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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Hopium O’ The Day

Or, at least, something to keep in mind

Josh Marshall makes an observation I haven’t seen anyone else make and while it may not prove to be prophetic it’s certainly worth considering. He starts off by noting that while we’ve known for quite some time that the GOP congress is nota serious governing party, this congress has taken it to an entirely new level. As he says, it’s been on “longrunning shutdown drama” and is now only able to function at all with the GOP Speaker running the chamber with Democratic votes, courting his own ouster every single day. More than a few powerful and well-known GOP Reps are retiring, some walking away mid term.

But there’s a lot more:

Then you’ve got the seemingly unrelated Trump takeover of the RNC. Let’s set aside the very important issues of corruption, cronyism and creeping strong-manism. There’s every sign that Trump and his family are going to steer significant amounts of the RNC’s money into a legal slush fund for Trump and his various co-defendants. It’s hard to imagine this won’t further depress giving to the RNC. Some donors won’t care. They either like it or are trying to curry favor. But some donors definitely will care. They either won’t give as much or they’ll direct their funds into other super PACs.

Trump’s new family managers at the RNC instituted widespread layoffs on arrival. It’s conceivable they will replace the canned staffers with better people. But it’s hard to see why that would be a logical assumption. And even if it were true just the disruption and dislocation would have real consequences.

Parties aren’t what they used to be. But the two party committees still play an important mobilization role and an important role supporting state parties. If the RNC is significantly weakened or turned into a Trump legal defense fund that has big implications for the whole election.

Even when you step back and look at the rest of the party committees there’s a similar picture. Democratic House and Senate committees are significantly outraising Republican ones. The NRCC and the NRSC are still under standard management, as far as I know. But the money differential is still important.

I don’t think we can count out the possibility that a combination of demoralization and division, structural breakdown and insufficient funding could lead to a dramatic underperformance in GOP congressional and other campaigns this year. Again, I’m not predicting this. I definitely would not bet on it. There’s a very decent chance Republicans could have a trifecta next year, though I’m increasingly dubious about their chances in the House. We can just look back to 2016. The presidential campaign was a total clown show, led by three different campaign managers in succession. Congressional candidates wavered back and forth over what to do about their presidential candidate. And yet, when the dust settled Republicans controlled everything.

But it’s sort of like playing Jenga. After you pull a few pieces out of the tower it starts to get unstable. That’s just a fact. And they’ve already pulled out a few pieces. To use a slightly different metaphor, that mix of division, committee breakdown and underfunding can catalyze each other. But back to Jenga. You can only pull out so many pieces.

Think about it this way. If something like I’ve described did happen, I think it’s pretty clear people would be saying that all the signs were there and people didn’t put them together or draw the obvious conclusion.

Just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Institutionally, the GOP is now a rag tag mafia family less effective than the Sopranos. If we didn’t have this sick suspicion (born of one too many shocks and disappointments) that nothing will stop Trump, everyone would be talking about this. As it is we are superstitious about assuming anything with this crew so we just note this in passing and move on, afraid of getting our hopes up.

The Candidate’s Glitches

Trump’s getting worse by the day

Dana Milbank:

This week, he announced that he is not — repeat, NOT — planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He apparently forgot that he had vowed over and over again to do exactly that, saying as recently as a few months ago that Republicans “should never give up” on efforts to “terminate” Obamacare.

“I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME,” the Republican nominee wrote this week on his Truth Social platform. Rather, he said, he wants to make Obamacare better for “OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS.”

Joe Buden disinformates and misinformates? For a guy trying to make an issue of his opponent’s mental acuity, this was not, shall we say, a grest look.

The previous day, Trump held a news conference where he nailed some equally puzzling planks onto his platform.

“We’ll bring crime back to law and order,” he announced.

Also: “We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after a Tuesday already.”

And, most peculiar of all: “You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”

If he can’t recall that elections frequently do overlap with political seasons, then he surely can’t be expected to remember what was happening at this point in 2020. “ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?” he asked last week. The poor fellow must have forgotten all about the economic collapse and his administration’s catastrophic bungling of the pandemic.

Or maybe he didn’t forget. Maybe he’s just hoping the rest of us will forget. In a sense, Trump’s prospects for 2024 rely on Americans experiencing mass memory loss: Will we forget just how crazy things were when he was in the White House? And will we forget about the even crazier things he has said he would do if he gets back there?

He goes on to quote from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025’s extremist plans for abortion and more.

Trump and some vulnerable congressional Republicans might wish that Americans will forget such things by November. But it’s all there in black and white.

Trump is a man of greatness. So says Trump. “It is my great honor to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive the CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY,” he proclaimed over the weekend. “I WON BOTH!

So much winning. “Congratulations, Donald,” President Biden tweeted. “Quite the accomplishment.”

Trump won a more significant victory on Monday, when an appellate panel reduced the bond he needs to post as he appeals a fraud verdict against him to $175 million from $454 million. Trump didn’t have enough cash to secure the larger bond. But at a news conference he assured reporters that he was still really, really rich: “I have a lot of money … I don’t need to borrow money. I have a lot of money. … I have a lot of cash. … I have a lot of cash and a great company. … I have very low debt. … I built a phenomenal company that’s very low leverage, unbelievably low leverage with a lot of cash, a lot of everything else.”

Give that man another trophy.

[…]

Trump uses Truth Social to post doctored articles about him that omit negative details, and now he’s making up stuff about Truth Social. He said he didn’t list the company on the New York Stock Exchange because it would be “treated too badly in New York” by Democratic officeholders. So he instead listed the company on Nasdaq, which is based in … New York. Trump said the “top person” at the NYSE “is mortified. … He said, ‘I’m losing business.’ ” As CNN pointed out, neither the president nor the chair of the exchange is a “he.”

Trump must not have a lot of faith that he’ll make off with his billions before the Truth Social bubble bursts, because he’s actively seeking other ways to grift. This week he started hawking bibles.

“Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again,” Trump posted. “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.” He directed his supporters to a website selling the Good Book for $59.99 a copy.

The website boasts: “Yes, this is the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” Read on and you find out that the bible mongers are using Trump’s name and likeness “under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC,” a company owned by Trump.

[…]

But the man does have a God complex. His campaign has promoted a video at rallies announcing that “God Gave us Trump.” He has called himself “the chosen one” and has shared a post calling him “the second greatest” after Jesus.

This week, Trump shared another post with a verse from Psalms, topped by a message likening Trump’s suffering in the fraud case to the Crucifixion: “It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,” the message said, along with Trump’s reply: “Beautiful, thank you!”

That speaks for itself. And it says much more about the Christian Trump cult followers than it does about him.

Democrats In Disarray

Democrats have elected many more presidents over the past half century so it stands to reason that they would have more living presidents available for something like this. Still, there’s no way you’ll see George W. Bush and Dick Cheney stumping for Trump. He won’t even have his own VP and the vast majority of his cabinet on the trail for him. In fact, most of them will be publicly opposing him.

I guess that’s how MAGA prefers it?

Another Great Whitebread Hope Crashes and Burns

Glenn Youngkin, lame duck:

No Virginia governor has come into office with a deeper dealmaking background than Glenn Youngkin, who as former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group made a fortune acquiring and merging companies around the globe.

But as the Republican chief executive of a purple state, Youngkin has struggled to translate that business acumen into political success — or even economic development success, with the demise Wednesday of his much-touted plan to bring the Washington Wizards and Capitals to Alexandria.

While Youngkin and his group of financial experts had negotiated with team owner Ted Leonsis to cut what the governor called “the single largest economic development deal in Virginia’s history,” the governor was never able to work the same magic with members of the General Assembly who had to sign off on the $2 billion project.

The plan’s failure wipes out a significant legacy-making opportunity for a novice politician who burst onto the scene in 2021 and drew national attention as a fresh Republican face. In his first two years in office, Youngkin enjoyed state coffers overflowing with federal pandemic relief funds and a friendly GOP-controlled House of Delegates. But as the clock winds down on his four-year term, the governor has lost the legislature to Democrats and seen his priorities slip away.

“He’s a total lame duck right now,” said Robert Holsworth, a Richmond political analyst who has studied Virginia governors for decades. “He has shown tremendous political inexperience.”

[…]

Amid the national attention and appearances on Fox News and other right-wing media, Youngkin wobbled on the home front. His stoking of culture wars pleased the GOP base but sometimes fizzled as policy, such as abortive efforts to create a tip line for parents to complain about teachers and principals and a rewrite of state history standards that was widely criticized as racially insensitive and inaccurate.

[…]

Despite his success in the private sector, Youngkinas governor has had some noteworthy misses in the economic development realm. He failed to persuade the Biden administration to locate the new headquarters for the FBI in Virginia, with Maryland winning even though the agency itself favored a site in Springfield. And when Ford Motor Co. expressed interest in locating a major battery plant in Southside Virginia to supply electric vehicles, Youngkin himself blocked the deal, citing concern that the operation was a front for a Chinese manufacturer.

The plant went to Michigan instead; the Virginiasite, in a region desperate for jobs, remains unused.

Huh. So you can’t run government like a business after all? A successful businessman isn’t automatically great at politics? Who knew?

I am very glad to see that particular wannabe president sink into obscurity mostly because the Villagers touted him so heavily in 2021 as the Wonderful Moderate Republican Businessman Who Will Save Us All from the Democrats. They spent months pushing the narrative that his election proved that the Democrats were in big trouble and the GOP comeback was imminent (Thank God!) It turns out that he was a lousy politician and an incompetent Governor.

It’s not the first time that’s happened (Scott Walker, Tim Pawlenty, Tommy Thompson, Fred Thompson…. and more) and it would be nice if everyone ignored them when the next great Whitebread Hope comes along.

Four Years Ago Today

Extortionist-In-Chief

Some Friday messaging advice

Two bits about defining Trump caught my attention. You’d think the guy’s image is as set as can be with his friends and foes. What else is there to tell about the twice-impeached, yada-yada? But this is campaign season. The GOP was working “but her emails” all the way up to the election in 2016. Take the hint.

Joe Biden is running ads here in N.C. beginning with “Here’s the difference between me and Donald Trump…” In the wake of the Key Bridge collapse this week, Biden immediately pledged, “It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge.” Full stop.

Brian Beutler reminds his Off Message readers that should Trump get reelected we can expect him to hold recovery funds hostage and to extort Maryland and Baltimore for favors:

Four years ago this week, it became clear that Donald Trump would husband emergency pandemic resources like ventilators and personal protective equipment for Republican-run states. Or rather, Trump made it clear. Blue-state leaders would get to see their residents die gasping for air unless they feigned fulsome praise for his pandemic response in public. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” he declared.

Three days ago this morning, an enormous cargo ship lost power and drifted into a pillar holding up the Francis Scott Key bridge, which collapsed instantly into the Patapsco River in Baltimore, MD. 

[…]

Already the contrast with Trump’s response to COVID-19, devoid as it was of common humanity, is stark. But its not just the contrast that looms large in my mind. It’s also the recognition that the Baltimore rescue might still be underway seven months from now when voters cast their ballots for president. And we know from Trump’s response to COVID, and to a number of other disasters that struck non-Republican states and territories during his single term, that if he inherits the effort to rebuild after this disaster, he will likely sabotage it or hold it hostage until the leaders of Baltimore and Maryland offer him political favors or concessions. It’s a reminder in microcosm of one of Trump’s most disqualifying abuses of power, and why it’s critical for real reporters to press him for a response to the Key bridge calamity—whether he intends to resume using federal disaster resources as a tool to extort his political enemies. 

So ask him. We’re waiting.

As of this writing, Trump has said nothing at all about the Key bridge collapse. And why would he? It can not after all be blamed on the Democratic mayor of Baltimore, or the Democratic governor of Maryland, or the Democratic president of the United States. The men killed in the accident were immigrants, rather than blue-collar white men. So as far as Trump is concerned, it merits no comment. No condolences to the families of the dead; no assurances to the affected communities that he intends to be their president, too. 

Left to his own devices, Trump will either continue to ignore the incident, or he’ll respond only when prompted by an ally in right-wing media. Extrapolating from his response to every other tragedy, he might assert monomaniacally that the accident simply wouldn’t have happened if he’d been president. He’ll almost certainly assert that if he were president, the bridge would be rebuilt in a matter of weeks instead of months, notwithstanding his famously abysmal failure to build anything of significance during his presidency. 

Then remind him that he built jack when he was president, you “nasty” reporter.

Anat Shenker-Osorio tells her fans that what’s important is not to remind voters who Trump is, but to hammer home what “Trump will do” to them if he returns to the Oval Office.

Better still, she recommends, is to pivot away from viewing this presidential election as a contest between two old men to a choice between two different futures for America.

We need to get off cruise control and learn new tricks if we expect to prevail this fall.

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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

More Than A Bridge Collapsed

The myths of demagogues collapsed too

Photo by NTSB (Public domain).

Lost amidst the tangle of steel and roadway that fell into the icy Patapsco River in Baltimore on Tuesday were eight men pursuing their American Dreams. Two were rescued. Crews pulled the bodies of two others from the water on Wednesday. Four others are presumed dead. Will Bunch considers who the victims were and what their lives meant:

From the day in the mid-2000s when a then-20-year-old Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval crossed the border into America, he never stopped working. The youngest of eight children, Suazo was fleeing numbing poverty and a dead-end career path in Azacualpa, a small rural village in the western mountains of Honduras.

The undocumented Suazo wound up in Greater Baltimore, a magnet for Central American refugees with its relatively cheap housing for the bustling Eastern Seaboard, a friendly climate toward migrants, and lots of opportunity. With American dreams of entrepreneurship, he took menial jobs like clearing brush, then launched a package delivery service, and when COVID-19 ended that, started working overnight construction for a Baltimore contractor, Brawner Brothers.

Suazo was described by friends and family as happy, outgoing, and tireless. He had to be. While supporting a wife and two kids, he was also sending $600 to $800 a month back to Azacualpa, enough to help family members buy a small hotel and even support youth soccer. In Baltimore, he was what his brother called “the fundamental pillar” for a growing number of relatives who made it to Maryland. Home from the grueling construction work at 5 a.m., he was out working again by noon, picking up extra dollars cleaning yards, painting houses, or landscaping.

New arrivals like Sandoval, Bunch explains (as though it’s not right before our eyes), “take some of the most dangerous jobs in America, with construction ranked ‘a high-hazard industry‘ by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration because of risks like falling or getting crushed under heavy equipment.” * They make up about a third of the construction workforce and more than half of those killed in falls.

You’ve seen such men, as have I here. Latino men, like Bunch says, landscaping, roofing, painting houses, repairing roadways, etc. Others, men and women, perhaps second-generation, speaking unaccented English, operate my favorite Mexcian restaurant just walking distance from the house.

When the Dali cargo ship demolished that bridge support on Tuesday, it also obliterated all the ridiculous lies and myths our demagogues have been spreading around immigration. There were no sex traffickers aboard the Key Bridge that night. Nobody was dealing fentanyl. They were not “animals,” but fathers and husbands like Suazo and Luna, whose wife occasionally showed up in her food truck to bring the men tacos and pupusas. They were filling potholes so their children could have an even better life.

These six workers who perished were not “poisoning the blood of our country,” they were replenishing it. This is a moment of clarity when we need to reject the national disease of xenophobia and restore our faith in the United States as a beacon for the best people like Suazo. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.

Xenophopbia is the other national epidemic. Driven in large part by status anxiety, clods like Trump and his imitators teach their minions to hate what they do not know, and what their families have forgotten. (We’re all immigrants here, even First Peoples if you look back far enough.) But it sells when you’ve got nothing else to offer to people who feel as if they’re hanging onto what little they have by the skin of their teeth or by their fingernails. George W. Bush once spoke of making the pie higher. Trump is peddling zero-sum America. Keep your brown hands off my pie!

Status anxiety breeds hatred. Ignorance fuels it. Ultimately, was there ever a time when strangers were welcome here?

Harbours open there doors to the young searching foreigner
Come to live in the light of the big L of liberty
Plains and open skies bill boards would advertise
Was it anything like that when you arrived
Dream boats carried the future to the heart of America
People were waiting in line for a place by the river

It was time when strangers were welcome here
Music would play they tell me the days were sweet and clear
It was a sweeter tune and there was so much room
That people could come from everywhere

* Heavy construction work was my gateway to engineering school. Ask me sometime about the hazards.

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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Four Years Ago

The Very Stable Genius at work.

RIP

Those of you who’ve been reading me for 20 years know how I have felt about Joe Lieberman.

I’ll just leave this here:

Trump And The Hush Money Case

Merchan hit him with a gag order. Not that he cares. But maybe someone should look into a straight jacket.

Update: