a majority of respondents still said they viewed him unfavorably. And most of those results came before polls this summer showed an uptick in Biden’s national approval rating, and a downturn for Trump amid all the charges buffeting him.

The resistance to Trump in these states may help Democrats offset the disappointment in Biden. In the latest Marquette University Law School poll, for instance, Wisconsin Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes is winning almost one-fifth of voters who say they disapprove of Biden’s performance, an unusually high number, according to detailed results provided by Charles Franklin, the poll’s director. One reason for that is that slightly more voters in the survey expressed unfavorable opinions about Trump than about Biden, and Barnes leads Johnson by almost 65 percentage points among those hostile to the former President, Franklin found. The overall mix left Barnes with an unexpectedly comfortable lead over Johnson in the survey, even though a clear majority of Wisconsin voters said they disapproved of Biden’s performance.

Most encouraging for Democrats are signs of the electorate dividing along lines familiar from their victories in these states in 2018 and 2020. Despite Biden’s low ratings, and concerns about the economy and inflation, Democrats believe they are largely reassembling the coalition that mobilized against Trump in those two elections: young people, voters of color, residents of big metropolitan areas and college-educated White voters, especially women. David Bergstein, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says that, particularly in the big suburban areas around cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix that cemented Trump’s 2020 defeat, voters “have lost none of their disdain for Trump and for MAGA-ism and for them seeing a candidate wearing a red hat is a symbol of something they had put behind them and don’t particularly want to relive.”

Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg similarly says that the party’s improvement in many races this summer is not so much “a swing away” from Republicans as “a return to the 2018 or 2020 norm.” Earlier in Biden’s presidency, she says, “you saw independents shift away, and you saw diminishing enthusiasm among Democrats.” But now, she says, with the US Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion “and the kind of dominance of Trump, I’ve seen a shift among independents, younger people, college-educated women, all going back to where they were [in 2018 and 2020] and exceeding it.”

Democratic wins across these battleground states are far from assured. Polls have been promising for them in several of these races (particularly the Michigan governor’s race, the Arizona Senate race, and the governor and Senate races in Pennsylvania). But all of these states are inherently close and even small shifts in the electorate — lower turnout among young people, slight Democratic erosion with Latino men and/or blue-collar Whites — could tip them back to the GOP. Some Republicans, such as pollster Patrick Ruffini, predict the election eventually will revert to traditional grooves, with negative assessments of Biden’s performance and the economy proving the decisive force. Few on either side would be surprised if almost all of these races produce photo finishes. In Arizona, for instance, Democratic operative Tony Cani says he “can’t imagine anybody winning any” of the big statewide races, “by more than 2 ½ or 3 points.”

Yet, however close the final outcomes, GOP strategist John Thomas says that if most of the Trump-backed candidates lose in a year that started off so promising for Republicans, “I think it’s the bat signal” for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis “to go toe to toe with Trump in a primary race.” Such losses, Thomas argues, would position DeSantis, in particular, to argue that “we love Trump, he was great, but he’s past his prime and we have to get back to winning. I think that very well could be DeSantis’ justification to run against Trump.” The problem, Thomas acknowledges, is “I don’t know … that the party is going to have the courage” to challenge Trump’s dominance, whatever the results.

Roe, the former Michigan GOP executive director, says Trump has reason to argue that he could turn out more of his base and run better in 2024 than his endorsed candidates across these states this year. Roe says another argument for Trump — particularly across the critical Rust Belt trio of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — is that no other Republican presidential nominee has found a formula to win any of those states since 1988. Yet even with those caveats, Roe says, losses for the Trump candidates in November would be a clear warning sign for the GOP. “I do think it makes it a lot more difficult to argue that he can win in 2024 if his proxies in these key states are unsuccessful,” Roe says.

Still, Roe is also dubious that even a highly disappointing midterm result would prompt much pushback against Trump because his supporters now constitute such a dominant faction in the party. Lake, the Democratic pollster, says that rather than viewing any losses as a voter repudiation of Trump, his supporters — and the candidates themselves — may “double down” on his disproven claims of fraud in 2020. “These Republicans may not consider it a legitimate election if their people lose,” she says. “In fact, I’m sure they won’t.” Privately, some Republican strategists predict the same thing.

That possibility explains why Trump’s influence in the GOP may solidify after November, whatever happens to his candidates in these tipping-point states. If his candidates win, Trump will surely take credit and claim that it demonstrates his ability to recapture these states, and with them the White House, in 2024. If they lose, he could blame the “establishment” for insufficient support and plunge the party deeper into his rabbit hole of election-denying and conspiracy theories. Little over the past few years suggests that mainstream GOP leaders would forcefully repudiate such claims — much less point a finger of blame at Trump if his candidates stumble. Which means that even if voters send a cautionary signal in November, it will likely prove as difficult for the GOP to emerge from Trump’s shadow in 2024 as it has been in 2022.

If Democrats do better than expected it won’t be the end of this crisis. This won’t end with one election. But it might be the beginning of the end. If they do worse than expected, the system will go into a tailspin and it’s hard to see how we stop it. The Democrats have to see each of these battles as one step in winning what could be a long war.

So says Bill Barr

Bill Barr on Fox News on Judge Cannon's special master ruling: "The opinion I think was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it." pic.twitter.com/69lvq0Hr9W

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 6, 2022

Martha: He called you a RINO
Barr: A RINO for him is anyone who disagrees with him that the election was stolen. pic.twitter.com/aNER1VubFu

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2022

Actually that only applies to Republicans. Democrats who disagree with him are “evil, vicious haters.*”

*exact words.

Make them wear it

In his newsletter today, Dan Pfeiffer discusses the inane reaction to Joe Biden’s speech last week by both Republicans and the media. And then he addresses the substance:

Are MAGA Republicans (Semi) Fascists?

I talked about this a little on a recent episode of Pod Save America, but want to go deeper and offer more context. There are two parts to this overly pedantic, pundit-driven debate. First, is fascism the correct word to describe the MAGA movement? I think the answer is self-evident, but don’t take my word it. Federico Finchelstein, a scholar on fascism, wrote in the Washington Post:

Donald Trump represents a new type of global autocratic ruler who is legally elected, but also embraces elements that fascist figures like Perón felt were too controversial: totalitarian lies, racism and illegal means such as coups to destroy democracy from within. Trump might best be considered a “wannabe fascist.” By that I mean he is a populist who aspires to return to a form of fascism. His rule was not full-fledged fascism because it did not descend into dictatorship. But it could have been, if his attempts to retain power after the 2020 election had been successful.

Feel free to use your common sense in determining whether or not Biden is correct. 

The leader of the Republican Party and the frontrunner for the 2024 nomination led a violent insurrection to overturn a legitimate, democratic election. Trump reportedly wanted to use the military and the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the peaceful transition to power. He also just demanded to be reinstated. But this is bigger than Trump.

A number of Republicans sanctioned, threatened, and encouraged political violence in response to the court-approved search of the President’s beach house. The Republicans are also actively and openly seeking to seize the electoral apparatus in order to install a Republican in the White House. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, explicitly ran on a pledge to award the state’s electoral votes to a Republican no matter whom the voters choose. And if that is not enough, the conservative movement and the Right Wing media have thrown in with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban who is, you guessed it, a fascist.

And if that is not sufficient, just go watch Donald Trump’s deranged rant of a rally from this past weekend. Delivered by someone else in some other country, we would have no problem describing that speech as fascism.

Trump: Despite great outside dangers, our biggest threat remains the sick sinister and evil people from within our own country, pic.twitter.com/I1qpiKg0Jn

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 4, 2022

If the jackboot fits…

It fits. And this is no drill. There has been a slow slide in this direction for many years, starting with the original modern Republican demagogue, Newt Gingrich. Trump accelerated it and it’s now running at warp speed.

Unfortunately, the media is falling back into old habits — where it isn’t running headlong into the arms of the right wing:

The Very Real Threat

Per usual, the political conversation gravitated toward the trivial and trite. The use of the word “fascism” is superseded by the threat itself. The political press wants to talk about the word choice because it is less uncomfortable than trying to fit the existential threat of MAGA Republicans into their both sides, balance-over-accuracy model of journalism. But we should be crystal clear; America is at a very dangerous crossroads. While a strain of Right Wing extremism always existed in our politics, it has never been this powerful. Ironically, the MAGA movement is declining as a percentage of the population. The pro-democracy, pro-truth, diverse majority in the country grows every day. But in our political system, numbers are not power. Because of demographic shifts, geographic trends, and the biases of the Senate and Electoral College, the extreme minority holds a massively disproportionate share of political power. In the past, the Republican leadership accommodated the fringe. Now, the fringe calls the shots in the party.

If the Republicans win the House, the Senate, and key state offices, it is very possible that they will seek to overturn the election. And this time, they will have the power to succeed where Trump failed in 2020.

He’s right. And Biden has an obligation to call this out, timorous Dems and the self-interested media aside. As Pfeiffer says:

There is zero inconsistency between Biden’s message of unity and his decision to call out a dangerous faction promising violence in the thrall of a cult-like criminal leader. It is impossible to unify without dealing with the forces of division. If you want to heal the soul of the nation, you must be willing to cut out the cancer.

And they are a cancer.

Trump’s resort is wide open

The Daily Beast reports:

Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s close and complicated relationship goes way back, according to writer Andrew Kirtzman.

Not only has Kirtzman covered Giuliani’s political career for over 30 years, but he’s also the author of Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor. He came on this episode of political podcast The New Abnormal to give us insight into the lives of the former New York mayor and his pal Trump.

“We found a lot of correspondences between Giuliani and Trump during [Giuliani’s] mayoralty. And it was just fascinating. I mean, there was this kind of need that they both seemed to feel to impress the other. And I think that that still exists to this day,” he explains to co-host Molly Jong-Fast.

Kirtzman recounts that at one point Giuliani’s third wife, Judith, told him Trump was the one to step up and help Giuliani at one of his most depressive, lowest points—right after he lost the bid to run for president.

“For the next month, Trump houses them at this kind of beachfront property, and [they] found there were tunnels under Mar-a-Lago, where they were able to kind of walk back and forth undiscovered. It was there that Giuliani kind of was allowed to get back on his feet and rejoin the world,” he says.

There are secret tunnels under Trump’s private club, where he happens to live and had stored boxes full of classified documents.

What?

Apparently they are pretty easy to access:

A student gained access to Donald Trump‘s Florida residence while the president was staying at the property after sneaking through a tunnel leading from a nearby beach.

Mark Lindblom, who was 18 at the time, spent 20 minutes wandering around the communal areas of Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort before he was arrested.

Secret Service agents approached the teenager after becoming suspicious that he was not a member of the golf club.

He did not meet Mr Trump or the first lady during the incident, which occurred the day after Thanksgiving last November.

On Tuesday, Lindblom pleaded guilty to “knowingly” entering and staying in a restricted area and was sentenced to one year probation and a $25 (£20) fine.

No biggie, I guess. Just strangers entering Mar-a-lago through secret tunnels while Trump was there. As president. The good news is that the Secret Service noticed him wandering around and thought he might not be a member of the club. Now that Trump’s no longer president you can be sure that they are being even more vigilant.

Yet another willing tool of authoritarianism makes his move

My God this is stupid. And terrifying.

 Months after his company bought Politico, Mathias Döpfner stood atop Axel Springer’s 19-story headquarters, gazing out at the double row of cobblestones that mark the outline of the demolished Berlin Wall, and explained his global ambitions. “We want to be the leading digital publisher in democracies around the world,” he said.

A newcomer to the community of billionaire media moguls, Döpfner is given to bold pronouncements and visionary prescriptions. He’s concerned that the American press has become too polarized — legacy brands like the New York Times and The Washington Post drifting to the left, in his view, while conservative media falls under the sway of Trumpian “alternative facts.” So in Politico, the fast-growing Beltway political journal, he sees a grand opportunity.

“We want to prove that being nonpartisan is actually the more successful positioning,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. He called it his “biggest and most contrarian bet.”

How exactly Döpfner, Axel Springer’s CEO, hopes to define nonpartisan journalism at an especially fragmented time for American politics is a question of intense interest as he aims to leave his mark on American media. His own politics have remained something of a mystery, too. But weeksbefore the 2020 U.S. presidential election, he sent a surprising message to his closest executives, obtained by The Washington Post:

“Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”

His email was inspired by a news story he shared about the government’s plans to sue Google for abuse of market dominance, an animating issue of his for years. But Döpfner went on to argue that Trump had made the right moves on five of what he deemed the six most important issues of the last half century — “defending the free democracies” against Russia and China, pushing NATO allies to up their contributions, “tax reforms,” and Middle East peace efforts, as well as challenging tech monopolies — if falling short, he implied, on climate change.

“No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” Döpfner concluded.

Asked about the email, Döpfner initially responded with a forceful denial. “That’s intrinsically false,” he said. “That doesn’t exist. It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.”

When shown a printout of the text, Döpfner allowed a glimmer of recognition. It’s possible, he said, that he may have sent the email “as an ironic, provocative statement in the circle of people that hate Donald Trump,” because that’s exactly the kind of ironic, provocative thing that Döpfner, a garrulous and enthusiastic texter, likes to do.

“That is me,” he said. “That could be.”

That paragraph I highlighted says it all. This man is not very bright. The only thing Trump actually achieved was taking credit for NATO countries upping their defense spending which was largely in response to his lunacy. All the rest is utter bullshit.

Murdoch spawn Lachlan is worse than his father, John Malone has taken over CNN, this bozo has taken over DC’s company rag. There could not be a worse time for right wing zealots and fools to be running our media. But here we are. Who needs Viktor Orban? Hell, who needs Donald Trump? The mainstream press is doing it to itself.