Skip to content

Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Seems Important

Published by digby on February 15, 2024

Guess what? The Biden administration is meeting its commitment to under served communities

youtube

There was a bit of a brouhaha on Xitter in the last couple of days when an economic reporter for the NY Times posted that his friends in Brooklyn didn’t know about Biden’s economic successes and when confronted with the fact that the media bore some responsibility for that he fired back that he isn’t the Biden administration’s PR company. Let’s just say it wasn’t well received. Apparently, Biden hasn’t been entertaining enough for them to cover it. He needs to up his “PR” so the news media will feel it’s important to cover it.

Having said that, here’s a shout out to Axios for reporting this, which I did not know before:

There’s an unprecedented building boom underway in America. With it has come a less-noticed phenomenon: a surge of investment into communities left behind in the last economic expansion.

Why it matters: Poorer counties with lower employment rates have attracted a large share of the hundreds of billions of dollars allocated for clean energy projects, semiconductor mega-factories and more.

If sustained, the investment surge has the potential to help reshape local economies — a sharp departure from the 2010s, a period that saw more muted investment in these parts of the country.

Driving the news: These counties have received a disproportionate share of investments relative to their economic output, according to a new report from the Brookings Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The researchers look at private investment in economically distressed communities — the 1,071 counties with a median income below $75,000 and prime-age employment that significantly lags the national average.

“The previous three years of data indicate that after decades of economic divergence, strategic sector investment patterns are including more places that have historically been left out of economic growth,” the report says.

The big picture: The building boom has been spurred in part by money allocated under Biden-era legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and CHIPS and Science Act — that’s helping put a floor under the national economy and sustaining demand for workers.

Some of that legislation provides incentives for investments in low-income areas.

Since 2021, distressed communities received 16% of investments in clean energy, chips, bio-manufacturing and other industries. That’s double their share of national GDP and about 1.2 times their share of the U.S. population.

Between the lines: When compared to overall private investment, investments in these specific industries are more likely to go to distressed communities.

“Distressed communities are attracting new clean energy and semiconductor investment at roughly twice the rate of traditional private investment,” says Brian Deese, former top White House economic adviser who joined MIT last year.

“If this trend continues, it has the potential to change the economic geography of the country and create economic opportunity in parts of this country that too many people have written off in the past,” says Deese, an author of the report and a key architect of Biden’s industrial policy.

The intrigue: These counties are mainly concentrated in southern states but include some areas in the Northeast, West and Midwest.

In effect, it’s created a new center for American private investment — a much different trend than that seen in the 2010-2020 period.

During that time, distressed counties received an average of 8% of total private fixed investment (excluding residential investments) — roughly the same as their share of national GDP.

Aaaaand:

The huge question heading into the 2024 election is what credit Biden gets for the investment boom.

In some states, Republicans are taking credit for the manufacturing renaissance, Axios’ Hans Nichols has reported.

Of course we all “wonder” if Biden will get any credit, which requires that the media report it but here we are back at square one. Still, kudos to Axios for at least putting it out there. maybe someone else will notice. I suspect that the best way for the democrats to get attention to this is by highlighting the GOP members taking credit. It’s only news when it’s “fun.” And that has an element of fun.

Bidenisms

Published by digby on February 15, 2024

One of the more frustrating aspects of this “But He’s Old!” theme that the media has made into this year’s “But Her Emails!” is the fact that Biden is not slipping and we know this because he’s always been gaffe prone. It’s his personality, not his age. I suppose if people really don’t like that about him, that’s legitimate, but then they are back to square one deciding if this guy is the better choice:

“When I say that Obama is the president of our country they go: ‘He doesn’t know that it’s Biden! He doesn’t know,’” Trump said Wednesday. “So it’s very hard to be sarcastic.” He went on to say: “I’m not a Nikki fan and I’m not a Pelosi fan, and I when I purposely interpose names, they said: ‘He didn’t know Pelosi from Nikki, from tricky Nikki.’”

“I interpose [the names], and they make a big deal out of it,” Trump said. “I said: ‘No, no, I think they both stink. They have something in common—they both stink,’” he added. “And remember this: when I make a statement like that about Nikki that means she will never be running for vice president.”

That is the lamest, most ridiculous attempt to wriggle out of his obvious mental glitch that I’ve ever seen. Good God, the man not only is incapable of admitting he did something wrong, the gyrations he goes through to pretend that he meant to do it are just jaw dropping.

Anyway, back to Biden. Public Notice (subscribe to Public Notice ) did a service today by posting some examples of Biden’s older gaffes, just for the record:

While filing the paperwork in 2007 for his second failed presidential run, Biden made a racially tone-deaf comment about fellow candidate Barack Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” This was obviously not how he wanted to lead a news cycle after launching his candidacy.

There were other incidents of what the media diagnosed as Biden’s “foot in mouth” disease. He told donors at a private fundraiser just a few weeks before the 2008 presidential election that there would be an “international crisis, a generated crisis” in the first few months of an Obama presidency that would “test the mettle of this guy.” John McCain’s campaign leapt on Biden’s remarks, and the Obama team scrambled to play clean up.

This was a common theme, sort of like the running gag in a political sitcom. The New York Times described Biden in 2008 as a “distinctive blend of pit bull and odd duck” with “weak filters” that made him blurt out “out-of-nowhere comments” and “goofy asides.” The gaffes were usually minor and amusing — describing the Affordable Care Act as a “big fucking deal” or publicly mourning the Irish Prime Minister’s mother who was still very much alive (see video below) — but occasionally, they were politically perilous.

Biden revealed to House Democrats at their 2009 caucus retreat candid White House discussions about the $900 billion economic-stimulus package and how Democrats could face major political blowback in the upcoming midterm elections. Obama later joked, “I don’t remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly.”

Then there was Biden’s 2009 appearance on the Todayshowwhen his response to a swine flu outbreak seemed to border on outright panic.

“I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places right now,” he said. “It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s that you are in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes everywhere through the aircraft. That’s me.”

This infuriated the airline industry, and once again the White House need to smooth over Biden’s remarks. It wasn’t surprising that many Democrats believed Hillary Clinton was a more reliable heir apparent to Obama. (The Washington Post had even asked prior to the 2012 election if Biden was a “liability for Obama.”) However, no one ever suggested Biden was senile. He was perceived more like your wacky uncle after his second beer — good for a laugh but perhaps not the ideal political candidate.

After Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign, The Guardian observed that over his “decades-long career in politics, he has cultivated a reputation of being gaffe-prone, often stumbling on his words — if not outright saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.” What’s revealing is that the article never makes Biden’s age the issue, and he was already 76. There’s no idle speculation about whether he’s losing a step or outright sundowning. This wasn’t an oversight. If Bill Clinton or Barack Obama suddenly lost their rhetorical mastery, we might assume a possible cognitive decline, but Biden never boasted a reputation as a great communicator or savvy political operator.

Biden has if anything toned done the gaffes with age

In 2015, CNN questioned a potential Biden candidacy after a series of public gaffes. During former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s swearing in, Biden held his wife Stephanie’s shoulders and whispered into her ear.

This became another embarrassing viral moment that dogged Biden during his 2020 campaign. However, it’s vanished as a major issue today. Biden, responding to feedback, released a video in 2019 where he apologized for his past handiness and promised to “much more mindful” of personal space. He adjusted his behavior and has had no issues of this sort since. That is not typical of a confused elderly person who’s mentally slipping.

Yes, Biden has a habit of Paul Bunyan-esque tall tales about his life, including vastly overstating his personal involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, but that’s not a recent development. He’s done this for almost 40 years, and there’s no evidence that it’s worsening or that he’s become disconnected from reality. A character quirk shouldn’t trigger the 25th Amendment.

Just like their sham impeachment efforts, Republicans have no actual evidence that Biden’s senile and incompetent. They sound alarms over Biden confusing world leaders with their dead predecessors, but flubs like this are fairly common among past presidents, regardless of age.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama said he’d visited “57 states.” This was obviously a slip of the tongue and a not a sign of early onset dementia. Trump, however, has recently suggested Obama is still president multiple times, to the point where he’s had to try to explain it away by claiming he was being sarcastic. But the sarcasm defense wouldn’t explain Trump in 2019 claiming the Continental Army “took over airports” during the Revolutionary War. That he blamed on the telepromter.

This is key:

The Biden administration has run far more smoothly than one might’ve expected from the Joe Biden who once provided reliable fodder for late night comedy monologues. It wasn’t long before journalists privately and publicly complained that Biden was simply dull — arguably what the media finds more offensive than his advanced age. Politico complained in 2022 that Biden had “over-delivered” on boredom and that this carried “a political cost in a Permanent Washington that, for better or worse, thrills to displays of executive-branch social fireworks.”

Those “fireworks” are more fun for the press to cover than a quietly competent presidential administration. It’s as if they would prefer the Onion parody Biden.

He’s not old, he’s boring and that the news media will not abide. They loved Obama, for instance, and gave him a pretty easy time not because they cared about his ideology but because he’s cool. He’s good looking, played basketball, killed a fly with one hand during an interview and was funny and wry. He could even sing. The Kewl kidz thought Obama was fun in a positive way while Trump was even more fun in a negative way. Either way, it’s all about how much fun they’re having.

Here’s more Trump last night, FYI. I don’t think it’s senility. He’s always done this. He’s just mentally and verbally incontinent and always has been.

Will Hogan Prevail?

Published by digby on February 15, 2024

I will be shocked if Maryland sends Hogan to the Senate. He was a popular governor but his time has passed. I’m not even sure he can get Republican votes since the rural areas are very MAGA and he’ll have to separate himself very strongly from Trump. It’s a blue state and I think Democratic voters understand the stakes this time. I hope …

I Like Candidates Who Aren’t Indicted, Okay?

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 15, 2024

The Devil didn’t go down to Georgia

MSNBC just reported jury selection for Donald “91 Counts” Trump’s trial in Manhattan on hush money payments will begin March 25.

Washington Post:

Former president Donald Trump is in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday for a hearing in one of his criminal cases, while a hearing in a different case is held in Atlanta.

In New York, a judge ordered jury selection to begin on March 25 in Trump’s trial related to 2016 hush money payments. The judge also denied a motion to dismiss the case.

The Atlanta hearing centers on allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) engaged in an improper relationship with a special prosecutor she named to lead the case.

In Manhattan, Trump faces “34 counts of falsifying business records connected with alleged hush money payments made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.” Trump is in the courtroom now.

In the Georgia case, Trump and others were charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results there. Trump and some of his co-defendants are seeking to have Willis removed from the case and the charges dismissed. Judge Scott McAfee said Thursday’s hearing will look into whether she financially benefited from hiring special prosecutor Nathan Wade, when their romantic relationship began and whether it continues.

Willis’ continued involvement in the Trump election conspiracy case may turn on when she hired Wade for the Trump case, before or after their relationship began.

NBC News reports that Trump’s effort to have his New York case dismissed failed:

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on Thursday denied his bid to dismiss the charges against him and ordered his trial to proceed as scheduled next month.

The “defendant’s motions to dismiss have been denied,” Judge Juan Merchan told the packed Manhattan courtroom, which included the former president at the defense table. “We will move ahead with jury selection on March 25th.”

The absurdity of Trump even being considered as a presidential candidate by a major American political party is gobsmacking. The clip below featuring former Chief Assistant District Attorney of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, sums up the lunacy of what the rest of the world sees and I’m watching now.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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

Bullshit All The Way Down

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 15, 2024

Another debunking years later

Photo by Jason Riedy (2009) via Flickr (CC BY 2.0 DEED
Attribution 2.0 Generic)

One of the most infuriating aspects of the right-wing Contract On America is how obvious the cons are. No, that’s not it, either. It’s that we, the reality-based community, dumbly play along as if there’s some factual basis behind them. The collective We give “the miners, and sappers–of returning despotism” the benefit of the doubt.

Like parents with a toddler still trying to grasp object permanence, we play along when the child acts as though the red ball we’ve palmed has ceased to exist. So, too, with the right’s allegations of election fraud that time and again prove to be the actual fraud. Why? Because it would be bad form to call out the infant-like credulity of diner-dwelling Real Americans™? Or impolite to brand them liars and cheats and unAmerican, even if justly deserved?

The tactic: Lob a “voter fraud” smoke grenade into the news cycle and shout fire. The “news” compliantly plays along, front-paging the false story. 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!” The official debunking months later gets buried. Mission accomplished, again. Everyone not a dupe or a villain knew the allegations were bunk, yet played along. Wouldn’t want to hurt America’s saboteurs’ feelings.

And here we go again. Behold (Associated Press):

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A conservative group has told a Georgia judge that it doesn’t have evidence to support its claims of illegal ballot stuffing during the the 2020 general election and a runoff two months later.

Texas-based True the Vote filed complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2021, including one in which it said it had obtained “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the November 2020 election and a January 2021 runoff.

A Fulton County Superior Court judge in Atlanta signed an order last year requiring True the Vote to provide evidence it had collected, including the names of people who were sources of information, to state elections officials who were frustrated by the group’s refusal to share evidence with investigators.

In their written response, attorneys for True the Vote said the group had no names or other documentary evidence to share.

[…]

True the Vote’s complaint said its investigators “spoke with several individuals regarding personal knowledge, methods, and organizations involved in ballot trafficking in Georgia.” It said one person, referred to in the complaint only as John Doe, “admitted to personally participating and provided specific information about the ballot trafficking process.”

A Georgia judge demanded that True the Vote produce evidence to support its claims: “names and contact information for anyone who had provided information, as well as any recordings, transcripts, witness statements or other documents supporting its allegations.” Including any confidentiality agreements.

The group’s attorneys replied: “TTV has no such documents in its possession, custody, or control.”

Pressed to put up or shut up, True the Vote will do neither. There was no “detailed account.” There was no John Doe they could produce. The allegations were bullshit. True the Vote and founder and president, Catherine Engelbrecht, will not be fined. They will just reset and run the same con again and again so long as they get away with being a public nuisance.

To my knowledge, Rudy Giouliani has produced none of the voluminous “proof” he claimed to have from 2020 of election wrongdoing, and for which several of his collaborators have faced charges and/or disbarment. But he got lots of headlines and TV coverage of his unsupported allegations.

Bill Clinton nailed the right’s approach to sabotaging the country 20 years ago in an interview with Jon Stewart:

Stewart: Do you believe that politics has gotten so dirty … that these kinds of tactics become so prevalent that this is the reason half the country doesn’t vote? Or this is the reason that we don’t get, maybe, the officials that we deserve?

Clinton: No, I think people do it because they think it works.

Stewart: That’s it? Simply a strategy?

Clinton: Absolutely. And as soon as it doesn’t work, they’ll stop doing it.

Twenty years later, it’s still working. We know what that says about them. What does it say about us?

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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

The Republican Party Is Weird

Published by digby on February 14, 2024

And I’m talking about stupid weird

Monmouth poll:

 – Just under 1 in 5 Americans believe the singer Taylor Swift is part of a covert effort to help President Joe Biden win the 2024 election. At the same time, the Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll also finds that most Americans are supportive of efforts by Swift to encourage her fans to vote.

Just under half (46%) of the American public has heard something about Swift being part of a supposed covert government effort to help Biden win the 2024 presidential election. Just under 1 in 5 Americans (18%) believe such a conspiracy involving Swift exists. Fully 71% of those who believe this identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and 83% indicate they are likely to support Donald Trump in the fall. Also, nearly three-quarters (73%) of those who believe the Swift conspiracy also believe the 2020 election outcome was fraudulent. [Monmouth will be releasing a poll on the 2024 presidential election tomorrow.] It should be noted that the group of poll respondents who accept the Swift story as fact includes some people who claim to have been unaware of it (i.e., 42% of those who say the conspiracy exists also say they had not heard about it before being contacted by Monmouth).

“The supposed Taylor Swift PsyOp conspiracy has legs among a decent number of Trump supporters. Even many who hadn’t heard about it before we polled them accept the idea as credible. Welcome to the 2024 election,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

On a less sinister note, two-thirds (68%) of the American public approves of Swift encouraging her fans to vote in the upcoming election. However, Republicans (42%) are much less supportive than Democrats (88%) and independents (71%) of these turnout efforts.

If this polling is representative, roughly 25 million registered voters believe this inane nonsense.

If the Republicans are really curious about why they are losing this is one of the reasons. They MAGA movement is full of weirdos. And that includes their Dear Leader.

AOC Speaks

Published by digby on February 14, 2024

This is good:

None of that means she’s going to back off on the issues that matter to her — Gaza pre-eminent among them. It does mean that she isn’t being myopic about the stakes for the whole world, including Gaza, if Trump wins the election. It will be a nightmare of epic proportions.

She is an amazing politician and I can’t wait to see how she matures even further. I would vote for her in a second.

The Discharge Petition Gambit

Published by digby on February 14, 2024

Could it work this time?

With members of the GOP at each others’ throats and yet another special election loss, largely due to their inane antics on the border/foreign military aid bill, it just might:

With House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) swearing he will not allow a House vote on a Senate-passed bill to provide Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to fight off a Russian invasion, supporters of aid to the nation ― who make up a clear majority of Congress ― are looking for alternatives.

The option that’s been mentioned most is a so-called discharge petition, signed by a majority of House members to force a floor vote. But the history of discharge petitions shows they are far easier to talk about than actually execute. Still, it may prove to be the best available option to get the Ukranians needed weaponry.

“It’s a dreadfully slow, cumbersome, and brittle process that is not well suited for anything dynamic or urgent,” said Liam Donovan, a former Republican Hill staffer and a partner at lobbying firm Bracewell LLP.

The Senate cleared the $95.5 billion bill early Tuesday morning after working through the weekend on it. It would provide about $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, mostly by funding replacement equipment for existing U.S. weapons sent to Ukraine and for Ukraine to buy new weapons.

Funds would also be provided for Israel ― to support stepped-up U.S. military activity in the region, humanitarian aid to Gaza, and for beefing up Taiwan’s defense.

The Senate vote was 70 to 29, with 26 Republicans, two Democrats and one independent voting against it.

There’s little doubt (even among opponents of Ukraine aid) that the bill would easily pass the House if Johnson brought it up for a vote.

“If it were to get to the floor, it would pass — let’s just be frank about that,” admitted Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and an opponent of aid to Ukraine, on “The John Fredericks Show” on Tuesday morning.

Despite the clear support, Johnson doubled down Tuesday, insisting he would not take the bill up on the floor, despite its bipartisan margin in the Senate and the possibility of a similar tally if the House voted on it.

“The House has to work its will on this. There’s a deliberative process, and we’re engaged in that,” Johnson told Fox News.

“I certainly oppose it and hope it would not be considered,” he said of a discharge petition.

He’s only following orders. In the past he supported the aid to Ukraine but Dear Leader needs to scratch his good buddy in Russia’s back if he expect to get the help he needs in the election. So that’s that.

The MAGA weirdos have him by the short hairs:

Johnson could allow the bill on the floor, but require a two-thirds majority for it to pass, as he has done recently with bills he’s supported but were blocked by his fellow Republicans. But that could further antagonize anti-Ukraine members of his own party who then could try to oust him, as happened with his predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

Discharge petitions are a way to get around such sycophancy but they are hardly ever tired because they hardly ever work.

Since 1996, only two bills have made it to the House floor through a discharge petition — a 2015 bill to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, and in 2002, a campaign finance measure named for the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). Both went on to become law.

Usually discharge petitions are started by members of the minority party with the hope of getting all of their fellow party members and a handful of the majority to sign on and provide the 218 signatures needed. But signing the other party’s petition risks angering party colleagues and leaders.

And that’s not all. Under House rules, the bill the discharge petition would be trying to get freed from being bottled up in a committee has to have been in that committee for at least 30 “legislative days.” That includes only days the House meets, which means it would be longer than 30 calendar days.

With a possible debt default looming last year, Democrats cooked up an effort to try to supercharge a discharge petition timetable by having it aimed at a bill that had already been referred to several committees for more than 30 days. But using that petition for Ukraine would have its own issues.

Donovan said forcing the Senate bill onto the floor could take at least 40 days using a new discharge petition, and using the petition originally set up for the debt limit would mean sending the bill back to the Senate for final passage, which would also add time.

“In other words, it’s a terrible option that may eventually prove to be the cleanest dirty shirt,” he said. Donovan noted another option for giving aid to Ukraine may be forthcoming negotiations over how to avoid a government shutdown: “The big question in the meantime is how the House deals with regular appropriations, and whether these conversations can be merged.”

They could take a page from the MAGAs and take some hostages:

“Only three or four House Republicans have to agree to take down every rule until that agreement is made and it’s iron-clad,” he said. “The best analogy I use is if everybody in a room has a hand grenade, the one that’s willing to actually pull the pin and drop the grenade is the most powerful of all these grenade-wielding people.”

That seems pretty far-fetched. But there are a whole lot of Republics retiring next year. Maybe they could round up a handful who don’t think starting WWIII in Europe is a great idea.

This is such a mess and I truly hope the Democrats work very hard to let the American people know just how fucked up these people really are.

Hopium High

Published by digby on February 14, 2024

Tom Sullivan posted another video of Dem strategist Scott Rosenberg discussing the win last night in NY earlier today. As you know, Rosenberg’s site is called “The Hopium Chronicles” and he called another one right last night. Here’s his post from today:

In March of last year I launched this site and community with a memo, Get to 55, which argued that because of MAGA’s escalating extremism more would be possible for us in this electoral cycle. That we needed to go big and shoot to get to 55% of the national vote in November. That our strategy in 2024 should be one of growth and expansion, and taking away geographic and demographic terrain from them. That as Biden went big legislatively in 2021 and 2022, we needed to go big politically in 2023 and 2024 and make this election a clear repudiation of MAGA, which is the only way MAGA will start to lose its dark grip on the GOP – something that would be good for us, for Republicans, for the country.

In the memo I lay out some ideas about how we could grow our coalition and get to 55 but “getting to 55” was always really about adopting an offensive mindset, one based on this basic idea we have:

Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong and winning elections across the US. And they have Trump, and MAGA and deserve to lose as no other group of political leaders have ever deserved to lose in our history

2022 had been a very good election for us. In the aftermath of Dobbs we overpeformed our 2020 results in 5 House special elections by an average of 7 points. We blew it out in Kansas. Our candidates dramatically outraised theirs.. Voter registration across the US turned more Democratic. In almost every state the early vote was better for us than 2018 and 2020, a remarkable thing given how much better we did in those elections. Then the election came, and despite high inflation, low Biden approval and a media spitting red wave every day we outperformed 2020 in AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH, PA. We got to 59% in CO, 57% in PA, 55% in MI, 54% in NH. We picked up a Senate seat, state legislative chambers, governorships. Yes, we lost the House but we kept it close enough to deny Republicans ideological control and make it far more likely we win it back this year. Parties in power almost always lose mid-terms, off-year elections. Not this time – we gained ground all across the country, and MAGA had its third disappointing election in a row. We overperformed and won. They struggled.

I started Hopium last March because I thought that we could do something historic in this cycle and get to 55 together. And look at what we’ve done since last March. We took away a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat with 56% of the vote, ending right-wing ideological control of the court in one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. We took away Colorado Springs and Jacksonville, two of the largest Republican held cities in the country. We took away the six week abortion ban in Ohio, getting 57% of the vote there in two elections. We took away the Virginia House, and ended the fantasy that the 15 week abortion could somehow give them an escape hatch from ending Roe. Governor Beshear grew his margin in Kentucky, we gained seats in the New Jersey legislature, and won cities, city council races and school board races all across the US. In 2023, like 2022, we overperformed and won. And they struggled.

And now this same basic dynamic – overperforming and struggling – is showing up in 2024 now too. We took away a critical state House seat in Florida last month, HD-35, Tom Keen. We took away NY-3 last night, turning an 8 point loss in 2022 to a 8 point win, and outperformed public polls, as we’ve been doing repeatedly since Dobbs. Joe Biden had a higher margin of victory in NH than Trump as a write-in candidate, and got more votes than Trump in Nevada. Our party committees and candidates are outraising Republicans across the US, as we did in 2022. And look at them. Turnout in their Iowa Caucus was anemic despite $100m spent and lots of candidate time. Trump only received 56,000 votes of the 750,000 registered Republicans there – big yikes stuff. The heir apparent, DeSantis, flamed out, spectacularly. Trump underperformed public polls in NH by 10-15 points. Polling in these early states showed a very large number of Republicans very worried about Trump and willing to vote for Biden. The RNC is broke, and broken. State Republican Parties in the battlegrounds have atrophied under MAGA extremist leadership. Dozens of prominent Republican Party leaders in the states have been indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election, many more are under investigation. GOP Party Chairs in Arizona and Florida just resigned due to epic scandals. Ugly MAGA candidates are winning primaries again. They tossed their Speaker. The new one is a coward and a traitorous fool. Trump’s putting his family in charge of the RNC. We keep overperforming and winning. They keep struggling.

MAGA is a failed politics. It lost in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023, and is losing 2024. And this struggle Republicans have seen could get worse for them in the coming months. Their nominee is far weaker than 2020. He is campaigning from the court house not the White House this time. He is far more degraded, extreme, dangerous. His performance on the stump more unhinged, erratic, distributing. Because of his decline and uncontrolled impulsivity, he is making huge traditional political errors – like coming out against the ACA – that cause candidates to lose elections all the time.

Additionally, there are at least seven things voters will come to learn about Trump they didn’t know in 2020 when he lost. He raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room. He and his family committed one of the largest financial frauds in American history. He led an insurrection against the United States, tried to end American democracy for all time and has promised to finish the job if he gains control of the Oval Office. He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI about it and shared these secrets with others. He and his family have corruptly taken more money from foreign governments while in and running for office than any family in American history. More than any other person in America, Trump is responsible for ending Roe and taking away the rights and freedoms of more than half the population. He has committed to side with Putin and end the Western alliance. I just don’t know how this horrible, serial betrayer of our country could possibly overcome all this to mount a serious campaign for the Presidency.

Even more worrisome for Republicans, in recent months, due to the success of the Biden Presidency, their central attacks against him have evaporated. The economy is strong not in recession. Inflation is down, prices are falling, real wages making enormous gains. There is no crime wave – murder rates and violent crime rates are down across the US. There is no war on energy – all forms of domestic energy – renewables, oil, gas – broke records in 2023.

Which left them with the border and immigration, a place they choose to go all in, largely because it was all that was left for them. And their cowardly and foolish Speaker, pushed by their diminished and desperate leader, blew that one too last week, turning a political winner into a huge political loser, as we saw last night in NY-3. They’ve got nothing left to run on now. And if they think their guy, as bat shit crazy and corrupt as he is, is going to win a debate about who is more fit to lead us, go for it my MAGA brothers and sisters. Go. For. It.

Where they’ve ended up now, this once proud party of Lincoln and Reagan, is in this ridiculous place, much further from the electorate than 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. The economy to crash. Women, people of color to lose more freedoms and rights. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on an operating room table. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Big tax cuts for their donors, higher deficits and less for everyone else. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to get pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

I think we are going to win the Presidential election in November. We should flip the House, and if we work really hard we should keep the Senate. The Democratic Party is a force for good in America and the world, Joe Biden is a good President and we are far better off today. We have a very strong case for re-election and the President will be laying out his agenda for his second term in the coming weeks. We keep winning elections of all kinds, all across the country, over many years now. And they are the worst group of political leaders our history. No one has deserved to get their asses kicked more than these cowardly betrayers of everything that has made America great. We should keep winning, and they should keep struggling.

I couldn’t agree more. And I hope his optimism is well founded. I have to say — so far it has been. He even called that Florida state house race a couple of weeks ago for the Dems even though nobody else thought he had the chance. If you believe in logic at all in these chaotic times, his analysis above certainly makes sense. (I’m trying, I’m trying …)

I can’t explain why the polls are so off but last night’s race had Suozzi up by a point and he won by 7, outside the margin of error. This keeps happening, over and over again. I don’t pretend to know why, but the pollsters seem to be quite stubborn in spite of their ongoing underestimation of Democratic strength.

I’m not suggesting that “the polls are skewed.” But the fact that we are in constant panic mode about the Democrats losing big and Biden completely falling apart based upon polling, it’s worth asking if they are the best guide right now to make any judgments about who should be running and what his chances are.

Leu-seur

Published by digby on February 14, 2024

Lol. The greatest sore loser in the history of the world has a few words:

You really have to wonder when the wingnuts are going to get tired of this. Ever? Or are they so brainwashed they’ll never learn?