Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Sanity? Will it last?

Following up on Tom’s post below about the Haley-Biden voters, check this out from Greg Sargent who is now at the New Republic:

Last month, Trump said of the hundreds of people charged or convicted in relation to January 6, “I don’t call them prisoners. I call them hostages.” Then on Meet the Press last Sunday, Stefanik brashly echoed his language: “I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages.”

The way vulnerable Republicans ran from this is telling. “They’re criminal defendants, not hostages,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. “I don’t defend people who hit cops, who vandalized our Capitol,” added Nebraska’s Don Bacon, pointedly adding of the “hostage” language: “The broad, broad electorate doesn’t like it.”

Given that Fitzpatrick and Bacon represent two of the 17 districts held by Republicans that Trump lost in 2020, that’s an indication of how politically outside the mainstream it is to deny the gravity of January 6 and smear the justice system’s response to it as illegitimate.

The details of this year’s political and legal calendar suggest this dynamic could intensify. In coming days, an appeals court will likely rule against Trump’s demand that the criminal charges against him for conspiring to overthrow U.S. democracy be dismissed on grounds that his misconduct constituted official presidential duties. The Supreme Court could soon follow. While Trump’s strategy of delaying his trial might work, it’s more likely to fail.

Now recall that last year, Trump expressly called on House Republicans to shut down the government to defund his prosecutions. They didn’t, but at the very least, the actuality of Trump’s trial unfolding before the nation will cause him to ramp up his entreaties into 2024. And it may well be harder for Republicans to resist them during a presidential election year.

“It’s about to get real for House Republicans that Trump is going to criminal trial before the election,” legal scholar Matthew Seligman, who tracks the timeline of Trump’s trials for Just Security, told me. “That will put them under intense pressure to try to derail the prosecution.”

What then? House Democratic aides see a range of possibilities, such as votes on resolutions declaring the prosecution of Trump corrupt, or possibly more hearings designed to harass and sabotage the case against him. Those aides point out that Trump could be locking up the GOP nomination (making it harder for vulnerable Republicans to resist closing ranks behind him) even as his trial gets underway (making support for Trump look more corrupt to swing voters).

The sweet spot for many Republicans is to say that of course they condemn anything related to January 6 that was actually criminal, while also insisting that the legal system’s targeting of Trump is obviously politically motivated because, duh, a Democrat is president. That’s an easier posture to hold when Republicans can redirect the question of Trump’s guilt back on to the unpopular President Biden by insisting he’s surreptitiously pulling law enforcement’s strings.

But a trial—or a conviction—will dramatically shrink the space for that straddle, pushing vulnerable Republicans to say with clarity whether all this should be disqualifying in a president.

Democrats predict Republicans won’t be able to resist Trump’s pressure. “They’re going to continue to defend him,” Representative Suzan DelBene, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told me. “That will cost them at the ballot box.”

A recent Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans say the Justice Department is holding Trump accountable under the law, as opposed to targeting him politically. Among independents that number is also 57 percent. Similar majorities believe Trump is probably or definitely guilty.

I believe we’re underestimating another factor here: Trump will soon be facing a jury of his peers. They can’t be smeared as stooges of the “deep state.” The spectacle of Trump facing the judgment of ordinary Americans—just like any American accused of crimes—is likely to mean something powerful to swing voters.

A trial could also intensify public attention on whether Trump would simply order his prosecution halted if elected, or, if he’s convicted, whether he’d try to pardon himself. Good luck defending his answer to those questions, vulnerable Republicans.

A certain strain in our punditry holds that many Americans question the legitimacy of the Trump prosecutions because they no longer trust our institutions or because of some other social malaise. It’s reasonable to lament the state of our institutions. But what if the prosaic reality is that many in the middle of the country are already prepared to accept a guilty verdict for Trump as correct and legitimate?

Imagine that.

I have to believe that there are some Republicans out there who see that Trump for another four years will be bad for them, their children and the country. Not all of them can still be brainwashed. Right? Right???

Your polls will blow Don’s mind

Donald Trump will take this personally.

NBC News:

DES MOINES, Iowa — Most likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers say they’ll vote for former President Donald Trump in the general election if he’s the GOP nominee, regardless of the candidate they’re supporting on caucus night.

That is, except supporters of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, with nearly half of them — 43% — saying they’d vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump.

These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results. Overall, Haley took 20% for second place in the survey, compared to 48% for Trump.

The poll also shows three-quarters of caucusgoers believing Trump can defeat Biden despite the former president’s legal challenges. But again, a majority of Haley’s supporters think it will be nearly impossible for Trump to win.

Other Republicans: “dangerous”

Chelsea Cheney, 37, of Linn County told pollsters she used to be a Republican but now wants to caucus “for the least of the worst.” That’s Nikki Haley, she says. “I don’t necessarily love her, but I don’t find her dangerous in ways that I find many of the other candidates dangerous.”

“Haley is consolidating the anti-Trump vote,” pollster J. Ann Selzer tells NBC. She has conducted polls in Iowa over three decades. The anti-Trumpers may not be enough to make Iowa close for Haley, but in New Hampshire where independents are a larger share of the mix, they might.

Oh, Donny, you’re not fine. You look like a staggering derelict in a found overcoat.

Mr. Low-Energy is ready for his close-up.

“The only thing we’re not doing is shooting people”

“The only thing we’re not doing is shooting people who come across the border, because of course the Biden Administration would charge us with murder,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Dana Loesch last week. But Texas will let them drown. We’ll come back to that.

“The cruelty is the point,” Texas resident Adam Serwer famously wrote. Cruelty is also the policy. Don’t say you weren’t warned or missed the signals. There is already ash settling on your windowsills.

First, this reminder: “The leading GOP presidential contender is using an admitted hit man and lifelong criminal as a character reference. Take a second to reflect on that.” — Luis Moreno, former U.S. Ambassador, retired Foreign Service Officer.

In case you missed it on Saturday, Donald Trump jumped the loan shark.

Trump is not flying solo either (CBS):

A woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande on Friday while trying to enter the U.S. near a section of the southern border where Texas National Guard soldiers have prevented federal Border Patrol agents from processing and rescuing migrants.

Federal officials and a Texas congressman said National Guard soldiers deployed by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not allow Border Patrol agents to attempt to rescue the migrants. 

Take a second to reflect on that.

America’s shame will not be on display on front pages across the world. The world will not view with horror these migrants’ sodden bodies as they did when three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body washed up face down on a Turkish beach in 2015. Kurdi drowned along with his mother and brother as they tried to flee Islamic fundamentalists in Syria.

Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar issued a statement Saturday (above) about the migrants who drowned.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press, said Cuellar’s description of the events was accurate. In a statement Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Texas officials obstructed Border Patrol’s attempts to rescue the migrants on Friday.

“Tragically, a woman and two children drowned last night in the Shelby Park area of Eagle Pass, which was commandeered by the State of Texas earlier this week,” the department said. “In responding to a distress call from the Mexican government, Border Patrol agents were physically barred by Texas officials from entering the area.”

White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said Texas soldiers “blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting to provide emergency assistance” to the migrants. 

“While we continue to gather facts about the circumstances of these tragic deaths, one thing is clear: Governor Abbott’s political stunts are cruel, inhumane, and dangerous,” Fernández Hernández added.

Texas Public radio adds:

Earlier Friday, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to allow the Border Patrol to regain access to the 47-acre Shelby Park, stating that Texas is using armed Texas National Guard soldiers to stop the Border Patrol from accessing two-and-a-half miles of border.

“We remain gravely concerned by actions that prevent the U.S. Border Patrol from performing their essential missions of arresting individuals who enter the United States unlawfully and providing humanitarian response to individuals in need,” a CBP spokesperson said.

Actor Ronald Reagan made great show of warning America in 1964 that the upcoming election was a time for choosing. The newish Republican defined freedom largely in terms of economics, of course, and peace in terms of government leaving them alone. He shared anecdotes reminiscent of Trump’s “many people say” stories and facts not to be accepted without fact-checking.

But Reagan the cold warrior praised America as a haven for refugees from communism, “the last best hope of man on earth.” Refugees from Castro’s Cuba were fortunate then to have a place to escape to, as Reagan told it.

Reagan “borrowed” without citation FDR’s “rendezvous with destiny” line and warned of “a thousand years of darkness” if Americans chose poorly. He was just 60 years early.

That ad above was from 2020 and the same group is doing ads like this again on a larger scale for 2024. This is a great idea, in my opinion. Everyone says that the only way most people can be persuaded is if the message comes from people with whom they identify or trust. Yes, a lot of them will say this is AI or fake news but the ones who haven’t completely gone down the wingnut rabbit hole might feel the truth in it and respond:

Democrats began the search last summer, fanning out through the northern swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to find the nurses, electricians, farmers and floor installers who could best testify to the danger of Donald Trump returning to power.

The previously unreported project by the outside group American Bridge 21st Century developed 732 leads, conducted 472 interviews and then filmed about 50 voters who will anchor a $140 million ad campaign starting this spring, aimed at reminding women and working-class voters why they voted against Trump in 2020, according to the group’s leaders.

“The hardest part about using the most powerful messengers in politics, which are real people from these communities, is finding them,” said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge.

The planned ad campaign will expand upon a smaller effort American Bridge launched in 2020 to turn working-class voters in the same states against Trump. This time, with the tacit support of the White House and President Biden’s team, the focus will narrow somewhat to working-class female voters in those states, with the possibility of expanding into North Carolina later, Beychok said.

The ads will focus Trump’s role in curtailing abortion access, his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Republican plans for entitlement reform and Biden’s plans for the economy. Early spots include testimonials from a female union electrician in Wisconsin and a Pennsylvania woman who talks emotionally about what it meant to hang her U.S. flag outside her home on the day after the Jan. 6 attack.

Historian Rick Perlstein always quotes a 1930’s era Texas congressman named Maury Maverick (great name) who defined liberalism as “freedom plus groceries.” It sounds like this strategy is going with that and I think it’s never been more powerful. Coming from people in their own states makes it even more powerful. I’ll be looking forward to seeing the ads.

Ashley just had a baby:

She’s sitting on the couch in a relative’s apartment in Clarksdale, Miss., wearing camo-print leggings and fiddling with the plastic hospital bracelets still on her wrists. It’s August and pushing 90 degrees, which means the brown patterned curtains are drawn, the air conditioner is on high, and the room feels like a hiding place. Peanut, the baby boy she delivered two days earlier, is asleep in a car seat at her feet, dressed in a little blue outfit. Ashley is surrounded by family, but nobody is smiling. One relative silently eats lunch in the kitchen, her two siblings stare glumly at their phones, and her mother, Regina, watches from across the room. Ashley was discharged from the hospital only hours ago, but there are no baby presents or toys in the room, no visible diapers or ointments or bottles. Almost nobody knows that Peanut exists, because almost nobody knew that Ashley was pregnant. She is 13 years old. Soon she’ll start seventh grade.

It’s a nightmare:

In the fall of 2022, Ashley was raped by a stranger in the yard outside her home, her mother says. For weeks, she didn’t tell anybody what happened, not even her mom. But Regina knew something was wrong. Ashley used to love going outside to make dances for her TikTok, but suddenly she refused to leave her bedroom. When she turned 13 that November, she wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. “She just said, ‘It hurts,’” Regina remembers. “She was crying in her room. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t want to tell me.” (To protect the privacy of a juvenile rape survivor, TIME is using pseudonyms to refer to Ashley and Regina; Peanut is the baby’s nickname.)

The signs were obvious only in retrospect. Ashley started feeling sick to her stomach; Regina thought it was related to her diet. At one point, Regina even asked Ashley if she was pregnant, and Ashley said nothing. Regina hadn’t yet explained to her daughter how a baby is made, because she didn’t think Ashley was old enough to understand. “They need to be kids,” Regina says. She doesn’t think Ashley even realized that what happened to her could lead to a pregnancy.

On Jan. 11, Ashley began throwing up so much that Regina took her to the emergency room at Northwest Regional Medical Center in Clarksdale. When her bloodwork came back, the hospital called the police. One nurse came in and asked Ashley, “What have you been doing?” Regina recalls. That’s when they found out Ashley was pregnant. “I broke down,” Regina says.

Dr. Erica Balthrop was the ob-gyn on call that day. Balthrop is an assured, muscular woman with close-cropped cornrows and a tattoo of a feather running down her arm. She ordered an ultrasound, and determined Ashley was 10 or 11 weeks along. “It was surreal for her,” Balthrop recalls. “She just had no clue.” The doctor could not get Ashley to answer any questions, or to speak at all. “She would not open her mouth.” (Balthrop spoke about her patient’s medical history with Regina’s permission.)

At their second visit, about a week later, Regina tentatively asked Balthrop if there was any way to terminate Ashley’s pregnancy. Seven months earlier, Balthrop could have directed Ashley to abortion clinics in Memphis, 90 minutes north, or in Jackson, Miss., two and a half hours south. But today, Ashley lives in the heart of abortion-ban America. In 2018, Republican lawmakers in Mississippi enacted a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law was blocked by a federal judge, who ruled that it violated the abortion protections guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court felt differently. In their June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion that had existed for nearly half a century. Within weeks, Mississippi and every state that borders it banned abortion in almost all circumstances.

The closest place the could go was Chicago. So they had no choice. They did nothing. That little girl had to go through childbirth.

There’s an exception for rape in Mississippi but nobody knows what process you need to go through to get one. And it’s useless anyway since there are no abortion clinics anywhere near them anyway. And Mississippi doesn’t provide much of anything for pregnant women who want to have children. It is, essentially, a war on poor, pregnant women. They lose either way.

And so Dobbs has compounded America’s maternal-health crisis: more women are delivering more babies, in areas where there are already not enough doctors to care for them, while abortion bans are making it more difficult to recruit qualified providers to the regions that need them most. “People always ask me: ‘Why do you choose to stay there?’” says Balthrop, who has worked in the Delta for more than 20 years. “I feel like I have no choice at this point.”

It’s also a war on poor children:

Gov. Tate Reeves’ office says Mississippi won’t participate in a federal summer food program for children because of his desire to reject “attempts to expand the welfare state.”

But officials at the state’s welfare agency that Reeves oversees, which participated in a similar federal program earlier in the pandemic, offered a different reason for opting out of the program: a lack of state resources to administer it.

The Summer EBT program would provide the families of students who receive free or reduced lunch during the school year with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards that can be used to purchase groceries in the summer. For each eligible child, families would receive $40 per month for a total of $120.

Thirty-five states, all five U.S. territories, and four Tribes will be participating in the program for its first year, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it expects will benefit nearly 21 million children. The other states that have opted out include Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming.

Mississippi previously administered the pandemic EBT program, which gave a similar summer benefit and provided assistance during the school year if school was conducted primarily virtually or hybrid for at least one month. The cost of running the pandemic-era program was covered fully by the federal government but the new summer version would require states to cover half of the administrative expenses, something other states have pointed to as a reason not to participate.

“Both (the Mississippi Department of Education) and (the Mississippi Department of Human Services) lack the resources, including workforce capacity and funding, to support a Summer EBT Program,” said Mark Jones, a DHS spokesperson.

Republican governors in some other states have also said they chose not to participate in the program because of their opposition to expanding federal benefits, according to Chalkbeat.

Not a priority, I guess.

That’s a fellow from The God Liars. Lol. “Our little snowflake”

He would say he’s the first

I posted that a while back. But apparently it isn’t actually landing well with some evangelicals. Imagine that …

Since the video was posted, it has been widely shared, racked up millions of views and drawn a lot of attention. But much of that attention has been negative, particularly among Iowa’s pastors, some of whom said they were shocked and offended by the content.

“It was very concerning,” said Pastor Joseph Brown of the Marion Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, Iowa, a town of 7,500 people about 40 minutes south of Iowa City. He took issue, he said, with how it used language plucked from the Bible — such as describing Mr. Trump’s arms as “strong” yet “gentle” — to compare Mr. Trump directly to God, rather than a servant of a higher power.

“The original sin of Satan or Lucifer is not that he wanted to take over God’s position but that he wanted to be like God. There is only one god, and it’s not Trump or any other man,” said Mr. Brown, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 but says he will not this year.

The opinions of religious leaders like Mr. Brown carry considerable weight in Iowa. More than three-quarters of the state’s population identifies as Christian, according to the Pew Research Center, and 28 percent of the population describes themselves as evangelicals — both measures are well above the national average. What’s more, the preponderance of voters in Iowa primary elections have historically been evangelicals.

Mr. Trump, who rarely attends church, has nonetheless managed to gain the support of a large swath of the nation’s faithful — particularly less traditional, non-churchgoing Christians. But the cohort has not universally embraced him.

A high-profile example came in November, when the Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats endorsed one of his rivals in the primary race, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

For pastors like Darran Whiting of Liberty Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, who say they would never vote for Mr. Trump, the video only underscores why.

“God has ordained servant leadership, not the arrogant, self-serving righteous leadership that particular video portrays,” said Mr. Whiting, who plans to vote for Mr. DeSantis. He noted that while Mr. Trump’s campaign did not make the video, the former president’s decision to share it speaks to his endorsement of its message.

The clip’s authors are members of the Dilley Meme Team, an organized collective of video producers who call themselves “Trump’s Online War Machine.” The group’s leader, Brenden Dilley, describes himself as Christian and a man of faith, but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. He has said that Mr. Trump has “God-tier genetics” and, in response to outcry over the “God Made Trump” video, he posted a meme depicting Mr. Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea.

I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a few of the “Evangelical Christians” who love Trump are a lot like that guy — you know, “people of faith” who’ve never read the Bible or go to church. You know, liars.

I know everything feels like shit right now. It’s the dead of winter, Trump is still spewing his garbage and millions of people seem to love it, and we’re looking at another nail biter of an election. But don’t despair. There are some things to hang on to. Like that astonishing number. Why anyone would think that’s a problem, I don’t know. He IS going to be the nominee unless he keels over. They will have to make that choice. Again.

Anyway, here’s the latest from hopium guru Simon Rosenberg:

“I Would Much Rather Be Us Than Them” – My Thoughts on Where We Are As 2024 Voting Begins – Think about what we’ve seen in the past few weeks: the US economy remains strong, best recovery in G7, best job market since the 1960s, wage growth/new business starts/prime age-worker participation rates historically elevated;

inflation is at/near Fed target rates, some prices are falling, rents/mortgage rates/gas prices are down, the soft landing appears to be happening;

crime and murder rates have come down substantially over the past year, and remain a fraction of what they were 30 years ago;

we have the lowest uninsured rate ever recorded, and ACA signups this year have set records; we’ve seen record domestic oil and renewable production, making America more energy independent then we’ve been in many decades;

the President has forgiven over $130b in student debt, by some measures Gen Z home ownership rates are outpacing Millennials and Gen X, years of minimum wage increases across the county has created a much higher entry level wage for young and new workers;

consumer sentiment is rising, and measures of life/job/income satisfaction are at elevated levels right now; the historic investments the President has made will create opportunities for American workers for decades to come, leave America far stronger and by dramatically accelerating the energy transition from fossil fuels make it far more likely we prevent the planet from warming;

polling out this week has the President with sturdy leads in MI, NH and PA, and gaining 3 points and leading now in one important national tracking poll;

after a great 2022 election, Democrats just saw a blue wave in 2023, as we won elections of all kinds across the country and outperformed our 2020 results – an election we won by 4.5 pts – by an average of 5 points in almost 40 state legislative special elections.

I feel good about what we’ve done, where we are, and our chances in 2024. There is no question we have an enormous amount of work ahead of us, and it’s really important the Biden campaign is scaling up, engaging now, working to take greater control of our daily discourse. His two speeches this past week were powerful, strong, important, and created an early election narrative we all can work within and spread through out networks.

My summary of where we are now:

Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. We have a very compelling case for re-election. The Democratic Party is strong, winning elections across the US and our “bench” is the most talented it’s been in many decades.

Republicans, on the other hand, are making an enormous mistake in sticking with Trump, who is far more degraded, extreme and dangerous – and further away from the electorate – than he was in 2020 when he lost by 4 and a half points. His performance on the stump is far more erratic, and he keeps making hugely consequential political mistakes (calling for a repeal of the ACA, saying he wants the economy to crash – WTF?). Donald Trump 2024 is an historically awful and terrible candidate.

Can we get to 55 and make the 2024 elections a clear repudiation of MAGA, sending a loud and important signal that America has rejected this horrible politics, and has chosen democracy and freedom over illiberalism extremism? Yes, I think making 2024 a big election, a big win, high single digits even, is something that is possible for us, and something we must be working towards every single day. For by doing so it far far more likely we can send MAGA back into the dustbin of history where it so clearly belongs.

I talked about my optimism with Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday:

Don’t succumb to fatalism folks. There is an upside and we at least have to factor it in.

In case you were wondering if there was anyone whose endorsement Trump would not eagerly embrace, think again