Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The NY Times’ Thomas Edsall looked into this question of why liberals are allegedly so much unhappier than conservatives.

Why is it that a substantial body of social science research finds that conservatives are happier than liberals?

A partial answer: Those on the right are less likely to be angered or upset by social and economic inequities, believing that the system rewards those who work hard, that hierarchies are part of the natural order of things and that market outcomes are fundamentally fair.

Those on the left stand in opposition to each of these assessments of the social order, prompting frustration and discontent with the world around them.

Ok. I would put it slightly differently. Conservatives don’t have empathy for anyone who doesn’t look like them. And many of them take joy in their enemies’ suffering so these inequities make them happy since they consider people of color, LGBTQ, feminists etc their enemies. Lots to celebrate if that’s how you see the world.

Edsall sort of agrees:

Citing a wide range of polling data and academic studies, [Vox’s Zack] Beauchamp found:

* More than twice as many Republicans (39 percent) as Democrats (17 percent) believe that “if elected leaders won’t protect America, the people must act — even if that means violence.”

* Fifty-seven percent of Republicans consider Democrats to be “enemies” compared with 41 percent of Democrats who view Republicans as enemies.

* Among Republicans, support for “the use of force to defend our way of life,” as well as for the belief that “strong leaders bend rules” and that “sometimes you have to take the law in your own hands,” grows stronger in direct correlation with racial and ethnic hostility.

… [They] respond to adversity and what they see as attacks from the left with threats and anger, while a segment of the left often but not always responds to adversity and social inequity with dejection and sorrow.

As I said, they have no empathy for anyone who isn’t a mirror image of themselves — which explains their worship of Donald Trump. He is the biggest asshole on the planet and they love him for it. Look at how much fun they have at his rallies.

Stormy Daniels appears to have done very well on the stand today. According to observers I head on TV, she was composed and poised under withering questioning from Trump lawyer Susan Necheles basically slut shaming her and claiming that she’s a nutty, grifter who extorted Trump with a lie. Most people seem to think that may have not landed well.

The reason she was called was to testify that the even actually happened which, if Trump had just stipulated that they did have sex, would not have happened. (As Andrew Weissman has said, she was essentially an exhibit in the case, not a witness to actual crime. ) But he couldn’t. He says that none of the women who have accused him of wrongdoing every happened. None of it. They are all liars and so is Daniels. I doubt anyone believes that.

The classic moment from the morning:

Necheles: You have a lot of experience making up phony stories about sex.

Daniels: That’s not how I would put it. The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room.

Then, she added that had she written the scene with Trump for a movie, she “would have written it to be a lot better.”

They tried to take her down on the stand and she stood tall.

Trump embarrassed himself far more by insisting that he didn’t do it than by just admitting it. But then nothing is more humiliating to him than admitting he did something wrong. He just can’t do it.

Not yet…

Nikki Haley won 22% of the vote (over 150,000 people) in the Indiana GOP primary this week. It’s an open primary so it’s possible that a bunch of them were Democrats meddling, but that would mean that Democratic turnout was very high. She was out of the race before early voting began so it’s not that. There are Republicans who are still protesting the Trump nomination in pretty high numbers.

So what’s Haley up to?

Nikki Haley is easing back into public life after dropping out of the Republican presidential race in early March, but has no immediate plans to endorse Donald Trump.

The former South Carolina governor is attending a retreat in Charleston, S.C., on Monday and Tuesday to thank about 100 of her biggest donors, a person close to Haley told The Wall Street Journal. She isn’t expected to discuss her political future or encourage them to give to other campaigns.

The person said there is no pending endorsement of Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee. The two didn’t speak when she got out of the race on March 6 and haven’t done so since, this person said.

Eric Tanenblatt, a longtime GOP fundraiser and strategist in Georgia who plans to attend the donor meeting, said he hopes the 52-year-old Haley runs for the presidency again.

[…]

Tanenblatt said he could see Haley endorsing Trump, if he made a greater effort to reach out to her and her supporters. “It’s now up to President Trump to unite the Republican Party by demonstrating to Nikki supporters that they have a place under the tent,” he said.

I don’t see Trump forgiving her. She betrayed him by running and then trashed him in the waning days of her primary campaign. And unlike Ron DeSantis, she hasn’t endorsed him. In other words he requires that she crawl to him and lick his boots before he will ever “reach out.” Will she?

Unless she is convinced that he will lose and the party will demand new leadership that isn’t associated with the cult, she probably will. It will be interesting to see what bet she finally makes.

Scratch his back and he’ll scratch theirs

The Washington Post reports:

As Donald Trump sat with some of the country’s top oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one executive complained about how they continued to face burdensome environmental regulations despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year.

Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people

He doesn’t need to hide it because he knows that nothing will ever happen to him. He has “immunity” from accountability for everything in life and always has.

The United States is producing and selling more oil right now, under Joe Biden, than any other country has in history. But that’s not good enough. We have to do everything possible to ensure that climate change is as cataclysmic as possible and Trump’s the guy who promises to do that.

The contrast between the two candidates on climate policy could not be more stark. Biden has called global warming an “existential threat,” and over the last three years, his administration has finalized 100 new environmental regulations aimed at cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, restricting toxic chemicals, and conserving public lands and waters. In comparison, Trump has called climate change a “hoax,” and his administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies over four years.

Not a dime’s worth of difference? How about this?

The U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term, according to energy executives with direct knowledge of the work.

The effort stems from the industry’s skepticism that the Trump campaign will be able to focus on energy issues as Election Day draws closer — and worries that the former president is too distracted to prepare a quick reversal of the Biden administration’s green policies. Oil executives also worry that a second Trump administration won’t attract staff skillful enough to roll back President Joe Biden’s regulations or craft new ones favoring the industry, these people added.

If you want to know why the Big Money Boyz and the Bill Barrs of the Republican party still support him. Sure, he’ll destroy our democracy, but their agenda will be fulfilled. Trump’s phony populism is nothing more than a way to get the rubes to vote for them and they know it.

By the way, here’s one little irrelevant detail that stood out to me.

Yet oil giants will see an even greater windfall — helped by new offshore drilling, speedier permits and other relaxed regulations— in a second Trump administration, the former president told the executives over the dinner of chopped steak at Mar-a-Lago.

He served chopped steak? To wealthy oil men from whom he was asking a billion dollars?

Trump’s limited edition autographed “arrest used” suit and tie trading card. People had to fork over a ton of cash to get this.

Trump bragged his arrest worn suit was the most significant artifact in American history. So naturally he cut it up and sold off little pieces of it. pic.twitter.com/SPM2MJjhAf

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 9, 2024

Instead of being on the campaign trail Donald Trump flew down to Mar-a-Lago to host a dinner for people who bought his NFTs. I assume he made money on the party.

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are part of a suite of non-campaign-focused ventures that Trump has been balancing with his White House run and his legal issues throughout 2023 and 2024. After Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, the former president told reporters that he’d like to be campaigning as opposed to being tied up in a courtroom.

Over the last three years, Trump has used naming rights agreements with Florida-based LLCs to personally profit off his name and likeness. Financial disclosure statements showed that Trump made at least a six-figure dollar amount from his previous “superhero” NFT digital trading cards.

Trump has previously used similarly structured LLCs to promote and sell a Trump sneaker line, a Trump branded perfume and cologne, and a pricey copy of the Bible.

Trump’s newest round of digital trading cards, dubbed the “Mugshot Edition,” includes a bonus offer for a small swatch of the suit Trump wore during his mug shot in Fulton County, Georgia, where he faces racketeering charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

Sure, Biden was in Wisconsin yesterday where his CHIPS act was creating thousands of new high-paying tech jobs, but Trump was dancing for people who bought his NFT cards before flying back to his criminal trial. Advantage: Trump. pic.twitter.com/9AfOAAB64l

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 9, 2024

“It’s about trends” — former Sen. Claire McCaskill

Signs don’t vote, say campaign veterans when anxious partisans freak out over seeing large numbers of opponents’ signs around the neighborhood. On the other hand, they can be an indication of how the neighborhood is trending. Right now, “signs” are trending Joe Biden’s way.

Quinnipiac:

President Joe Biden leads former President Donald Trump 50 – 44 percent in a head-to-head matchup, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of registered voters in Wisconsin released today.

Democrats (97 – 2 percent) and independents (50 – 43 percent) back Biden, while Republicans (95 – 3 percent) back Trump.

CNN describes 6 points as “a slim lead.” Explain that one.

CNN: A new poll was just released showing President Biden leading Donald Trump in the key state of Wisconsin by 6 points pic.twitter.com/o7Usnm8v0k

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 8, 2024

The race is too close to call with third party candidates included in Quinnipiac’s accounting.

On MSNBC, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) was measuredly optimistic. Individual polls are not important. “It’s about trends.” And right now, things are trending Biden’s way.

Simon Rosenberg (Hopium Chronicles):

 A new poll by a conservative, highly-rated, conservative Arizona-based pollster Data Orbital has Biden up 1 and Gallego up 4. It is the first time Biden has led in an Arizona poll since June, 2023.

The Hill’s average shows Biden gaining strength:

President Biden is leading former President Trump in polls for the first time since October, according to The Hill/ Decision Desk HQ’s (DDHQ) latest average of polls.

Biden is ahead of Trump by 0.1 percentage points. The president is polling at 45 percent support to Trump’s 44.9 percent, based on DDHQ’s average of 685 polls pitting the two against each other in a likely 2024 match-up.

In Wisconsin, Biden is hitting back hard on Trump’s golden-shovel event with Foxconn that underperformed bigly.

NEW AD: Trump lied to Wisconsin workers.

President Biden is delivering. pic.twitter.com/D89l7ymhmb

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 8, 2024

“Inflation down. Crime down. Border crossings down,” Mehdi Hasan notes. The GOP is going to need another bogeyman. Maybe another “migrant caravan”?

Inflation down. Crime down. Border crossings down.

The GOP is running out of talking points… https://t.co/bF8ZmUEsHY

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 9, 2024

Facts don’t matter in MAGAstan, so border crossings being down may not either. Nevertheless (Catherine Rampell, Washington Post):

Psst. Have you heard? Illegal border crossings are down. Way down.

From the last four months of 2023 to the first four months of 2024, illegal crossings at the U.S. southwestern border fell a whopping 40 percent, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Such crossings usually rise in the early months of a calendar year, as the weather warms, so this number might even understate the turnaround.

Two takeaways from this development: First, the standard GOP (and media) talking points about the “border crisis” are woefully out of date. Second: Anyone who cares about border security should support a presidential candidate with (ahem) good diplomatic relationships.

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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.

It was good enough for British loyalists

“By what right does a judge put a former president in prison?” asks former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Why … why, that judge was appointed! Donald Trump appointed nearly twice as many judges in four years as Barack Obama did in eight, but who’s counting? Newt’s on a roll.

Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, was born in Columbia. And we know what Team Trump thinks of immigrants and immigrant judges, even if they’re not immigrants. Now this Columbian-born, immigrant judge appointed by that notorious yankee state of New York may send Trump to jail for contempt of court. The effrontery!

“By what right?” asks Gingrich of Georgia does a judge dare apply the same law made for commoners to the MAGA king?

Newt Gingrich: An appointed corrupt judge who I believe is about to put Trump in prison… By what right does a judge put a former president in prison? Just ask yourself, what would it be like to be Trump in prison in New York? @Acyn
pic.twitter.com/3iXi62Vhib

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) May 7, 2024

Jon Stewart recently suggested that if Republicans are going to insist on such “monarchy shit” they should at least signify by wearing red coats.

Gingrich is hardly alone in assailing the heirs of Blackstone and equal justice. Trump and leading Republicans are refusing to commit to accepting November’s election results … again (Washington Post):

The question has become something of a litmus test, particularly among the long list of possible running mates for Trump, whose relationship with his first vice president, Mike Pence, ruptured because Pence resisted Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election.

In a vivid recent example, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) was pressed at least six times in a TV interview Sunday on whether he would accept this November’s results. He repeatedly declined to do so, only saying he was looking forward to Trump being president again.

He continued to evade the question even as the interviewer, NBC News’s Kristen Welker, reminded him that a “hallmark of our democracy is that both candidates agree to a peaceful transfer of power.”

But that was before the election of Barack Obama. Trump, the Post reports, has repeatedly suggested that political violence could again ensue if he does not win in November. Followers should follow their hearts, Trump recommended, not the vote counts, to decide whether to challenge election results. In Georgia, Republicans just made that easier than ever.

The Post again:

The refusal to commit to accept elections results is “deeply concerning,”said Steven Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard University who studies democracy around the world. “Accepting the results of elections is in effect the cardinal rule of democracy. It is the first rule of democratic politics. If a major party is not willing to accept defeat in elections, democracy cannot be stable.”

Yes, but democracy means your side can lose, so democracy is now a bad word among Republicans. Elections are illegitimate if their presidential candidates lose, even if Republicans on the same ballots win. Washington State Republicans recently called on their members to stop using the word democracy and to replace it at every opportunity with some version of republic:

“We are devolving into a democracy, because congressmen and senators are elected by the same pool,” was how one GOP delegate put it to the convention. “We do not want to be a democracy.”

Washington Republicans started a trend, it seems. Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman (R) just raised republic in non sequitur remarks on the House floor. He’s implying something he doesn’t have the guts to speak plainly.

The is a perfect illustration of the difference between the two parties. Dumbed-down platitudes and slogans versus facts, history and reality. Unfortunately, this country has too many people that consume a steady diet of the former and none of the latter. https://t.co/EsACtUsRWk

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 9, 2024

Let’s review:

We've been talking about the Republican rejection of democracy for a while now, but to see and hear them explicitly state it is still unnerving. pic.twitter.com/2DNCzPnCER

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 30, 2024

Turn in your flags.

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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.

He was whining. Of course.

Four years ago today

Q: You were with World War II vets in their 90s today. Did you consider wearing a mask when you were with them?

Trump: The wind was blowing so hard in such a direction that if the plague ever reached them, I'd be very surprised. It could’ve reached me too.… pic.twitter.com/dpQ3rSPmhl

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 8, 2024

Here’s the whole comment:

Q: You were with World War II vets in their 90s today. Did you consider wearing a mask when you were with them?

Trump: The wind was blowing so hard in such a direction that if the plague ever reached them, I’d be very surprised. It could’ve reached me too. You didn’t worry about me, you’re only worried about them

He is a monster.

four years ago today, the President of the United States expressed his deep conviction that covid testing caused covid and not, you know, the virus 👇 https://t.co/GYp4ko5GWV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2024

They only have themselves to blame

Ding-dong the tea party is dead:

FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump.

“We’re dissolved,” said the group’s president, Adam Brandon. “It’s effective immediately.”

FreedomWorks’ board of directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to dissolve the organization, Brandon said. Wednesday will be the last workday for the group’s roughly 25 employees, though staffers will continue to receive paychecks and health care benefits for the next few months.

The development brings to a close a period of turmoil for the organization. FreedomWorks laid off 40 percent of its staff in March of 2023, and as a result of a drop in fundraising, its total revenue has declined by roughly half, to about $8 million, since 2022, Brandon said.

In an exclusive interview with POLITICO Magazine, Brandon said the decision to shut down was driven by the ideological upheaval of the Trump era.

After Trump took control of the conservative movement, Brandon said, a “huge gap” opened up between the libertarian principles of FreedomWorks leadership and the MAGA-style populism of its members. FreedomWorks leaders, for example, still believed in free trade, small government and a robust merit-based immigration system. Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt.

“A lot of our base aged, and so the new activists that have come in [with] Trump, they tend to be much more populist,” Brandon said. “So you look at the base and that just kind of shifted.”

This same split was creating headaches in other parts of the organization as well. “Our staff became divided into MAGA and Never Trump factions,” Brandon said in an internal document reviewed by POLITICO Magazine. It also impacted fundraising.

So sad. They made common cause with a bunch of patriarchal religious fanatics and racists in order to get their tax cuts for the wealthy and look what it got them.

Trump would never have won without them.

The excellent Bolts Magazine is doing something called “Ask Bolts” allowing readers to ask questions of experts on various issues facing the electorate:

Elections law expert Josh Douglas is the author of The Court v. the Voters: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights, a new book that is set for release next week. The book dives deeply into high-profile cases that have undercut U.S. democracy in recent decades, from Citizens United to Shelby County. 

Now he has agreed to answer questions from Bolts readers.

What do you want to know about how the Supreme Court has affected voting rights in recent decades? Ask him anything about how the court has upended the way states run their elections, how the damage can be repaired, and how the justices may end up further shaping democracy in 2024. And remember: No question is too in the weeds for Bolts!

We’ll pitch them to him by May 10 and write up his responses

Click over to fill out the form if you have questions and hopefully we’ll see the answers!