Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Also, our numbers matter

Heading into Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington,” we are already seeing Donald Trump’s flacks insisting he won a mandate bigger even than his first inauguration crowd. Even without Sean Spicer around to parrot it, you know know the line by heart: “Like nobody’s ever seen.” There will be big strong men with tears in their eyes agog at Dear Leader’s yuge mandate, etc.

Not so. The New York Times subhead reads: “The latest vote count shows that Donald J. Trump won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins since the 19th century.” But if Trump is still breathing, he’s still selling the rubes crap like Trump steaks and Trump sneakers and Trump NFTs and Trump Bibles:

The disconnect goes beyond predictable Trumpian braggadocio. The incoming president and his team are trying to cement the impression of a “resounding margin,” as one aide called it, to make Mr. Trump seem more popular than he is and strengthen his hand in forcing through his agenda in the months to come.

[…]

With some votes still being counted, the tally used by The New York Times showed Mr. Trump winning the popular vote with 49.997 percent as of Thursday night, and he appears likely to fall below that once the final results are in, meaning he would not capture a majority. Another count used by CNN and other outlets shows him winning 49.9 percent. By either reckoning, his margin over Vice President Kamala Harris was about 1.6 percentage points, the third smallest since 1888, and could ultimately end up around 1.5 points.

Johnson beating Goldwater in 1964 with 61% was a lansdlide. Nixon wiping the floor with McGovern with 61% was a landslide. Reagan besting Mondale in 1984 with 59% was a landslide. I grew up with Lyndon Johnson. I voted in the 1984 election. Donald, you’re no Ronald Reagan.

Peter Baker adds:

Mr. Trump would not be the first newly elected or re-elected president to assume his victory gave him more political latitude than it really did. Bill Clinton tried to turn his 5.6-point win in 1992 into a mandate to completely overhaul the nation’s health care system, a project that blew up in his face and cost his party both houses of Congress in the next midterm elections.

George W. Bush likewise thought his 2.4-point win in 2004 would empower him to revise the Social Security system, only to fail and lose Congress two years later. And President Biden interpreted his 4.5-point win over Mr. Trump in 2020 as a mission to push through some of the most expansive social programs since the Great Society, then saw Republicans take control of the House in 2022 and the White House and Senate two years after that.

One can hope Trumpty Dumpty has an even greater a fall.

I don’t expect one as dramatic as Nicolae Ceaușescu’s (nor do I wish it), but the improbable has been happening with unnerving regularity over the last decade, almost as if “Q” had changed the gravitational constant of the universe without us knowing.

James Aames reminds TikTok how quickly things can go sour for dictators who send troops after their own people, as Trump is crazy enough to try. “Our numbers matter.”

As the Trump regime takes shape for the impending implementation of the fascist manifesto Project 2025, I am reminded of another fascist authoritarian who misjudged the true extent of his power. The date is December 21, 1989. The dictator's name was Nicolae Ceaușescu. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/csxJTGBUqF

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) November 21, 2024

How many Trump supporters share his agenda?

Adam Serwer considers how easily voters he spoke to across the South dismissed Donald Trump’s worst traits as media propaganda:

During the last weeks of the campaign, when I was traveling in the South speaking with Trump voters, I encountered a tendency to deny easily verifiable negative facts about Trump. For example, one Trump voter I spoke with asked me why Democrats were “calling Trump Hitler.” The reason was that one of Trump’s former chiefs of staff, the retired Marine general John Kelly, had relayed the story about Trump wanting “the kind of generals that Hitler had,” and saying that “Hitler did some good things.”

“Look back on the history of Donald Trump, whom they’re trying to call racist,” one Georgia voter named Steve, who declined to give his last name, told me. “If you ask somebody, ‘Well, what has he said that’s actually racist?,’ usually they can’t come up with one thing. They’ll say all kinds of things, and it’s like, ‘No, what?’ Just because the media says he’s racist doesn’t mean he’s racist.”

We on the left criticize voters on the right as existing in a disinformation bubble. But is that right? Perhaps we political junkies exist in one of our own? Sewer considers how blithely Trump voters tune out information that corrodes confidence in their tribal leader.

This is consistent with Trump voters simply ignoring or disregarding facts about Trump that they don’t like. Democratic pollsters told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent that “voters didn’t hold Trump responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, something Trump openly boasted about during the campaign.” Sargent added, “Undecided voters didn’t believe that some of the highest profile things that happened during Trump’s presidency—even if they saw these things negatively—were his fault.” One North Carolina Trump voter named Charlie, who also did not give me his last name, told me that he was frustrated by gas prices—comparing them with how low they’d been when he took a road trip in the final year of Trump’s first term. That year, energy prices were unexpectedly depressed by the pandemic.

Many Trump voters seemed to simply rationalize negative stories about him as manufactured by an untrustworthy press that was out to get him. This points to the effectiveness of right-wing media not only in presenting a positive image of Trump, but in suppressing negative stories that might otherwise change perceptions of him. And because they helped prevent several worst-case scenarios during Trump’s first term, Democrats may also be the victims of their own success. Many people may be inclined to see warnings of what could come to pass as exaggerations rather than real possibilities that could still occur.

A 2024 candidate told me this week he was stunned by how many people across the region were disengaged from politics and knew little about current events. We’re not just talking conservatives, he said, but left-leaners as well. What’s happening in Washington that impacts their lives is as remote as the state capital four-to-six hours away.

As I keep saying, “normal” people are busy with their lives. Too busy to devote the kind of time and focus people like me do to current events. The job, the kids, the mortgage, the car repair, the storm damage … those are the only current events for which they’ve reserved mental bandwidth. What they think they know about everything else reaches them in snippets, factoids, like what “anyone is talking about” at the beauty parlor. What reaches them is the MEG economy (the price of milk, eggs, and gas). On those atmospherics and on tribal fidelity they cast their ballots. If they cast their ballots. Close to 90 million eligible voters stayed home in 2024.

So those who voted for Trump (and those who stayed home) may be shocked to find that what they don’t know can hurt them, Serwer suggests. They may be shocked when Trump actually pursues “the most extreme right-wing policies” he campaigned on and they dismissed as Trumpish bluster. What do average voters actually know about the cranks and crooks Trump wants to appoint to positions where they can do families harm?

This speaks to an understated dynamic in Trump’s victory: Many people who voted for him believe he will do only the things they think are good (such as improve the economy) and none of the things they think are bad (such as act as a dictator)—or, if he does those bad things, the burden will be borne by other people, not them. This is the problem with a political movement rooted in deception and denial; your own supporters may not like it when you end up doing the things you actually want to do.

All of this may be moot if Trump successfully implements an authoritarian regime that is unaccountable to voters—in many illiberal governments, elections continue but remain uncompetitive by design. If his voters are allowed to, some may change their minds once they realize Trump’s true intentions. Still, the election results suggest that if the economy stays strong, for the majority of the electorate, democracy could be a mere afterthought.

The car needs new tires. The price of bacon increased. Are they living in a bubble or are we?

Steve Ratner tweeted this, commenting:

The Omicron wave of covid was 10x more deadly for unvaccinated Americans — empowering anti-vaxxers like RFK is clearly a threat to American public health.

If we have another pandemic RFK Jr will tell us that it’s a government conspiracy and recommend that we take some snake oil cures. If he has his way there will be no experts at the CDC or the NIH who can investigate the disease, track cases, communicate with scientists around the world, develop strategies and treatments. All of that is going to be compromised by this fruitcake conspiracy theorist who is completely unqualified for anything other than collecting roadkill which is he apparently very good at.

I’m somewhat horrified by the Democrats likie Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Sen Cory Booker saying that RFK isn’t such a bad guy because he’s in favor of healthy eating and wants to improve the food supply. Those are good things. But this guy has spent a lifetime trafficking in conspiracy theories about diseases and demonizing science. And he’s fucking crazy. Anything good he does (and good luck with this braindead loon taking on Big Ag or Big Pharma — please) will be outweighed by the destruction of public health. Do they not understand that?

*Sigh*

Bill Clinton: He's interested in people who are loyal to him 100% of the time no matter who gets hurt. He believes that his supporters have no confidence whatever in the federal government. And Lord knows he's done everything he could to destroy that confidence.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2024-11-21T15:22:22.842Z

That last part is important and it’s a key to GOP success. They constantly denigrate the government and then go to great lengths to make sure it fulfills all of their negative descriptions. Trump has taken this to a new level by using the con artist’s tactic of convincing people that they can believe him or they can believe their lying eyes about his own performance, which resulted in tens of millions of people believing that his adminstration was the greatest in world history and that the election was stolen from him. It means that they are now in a position of saying government sucks only under Democrats which is a big advance.

Whether that will work for anyone but Donald Trump is unknown but I have my doubts. He is a very skilled pathological liar and I’m not sure others will be able to pull it off. But I have no doubt they will try. Right wing politics is no longer about ideology, that’s been proven. If they ever really cared about small government or individual freedom or traditional values, we now know they no longer do. (I’m actually not sure they ever did.) Everything’s gone but their hatred of “the other” and their love for power and money.

The share of Republicans who say that they’re worse off financially than they were a year ago is already down 15-points since the election. By February we’ll see an historic economic miracle.

This is why the “kitchen table issues” approach to politics has less salience than we like to think. So much of it is just tribalism, with “the economy” standing in for “your team bad, my team good.” It’s not nothing, but it isn’t everything either.

Oh, and by the way, Democratic views will change as well, but if history holds it will be much less dramatic. It’s the Republicans and GOP leaners who fully deny reality in service of their partisan identity. And, needless to say, they are helped immensely by the Wingnut Industrial Complex.

masterclass in why the oxford comma matters from @nytimes pic.twitter.com/rXbrfRo527

— רייצ'ל (@rach3lburn3tt) November 21, 2024

Jeff Stein at the Washington Post tweeted:

Musk, Ramaswamy today gave us first “DOGE” roadmap; as I understand the key steps:

1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use “advanced technology” (AI?) to have them identify “thousands” of regulations to cut across government

2) Give Trump a list of “thousands” of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination

3) Identify “the minimum number of employees” necessary to maintain each agency’s core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)

4) Cut the federal employees – Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ “incentives for early retirement,” but we have no details

5) Cut programs where where Congress’s specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)

6) Approve a “temporary suspension of payments” amid “large-scale audits” (Details, specifics hugely unclear)

7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments All seems to be *w/o Congress*

If they actually try this, and I see no reason why they wouldn’t, everything will be challenged in the courts. At this point, I think the best we can hope for is to take up the Trump method and pick friendly venues and delay, delay, delay. Maybe the Democrats can actually win back some power in two years and put a stop to some of this.

After all, Trump may never have to run again but Republicans in congress do. The vast unpopularity of this garbage, assuming the media does its job and the Democrats get their voters to protest energetically against this, could create a 2010 level tsunami.

Apparently, CNN called him for comment on the news that the ethics committee had found he had group sex with the underage girl in a separate incident. This was at 11:30 AM, they told him that they would be going with it at 12:30. He withdrew at 12:24 on Xitter. Yeah.

That popping sound you hear is Kevin McCarthy opening a bottle Dom.

It had been quite a morning. The Bulwark reported that Gaetz had been telling the Senators, “Look, I’m not going to go there and indict Liz Cheney, have storm troopers bust through the studio door at MSNBC, and arrest Anthony Fauci in my first week,” which wasn’t exactly reassuring. The mere fact that he made that list and then issued a disclaimer “in the first week” was a little disturbing.

They did everything they could:

Trump advisor tells @jonkarl the message to Senate Republicans who try to oppose confirming Matt Gaetz: "If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it" @ABC pic.twitter.com/fJpU62jHB9

— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) November 21, 2024

That sounds just great.

This threat isn’t just going to be about about Gaetz. They are using Musk’s money to strongarm Republicans about everything.

There’s some early polling on Trump’s inane cabinet choices, Rubio. Gaetz, Gabbard, Hegseth and Kennedy:

The Yahoo News-YouGov poll, which asked people to indicate whether they viewed these individuals favorably, also included questions about businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were asked to run an external cost-cutting group; and South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Only Rubio, Kennedy and Gabbard were viewed with approval by at least 4 in 10 Americans. None of the eight individuals was viewed favorably by a majority of respondents; three — Hegseth, Gaetz and Noem — were viewed favorably by only 3 in 10 Americans.

Why are their numbers so high? They are all jokes who have no business being anywhere near power. Not that it will matter. I’m going to bet that they will all be confirmed without too much trouble when all is said and done. I guess there’s a chance that Gaetz might be defeated because his own people loathe him but I actually doubt it. We’re going to have to wait for Trump to fire them.

Catch-2025

This I learned from 35 years working in the corporate world: Employees who start hearing “shareholder value” had best update their resumes. Layoffs are coming. The same could be said for “efficiency.“

Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington” will feature not only the firing of cabinet officers and West Wing advisers from “central casting,” but the wholesale purging of federal employees who have dedicated their lives to serving the American public no matter which president’s photo hangs on the office wall.

Except the Project 2025 team isn’t using euphemisms to signal the coming purge. They submitted a bill under the pretext of dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the Dismantle DEI Act on Wednesday. Sen. J.D. Vance’s June announcement alleges his bill means to “restore merit” to government hiring practices, and to ensure only “the most qualified candidates” get hired.

“We’ve got now a World Wide Wrestling Executive who’s gonna run education,” said recently reelected Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D) of New Mexico. “We’ve got a Fox News commentator who’s gonna run the military for us!” she said in exasperation:

Call it the Catch-2025.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Republican loyalists were called out Wednesday by a frustrated Democrat over a paradox concealed within their promised purge of federal government professionals.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) told the Oversight Committee she was confused by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s bill to dismantle Diversity, Equity and Inclusion protections on the grounds it burdened the federal government with unqualified workers.

Her problem? Trump’s chosen appointees.

“If this is really about making sure that we have qualified individuals inside the federal government,” she asked, “Why is the president-elect choosing absolutely unqualified Cabinet secretaries to be at the head of every single agency?”

Stansbury, a former federal employee with the Office of Management and Budget, issued a damning rebuttal to Vance’s Dismantle DEI Act of 2024 which was brought to a mark-up without a hearing, as is usual.

The New Mexico Democrat noted the bill would amend the Civil Rights Act and the federal code as well as require a list be drawn up of federal workers and contractors no longer eligible for such employment.

She called the requirement “blacklisting” and likened the bill to policies pushed by the notorious Sen. Joe McCarthy, the notorious perpetrator of America’s 1950s “Red Scare.”

“Welcome to the new House Committee on Un-American Affairs and the new McCarthyism,” she said. “We have arrived here today with this bill.”

How many of you actually watch Congressional Hearings? Y’all should be paying attention. Take 5 minutes and listen to @Rep_Stansbury in there fighting the good fight ✊🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/0N3hvKxrUf

— Anarchy princess (@SatireAP) November 20, 2024

Stansbury wasn’t done.

First responders and emergency managers at @fema put their lives on the line to support our communities during disasters.

This hearing is not about oversight, it’s a pretext for the purge @realDonaldTrump and Project 2025 have promised.@RepMTG said, “Let the purge begin!” pic.twitter.com/XfaraGAibM

— Rep. Melanie Stansbury (@Rep_Stansbury) November 20, 2024

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R) of Georgia said, “Let the purge begin!”

Trumpism, yes. Competence, no. The “spoils” system is back.”